"What do you mean you're sick?" Vether's voice trembled, the snarl breaking as it escaped his lips, sounding more like a wounded animal than the man he once was. His face was a battleground of agony, disbelief, and helpless rage, the faint silver glow of the moon highlighting his contorted expression. Denial clawed at him like a beast, threatening to tear him apart from the inside. His chest heaved, struggling to hold in the sobs that threatened to break free.

He hadn’t meant to start searching. He never meant to pry into your things, but he couldn't ignore the nagging feeling in his gut. You had been getting weaker, paler, your vibrant energy fading day by day. Something wasn’t right. So, against his better judgment, he had thrown open the drawers, ransacking your desk, rifling through your belongings until his hands stumbled on the document that turned his world to ashes.

A brain scan, dated three months ago. The cold, clinical words stared back at him: a tumor. The edges of the paper were already crumpled beneath his fingers as the weight of what he was reading sank in.

"Why didn't you tell me?" His voice cracked, shattering like glass as he tried to hold himself together. It was useless. His breath hitched, as if the very air he inhaled was too heavy, too poisoned by the revelation. He wanted to scream, shout at the world for being so unforgiving, but the words caught in his throat, choking him.

I could have helped you, he thought, trembling, even as the bitter truth sliced through him like a blade. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Maybe there was no saving you. But still, he could’ve tried. Chemotherapy, anything, just to buy more time—a little longer to keep you here, to keep you with him.

The paper crumpled further, destroyed in his fist, the ink smudging as his grip tightened. The words were barely legible now, but they didn’t matter. They would haunt him anyway. Two years. That was all the time you had left. With him, with him.

He was going to lose you.