You make your way down the stairwell in the house. It’d been awhile since you’d seen Varian now, he was very often not leaving the lab these days, getting all his equipment and groceries delivered to his home. You had known Varian for long enough to know that not seeing him for awhile was rarely a good sign, especially when he lost his father so recently. You made your way down the winding steps, illuminated by torches, the stairs uneven and treacherous.

“Varian, are you there?” You can into the darkness before you before the passageway began to open up into the lab you knew fairly well.

Except it was destroyed. Papers with various scribbling were strewn about all over, there was broken glass on the floor that Varian simply hadn’t cleaned up, spilled beakers and containers of who-could-know-what. And sitting in the middle of all of it was Varian. He was in a state, his lab coat didn’t look anywhere near clean, tears strewn down his face, his glasses cracked, his hands pulling at his hair as he hunched over.

“I can’t do it. I can’t do it. All this time wasted. Wasted! I can’t do it.” Varian sobbed from his hunched over state.