Prologue

 

"It was there, the villa on Lake Geneva, that I first came upon the idea to write my little horror. I wonder how, as just a young girl, I came to think and dilate upon so very hideous an idea. But I pose this question rhetorically, for I know well its birthright, its source and its effect on all my life."

 

"To scribe this story may be my final act, and though I know it is unbelievable, I rely on you to look upon it with the light of truth. I pray these pages survive and someday the gruesome tale can be told, because the implications for society, science and history are of the utmost and serious nature. It was here in this place that nature was undone, that she was subverted and bastardized for purposes I can only believe were born out of man’s blindness, ego and arrogance."

 

"I once wrote a novel known as Frankenstein. It was a thinly veiled manuscript of this very real and deadly story of chess pieces maneuvered on a true-to-life board. Now I lay captive in this unknown place far to the north, prisoner of a man I trusted. I have kept my promise to keep his dark secrets until now. But with his betrayal, I will let it pour forth like a hurricane to paper, for I may not live to see the morning."

 

Mary Shelley, Scotland, date unknown.