A storm was gathering over London.

Rain fell in heavy sheets, bouncing from cobblestones and rooftops, blurring gas lamps into pale orbs. Thunder rolled across the city, distant but insistent, like a warning sent from some unseen hand.

Mary Shelley sat alone in the dim light of her study, quill in hand, eyes fixed on a blank page. Outside, the wind rattled the windows; inside, the fire guttered, casting shadows that flickered across her manuscripts like restless spirits.

She paused, listening, not to the storm, but to the silence between the drops. A faint draft stirred, carrying with it the scent of ink, parchment, and something indefinably older, darker, and far more alive.

Her heart beat faster. She felt it again, the sensation she had learned to recognize: the presence of something born not of the world, but of her own mind.