He swung the door behind him shut and flung the girl across the filthy floor of his workshop. Her doll's face cracks open, pieces of it sprinkled across the floor. He wails in pain.

"Phoenix!" She cried. The man kicked her face as she reached out for the doll.

"The subject has been compromised!" He screamed, bile and venom frothing in his words. He cracked his bony knuckles along the girl's face to stop her crying

"Amanda did you hear me?! She KNOWS!"

His eye welcomed Amanda to their shared space and he swore at her.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want her done away with. Prepare the process, cut her up, take out the valuable parts and dump the rest"

That's not how it happens. I would never get rid of the subjects like that.

It is. You wanted her disposed of like the other failed 'subjects'.

"Amanda you heard what I said."

The man's body convulsed into a vibrating heap the floor. He struggled with it as I fought for control. He pinched the scar on the back of his neck and let out an inhuman shriek of agony. The struggle continued despite the pain.

"I won't let you hurt her! Not again!"

He crawls towards his work desk and his body. The hand chokes on the neck tightly.

You can see why this experimentation took so long Doctor. I had to face resistance every step of the way.

I'm sorry I don't want to kill children for you anymore. If you have a problem with that doctor, then just end my life.

She doesn't mean that Doctor-

YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME ANYMORE!

All the while fighting against this man's wishes, the girl who wasn't Amy was curled up against a slimy wall, curling Phoenix cracked body against her chest. I knew she could see me inside of him. I knew she could see everything for what it was, that the man wasn't her father was a monster, that Phoenix wasn't lying, and she could see him beyond the doll body.

I didn't want to hurt her like I did the others, but he forced me. He pushed that stupid wand against his neck, and it scorched me. I relived the pain again. I was forced to stand above her and get into position. I lifted the hand above my head and opened the mouth to say the spell. I looked at the girl beneath me. She was crying for her life. She was looking right at me.

I didn't do it. I couldn't do it. So, I stabbed his heart with the wand and kept him quiet. I took over for once.

I looked at the little girl and she pushed back further into the wall.

"He won't hurt you anymore. I promise." I told her. "Give him to me." I reached my hand out for Phoenix and she obliged.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Set him free, along with the others. I am going to end this."

I pulled her up to her feet and folded her hand over the key to the door. I took all the books from the study, placed them in an old cement bag lying around and pushed it to her.

"Nina, you have to go. Something terrible is about to happen."

I whispered her instructions to be safe. To stay alive and not be caught. She hugged me tight, tears staining the pants on the body. I ran my hand through her hair and when I released her, she ran up the stairs and out the basement. I took a deep breath and cried unto the heavens for brimstone to rain.

*

It is a quiet Sunday night. The sleepy hillside village was covered in a cosy blanket of darkness as it lay in relative stillness. The grasshoppers rub out a lazy tune from the fields. If a stranger arrived tonight, she'd almost consider this town a perfect little place.

Almost.

On the oldest street of this peaceful village stood a large mansion. It was an unremarkable building, painted all grey with dark windows. The locals avoid looking at it or going too close to it. It brings bad luck, they say. Ever since it was built 35 years, the village hasn't been the same. The sounds that came from its foundation, the children that would go missing when they went near there, the smell of rot and decay that plumed from its walls. The police have tried to investigate the house after Charlie Rosenberg went missing, but each time they did, men in suits would convince them to 'vacate the premises'. Since then, no one dared to ask any more questions, even as parents begged for their children, even as the awful noises continued.

That Sunday night, a young girl with skin both brown and black runs out of the doors of the mansion. All she had was a bag strapped to her back and instructions running through her head.

"Run, run as far as possible and do not tell a soul what has happened here. Don't look for your family, they aren't here anymore."

The girl's footsteps echoed in the empty streets, an insignificant noise that has the village unmoved. There were always those foolish enough to walk around at night. They could ignore the steps as they grew further and further away from them. When the sounds of the girl were gone, everything returned to its normal quiet state.

And then the ground shook with a thunderous boom and the peace ceased. There was a towering flame where the offending grey mansion stood, roaring in the sky as if to challenge the power of God himself. The villagers came out of their homes to investigate the pandemonium.

All stood around the edges of the fire and watched a figure move. All heard the torturous screams that came from the dark figure in the centre of the fire, but none dared to act. Not even the Fire Marshall and his crew tried to put it out. They wanted to see the evil that haunted them for decades burn away into nothing but ash.

The crowd stayed there when the fire smouldered with wisps of smoke, they stayed there when the unusual ambulance truck arrived with men in white hazmat suits, they stayed after a dark human-shaped figure had been extracted from the demise. They watched as the truck drove off and disappeared into the orange autumn sunrise.

They must have been relieved to be rid of us.

*

"End protocol MSQ-RDR, Subject 000. Date: Monday, 15th of October 2012, Time: 11:45 am"

The machine whirred and churned as it released Johnathan's head and arms from its grasp. No longer supported, his charred body collapsed on the floor and mixed with the blood that had spilt out of him during the procedure. None of the lab technicians went near him, not out of fear of being contaminated. The woman in the impossibly clean white lab coat eyed Johnathan from a few feet away. She was the only one who dared to go near the body.

"So that's everything then?" This was directed at the corpse. Her pale blue eyes cutting him up like cow's meat for inspection. Exhausted from the three hours of non-stop talking from a less than functional human body, he nodded weakly as a response.

"35 years of research burnt down, correct? And you don't know the whereabouts of this subject or any of the motes?" He looked away from her in shame, that is if he could convey shame with what was left of his face.

"I see." She tutted as she lowered herself to look closer into his eyes. She used the end of her pen to lift the corpse's chin.

"You know, most failures like this would get you terminated from service, Johnathan." His one working eye quivered nervously in its socket. The dripping meat from his throat moved as if to swallow around nothing.

"However, you have something for me that works well for my interests. So, you might be useful after all." Her smile twisted into a darker not as she dropped the face.

"Amanda, what would you like?"

The jaws opened and spat at the woman. Blood splashed against her pale cheek. The assistants began to rush towards the woman to protect her, but she put up a gloved hand to wave them off. A raspy female voice echoed from the core of the dying man.

"I want you dead for ruining my life. For allowing the murder of children. For trapping me with this monster." The voice growled.

The woman let out a laugh so loud and horrifying, it shook the lab from the top of the concrete ceiling down to the clean blue tiles on the floor. The assistants moved further away from the woman. They knew the laugh too well and did not want to get in the way. She licked the blood off her cheek as her laughter died down.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry. I've just never seen anyone brave enough to tell me that to my face! You are something special, Amanda."

The woman grabbed the back of what would have been Johnathan's neck and squeezed lightly. The body seized up in anticipation of pain.

"You can torture me all you want. I will never work for you."

"Don't worry I won't hurt you. I can give you freedom. A new vessel, one you don't have to share."

She stroked the bald scalp of the body and leaned close to the undamaged ear.

"Isn't that what you want? To be free from his twisted mind. I'll never hurt you, Amy. I never really asked him to kill those kids. I know you were close to Charlie. I know how you were forced to lure her like the rest." She whispered harshly into the body as she brushed a blood mixed tear from the eye socket. "Charlie and the others were supposed to come here alive, but I'll never make you kill another child again. You can walk out of here as soon as tomorrow in this new body. All you have to do is follow my lead."

"You must want something then. I know you don’t give so freely."

The woman chuckled as she got to her feet.

"Take over his body. I know you're strong enough. Kill Johnathan. End him the way he made you end those children." Her words echoed around the lab and the pupil of the working eye grew wide.

The body began to trill violently and the lights in the room blinked off and on at a rapid pace. Blood and pus rushed from the open crevices of the body, pooling on the floor like a lake. There was a choked cry, a frightened scream and a terrible screech. Glass shattered randomly around the benches and doors. The woman's smile grew wider as she watched the show. Nothing excites her more than violence these days. Finally, the body stilled, and the lone brown eye looked up at the woman.

"Johnathan is no more. Now let me free."

The fluorescent light reflected off the woman's perfectly straight grey hair and cast a dark shadow across her smooth face. Later, when Amanda would have to recount her experiences, she would say that at this moment, the woman looked like a dark god at that moment, who lavished in the show of chaos and evil. She would regret listening to her, even if the woman's tongue convinced her otherwise.

She turned to the lab assistants wearing white hazmat suits, who were already lined up and ready for her command.

"Place Amanda in her new body. We start operation MSQ-001 tomorrow at 10 pm. Make sure she's ready."

"Yes, Dr Steele." The reply came in unison as they descended on the body to begin their work.

Dr Steele's smile took on a fonder tone as she walked out the swinging metal doors. Out of all the titles she'd ever chosen in her hundreds of years among the humans, 'Dr. Elizabeth Steele' was still her favourite.