Outlier
ShortStory 2,930 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"Itsy bitsy,” whispers the girl in the glass tank beside mine. Not a girl anymore, not really, but it’s better for my sanity to pretend she’s still human. That we both are. We had names once—and skin, soft to the touch. In the sterile, blinding white hellscape of the lab, it’s easy to forget. We had lives before these. Or, she did."
Content warnings 3
body-horrorgoreviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Clarkesworld, where the author gets the click.