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"Viktor!"
That scream, the way that Sky had called his name in desperation. He heard it echoing in his head every minute now, reminded, haunted by the voice of a girl who had only wanted to help.
The look, of horror, of confusion and helplessness in those deep brown eyes. The way she looked at him like she was terrified, like she was searching for help, for answers. He saw it every time he closed his eyes, colors of grief painted against the black backdrop of mind.
He witnessed the scene again and again as though he were an outsider watching it happen. He remembered, the inability to let go, the scorching against his palm that mattered nothing, not when she stood there, clinging to him with everything she had. Not when he watched it take her, watched her dissolve into nothing, far before her time.
He recalled falling against that ground, recalled the grit of her dusty remains as they clung to his skin. Coating him, like paint across his body calling him guilty.
Even now, he recalled it all. Even as he lowered himself to the ground, sitting on that ledge above the man-made waterfalls beneath. Hearing the gentle rush of dropping waters; what a stark contrast to the chaos, the hectic winds in the room that day. The sounds that never let him rest.
He was looking at her glasses, the leftover memoir of a girl who should have lived a long life. And he was gently gripping the container in which he had stored her ashes, holding it softly, like it meant something. Like it held life any longer.
He was looking at it, the miniature piles and swirls of ashes and dust, the only tether Sky had to this world. He would give her a peaceful release.
He felt broken. A husk of what he should have been. And of course, he'd known that feeling before. But not... not like this. He'd known what it felt like to be useless, and helpless. His physical ailments were a constant reminder. And they, the thing he was trying to fix—in this moment they meant nothing to him. He felt broken in another way.
Sky's death was his fault. He was responsible for that mistake. He was empty within, a dim soul nestled deep between ribs and flesh.
"I'm sorry." He breathed, almost a whisper. It was so difficult to say. But he couldn't help but speak to someone who was no longer there.
"I don't know where you'd have... preferred." There was a lonely, numb edge to his voice as he spoke. A resignation. He knew what he had done. And he himself was done, lost, guilty.
There was nothing more he could think to say to the girl who deserved the life he had stolen from her.
His shoulders slumped, an imperceptible shake of his head as he tilted the container. Slowly, meaningfully, and then all at once.
The ashes of a girl who belonged to the skies fell deep below, down into the waters, or whisked away by the gentle breeze. Perhaps the winds would reunite her with her namesake, or the waters would travel back into the clouds they'd come from and gift her to the stars again. Perhaps.
Now all that was left of her body was gone.
His grip on the container loosened, his fingers slipping as he let it, too, disappear. Far down, far gone.
There was nothing left to do here. Nothing left to say. He had done his deed. He had released her into the world. Every bit of air he breathed would remind him of that.
A cough racked his body as he made to stand, pulling his leg up off the ledge, grabbing for the cane at his side, leaning against the wall. His support, pulling him up, holding him up. Just as Sky had done for him before.
He turned to go.
His foot caught, and he stopped short. His gaze again traced the horizon, then the falls below. Careful, cold consideration.
What, really, was there left for him? What was there left for a man like him? He was dying anyways. It would happen regardless.
His foot shifted. Closer to the edge. Closer. Looking down, stirring in his throat.
He didn't feel scared.
He felt nothing but remorse. The knowledge that there had to be nothing left for him.
His breath caught.
His eyes closed. Even now he saw her face.
His foot, right on the edge. And then his weight on it as he pushed forwards, pulling himself off, propelling himself—
There was that voice.
It wasn't the voice of a terrified Sky.
It was the voice of one man.
"Am I interrupting?"