Colin typed in the keycode and true to her word, Merrin’s instructions worked. Despite the power being out for the rest of the town, it worked just fine here. As the door opened, Colin felt a sense of nervousness. The room was cold and lifeless. It reminded him of that one scene with K and J walking into the morgue, only much colder.

  Since he couldn’t search the train cars by life pulse, Colin turned into his woman form and searched one by one. He recognized some of the frozen faces from when the experiments first began and realized his fate could have been much worse if he’d been less successful.

  About eight drawers in, Colin found his own body. It was disorienting staring at his own lifeless face. It was hard to see the red hair with how frozen it was, but the face was unmistakably him.

  He stood there awhile, dumbfounded.

  ‘Are you really my Colin?’ Kristy’s words came back to him like a punch to the gut. Colin still didn’t know the answer, but staring at the face of his dead body really drove home that he was different. Deep down, he felt like the same person, but it was impossible to ever be exactly the same. Looking back at all the mistakes he’d made and all the unnecessary strain he’d put on his family, Colin felt okay with being different.

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  He was better now.

  With a smile, Colin found a hand saw hanging on the wall and after some effort, extracted his old brain. From experience, that would be the most beneficial part of himself to eat.

  After making short work of his meal, Colin felt the energy from his old brain fill him with a significant amount of growth. He took one last look around the room. There was a moment when he saw the other victims in this room as nothing more than a food source for growth. That was when he decided it was time to leave.

  He was still Colin, but it would take a balance to stay Colin.

  By the time he left, Merrin was outside of his sensing range. That was honestly for the best. She made him feel off in so many different ways. He just hoped that she was telling the truth about feeling regret. Everyone deserved the chance to change and grow for the better.