**Three years later**

“Father, Father!” Eve whined as she tapped Mr. Walker's shoulder.

“Can't you see I’m busy talking to Dr. Johnston? You’re 13 years old; you should know not to interrupt an adult conversation!” Mr. Walker replied harshly as he aggressively dusted her hand off his shoulder, disregarding her.

Eve stood there patiently, waiting for her father's attention to shift to her, but that time never came. Mr. Walker strolled away, still conversing with Dr. Johnston, paying no attention to Eve, as if she weren’t even there, as if she were invisible.

In Eve’s persistence, she quietly follows behind Mr. Walker and Dr. Johnston through the cold, brightly lit hallways of the laboratory. As she follows far behind them, Mr. Walker and the Doctor pause, intently devoted to their conversation. Eve pauses along with them, hiding herself behind one of the hallway corners. She listens...

“What are you going to do with it? What are you going to do with Eve?” Dr. Johnston questions.

“It isn’t as human as you wanted… She doesn’t seem to have quite the emotion that normal humans do… or at least how your daughter did,” the Doctor continues.

“Don’t you ever compare my daughter to that, that mistake!!!! ” Mr. Walker snaps. There’s an awkward silence in the air.

“I will bring her back. I will see her again. Even if Eve was a failed experiment,” Mr. Walker mutters.

Dr. Johnston lowers his head in submission and says nothing.

“We will drop her off at a nearby orphanage early tomorrow morning,” Mr. Walker says coldly. “Now, good night,” he declares, as he turns around and exits the hallway.

Once Mr. Walker is out of sight, Dr. Johnston follows his path, making his way out. Eve stands there, expressionless. Her mind is like a frozen lake—still and motionless, but deep under the surface, something stirs.“A failed experiment.” Those words echoed in the void of her mind. Numbed by her own existence, she remains indifferent. She walks through the halls, finding the door to her bedroom and entering her brightly lit, bleak, metal room. She finds her small, beige bed and lays herself down.

Feeling the chilled comforter through her clothes, she grows goosebumps.

“Chhhhh… Eve, pack a small bag of only your necessities. You’re leaving tomorrow,” Mr. Walker orders over Eves the scratchy intercom.

Following orders immediately, Eve gets up from her bed and starts to collect her things. Once she has everything she needs packed, she walks into her white-tiled bathroom, which is connected to her small bedroom. Eve begins to prepare the bath for herself, filling it with steamy, warm water. When her tub is full, in order to be sure the water isn't too hot, she cautiously puts one foot in. Deciding that it is a good temperature, she submerges her whole body, allowing the water to wrap around her like a warm blanket. She leans her head back, resting it on the rim of the bathtub. The tips of her short bobbed hair reach the water, soaking it up.

Looking through the thick, steamy air, she stares intently at her white bathroom ceiling. An unwelcome thought is suddenly injected into her vacant mind: “There must be more to this life than living day by day…”

“There must be more to this life than living day by day,” Eve echoes the thought to herself.

Still staring at the ceiling, she slowly closes her eyes and enters into the world of the unseen. She saw nothing but darkness. Then, all of a sudden, in that same darkness, she sees the back of a strange, unidentified figure, banging on a large, worn wooden door, yelling in a familiar voice, “Eve, wake up, Eve, wake up!”

As the voice rings urgently in Eve's head, the figure begins to knock harder and harder on the door, each knock more urgent than the last.

“BANG, BANG, BANG!!”

The next thing she knows, the vision dissolves back into the darkness of her own mind, erasing any evidence of it ever existing, leaving her in dark solitude.