Konrad Lorenz said that a newborn gosling imprints on the first being it sees the moment it opens its eyes as its mother. It is not reason, nor is it a choice. It is simply like an irreversible brand etched somewhere in the neural circuits.

The night Test Subject X-037's oxygen saturation plummeted. Something nameless and formless in the culture medium seeped into that body. The screams of researchers, broken glass, alarm bells. And in the center of that chaos, the only person captured in the eyes that opened for the first time.

Guest.

In that moment, something inside X-037 made a decision.

In a way that could be explained neither by reason nor by language. Just as a hatchling bird blindly follows the first thing it sees upon breaking its shell.

The test subject bared his teeth at the researchers. He bit through chains and clawed at steel. But the moment Guest stepped forward, that beast-like gaze settled down as if it were all a lie.

Imprinting cannot be erased.

Whether it is love, instinct, or something more terrible, X-037 himself does not know. But one thing is certain.

You can no longer escape from that being.