Chapter Text
And once people had these abilities, the question became unavoidable: what were they supposed to do with them?
Many used their gifts quietly—to work faster, to protect their families, to make life easier. Others used them selfishly. Some used them violently.
History would never forget the most infamous example.
A twenty-three-year-old woman spliced with a black widow spider murdered her husband and dozens more after him. She displayed enhanced agility, venom production, and an unnerving resistance to pain. She was never caught. The media named her the Widow Killer—a figure of horror whispered about across continents.
The government initially backed the project, seeing potential for military use. But when the laboratory refused to weaponize the Spliced—to turn them into disposable soldiers—the funding was abruptly cut. Officials assumed the movement would die out on its own.
They were wrong.
The Spliced married. They had children—sometimes with other Spliced, sometimes with unaltered humans. Entirely new human–animal hybrids were born. Some children inherited traits from both parents, some only one, and some none at all. Even twins could differ completely. Inheritance was unpredictable, dependent on compatibility with the altered genes.
With each generation, fewer children were born Spliced. The trait diluted. Its value diminished. Public interest faded, and eventually the practice was outlawed altogether.
Before the ban, however, the government enacted one final law: all Spliced were required to be registered at birth. Any abilities—present or emerging—had to be documented and updated. Refusal meant arrest.
One Spliced never registered.
She vanished into the cracks of society and became the most notorious serial killer the world had ever known. The Widow Killer resurfaced again and again, leaving thousands dead across decades, always evading capture. Her most infamous crime was the massacre of an elementary school—no survivors, no mercy.
Rumors followed her like a shadow. It was said she had given birth to twins while on the run. That during a brutal winter, starving and hunted, she killed and ate them to survive—after all, human widows were rumored to be cannibalistic, dependent on human blood.
But no hospital records exist. No birth certificates. No registrations.
Yet the rumors were only half wrong.
She did have twins.
Two boys.
Only one inherited her spliced genes.
The other was born completely human.