Chapter 50: "Blind the Eye That Loves Too Deeply"
I surfaced from unconsciousness like a drowned man dragged from the depths of a dream. My eyes fluttered open, sluggish and aching with pressure changes, and it took several long seconds before I remembered where I was: suspended inside the gene-weaving tank at the heart of my laboratory. My body floated weightless in nutrient-rich fluid, yet it felt like a condemned cathedral—gutted, rebuilt, and still echoing with the pain of reconstruction.
The splicing had worked. I could feel it like a low-burning star in my veins—subtle but absolute. The genome rewrite had begun to root itself into my biological substrate. I was forcing evolution into my own flesh using genetic blueprints alien to human design—anatomical blasphemy made intimate. Even with my engineered resistance, my body still recoiled at the trauma of its forced transcendence.
