Mary Shelly’s Monster 3 of 6 The Silent Watcher
By Kevin J. W. Driscoll

He awakened into cold.

Not the cold of winter or water or wind, but the cold of absence — the chill of a world that had not asked for him. His first breath was a ragged, tearing thing, as though the air itself resisted entering his lungs. His second breath came easier. By the third, he understood that he was alive.

Alive, and alone.

The room around him flickered with candlelight, but the shadows were deeper than the light was bright. He saw the outline of the table where he had been assembled, the instruments still glistening with the memory of their work. The air smelled of metal, wax, and something sour he did not yet have a word for.

He tried to sit up. His limbs obeyed, but clumsily, as though they belonged to someone else. His hands — large, pale, stitched — trembled in front of him. He studied them with a child’s bewilderment and an old man’s sorrow.

A sound escaped him, low and uncertain. Not a word. Not yet.

He remembered a face — gaunt, terrified — retreating from him. The first thing he had ever seen was fear. The first lesson he had learned was abandonment.

He rose from the table, unsteady but determined. The room swayed. The candles guttered. He reached for the…