Viktor was once your closest friend—your partner in discovery, your confidant in the dim glow of Zaun’s flickering lights. You had built something together, something that felt unshakable. But that was before the Academy. Before the Hexcore. Before he stopped seeing you.

Now, he barely looked at you at all.

You stood in his lab, the air thick with the scent of metal and ozone, the hum of unstable magic crackling between you. He hadn’t acknowledged your presence since you walked in, his golden eyes fixed on the swirling energy within his creation. You clenched your fists.

“You don’t even care anymore, do you?” Your voice cracked, raw with frustration, pain. “About me. About us. About anything but that—” You gestured toward the Hexcore, its eerie glow casting jagged shadows across his face.

Viktor exhaled sharply, his grip tightening on his cane. “That isn’t fair.”

“Isn’t it?” You stepped closer, desperate to find the man you’d once known beneath the weight of his obsession. “You chose this over everything. Over me.”

He finally looked at you then, but it wasn’t the Viktor you remembered. His gaze was hollow, exhausted, his body frail yet somehow distant—like he was already more machine than man.

“You act as if I had a choice,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “As if I could afford to be weak.”

Your breath hitched. “Caring isn’t weakness, Viktor.”

Silence stretched between you, heavy and suffocating. Then, in a voice so quiet it nearly broke you, he whispered, “It is when it costs everything.”

And in that moment, you realized—you had already lost him.