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A sudden flash in the sky. A metallic roar and a column of smoke, black, so black. Wide-open eyes that seemed to contemplate infinity but saw nothing instead.
Viktor jerked awake with a gasp. He glanced around, the bedroom coming into his vision. What happened? Sweat was beading on his temples and his eyes were wet. And yet he had no recognition of what he had dreamt. Could he even call it a nightmare?
He heard a soft breathing coming from his side. He turned. The beloved silhouette of dark curly hair. He smiled and he went back to sleep.
The sun coming in through the curtains was shy, barely warm enough for May. The kitchen smelled like something new.
Viktor stirred his coffee with milk as he casually stared out the window. Looking into the distance helped him imagine things that weren't really there, like the inner section of the prototype C boat he, Sky, and Jayce were currently designing. He couldn't wait to get to the lab and continue the work.
'Are you ready, honey?'
He turned toward his favorite voice. Sky was putting on his white jacket, ready to go out.
'Oh!' Viktor said in surprise, 'I thought you still had to eat breakfast.'
'No, I already ate,' she smiled while she kept packing her bag.
Viktor was vaguely taken aback. 'But– I made coffee for two.'
'Oh, that's ok,' she said tenderly as she raised her eyes back to him. 'You can drink it later.'
'Ok,' he smiled back. There was no clear reason to, but he just liked the way she talked to him. Soft, warm, caring. It felt like home.
He quickly finished his rusks and left the house.
The route to the workshop was sunlit. The light that was slowly warming colored the sky in soft, bright hues.
The two discussed the project animatedly. It was good to see Sky so involved. Boats were not her favorite project really, but it was nice to work on them together.
The humidity was also good: his leg didn't hurt that much. But he knew that at whatever speed he went, Sky would walk with him.
His footsteps were one of the few sounds on the deserted street.
That day began with the reporting of the previous day's data, a tedious task that claimed Viktor's entire attention for several hours. The laboratory was silent, except for his pen, which ran swiftly tracing the illegible swirls of his handwriting.
And– done! Now the fun part, finally. Viktor turned to the next table where Sky was finishing writing something.
'You care to join me for prototyping?’
She smiled eagerly and moved next to him. They started talking, and testing, and writing– she had many ideas and Viktor was putting down everything he could. She was inspired. Viktor smiled fondly, looking at her hair bathed in the morning light.
Then he started building. The mechanism of the motor was the first part. Slender pieces of metal connected by gears and bolts that fit together perfectly. There was just one piece that didn't click. Was it too large? The wrong shape? Viktor turned it in his slim fingers.
Maybe they needed to replace it.
…No. Maybe they just needed to make it click.
The toolbox.
He swiveled to get up. Sky was already standing.
'I'll get it!' She offered.
Viktor nodded, grateful. It was awesome that she knew what he needed even before he could say it.
She left the room silently.
A thunderous noise. A black, black fume coming out of the room. A smell that twisted the stomach. And a sight that tore the heart open.
Viktor came around to his workstation. Head throbbing and eyes wet. He gingerly raised from the table as the room came into focus.
The sun was high in the sky, now fully lighting the lab. He frowned. He didn’t remember dozing off.
The motor prototype was sitting idly in front of him. He needed to solve the gear thing.
‘Sky?’
He swiveled and eyed the lab. Empty. Oh, well. He swiveled back to face the project and started working on the hull.
He wondered when Sky would be back.
After some time the door of the lab opened with a hiss. Viktor was still nose deep in his work.
'You know what we've been doing wrong this morning?' He said with soft familiarity. 'Our calculation didn't account for the size of–' he turned around and his voice changed tone. Still cordial but firmer.
'Oh– It's you, Jayce.'
The man approached him walking just a bit slower than usual.
'Hi Viktor.' He said in his usual friendly tone. Yet… there was a hint of wariness. Of anticipation. But Viktor didn’t notice.
'It's me, sure. What have you been working on?'
'Ah! This was a productive morning. Our first hypothesis proved correct–' he gestured animatedly, stretching over the stool to retrieve the right papers. 'Here and– here. We just moved to the prototyping phase.' We.
Jayce nodded slowly. The hint of concern growing.
'On paper it seemed it couldn’t stand the stress but! But , if we–'
'I–!' Jayce interrupted, louder than he intended. Viktor looked at him. He continued softer, 'I... didn't remember hypothesising this.'
'Oh?' Viktor was lost for a moment. 'Oh, yes, we didn't show you that part of the work yet. But it's going well,' he added with a smile and a nod. 'You'll see.'
Jayce swallowed. Viktor's smile was unsettling. It was so full, so… sincere.
So complete.
Jayce almost couldn't bear it.
Then Viktor turned around to the door. His eyes lit up. Sky was back with a red toolbox in her arms.
'I'm going to put it on my table,' she said as she crossed the room.
Viktor nodded and followed her with his eyes 'Thank you-
-Sky.’
The hair behind Jayce’s head was standing on end. He breathed faster.
Viktor was still looking at the workstation behind Jayce. Beyond, so far, far away.
'Viktor–?'
'Mm?'
Jayce’s throat was tight.
His partner was still contemplating something behind him, in silent adoration.
Jayce slowly turned around, heart pounding, expecting, hoping beyond hope… that he was the one at fault. That he was the one missing a piece. His heart sank. He wasn’t. He never was.
When he turned back, his eyes were glistening.
‘Viktor–’ this time he said his name as a plea. A prayer.
But Viktor didn’t hear it. He was busy rummaging through the red toolbox. The same toolbox that was already there when Jayce came, that had been here the whole time– a happy ‘ah!’ as he got the screwdriver and went back to his model.
Back to the gear, to the gear that didn’t click.
Jayce had recommended he go to sleep early and take his medication. Yes, the one with the blue dot on the box, for fucks sake!
Viktor didn’t understand why Jayce was so vocal about it. It was just something he had to take and he had been taking it. Everyday, yes. Well, almost. What was it for again? Viktor couldn't remember.
That day Jayce stayed with him all afternoon and then escorted him at home. He told him many times to contact him if something was wrong, if he saw something? He had used that phrasing.
Viktor didn’t understand. His partner was so worried, but he felt fine. Happy. Euphoric even.
Everything was going so smoothly.
Only one thing he was not sure of. Sky had seemed somewhat off that afternoon. She seemed more distant, talked very little and excused herself for dinner.
Too bad. The 3 of them could have spent an exciting meal talking about their project– and all he got instead was a detailed account of Jayce's misadventures with the famously disorganised Council. A long story Viktor listened to more out of love for his brother than out of genuine interest.
She reappeared shortly after they had finished dinner and stayed with him for the trip back home.
Viktor opened the door and closed it behind himself. Sky came out from the other room.
He smiled but his eyes were sad.
‘Why did you leave us for dinner? Did… did I upset you?’
‘Oh!’ Sky shook her head with conviction, ‘no no, nothing of the sort’.
She smiled. Viktor did too.
And in that moment he felt a peace so deep he didn’t dare question it further.
Her coffee from earlier laid in the coffee pot, cold and abandoned.
He took the pill and went to bed.
Something ominous shone in the sky. An explosion unlike anything seen before. And black, black smoke, ubiquitous, suffocating. The metal doors were torn open and beyond there… beyond there was…
Viktor jolted awake at the sound of his own scream. He could feel his heart pounding everywhere in his body. He covered his head with his hands, drying the tears that escaped the corners of his eyes. What was that? He could have sworn he had seen it before.
A light sense of guilt followed the realisation. If he had screamed himself awake he might have disturbed Sky as well.
He turned, but she was not there.
‘What?’
He called her. Waited. Called again. Turned the light on, put on slippers. Searched the house. Called louder. Changed to work clothes. Put the jacket on. Down the stairs, down to the streets.
His heart hammering, his breath coming in short puffs as he paced frantically to the only place she could be. The lab.
He practically bursted into the room. He sucked in a breath. She wasn’t there either.
Jayce wasn’t happy to answer a call at 2 a.m. but that was different. It was coming from Viktor.
Jayce had told him to call if he saw something. But now Viktor was calling because he didn't. He couldn’t.
Jayce urged him to wait in the lab. He dressed up as fast as he could and rushed to him.
The lab had something eerie to it. Strange. Viktor had spent many nights in the lab, but he never got that feeling before. Of something blurred, black, ominous. A threat lurking in every corner of the room, waiting to lash out at him and tear him apart. He clutched his chest, suddenly out of breath.
Something flashed before his eyes. Broken images. Vivid. Excruciating. Shards tearing open his skull. But the worst feeling of all was that he knew… he knew that he used to know all that and then forgot about it. And he never, ever, should have done that.
He wiped his face with a white sleeve. That's when he noticed he had taken Sky’s jacket instead of his. Impossible. Sky never left without her jacket. Did it mean that she was still at home?
A light shone in his eyes, defying every logic. He stood.
But then, he turned and looked in the opposite direction. At the light of the stars right outside the window.
At the Sky, so calm, so distant, so peaceful.
She was nothing more than a voice now. She called his name from above and beyond.
‘Viktor’
Every fiber of his body was attuned to that melody.
‘Sky’
There was peace in that name. Eternity.
He asked, shily, ‘why did you leave me?’
Sky smiled. Not a smile he saw– but a smile he felt. Real.
‘I never meant to,’ her voice cracked, ‘but it was necessary.’
Viktor's eyes flickered, then widened. He gasped. He remembered. He remembered like he was seeing it happening right now before his very eyes.
The blimp, the smoke, the aftermath of the explosion. The metal door that shielded the pilot cabin where he and Jayce were, now split open. And beyond that…
Sky, who just a moment prior had gone to check the malfunction while they were busy trying to do an emergency landing.
The woman he promised his life to– shy, brave Sky, that when hell broke loose, made her choice. To close the damn door.
Smoke, too black and too toxic. But Viktor didn’t care. Beyond the door. Lying in a pool of blood, back severed, eyes that would never look at him again. Sky.
He had called her and hugged her and longed for her. In that interminable moment that twisted his heart and numbed his senses to madness.
And there he was now, shaking like a leaf in the storm. His heart too small for all the memory and the pain.
He looked at the stars and groaned.
He had wanted to grow old with her. To work with her. To help her do the gardening he loathed so much. To watch her unique way of saying ‘thank you.’
But all he had really wanted after that was one thing and one thing alone. An answer.
He asked the Sky, ‘why did you do it?’
She smiled wide.
‘Because I love you.’
The gear clicked into place.
Jayce found his friend on the floor, curled up on himself, shivering. What a lucky guess: he had taken a blanket with him.
The sweet milk was good. It felt like home.
‘I saw the incident,’ said Viktor.
Jayce stood motionless. ‘You remembered.’
He nodded. Then he pressed his lips.
‘I told her goodbye.’
Viktor wailed. Would you look at that. Right when he thought he had no more tears to cry.
But Jayce was crying too.
‘She–’ Viktor continued ‘asked one thing of me. And I promised.’
Jayce nodded between sobs.
‘She asked me to live.
And then I'll see her again.’