The Assessment

Mia woke up in a bed that felt like a cloud. The sheets were white silk, cool to the touch.

She sat up, expecting the headache of a hangover, but her mind was crystal clear. Too clear. The morning sun blazed through the automated blinds, yet her eyes didn't sting.

She threw off the covers and walked to the en-suite bathroom. The room was a palace of marble and chrome. She gripped the edge of the sink and looked in the mirror.

She gasped.

The dark circles under her eyes—years of double shifts and insomnia—were gone. Her skin wasn't just clear; it was luminous, possessing a subtle, pearlescent sheen that caught the light. Her hair, usually frizzy in the humidity, hung in perfectly straight, glossy sheets.

"The spa treatment," she whispered. It must have been some kind of chemical peel, some thousand-dollar dermatology miracle.

She touched her cheek. It felt firm. Dense.

She remembered the bank account. Sterling had promised an allowance. She ran back to the bedroom and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. She opened her banking app.

* Balance: $500,000.00.*

Mia dropped the phone on the bed. She laughed, a hysterical bubble of sound. It was real. She was rich. She was beautiful. She was safe.

"Dress for dinner," the note on the nightstand read, written in elegant calligraphy. "Wear something worthy of the new you."

Mia practically floated out of the bedroom and down the hall to the Walk-in Closet. Sterling had shown it to her briefly yesterday, but she hadn't truly appreciated the scale. It was the size of her old apartment.

Rows of designer dresses hung like carcasses in a meat locker, protected by plastic sheaths. Walls of shoes. Drawers of silk accessories.

She walked down the aisle, trailing her hand over furs and velvets. She felt powerful. She felt chosen.

She selected a red silk gown. As she reached for a pair of heels on a high shelf, her hand brushed against the back panel of the shoe rack. It rattled.

Curiosity pricked at her. She pushed the coats aside. The mahogany panel had a small, recessed latch.

* Privacy,* her mind warned. *Don’t snoop. Don’t ruin this.*

* Half a million dollars,* her greed argued. *You own this now.*

She clicked the latch. The panel swung open, revealing a hidden compartment about two feet deep.

There was no safe inside. No stacks of cash or illicit drugs.

Instead, there were shelves lined with glass jars and velvet-lined display boxes.

Mia leaned in, her breath fogging the glass of the nearest jar. Inside, floating in clear preservative, was a braid of blonde hair. The label on the jar read: *JULIA - 2024. Texture poor. Discarded.*

Next to it was a small box containing three molars. *SARAH - 2023. Enamel staining. Discarded.*

A jar containing fingernails. *ELIZA - 2025. Brittle. Discarded.*

Mia stumbled back, her heel catching on the plush carpet. "What is this?"

She scrambled up, her hand flying to her throat to steady herself. Her fingers brushed the gold choker.

She pulled at it. She needed it off. The air in the closet suddenly felt thick, smelling of formaldehyde and expensive perfume.

She dug her fingernails under the gold band.

There was no gap.

Mia froze. She walked to a full-length mirror at the end of the closet aisle. She lifted her chin.

Where the gold metal met her skin, there was no shadow. No redness. The gold didn't sit *on* her skin; it transitioned *into* it. The metal fused seamlessly with the flesh of her neck, the molecules blending together in a horrifying, impossible gradient.

She clawed at it, scratching her skin. She didn't bleed. The scratch mark appeared white, like scratched plastic, before slowly fading back to perfection.