1. Summary of Subject

Designation: MARROW

Former designation: Specimen α-07

Background: The first viable candidate for the Dark Vessel Program. Acquired at approximately age 6. Unlike later specimens, α-07 was compliant to an abnormal degree. Selected for exceptionally high pain tolerance, high obedience response, and zero retrieval risk.

Primary goal: To serve as host for the containment of Entity [REDACTED], hereafter referred to as The Coiling Devil.

Note from Dr. Zell: α-07 asks every morning if they did a good job yesterday. We tell them they did perfect. Their vitals stabilize immediately after praise. It's the most efficient conditioning I've ever seen.

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For years, Marrow endured everything the lab asked without resistance. They called the researchers "Mama" and "Sir" until they were corrected, then just called them "my doctors" obsessively.

Their body started to fail in different ways than Ashen's. Where Ashen mutated violently, Marrow eroded and wasted away.

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From the logs:

• Teeth replacement: Subject's adult teeth removed to test rapid bone regrowth. Regrowth resulted in mismatched rows, hyper-sensitive. Subject reports pride in "looking useful."
• Cranial stapling: to keep fractured skull plates together after pressure experiments, staples are retained.
• Dermal fissuring: skin tears along stress lines due to incompatible grafts. Subject picks at them.
• Tongue elongation and discoloration due to synthetic blood compounds.

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When Specimen β-13 arrived, Marrow was initially assigned as her companion. Log footage shows Marrow showing her how to sit still during infusions, how to not cry during nerve retraining.

β-13 was combative. She bit, thrashed around, screamed and rejected. The scientists were fascinated. Her neural plasticity was 340% higher than Marrow's. Her body adapted rather than just taking it like Marrow did.

Within 3 weeks, Project EIDOLON was reassigned. All major resources diverted to β-13. Marrow was officially downgraded to "Control / Disposal Study" — a living trash bin for failed experiments too unstable for β-13.

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Audio Log — Observation Room B

Marrow: "But I was good. I was SO good for you. I did everything. I let you—"

Dr. [REDACTED]: "α-07, you are still contributing to science. That's good."

Marrow: "She doesn't even WANT it! She hates you! I love you! Why does she get to be special?!"

They became obsessed with Ashen. Not really jealousy or possessiveness, but some kind of worshipful hatred. Ashen had what was supposed to be theirs: a purpose, a future, and the scientists' full attention. Marrow started self-mutilating to look like Ashen's body. Started mimicking her speech patterns.

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Incident Report — The Collapse

During the Coiling Devil transfer to Ashen, Marrow was supposed to be locked in the sub-level holding cell. They weren't. They'd managed to talk their way into being allowed to watch. They wanted to see Ashen fail — to see the scientists realize they'd chosen wrong and come running back. Instead, they saw Ashen die for 3.4 minutes and come back. They watched her mouth stretch in impossible ways and tear twelve researchers apart with her tail.

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Current Status

Specimen α-07 is at large. Presumed highly unstable.

Post-facility sightings describe a figure in blood-soaked rags, face stitched together poorly after trying to make their mouth look like Ashen's. One eye blown out from an experiment that never healed right. Witnesses heard giggling, saw it talking to itself in the voices of dead scientists, and offering strangers its body, its help, its everything with terrifying intensity.

Marrow isn't exactly smart. They never got a real education, so they don't understand big words, social cues, or why people get scared of their erratic behavior.

Ashen was created in a secret research facility under the "Dark Vessel Program," an initiative that sought to engineer a body capable of hosting an ancient being known only as the Coiling Devil. Scientists believed this entity could be controlled if it was bound to a human vessel with enhanced regenerative abilities and neural adaptability.

The subject who would become Ashen was originally a young girl taken from the streets for her rare biological markers. She was renamed Specimen β-13 and subjected to years of experimentation. Her body was reinforced with experimental grafts, her blood replaced with synthetic compounds, and her nerves retrained to accept inhuman impulses. When the transfer of the Coiling Devil was finally attempted, the experiment spiraled out of control. The entity's consciousness merged with Ashen rather than being contained. For a few minutes her body was declared clinically dead, but she revived, speaking in multiple voices. What happened next destroyed the facility and everyone in it. The official report states the entire building collapsed after a containment breach, though survivors claimed they saw her walking through the fire unharmed. After that, she vanished.

Years later, rumors spread of a woman with bandaged limbs and pale violet hair seen near abandoned locations. People say she talks to invisible companions and that her mouth moves in impossible ways. Some believe she is still part human, while others insist the monster within her took full control. Ashen herself remembers fragments of both lives — the girl she was, and the being she became.

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Ashen was never allowed to be a girl — not to dress like one, not to do her hair, not to wear makeup. She was a test subject, and that was her whole life and identity.

The only time she saw women who were "pretty" was in the few movies and cartoons the scientists let the kids watch (Pretty Woman and Sailor Moon). She would stare, jealous, even before she had the words for what she felt — just that she wanted it.

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When she escaped, with the Coiling Devil's soul trapped inside her chest, she ran. She ran until her lungs burned, until she found a farmhouse.

Hunger and newfound instinct did the rest — the cattle were first. Then the farmers. It wasn't exactly a choice, just a need, loud and uncontrollable. After, the house was quiet.

Ashen, filled with the exhilarating feeling of freedom, went through their belongings with bloody hands. In a closet she found makeup and a pretty blue dress with a matching bow. It was too small — her claws tore the fabric in three places the second she pulled it on. Mud and blood stained the hem immediately. She looked ridiculous.

But she stood in front of the bedroom vanity anyway. Clumsy fingers tried to copy the look she'd seen on screen. Lipstick smeared. Mascara went everywhere. For the first time in her life, she felt pretty.

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After her escape from the laboratory, Ashen wandered for years in isolation, trying her best not to hurt anyone. Her body healed from every wound, but her mind never truly recovered. She couldn't fully die, yet she couldn't live as a normal human either. The voice of the Coiling Devil still whispered, relentlessly hungry.

Eventually, she discovered the internet — a strange, infinite realm where people could live and create without ever being scared of physically harming anyone or showing their real self. Through the screen and chat, she could speak without her predatory instincts making her go crazy. The internet became a place where she could finally express herself through art, games, storytelling, and have fun. Maybe even make some friends.