Chapter Text
1.
Research. Progress. Future.
All the things he wanted most, dreams and hopes trapped in a frail body. A mind created for infinity caged in decay. His doom was carved in his bones, he had felt that since the day he was born. He ached for the future but knew he had no hope of reaching it. What was left for him if not legacy? If not the promise of a better life for those coming after him?
He wanted to leave something behind. To scratch, even if just a tiny bit, the immovable surface of time. At any cost. After all, as was, his life was meaningless. A spit of organic matter in the endless ocean of existence. He had nothing other than the pitiful glances of the people around him. And perhaps, a spark of shiny, blue hope coming from one of the innumerable, identical houses of the upper city.
If wit brought a forgotten child over the gates of the high city, ache led him to the shattered door of a suicidal man’s workshop.
Am I interrupting?
That was the first time he truly saw. The beautiful, golden eyes of someone who conceived life the same way he did. Progress was everything; legacy was all that mattered. There was no point in living if not for a purpose. Was it egotistical? Probably. Desperate? Certainly. And he could read them, the same convictions, right in that man’s anguish, in the subtle sigh that escaped from his lips just before he stepped into the abyss. Just before he stopped him.
Individually, they were destined to doom. But together, maybe…
Trust me.
That man was everything he lacked. He had heart, hope, courage, the genuine sparkle of someone who hadn't been born under life’s worst side. And yet, he was humble and deeply respectful of his mind and ideas.
In those seven years together, that cripple from the undercity slowly faded: hidden beneath a warm blanket of encouraging words and successful creations. He was, if not happy, content. He didn’t care about the spotlights, he didn’t need it: he already found his beacon, his purpose.
Finally, he was making a difference. They were making a difference. Their lives were filled with all the means and recognition a young scientist could ever hope for. And it was only the beginning. Or so he thought.
Politics and responsibilities crept in. His partner, that noble but unfocused soul, became entangled in matters too big for a scientific mind: he grew scared, cautious, suspicious. As a new spark ignited in his mind, his partner’s slowly faded. It wasn’t just progress for him, not anymore.
And then death came, too.
The same inexorable curse that haunted his childhood dreams and that he thought he had definitely eluded. In just a couple of days, the seven-years mountain of gold and projects they built crumbled in a cough of blood. The only thing left was that spark, that last project that spoke to him like nothing else ever had: one last accomplishment to reach before the end.
God, how difficult it was to let go, now that there was so much to lose.
That hopeful, stubborn partner of his was determined to find a cure, but he could see in his worried expression and in the countless papers he always carried with him that they were growing apart. In all those matters of politics, relationships, responsibilities, and war propositions, there was no time left for him or for the ones he cared about, and he wouldn’t have asked for it. All his life, before him, he had been alone. It wouldn’t have been different now.
Sacrifice or oblivion. That’s what it all came down to.
The mutation must survive. He was the mutation. The warped product of his own intelligence, ambition and despair. He had built himself from nothing, clawing his way up from the darkest dephts of a sewer. Had he died then, he would’ve been nothing more than the forgotten child he once was. He couldn't accept that. He would’ve given up everything to run alongside the living for as long as he could: all of his time, all of his blood.
As the magic he conjured fused with his own being, nothing mattered anymore, only his survival. Only his research. He needed to accomplish something great enough to be remembered forever, whichever was the price.
Nothing mattered more.
Nothing of his.
And yet, he wasn’t the one who turned into dust.
That can’t... That can’t…
She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t, only he did. It was his choice, his sacrifice, not hers. She was full of life; he was meaningless without his research. She had dreams, hopes, an entire life before her; he had a diying body, fueled by nothing than ambition.
He had felt so entitled when he scolded his partner for considering their research as a weapon, and yet he was the first one to kill with it. He was the one who created a monstrosity, despite all the warnings he had received. Too prideful to listen, too self-assured to settle for what he had.
All of his dreams, all of his purposes for a better life, culminated in death. No... In something far more terrifying.
Nothing made sense.
Maybe he didn’t deserve salvation after all…
Am I interrupting?
That voice, those eyes. Of course, he was there. He had always been there. His partner. The only one crazy, or hopeless, enough to always stay by his side.
The only one he trusted, deeply and unconditionally, to do what had to be done.
That evening, as the sunlight poured through the windows of the council’s chamber, he allowed himself to believe that there was still hope. Hope for peace. Hope for the dream he had always chased. Hope for his aberration to be destroyed.
In that moment, his beacon burned brighter than ever.
With peace secured and his partner on his same page, he had what he wanted: a better life for everyone.
Then the glass shattered.
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Thank you so much for reading. I will post Part 2 as soon as i can!