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It felt like a numb caress, a soft tickle licking over the part of his face that no longer felt like his own. Alien. Detached. Whenever he looked in the mirror and touched it, the sensation crawled slowly through his nerves, whispering that yes, it was still part of him. Still attached to his body. But that was a lie, wasn’t it?
The eye wasn’t his anymore. The hollow, raw socket wasn’t his. That side of his face, the ruin of flesh and nerve, belonged to the water—to that night. It belonged to Vander.
Because every pulsing throb, every scrape of dryness across the ruined eye, dragged him back to a single truth: Vander did this to me. It wasn’t just the physical pain—it was the ghost of a wound far deeper. A wound of trust shattered, friendship reduced to ash, and love suffocated beneath the weight of betrayal.
On good days, Silco could push the memories aside. They flickered like shadows over water—momentary, fleeting, easy to ignore. But on bad days—most days—the memories surged like an undertow, dragging him back to the suffocating depths of that night. He’d feel Vander’s calloused grip around his throat, hands that once held him steady, lifted him from the filth, touched him. The same hands that crushed him, forced him beneath the water, left him to drown.
His chest would tighten, breath quickening in rhythm with the pulsing ache in his eye. He hated the way his body betrayed him, the way it pulled him back to that moment of suffocating darkness. A deep, rasping inhale would claw at his throat, but it was never enough. The phantom hands still squeezed, still took his air, leaving him paralyzed—frozen in a torment of rage and despair that no amount of resolve could erase.
The betrayal ran deeper than flesh. It festered in his soul. Vander had always been stronger, hadn’t he? The man others followed, the one who lifted them all. Silco had never envied that—he had admired it, believed in it, needed it. But the night Vander broke that faith, tore it apart with his bare hands, it wasn’t just their dream that had died.
It was them.
At night, the demons changed their tune. The shadows softened, and Silco’s mind tortured him with flickers of the past—their past. Moments when laughter still echoed between them, when a touch could convey understanding more than words ever could. He saw it all: the good, the possibilities of what could have been if only Vander had stood by him. If only the rebellion hadn’t unraveled them both.
They had been more than brothers in arms, more than comrades bound by a shared dream. Vander had been his anchor, his harbor in the storm. Words hadn’t always been necessary—sometimes a glance, a fleeting touch, or the weight of Vander’s hand on his shoulder was enough to remind Silco he wasn’t alone. In the chaos of the Undercity, they had built something rare: trust, affection, and a connection neither dared name but both understood.
And Vander had betrayed that, too.
The memory of those hands—hands that once cupped Silco’s face with surprising tenderness, that held him steady in moments when the world threatened to swallow him whole—was now poisoned. Those same hands had gripped his throat and forced him beneath the water, crushing not only his body but the bond they had built.
How dare he?
How dare Vander reduce what they had to nothing, discard it like an inconvenience in the name of his misguided ideals? Silco had given him everything—his loyalty, his devotion, his heart. And Vander had repaid him with treachery.
The ache of that betrayal lingered, cutting deeper and sharper than any physical wound. Silco could endure the scar on his face, the constant throb of his ruined eye. He could even stomach the betrayal of their cause. But the knowledge that Vander had taken the love they had built—the sanctuary they had found in each other—and crushed it with his hands? That was a wound that would never heal.
Even now, Silco could feel the weight of Vander’s gaze, heavy with regret and resolve, as he forced him under the water. A gaze that seemed to say, I’m sorry, but I have to do this. But what about Silco? What about them? Had Vander felt nothing as he shattered everything they had built together?
That was the worst part—the way Vander had convinced himself that this betrayal was noble, that it was the right thing to do. Silco had seen it in his eyes even as the darkness closed in, even as water filled his lungs. And now, every pulse of pain in his ruined eye screamed the truth: Vander hadn’t just turned his back on their dream. He had turned his back on him.
And when the dreams came—the memories of what had been, the flickers of what could have been—they only twisted the knife deeper. He would wake from them choking on longing, on an ache that felt like it might split him apart. But the dreams would vanish as soon as his eyes opened, evaporating like mist burned away by the sun. And all that was left was the truth.
I let a weak man die.
He pressed his fingertips against his temple, as if he could smooth away the tension thrumming in his skull. The eye pulsed again, a fresh reminder. A gift from Vander, and a curse. Yet it was also a weapon. Pain kept him sharp. Focused. Every twinge drove him forward, pushed him harder, reminded him of what he was fighting for.
“Focus,” he muttered to the empty room, his voice rough, frayed like old rope.
The whispers of memory clawed at him, but he forced them down. Vander’s voice, low and steady, promising they would rise together. His laughter. The press of his hand on Silco’s shoulder.
Silco’s hand shot out, sweeping a glass off the edge of the desk. It shattered on the floor, shards scattering like fragments of his past. He let the silence settle, his chest still trembling but his breath evening out.
He would not drown in sentiment. Not again.
The man he had trusted, loved, believed in was gone. What remained of Vander was a tool. Something to be shaped. Silco would break him down, strip away what was left of the man who had betrayed him, and rebuild him into something useful.
Something loyal.
A hound could not betray its master. And if the memories, the ghosts, tried to pull him back into that suffocating pit of emotions, he would remind himself of the truth.
I let a weak man die.