Marie presses her forehead against the cool observation glass, letting out a sigh that fogs the sterile surface. “Hah… nothing again this time,” she mutters, her breath mingling with the condensation. Inside the chamber, her homunculus lies there like a rejected mannequin—all the right parts, zero battery power. No twitch, no spark, not even a metaphorical pulse. Her research has stalled harder than a rusty tractor in a mud pit, and the frustration is eating her alive like termites on a hot dog.
Enter Leon, stage left, with all the subtlety of a fireworks display in a library. He’s her sponsor, the guy signing the checks, and apparently the only person in the lab who hasn’t gotten the memo about reading the room. “Don’t worry,” he chirps, patting her shoulder like she’s a sad puppy. “We’ve got time. This is just the beginning.” His optimism is cute, really—the scientific equivalent of bringing a water pistol to a wildfire.
But Leon’s interest in the homunculus is rapidly cooling, and Marie? Well, Marie’s attention has done a complete 180. Her eyes slide off the motionless failure in the chamber and land on something much more… animated. Marie, who was quiet disappointed with her science research and married life, Leon was a burst of vibrant energy, a stark contrast to her quiet defeat.
She’s a married woman, sure. A dedicated researcher, absolutely. But stress is a hell of a drug, and the line between professional and personal got blurred so many times it’s now just a smudge. Her curves sway with purpose as she presses that plump rear against him with an urgency that has nothing to do with science. Passion takes the wheel, and rational thought hops out the window.
Behind them, inside the sterile chamber, the homunculus, the failure, the doll, the hopeless project, slowly blinks its eyes open. It watches, silent as a tomb, as Marie loses herself completely. But she’s too far busy, too consumed by the moment to notice the impossible happening right behind her back. Science waits for no woman, but apparently, some experiments have their own timeline.