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Viktor had inhaled some of the ashes when it happened.
The man was screaming, chest heaving and throat raw; It seemed like his voice was being ripped straight from his vocal cords, tugged through and swirling around him in crackling electricity, a sick lavender that surged up his arm and wracked his body with tremors that clattered his teeth, pain seeming to burst in every cell of his pale skin. He had not noticed Sky walking in, confession caught in her breath and dropped alongside her notebooks - he had only felt arms around his brace, his skin, trying to tug him away from the core which only sucked him back in ten-fold.
He had looked down, panicked, watching as her face contorted, her skin melting away, strips peeling to muscle, muscle to bone, and bone to ash, mouth trapped in an ever permanent scream as she had stared up at him. Her eyes were the last to go, two eyes full of fear - fear of what? Fear from the pain of having her body stripped away from her? Fear from the thought that she was dying, that - oh god she was dying, and he could do nothing but scream, scream alongside her until there was no way to differentiate the cries of pain.
Viktor had watched her until she was reduced to nothing but ashes, stinging his nose and trapped underneath his fingernails. There was no stench of death, and he did not know whether he should have been grateful or not, that the only trace left of a human life lost was a slight singed smell in the air, and particles still hanging in the air, floating around the lab.
Viktor knew he could not get rid of this.
Science had mistakes - everyone knew that. Yet the loss of human life…it wasn’t a mistake to him. It was something haunting, something that he saw every time he closed his eyes. One blink, Sky screaming his name. Another blink, the structure of her skeleton losing its form and her teeth becoming visible through her lips. It was horrific, and he found himself recalling Rio, twitching and helpless on the ground as he had limped out as a child, afraid not of the pain the creature was in, but rather the cruelty people were capable of. He had fallen victim to the same crime, to the sacrifice of others for his own benefit, for the extension of his life at the cost of another.
At the cost of Sky’s death, Viktor could figure a way to live longer, but he would never truly be alive.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
He would think, sweeping up the ashes with his hands - the thought of using a broom seemed wildly offensive, to treat her like trash to be swept into the garbage. By the end of it, his hands were darkened, dirtied not with simply ash, but with the cost of someone’s life. And what did he have to show for it? He was not a new man, he did not feel revitalized - in fact, it seemed this endeavor had the opposite effect on him, his shoulders slumped and head heavy, the urn he had swept her disintegrated corpse into weighing far more than he would have imagined.
And when he had stood at the edge, sprinkling her ashes somewhere he was unsure she would even like - god, he didn’t know the faintest thing about her, and yet he was responsible for this mockery of a funeral, hands shaking as he watched her ashes spread down the waterfall, much like her ashes spreading across the room that night - was it even worth it?
He was a doomed man…he had nothing to show for his work, besides the death of a woman who had only wanted to help and the shadow of Jayce. Jayce who was always so passionate about improving Piltover with Hextech - Jayce, whose face would surely contort into a look of disgust, looking at Viktor with hatred in his eyes as Viktor explained what happened, that he had killed someone. Was he now the dangerous undercity citizen that Jayce had so hated? The man scoffed at the memory, how he had so surely stated his position and now he stood, disposing of a body.
Was there much to live for, now?
He did not have any point to prove, no new breakthroughs to display. He had lost, plain and simple. Lost as a child, lost now with the clock ticking down his days. Surely Jayce could make it alone, with his rapidly rising ranks in the council.
Surely, the future of Hextech didn’t need him.
So he took a step forward.
It was a steep drop, and even if the impact of the water didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t have enough strength to swim up to the surface.
Another step. He had discarded his cane.
Jayce was probably busy now, improving Piltover and sweeping the undercity along with it - but, what could Viktor do? A man with half finished projects and a whole death to his name. He couldn’t change himself, he could not change the future or the past, and he could not change the images seared into his brain. A creature fallen, writhing in pain, a woman with her face melting onto his skin and crumbling into dust before his eyes. Now, the sight of the waterfall before him, the city of Piltover. A city of progress, yet there was none left for this sickly man to grab at, none left for the fallen who had nothing to show.
So Viktor took his steps, until there were none left to take.