At least, that’s the theory I’ve developed as I palm the glass vial in my pocket. The tube has three compartments separated by a thin wall of glass. In each compartment: Potassium chlorate, glycerin, and water.

I remove my hand from my pocket, acutely aware of the vial as I drop the threadbare sack to the ground.

Acceptance is a form of defeat. Once you abandon the pursuit to obtain your greatness, you quickly begin to whither.

I can hear my cells decaying. Membranes dissolving. Molecules splitting and devouring the necrotic matter. The stronger cells leech off the weak as they deteriorate.

Self-destruct.

This is what she wrote in the journal—that I would destroy myself. An insightful prediction, seeing as I’m teetering on the verge of just that.

It’s all their memories. The voices inside my head. Every failed subject that became a part of this place, a part of me. As long as I was chasing the obsession, there was no time to remember their faces. They were subjects—not names.

Creating a cure would save me from them, would justify their deaths. Without the cure, with only a failed experiment, their deaths are meaningless.

I dig my hands into the earth near the river. My fingers claw at the sediment, a rich soil that shouldn’t exist in this environment.

The ground is made rich by the nutrients buried here.

Chemistry is vital, especially when disposing of bodies.

With a resigned breath, I push my hands into the frigid river to cleanse the filth away. Then I begin to pry a large rock loose from the bank. I start with one, then a second. I select each stone with purpose. Size, weight, shape.

Fresh water rushes past boulders, shaving down rough edges as it has done consistently over the years, making the river stones worn, smooth. Welcoming, even.

This is the process. Take the hard and jagged thing and apply pressure and consistency until it conforms. Geology. Trial by trial. The scientific method. And if that fails, there is always elimination.

Eradicate the deviation.

I place the cleaned rocks in the sack and heave it over my shoulder.

As we are not primitive animals, we all have a psychological weakness. One consuming desire that renders us helpless.

She is mine.

The brightest flower, the intricate butterfly wing—she was designed for me, to lure me in, to make me weak. Trying to resist her snare was vain, and ineffective.

Do not touch.

Oh, I touched. I put my hand right into her flame. Then I begged her to burn me again.

Obsession is the eighth deadly sin…and she owned me with one kiss.

She’s a deviation. A flawed design. Yet so perfectly engineered for her purpose.

Eradicate the deviation.

The stones knock together against my back as I hike up the hill. The wrought iron gate squeaks open, disturbing the tranquility, a noise out of place in this isolated habitat.