her Specimen-001, though whispers in the break room suggested a far more dangerous name.
The Demon Queen.
Jane wasn't supposed to know the old legends—at least, not beyond what dusty archives of witchcraft and folklore were preserved—but she had grown up in a family of witches. Her grandmother had recited stories by candlelight, stories of wars that burned through empires, stories of a queen who ruled the night itself.
Only one demon had ever worn horns like that, and only one demon's fall had left a scar deep enough to echo across centuries.
Levi.
Jane forced her gaze back to the monitor. Her job was simple: regulate the chamber's balance, monitor vitals, and ensure the preservation fluid kept its temperature stable. The scientists upstairs never lingered in this room. They were content to let her, the "witch apprentice with tech ambitions," deal with the proximity of the unknown.
She ran a hand over the console, scanning the glowing green lines. Heart rate: one beat every three minutes, impossibly slow. Blood pressure: unreadable. Energy output: higher than any human, yet dormant.
Jane exhaled, rubbing her temple.
The assignment was supposed to be temporary, part of her tech university internship. Other students got clean, respectable placements—researching renewable energy, working on cybernetics, even assisting with space communication. Jane got this.
"Because you're a witch," her advisor had said, like it explained everything. You'll handle it better than most.
What she didn't say—but what Jane understood—was that witches were rare, and therefore expendable. If something went wrong with the demon queen, losing one witch was preferable to losing three scientists.
She tucked her braid behind her shoulder and bent over the console again. A flicker ran across the readings. Heart rate: one beat, slow and distant, like the echo of a drum in a cavern.
Jane exhaled. "Still alive, huh?"
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it carried strangely in the sterile chamber. Sometimes she spoke just to hear something human among the machines.
No reply came, of course. Levi didn't stir. Her lips, faintly parted, looked as if they hadn't spoken in centuries. Jane wondered, not for the first time, what kind of voice the queen of demons might have had—velvet and dangerous, or sharp as glass.
She shook the thought away. Dangerous curiosity.
Jane adjusted the thermal regulator, scribbled a note into her log, then stepped back. Her reflection in the glass stared back at her: tired eyes, dark hair pulled into a loose braid, lab coat hanging crooked over her shoulders. Twenty-seven years old and already balancing two lives—witchcraft from her bloodline, and the suffocating pull of modern science.
She thought about her friends at the university, laughing in warm coffee, gossiping about professors, building little gadgets out of spare wires and scrap metal. She should have been there with them. Instead, she stood here, babysitting something that wasn't supposed to exist.
And still, part of her couldn't look away.
Levi's presence unsettled her, yes—but it also fascinated her. What kind of life had she lived, in an age where demons and dragons still shaped the world? What kind of queen had she been? A tyrant? A savior? Both?
Jane's hand drifted to the glass before she caught herself. She stopped inches from the frost, her fingers trembling as if the chill radiated through the barrier.
As she turned to leave, the monitor blipped again.
Heart rate: two beats.
Jane froze. Slowly, she turned back.
Inside the chamber, Levi's eyelids fluttered. Just once, then stillness again.
The hum of machines carried on, steady and merciless, as though nothing had changed. But Jane's chest tightened.
The Demon Queen was stirring.
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