[ viktor dies, and on the seventh day after, he awakes in his bed, almost as if it is all a distant dream, about to fade away as the day dawns.

viktor dies, and wakes, and the dread that seeps in is worse than the cold air on a winter's day in the undercity, settling inside his chest and bones as he takes one breath after another, tries to reassure himself that his lungs still work, that they are not slowly filling with blood and suffocating him once more.

and then he gets up.

and though for the rest of that day, his laboratory and workspace are quiet and abandoned, the next day they are once again lit up, signaling to any possible passerby that he is there and back at work. ]

[ late that week, one may find him sitting in a table at the back of lupin, staring into his glass of liquor (vodka, with a dash of licorice extract added in for flavour) contemplatively. ]

I thought it would feel... different.

[ he mutters this, quietly, watching the liquid swirl as he turns the glass around once, and again, and again. what meaning is there in death, if it means nothing? he should be dead. here, back home — both, neither. none of it seems to matter much.

and if it doesn't... then does it matter, if he abandons his guilt and wants to avoid the experience of slowly suffocating on his own blood for the second time? he will not touch the hexcore, no, never again — but the hexcore is not the only available avenue, here. back home, his course is certain, his fate sealed for him; here, not so much. and if none of it truly matters, then perhaps... perhaps. ]