Dmitriev stood guard alongside his stoic companion, privately wishing he had a medispray or a cold compress for the swelling on his face. He was using the cool metal modification on the back of his hand instead, as it was better than nothing. The others had not returned yet but it still had only been a few minutes. There was time.

"Do you think we'll have to kill Doctor Lazarin?" He asked his fellow guard, needing something to break the anxious silence between them.

His friend stood straight ahead, unmoving; unblinking. The injured medic thought he would have made an excellent store mannequin. "Not sure yet." He responded after a pause, fleshless lips clicking behind his vitalus veil.

"I don't blame him, you know." Dmitriev continued, much to the other's chagrin, but the taller mordesh turned his head slightly towards him anyway.

"Oh?"

"He's in shock over the incident and he has a great burden to bear. Guilt is only but one facet of that burden. Have you never lost one so close to you, Mishka?" He asked, knowing that feeling all too well, although it had been well over a lifetime ago. It was why he couldn't begrudge the other doctor the shiner he'd received even though it stung.

Mishka seemed to look down at the floor, but it was hard to tell because his bright orange eyes lacked pupils and irises. "I have had no one. No reason for grief. I am content with this." He said.

Dmitriev removed his hand from his face and refreshed the log of the vitalus infusion files on his datachron for about the thirtieth time that hour. He also let out his fifth resigned sigh in as many minutes. "Perhaps destroying the doctor at this point would be the greater mercy. To send him back to his daughter and, fate permitting, the embrace of his wife. She was quite the looker, back in the day."

"So I have heard."

Both guards fell silent again.

There was not much else to talk about until the artillery arrived.

xxx

Victor's nerves were on fire, getting delirious, hard to think. He had risen and he was pacing back and forth in his room as if he were impatiently waiting for something, tightening and loosening his hands hard enough that he was leaving small, crescent-shaped indents along the surface of his palms. He was going to head out there soon, and though his body and mind may not be his own at that point it would be a conclusion; an ending. A much overdue one.

He was panting slightly, barely on the cusp of uncontrollable hunger and rage. It would be a fitting end for the great Dr. Victor Lazarin, the man who killed death, to be slain shrieking and tearing at flesh as one of the miserable monsters he had spent the remainder of his immortal existence trying to save. How ironic. A tale of hubris, one that would be used to caution the wise someday, provided there would be any mordesh left to heed such advice.

A jarring, humanizing pang went right through him at that point and he ceased his erratic movements, the vitalus left in his tanks nothing more than lifeless near-grey slush by now. His hands went to his face and he held them there for a time, sinking down to his knees again. What did it matter anymore, anyway? He had persisted for all mordesh, for all the billions his elixir had put into the ground and even longer for the millions that lived still, but despite his rotten body that did not age he wasn't some omnipotent god of medicine, clearly. He was but a single man. Genius, yes, of course, but fallible, with limits he hadn't cared to measure until today.

The ambush again. After his assistant had rushed off to the synthesis chamber on their hale, functioning legs he'd been able to patch up whatever tissue and nerve damage he'd dealt to himself with a medikit and his own, private vitalus blend that encouraged rapid regeneration of his cells. He'd managed to stagger to his feet, slowly at first, and then the doctor could manage a frail hobble, picking up speed until he reached the final chamber under his own power. He had heard sobbing over the commlink, gentle weeping, then implorations for help. Begging. So hungry. He'd heard it all.

His dead heart had never beaten quite so fast until that day.

And… he didn't know what he should have expected, really. The strain had penetrated into the lab, had gotten into everything, their expedition; his leg. Lucy had been alone at the time in what he'd thought was a sterile environment. She would have had no way to defend herself.

In spite of this he had limped into the chamber just in time to watch his aggressive assistant wipe a mixture of blood, vitalus fluid and strain juice off the surface of their weapon. There had been some messy splash-back, but for once the intern seemed solemn, brow furrowed as they expressed a sad sigh. They stuffed the juiced-up handkerchief into their pocket, but it would have to be destroyed later along with everything the strain had touched.

"I'm sorry, doc." They said, looking back at him with the dismembered remains of his child at their feet. "It got into her. She was losing herself. It had to be done."

He was thankful now that the exile he had approved to be his assistant did not waste words or soppy sentiments at the severity of the situation – that they were content to stand back and do nothing as Victor ran to that pile of slain, infected flesh and bellow as though he were a dying man, falling to his knees and sobbing harder than he ever had for Mina, for his people; for anyone. Lucy had been the last one left, the last bastion of his fortitude. He may have become an accursed and wretched thing, hated by too many to count, but he had never been alone. That one source of love and pride in a sea of derision had made all the difference, kept him from punishing himself to death, just as he was doing right now.

The worst agony of all was he could not have touched her – the pragmatic scientist within him knew that her flesh was infected beyond all aid and he could not have gathered her up in his arms like his body was clamoring to do. She could have no proper, respectful burial. No casket, no sugarblossoms crowning her gentle head, not even any prayer. He had already long since forgotten the words.

They eventually had to burn her in an incinerator alongside the other fallen that day, topped by the slimy corpses of the strain that had been their murderers. The ashes left behind were blended together, mixed with dozens of the dead. There was no technique to tell what particles of the dust were hers. He'd wanted better for her, far better, but again he was a pragmatist at heart. This was all they could do.

In the midst of his feverish ruminations Victor saw a flash of gold run under the table. It was speckled – had four legs. His first, near-ravenous instinct was to pounce on it and his lip curled back into a snarl. What was that? Creature. Small. Scuttling. Belonged to…

With the lightning-quick reflexes of a scrab raising its tail to strike Dr. Lazarin lunged down at the golden blur of movement and filled his hands with writhing, squeaking fur.

Once Lucy was but ash on the wind far, far from her place of birth he'd had to go through her belongings; pack them away in her stead. He'd thought that maybe he could take something small to remember her by, something that was not her research or her books or the alchemy that had killed her. Perhaps a piece of jewelry, a relic of her past, just some kind of trinket that spoke of the capable woman she had grown into. He had the memories, but he was ageless. Memories would eventually fade. It was his fear.

However his daughter had been far too much like him. She had given all she was to the cure for the contagion. Nothing amongst her belongings deviated from that cause. Nothing left. She was gone.

The golden jabbit flailed helplessly as it battled to free itself from Victor's clutches. There was no explanation for how it had gotten inside his quarters, it couldn't possibly have reached the door control panel, but the soft-furred vermin kicked at the air as though it were trying to run in place, long mordesh fingers wrapped around its fragile shoulder bones and throat.

He hesitated for a moment, his hands trying not to shake. He'd expected a lab slank, or something with-

-Flesh!-

-but this was one of Lucy's experiments. Her animals, one she'd planned to dissect earlier but had never quite gotten around to it. That was unlike her, his little girl had often proposed that efficiency was her middle name.

He tried to remember her excited talk about the animals of Blighthaven, but things were getting fuzzy now, almost too fuzzy for his mind's eye to see.

…Exposure to exanite… increased empathetic capabilities… marked resistance to strain infection… greater intelligence… actually, father, I am almost certain that at times she may feel as I feel, interpret my body language, and even-

It was full of meat. Blood. Warm. Smell warm.

Flesh! Flesh!

I do not think it is prudent to consider dissection at this time. There is much I may learn from her…

His hands constricted. The jabbit squealed. Unnoticed tears began to run down the ancient doctor's face.

And, as a personal aside, she is rather cute. Ahahaha.

"Lucy…" He growled through razor-sharp teeth.

Something hard and metallic clinked against his ring finger and the pad of his palm as he squeezed the life out of the animal. It was a sharp sensation he had not expected and so he loosened his grip, holding the trembling jabbit by the scruff as he turned it over to search for the source of discomfort. It could not have been a bite or a scratch, not painful enough, and yet…

He found the answer right away. The creature was wearing a collar; it looked like it was made out of some kind of silver facsimile – a thin chain with a small, circular nameplate on the front. It was this he had felt pinching between his fingers. Lucy must have booted up the 3D fabricator and manufactured it without his knowledge. Such a little, insignificant thing.

The tag was around the wrong way so Victor turned it over with surprising, verge-of-sanity delicacy. It had his child's commlink code engraved into the metal. He also read the inscription right below it.

"Goldie." He said in a rough voice. "… Your name is Goldie."

The jabbit didn't run away when he set the terrified, shaking creature on the floor with all the gentleness he could muster and Dr. Lazarin let out a tortured, wailing, bone-chilling howl, and with it he vented the frustration, the anger and the pain he'd had all built up inside. There was much more where that came from but it was a pressure release, to keep the boiler from exploding. It cut through every living and undead soul in the exo-lab like a sword; even Ekaterine and her entourage who were busy loading up their weapons with fresh shells. There was a rawness to it that rent the nerves, but it was liberating. Cleansing. Needed.

He was hoarse with heaving, dry sobs when Victor dug his hand into one of his deep pockets and pulled out a huge, capped heavy syringe that glowed with bright blue, viscous liquid. Without even bothering to roll back his sleeve or apply a tourniquet to his arm the doctor jammed it in with a hundred years of practiced surgical precision and slammed the high-density vitalus serum directly into his veins. It wasn't going to revitalize the dark goop in his guts and his tanks, but it would push the ravening madness away for another twenty minutes; thirty at most. Enough time to work his way through a full infusion properly.

For a short while he just sat there on the ground again, waiting for his pains and shakes to subside and also to catch his breath. The fog in his mind started to clear a little as the shot did its work, he pulled it out once it was empty and the syringe rolled away under the workbench, into the vitalus puddle from before.

Then, something climbed into his lap.

Goldie was still trembling and shaking a little herself from the manhandling and strangulation, but the collared, golden jabbit that Lucy had believed was smarter than she appeared flopped down against his leg and curled up there, empathetically just as drained as he was.

Thoughts of flesh and hunger and biting and tearing retreated from Lazarin's mind for a time. They would return eventually, but for now he was safe. Without a word he lifted the golden jabbit up and held it to his chest as though he were a child and she a stuffed animal, stroking Goldie's fur with fingers used to the scalpel and surgical saw instead of tactile affection. He did this until her muscles relaxed and she was calm again. It was the least he could do after she had saved what little was left of his pitiful existence.

Soon she began to brux contentedly and nuzzled up against his hazmat suit. His child was dead, and if there were any sense of justice in the universe he should have perished in her place, but as long as he had something of hers, some part that had once been a part of her, perhaps he just might be able to make it until tomorrow, then he would see where he'd go from there. If not for himself, then for the other mordesh he had pledged to save.

And beside all that, he postulated privately that Lucy would have been most upset with him should he allow her precious pet to perish without proper care.

He could manage that in her place.

xxx

"We are doomed. Doomed! We will never discover the cure now." The mordesh with the metal-tinged voice lamented as Ekaterine handed him a pair of pistols, the scavenged spoils of a fallen spellslinger who had died the day before. They were too small for his big hands, but he gripped them possessively anyway.

"Hush Malysh. This is no place for panic." Ekaterine scolded as she hefted the heavy gun she had salvaged for herself. The others were all wielding similar weapons now, save for Dmitriev who had always been outfitted with his powerful resonators. The large, worried mordesh was likely correct in his assumption and she closed her long-lashed eyes briefly to force that ominous thought away. "Is everybody ready?"

She received affirmations with varying degrees of zeal from Mishka, Malysh, Dmitriev and others. The aurin who had raced off to find the assistant and their deadly arsenal of weaponry would have made appropriate additional backup, but they could not wait for him to return any longer. They had all heard that paralyzing, hellish scream. The plan to infuse Lazarin had long since fallen by the wayside after such a sound. There was only one thing left to do.

Dmitriev laughed nervously as he charged up his resonators. "I'm starting to feel like a reaper." He joked.

"You are a physician." Mishka reminded him in a flat, I-don't-understand-humor tone. "Remember that."

Ekaterine reached out for the door controls, her thin lithe fingers wavering a little. "Stand firm." She told them.

But before her fingertips could make contact with the panel the exo-lab door slid open of its own volition. A tall silhouette stood in the threshold, its presence imposing and familiar.

Victor Lazarin peered down at his assembled colleagues through the protective screen of his suit. If he had been shrieking, or crying, or mere minutes away from death earlier he did not show it anymore. He raised an eyebrow at them, mildly curious.

"What is the meaning of this?" He asked.

The squad raised their weapons in reflex anyway, starting from Ekaterine and rolling back all the way to Malysh hiding behind the others. The last thing they'd expected him to do at this point was speak. Lunge for their throats like a possessed demon, more like. The mordesh with the blank-lensed eyes spoke up first. "We, uh, thought that you were… are you…?" He mumbled.

The doctor just stared at them quizzically for a few moments, wondering if his fate was ultimately to be shot in the face by his associates, before he hummed an understanding; "Ah," and tugged off one of his gloves, rolling his right sleeve back to reveal the vitalus tank in his forearm.

The fluid around his arm bones and connecting veins was the brightest glowing, purest blue form of conventional vitalus a mordesh could acquire without having to be the good doctor himself. The lifeless grey slush that had nearly corrupted him now festered in a tank somewhere, ready to be destroyed later on. The group of scientists and non-combatants all sighed in deep relief at this revelation, lowering the weapons they'd prepared to use. These sighs were finally punctuated by Dmitriev exclaiming; "Oh yes, look at that," after checking his datachron one final time. It had updated at last, minutes earlier.

Victor fixed his sleeve again. He smiled slightly, though there was no joy in it. "Is that to your satisfaction?" He asked.

Ekaterine tried to hide her irritation, succeeding only in part. "Sir, with all due respect, do not scare us like that again! We will require your expertise for some time yet, though our sympathies will remain with you."

"Hm," Lazarin pondered, "I shall keep that in mind. Thank you."

Then there was more screaming, (at least not by the doctor this time) and the small aurin biochemist they'd dispatched earlier came pelting down the corridor back to the group, panting with his tails flicking back and forth like a bristly bush. It felt like everything in Blighthaven had been chasing him, from the corrupted dawngrazers and strain peeps to the Weave knew what else. "I couldn't find the assistant." He gasped, close to tears. "I looked everywhere! I don't know, maybe they moved on to Cankertube Swamp, maybe-"

Victor interrupted him by clearing his throat, making it painfully obvious he wanted their little vigilante group to break up and give him right of way. They did so and he strode past them, as stoic as usual. "Ah yes, you have reminded me. I must give them a call shortly. For now, however, I believe I am in the mood for a long, meditative walk. I will hike upon the Harrowing Heights should I be required again."

The heights – that was where they had dumped the ashes from yesterday. Ekaterine chose not to comment on this, but the tired panting aurin slapped a hand over his face and groaned. "Maaaaan, I could've just called 'em! Stupid…"

As he walked past them and down the hall Victor uttered a short, soft whistle that didn't mean anything to the men and woman congregated there, but a few of them shuffled back in surprise as a large golden jabbit scampered out of the threshold too and followed the doctor hot at his heels, her silver collar jangling as she wiggled to keep up.

There wasn't much to live for anymore, but for now…

This was enough.

-fin