#holy sheet

The night you helped Victor Frankenstein make God tremble, the storm above Ingolstadt roared like a beast in agony. Wind howled through the cracked windows, bringing with it the scent of ozone and the faraway toll of midnight bells. The lab was a cathedral of madness — glass tubes glowing with bottled lightning, brass instruments singing with static, the air thick with the musk of sweat and metal and something sacred.

You were the assistant-in-training, hands trembling as you checked the voltage meter, voice low as you warned, “It’s too much, Victor.”

He didn’t hear you. He never did.

Victor stood over the slab, wild-eyed, his hair plastered to his forehead. The thing upon the table — the Creature — lay still, stitched and silent, its body an unholy map of seams and shadows. Lightning cracked through the windowpanes, a sheet of white that burned across your eyes. For one heartbeat, the world became nothing but the hum of the storm and the stench of burning ozone.

Then —

The Creature moved.

A gasp tore from your throat. The hands on the slab twitched, fingers curling like roots seeking soil. The chest heaved once, twice — then air burst into it, ragged and new. A strangled sound escaped the throat, neither scream nor sigh but something in between — the first wordless grief of a newborn who never asked to live.

Victor stumbled back, his face gone pale with awe and horror. “It lives,” he whispered. “My God… it lives.”

But there was no God here — only the crackle of electricity and your heartbeat hammering in your ears.

And then the Creature’s eyes opened.

They were not monstrous. They were blue. Clouded, unsure, flickering like candlelight through frost. He looked around, frantic, trying to understand, and when his gaze landed on you — it stayed.

In that instant, something impossible passed between you. The air trembled. You felt the storm in your veins. His confusion, his terror, his loneliness — it all flooded into you, wordless and raw.

Victor’s voice broke the spell. “No — no, don’t look at it! Don’t—”

But it was too late.

The Creature’s trembling hand reached for you — a gesture as delicate as a prayer — and Victor screamed. He tore himself away from the table, backing toward the door. “It’s hideous! I can’t— I can’t bear it!”

And then he ran.

You called after him, but your voice drowned beneath the thunder.

When the door slammed, the lab went silent except for the storm. You turned back, chest tight, and saw him — the newborn thing, sitting up slowly, each movement uncertain, bones creaking like branches. His gaze held yours again, pleading without words.

You stepped closer, against every rational thought, every scrap of caution. “It’s all right,” you whispered. “You’re all right.”

He tilted his head, as if trying to understand the shape of your words. His lips parted. No sound came.

The lightning dimmed. Candlelight flickered across his face — the uneven seams, the unnatural strength, the trembling mouth. But in that fragile glow, you saw something beautiful. Not the horror of creation, but the ache of it.

You reached out a hand.

He flinched at first, instinctive fear flashing across his features, but when you didn’t withdraw, he leaned forward — and your fingers brushed his skin. It was cold, like marble that had been sleeping beneath the earth. Beneath it, a faint vibration — the pulse of a heart not meant to beat.

When his eyes fluttered shut, as if in relief, your chest constricted.

He was alive. Terribly, wonderfully alive.

Days blurred. Victor did not return.

You kept the Creature hidden, tending to him as though he were both patient and child. You named him nothing — because you knew he was already burdened with too many labels he hadn’t earned.

He learned quickly. His mind was vast, restless. You taught him words in whispers — light, hand, pain, music. He repeated them with care, voice rough and deep as winter wind. When he first said your name, his tongue hesitated, reverent.

Sometimes, when you guided his hand over the pages of a book, his fingers lingered. The touch would send a current through you stronger than any lightning. You’d meet his gaze, and something unspoken would hover there — fragile, forbidden.

At night, he would stare at the window, watching the snow fall. “Cold,” he murmured once, the syllable trembling.

You wrapped a cloak around his shoulders. He looked down at you, startled by the gesture. His voice was a broken whisper. “You… warm.”

You smiled faintly. “That’s what friends are for.”

He repeated the word as if testing its weight. “Friend.”

But you both knew the world would never allow that word to stand.

It didn’t take long for word of Victor’s “experiment” to spread. The townsfolk grew restless — talk of witchcraft, desecration, unnatural life. You heard it in the market, saw it in the way men sharpened their torches with hate instead of reason.

You told the Creature you had to leave. He understood before you even spoke.

That night, under a moon as pale as bone, you packed what little you could carry. When you turned, he was there at the doorway, waiting — enormous, silent, loyal as gravity.

“Where will we go?” you asked softly.

He hesitated, then touched his chest — then yours. “Together.”

The world beyond the city was a frozen wasteland. Mountains loomed like sleeping giants. Snow fell in slow spirals, coating your lashes, clinging to his dark hair. He never seemed to feel the cold. Often, when you stumbled, he would lift you as though you were made of smoke, carrying you against his chest. You could hear the slow rhythm of his heart — uneven but steady, a drum that kept you tethered to life.

At night, by the campfire, you would talk. He asked endless questions: Why do people fear what they do not know? Why is beauty given to some and denied to others? What am I?

You never lied to him. “You are alive,” you would say. “And that is more than most can say.”

He would watch you, silent for long minutes, as if memorizing the shape of you. Sometimes he’d reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, so careful it made your chest ache.

When you couldn’t sleep, he would hum — a sound low and haunting, something that seemed older than words. It wrapped around you like warmth itself.

One night, as snow whispered against the trees, you found him staring at the flames. The light painted gold across his scars.

He spoke without looking at you. “You are not afraid of me.”

“No,” you said simply.

“Why?”

You hesitated, then said the only truth you knew. “Because when I look at you, I don’t see a monster. I see someone trying to be kind.”

He turned to you then, eyes shining. “Kindness… you gave me that word. I did not know it before you.”

You smiled faintly. “Then keep it.”

A silence fell — soft, trembling. Then, as if drawn by something beyond will, he leaned closer. His hand brushed your cheek, and though his touch was rough, it was gentle — reverent, almost fearful.

When he spoke, his voice broke. “If I am a monster, then let me love as one.”

Your breath caught. He didn’t move further, waiting, trembling with restraint. You closed the distance yourself — your forehead against his chest, your palm over his heart. It beat beneath your hand like thunder trapped in flesh.

The storm outside built into a wail. Snow battered the world, but you were safe in the quiet circle of his arms.

Weeks passed in fragile peace. You found an abandoned chapel buried beneath ice, its stained glass shattered, its altar dusted with frost. There, you made your refuge.

You read poetry by candlelight, your voice echoing through the hollow nave. He would sit at your feet, listening with rapture, his eyes luminous. When you read lines of love — of yearning, of impossible devotion — he would glance at you, and the silence between you would hum.

Sometimes he would bring you things from the forest — a feather, a smooth stone, once a small mirror. You caught your reflection beside his in it: his face scarred and yours weary, yet somehow the symmetry between you made sense. Two creatures stitched by circumstance, bound by need.

He learned music. From an old harmonium he coaxed ghostly melodies, and you would hum along, your voices entwining like smoke. The sound filled the ruin like prayer.

And yet, beneath it all, you both knew the world would not forget.

The day they found you was crimson and cold.

You heard the dogs first, then the shouts. Torches flickered at the edge of the woods. The Creature rose instantly, shielding you behind him.

“Go,” you begged. “They’ll kill you—”

His voice was steady, heartbreakingly calm. “Then let them. But they will not touch you.”

You grabbed his hand. “No. We survive. Together.”

He hesitated — then nodded once, fierce.

You fled into the snow. The world became chaos: men’s voices echoing, fire hissing in the cold, bullets singing past. The Creature moved like a storm himself, clearing paths, breaking through branches, carrying you when you fell. But they were too many.

At last, on a frozen lake beneath a gray sky, they cornered you both.

The torches painted the ice in gold and blood.

“There!” a man shouted. “The demon!”

The Creature turned toward you. His eyes — those impossible, human eyes — softened.

He cupped your face, thumb brushing your lips. “Do not look,” he whispered. “If they kill me, do not look.”

You gripped his wrist. “If they kill you, there will be nothing left to see.”

The first shot rang out. He staggered but didn’t fall. Another — he roared, not in rage but in agony, in grief. The ice beneath cracked.

You screamed his name, but the sound was lost in the storm.

He turned, lifted you effortlessly, and pressed his forehead to yours. His breath came ragged, his voice breaking apart. “You taught me what it is to feel… to dream.”

“Then dream of me,” you whispered through tears. “Even when the dark comes.”

The ice gave way.

You fell together into the black water.

When you awoke, there was silence.

Snow drifted over the lake’s edge. The mob was gone. You coughed, shivering, searching — and then you saw him.

He lay half-buried in snow, his chest still, eyes closed. His skin had gone pale as moonlight. You crawled to him, hands shaking, pressing your ear to his chest.

Nothing.

“No,” you whispered. “Please.”

You struck his chest once, twice — then again, harder — and a faint sound stirred beneath your palm. One last breath. One final tremor.

His eyes fluttered open.

You choked on a sob. “You’re alive—”

He smiled faintly, the smallest curve of his lips. “Alive… because you looked at me.”

You bent forward, pressing your forehead to his. Tears fell onto his skin and froze there like tiny crystals.

His voice faded to a whisper. “You made me human.”

And with that, he went still.

You stayed there for a long time — how long, you couldn’t say. The snow covered you both like a shroud.

Weeks later, travelers would speak of a strange sight — a woman wandering the mountain paths, pale and quiet, carrying a book bound in black leather. They’d say she spoke softly to the air, as if to someone walking beside her.

And sometimes, when the wind rose through the trees, it sounded almost like a man’s voice humming — deep, mournful, full of love.

You never stopped hearing it.

In dreams, you saw him — whole, unscarred, walking across the frozen lake toward you, light blooming behind him. He would take your hand, and warmth would return to your fingers, to your heart.

You would wake with tears on your cheeks but a strange calm in your chest.

Because in some quiet, impossible way, you knew: love was the spark he left behind. It outlasted the lightning, the horror, even death itself.

And when the storm came again — thunder growling, air electric — you felt him there, in every pulse of light.

Not gone.