The ribs in Newton's chest and the heart they protected all moaned in unified pain as he remained curled up on the leather couch. His muscles joined the chorus with a dull background throb from remaining clenched for so long. After a while, an hour or perhaps two, his body relaxed into a fitful sleep where physical pains couldn't touch him, but psychological ones deemed torturing him fair game.

Peaceful, restful sleep felt like a distant memory or a myth as his unconscious mind was ripped from darkness into a barrage of images. Most of it was stuff he couldn't make sense of. Either it moved by too fast or his mind flashed pictures he couldn't recognize or understand. However, the images that did stick sent chills along the flesh of his sleeping form. A picture of the older man who confronted him the night before rose to the surface and he appeared to be looking at Newton with a petrified expression as they stood in some kind of shop.

As quickly as it appeared before him it was gone, replaced by a perfect image of the chalkboard at the lab. A few more meaningless images passed by: an empty warehouse; the sky opening up to a downpour of rain; bright, white flames giving off sparks. All the while, he tossed and turned, using up more energy than his poor excuse for a night of rest could rejuvenate. Still, he managed to sleep until morning and when he woke up, he knew he was alone.

The silence that hung in the air told him, the kind devoid of life that settled around him like dust and left him at ill ease. He unfurled his body despite its sharp complaints and looked over at the entertainment center to check the time. Seven thirty-seven in the morning. Much too early for Hermann to already be at work but Newton couldn't blame him. If he'd been the first to wake, he would've left as well just so he wouldn't have had to face Hermann. The idea of it made the palms of his hands go cold and clammy for more reasons than one.

For starters, he couldn't explain why he'd said what he did or why it wasn't his fault. Another problem would be the boyfriend comment and being forced to explain why that wasn't true. That, in fact, he felt the opposite. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, not wanting to think about it. He chose to just feel happy that he didn't wake up with blood running down his face after that odd episode.

The images from his dream lingered in his mind as he stood up and walked out to the kitchen. He rifled through what he could remember as it had started to crumble once his eyes opened, trying to piece it together into something that made sense. The task was made all the more difficult by the fact that he only understood two parts of the puzzle: the older man and the chalkboard equations. And out of those, the face of the scared man was the one that imprinted itself onto the backs of his eyelids.

He mulled it over, not really paying attention to the world around him as he opened the fridge and closed it after a few moments of looking but not seeing. The thought of that man's face, looking directly at him with fear in his eyes, plagued him until he realized what it meant. He had done something to warrant that man being so cautious of him that night. The Precursors had taken him there to that store and he couldn't fathom a guess as to why.

The image details grew fuzzy and he covered his eyes with his hands, squeezing them shut to try and sharpen it out again. He pressed his forehead against the cool surface of the fridge, focusing as hard as possible until the scene around the older man grew clear. Behind him stood sets of shelves, each one holding different types of machine parts. He saw bins that held washers, nuts, and bolts as well as a section of several work tools.

Newton stepped back and opened his eyes, more confused and afraid than before. The Precursors were using his body to build something. His first thought was to go back there, try to find the store, but a wave of nausea and pain brought him to his knees. Bone smacked to the hard floor as he doubled over, feeling something prodding at the still raw piece of void that the aliens in his head created last night. All-consuming emptiness and despair trickled down like blood from a head wound as the static in his mind formed words.

Do not dig where you are not wanted, lest you dig your own grave.

"Then just fucking kill me already," Newton growled, one arm wrapped around his gut with the other on the floor to support him. "Get it over with."

You gave your body over to us willingly and we still have use of it yet. But do not fret. All in good time, Newton. You are eager to die and we will not want to leave… loose ends.

The static dissipated, leaving him even more alone. The sudden urge to slam his head into the floor inches from his face overwhelmed him. The image of his body lying there, blood leaking out in a pool around the crack in his skull felt oddly comforting, but he collapsed in a heap before he had the chance to decide. He felt like he'd just run a few miles and been violently ill after.

He groaned as he worked up the strength to stand up, swaying a little when he finally managed to get there. With a zombie-like gait, he made his way to his bedroom and dropped on his unmade bed, feeling the lowest he'd felt in a long time. He had no idea what to do, so rather than do anything he decided to just lay there for a long while.

The day passed by in a haze of exhaustion and depression. He fell in and out of sleep, preferring unconsciousness to the pain of being awake and aware of what his life had become. A few hours after the sun sunk below the horizon, the door opened and startled Newton fully awake. He sat up in the dark room, listening hard as he heard Hermann's footsteps enter the apartment before he closed the door. Newton felt conflicted because he both wanted to go out and meet him and wanted to avoid him forever.

He stood up and walked to the door of his room, pressing his ear to the wood. He listened to the click of his cane as he moved around the kitchen. As quietly as possible, he wrapped a hand around the door knob, trying to decide what to do. The footsteps grew louder as he walked down the hall toward his room. Newton's heartbeat quickened and his grip on the door knob tightened but he couldn't bring himself to go out there and face him. His body froze, shame and fear forcing him to stand and listen as Hermann walked into his room and shut the door.

Newton slumped against the hard wood at his shoulder, removing his hand from the knob to press it flat against the door as if he could feel Hermann's lost presence. He slid down, all strength gone from his body, and dropped his head to knees.

The next morning didn't leave him feeling any better. His mind felt dazed and groggy as if he hadn't slept even though it was all he'd done. He rolled out of bed and rubbed his eyes before walking out toward the kitchen. He'd barely made it all the way down the hall before running right into Hermann. Instinctively, Newton reached out and grabbed Hermann by the shoulders to steady him but he held on for a little too long as he vividly remembered the fight and the state that their relationship was in. He let go and stepped back, looking up at Hermann's face as Hermann refused to meet his eye.

"Sorry about that, Herm," Newton said, his voice barely audible.

Hermann stepped back and moved around him, walking down the hall to his room.

"I'm sorry about what I said, Hermann," Newton said, his voice sounding stronger as he unconsciously reached out to him.

When Hermann continued to ignore him as he walked into the room, Newton dropped his arm and slumped his shoulders. He bared his teeth without thinking about it with enough pressure to cause him pain. As the level of emotion within him grew, he balled up his fists, causing his knuckles to bleach white. He felt sadness and anger and hopelessness and it all culminated as a stew inside of him until he turned and slammed his fist into the hard, cold refrigerator door with a satisfying thump. The adrenaline in his system staved off the agony as he punched it a few more times in quick succession, leaving a streak of dark red on the pristine white.

When he stepped back and cooled down for a moment, almost admiring the blood spatter like art, the sharp, pulsing pain started to creep its way into his sense of feeling. A hiss of air at his stinging hand slid through his teeth and he looked down at the damage. The knuckles on his right hand were torn and bleeding and he could feel what might've been microfractures. The adrenaline continued wear away until he couldn't help but curse and feel ridiculous about what he'd done.

"Ugh, fucking shit," Newton said, wincing as he gingerly examined his hand further. "I'm such an idiot. Can't do anything right."

Newton glanced down the hall, eyeing the door to Hermann's room as he tried to fight down a wave of sadness. Ignoring the pain he felt, he stole a few deep breaths to calm his emotions and closed his eyes. He focused hard, thinking about Hermann, reaching out with his mind for the link that connected them. With all the time after their drift, they'd performed a few tests on themselves, figuring out the effects and limits of their connection. Being able to feel each other's emotions turned out to be one of those effects.

He found the connection, like a silk thread, and he followed it in his mind toward Hermann's end. The almost meditative state keeping the connection required wavered as Newton's mind met at wall, built to keep him out. Newton opened his eyes and broke the connection. Hermann was blocking him out of his life and out of his head. The last vestiges of Newton's hope crumbled away and he was left in open air with nothing to hold on to.

"I give up," he whispered.

At the sudden declaration, he laughed, not entirely in control of the reaction. He laughed hard enough to bring tears to his eyes, though he wasn't entirely sure if it was the laughter or he was just crying as well. He reached out to the nearest counter with his good hand to keep him steady on his feet.

YOU HEAR THAT, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS? Newton shouted in his head. You win. I give up. You want my body, it's yours. No resistance. I don't want it anymore.

The laughter subsided as he gave himself over, leaving him with a tear-streaked face and nothing to live for. In the next moment, he felt a rustle at the back of his mind and everything turned black.

When he regained control of his body, the sun had fallen and Newton wasn't sure if a day or days had passed. He didn't exactly care. The Precursors at least had the courtesy to drop him off outside of him apartment when they were done, which he felt grateful for because they'd left his body feeling both exhausted and hungry. As he unlocked the door and walked inside, he didn't know which one to deal with first.

The apartment stood in still, silent darkness. The bright, neon readout on the microwave across the room said 2:13 AM, telling him that Hermann was asleep and he'd be safe to scavenge for food. He opened the fridge to find a sparse selection, coming away with a candy bar, half of a ham sandwich, and an half empty can of soda. He didn't feel in the mood to look for anything more substantial and took the pathetic excuse for a meal into his room where he devoured it all in a few minutes.

It was only after he had some food in his stomach that the pain in his hand registered. He hadn't had much time to feel it before, let alone do anything about it. He found some bandages and mild pain medication in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, wrapping up his hand and healing knuckles before he curled up in bed to sleep.

His stomach still rumbled by morning but he didn't have much time to consider how to fix it before the Precursors took over again. Days passed like that, maybe more as he'd lost track of time. The Precursors would leave him near his apartment and he was only given the time to take care of basic human needs before they would take him again. He started to drop weight and looked exhausted, purple around his eyes as if he'd never slept in his life. The arrangement worked perfectly well for him as it left him no time to think about his life or Hermann or about the deep depression that had hooked its black, clawed fingers into his brain.

When he slept, he continued to dream in flashes of images, only very few of them making any sense. He continued to dream of the frightened man, of the hardware store, as well as the odd warehouse that he'd never seen before. Where it was situated wasn't clear but it looked abandoned, worn down like an old man running on the final fumes of life. He saw oil and grease and shattered glass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something large he couldn't define.

Despite that, most times he slept peacefully, the odd images dissipating as he opened his eyes. However, Newton could almost sense a mental storm brewing as he returned to his body at the end of a blood red sunset. He entered the apartment and immediately noticed a couple of Styrofoam containers sitting on the counter. Wary, he closed the door behind him and approached the containers. He could smell something delicious wafting from them, causing his stomach to rumble. When he stood in front of them, he noticed a folded piece of paper with his name written on it in familiar cursive writing. Newton frowned, but grabbed the paper and opened it, reading the message a few times before it sunk in.

Eat something. You haven't had a proper meal in days.

Newton turned the note over in his hands, unsure of how to feel. A part of him felt a swell of happiness that Hermann acknowledged him and noticed how he'd been acting. Another, stronger part felt like the gesture was too little too late. Bitterness flowed through his veins like poison as he thought of how Hermann wouldn't speak or listen to him. Even the food before him, he had to leave a note. He crumpled up the paper in his hands and tossed it on the floor. He even considered throwing out the food, but his stomach roared in the dull silence and Newton thought it would be sacrilege to let perfectly good food go to waste.

He grabbed the containers and a relatively clean fork before shutting himself in his room, unable to even look at Hermann's door as he passed. He dug into what he discovered was Thai food, barely paying attention to the different foods or flavors as he shoveled it into his starved body. Upon finishing the meal, he left the empty Styrofoam boxes strewn beside his bed before lying down, quickly falling into sleep from deep exhaustion.

The usual images flashed through his head, but after a few minutes, he started to see new ones, ones that played out more like clips than mere pictures. He saw himself looking down an unfamiliar street, walking with large strides like he needed to be somewhere as quickly as possible. He was about to take a turn down an alley when the clip cut off, replaced with another of him washing his hands. The sink in front of him looked like a rusted metal basin and the water from the tap ran slightly brown. As he looked down into the bowl of the sink, he saw that his hands were crusted red, causing the water around the drain to mix into a dark russet color.

Before Newton even had time to register the meaning, it switched again, this time to him walking down the hall of his apartment. He headed straight for the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He paused, turning slightly to see Hermann, wearing a serious, hard-set expression. Newton could see the muscles in his jaw working as if he kept clenching his teeth.

"Newton, I wanted to talk about what happened," he said, keeping steady eye contact.

Newton turned away wordlessly and shrugged out of his grip, leaving him behind. The clip changed one last time, showing the doors to the old warehouse again, but this time he walked inside of it. The large space was mostly empty, the cement floors dirty and littered with trash and leaves, the walls coated with grease and grime, the windows covered with dark blankets. Newton headed straight for a metal folding table, put on a pair of welding goggles, and picked up a torch. He turned and a giant tower of a machine consumed his field of vision. It almost reached the ceiling, made of patchwork sheets of metal and shaped like a satellite with a wide base and a closed pyramid at the top made of four, claw-like metal fixtures. He turned on the torch, watching the flames burn, sparks flinging themselves from the stream, before he woke up in a panicked sweat.

"Oh god." The words tumbled from his mouth as he tried to process and keep fresh the recent dream. "Oh my god."

He scrambled from the bed and rushed around the room until he held a pad of paper in one hand and a pen in the other. In sloppy chicken scratch handwriting, Newton took note of every last detail he could recall before he sat down on his bed to review everything. As he read through, one hand crept up to rest over his mouth as his expression shifted into one of disbelief, eyes wide, eyebrows high and arched. He shook his head slowly, wishing it all had stayed buried, wishing none of it had ever happened at all. The thought of his red-stained hands remained at the forefront, churning his stomach and causing his imagination to run wild in the worst ways.

"Did I…" he began, his voice low enough for only him to hear. "Jesus, did I hurt someone?"

Did I kill someone? he thought, unable to bring himself to say it out loud.

His gut lurched and he had to run to the bathroom before he lost all of his stomach contents. Waves of heat and chills wracked his body, causing him to sweat and shake as he gripped the seat of the toilet. He reached a point where he was simply dry heaving for a few minutes until he could finally sit back, the nausea gone for the moment. He wiped his brow, flinching at the pain it caused his bandaged hand. With a large amount of effort, he tried to push the idea he might've seriously hurt someone from his mind. Nothing he could do about it whether or not it happened. Instead, he focused on the next problem: Hermann.

He cleaned up his face, cleaned out his mouth, and walked out to stand in front of Hermann's door. Time seemed to drag on in those moments that he stood outside the door. He felt compelled to pace but he held his ground, mustered his courage, and knocked. Then he waited. And waited. Until he finally tried the door and opened it to an empty room. The space looked obscenely tidy, a perfectly made bed, organized bookshelf and dresser, all of the clothes put away in designated areas. It was like the after picture to the before that Newton's room seemed to always be.

After a few seconds, he shut the door and stepped back, not wanting to make matters worse by trespassing on his personal territory. Gone to work, though to be fair Newton didn't know the time of day, so in all likelihood, Hermann's absence should've been expected. That left him with one last problem to deal with and that was the giant machine in the old warehouse.

He didn't want to face it, he didn't want to know what it did, but anything potentially dangerous had to be stopped. He knew he wouldn't be able to live with himself if something horrible happened at his hands, not that the Precursors would keep him alive for long afterward. He wracked his brain for a location, but everything was buried in his subconscious, taken and locked away by the beings in his head. He paced down the hall, hitting his forehead with the heels of his hands as if that might dislodge answers until he felt the Precursors encroaching on his waking mind.

With considerable effort, he squeezed his eyes shut tightly in order to concentrate on fighting back. He kept the buzzing in his mind at bay but couldn't remove them completely. They both knew he would weaken eventually but that's when a thought crossed his mind. Just as soon as it appeared, he made it disappear, wiping his mind of it entirely so he that he was the only one to comprehend it. Then he stopped fighting and let them take over, submerging his mind in darkness with the exception of one tiny pinprick of light.

Newton rode out the trip like a lucid dream, trying his hardest to pass off as unconscious, but keeping one finger above the line of awareness. At that vantage point, Newton wasn't able to see but he caught pieces of the Precursors' thoughts. The machine is near completion, they thought as they used his body to climb into a cab they'd called for. Newton didn't like the sound of that at all. It required a lot of effort to keep his emotions in check and stay below their radar.

The rest of the way, he focused less on their words and more on stayed perched at his precariously balanced position. Minutes passed like hours and his resolve started to weaken before he finally heard whispers of the warehouse in his mind. At his cue, he pulled everything of who he was off the edge of unconsciousness and burst through like an uninvited guest to a party. He tore his way through so rapidly and with such force that the Precursors didn't have time to react before he regained full control.

It felt like dragging his body out of ice cold water, breaking to the surface with a gasp of fresh air and a new respect for life. At first, none of his senses worked, but they slowly kicked in, his sight and hearing awakened, his sense of smell. The inside of the warehouse looked exactly as he'd dreamt it. He scuffed a shoe on the dirty floor, inhaling the scent of oil and must.

He kept his eyes to the floor, to the walls, avoiding the one place he needed to look, but eventually his eye drew him to the monstrous machine at the center of the large floor space. Sickness swept over him again but he kept it down. With careful steps, he walked around it, taking in the gears, the welding marks, the incomplete control panel at the base. He looked to the top and saw the four claws, closed together in a pyramidal shape. He reached out to touch the metal but couldn't bring himself to do it as if he could still feel the heat from the welding torch.

"What is this? What does it…" He hesitated and thought about their possible motivations, looking the machine over once more, and it hit him. "No. No no no NO. You're trying to reopen the Breach."

The Precursors in his head hissed and rattled like angry snakes but Newton's rage burned, matching theirs and more.

"You're not doing this. You're NOT using my body to do this. It ends now," he hissed, scouring the immediate area for something, anything to use, when his gaze settled on a hefty hammer.

Newton knew what it was that he needed to do, but felt like he had one piece of unfinished business to wrap up before he followed through with it. He patted down his pockets and found his phone in the right pocket, exactly the last place he left it. Concentration felt difficult with the Precursors scratching and screaming at the back of his mind, but he refused to relinquish control. Instead, he found the right number and called.

"This is Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. I am unavailable at the present time but, if you have urgent business, leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible."

His heart sank at the recorded message but composed himself in time for the irritating beep afterward.

"Hey, Hermann," Newton said, his voice trembling slightly as he fought to maintain sanity. "I wish you'd pick up your damn phone. I… I hate to leave this as a message."

He paused, crumbling a little, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. "Listen, Herm, I have something really important to say. Everything that's happened recently, that… it wasn't me. But I'm me now. And this, all of this, it's not some stupid, meaningless thing just because I won't get the chance again. This is something I should've said a long fucking time ago." He drew a deep, rattling breath as a few tears leaked out. "I love you, man. I do. And you know that. But I'm saying it out loud for the first time. I fucking love you and I wish more than anything I could've heard you say it too. I wish we could've played this out, had our lives together, but what I'm doing is saving the world.

"From myself admittedly, but I'm saving it for everyone. Mako and Raleigh. For Herc. Tendo. For you, Hermann. I'm saving it for you," he wiped the tears from his cheeks and pushed the rest down. "And if you get some weird dream with a disembodied voice asking to invade your mind, just say no. Don't do what I did. Don't fuck it up."

He hung up the call and tossed the phone onto the nearest metal table with a loud clatter as the tools on it bounced and jostled. Then he walked up to the table with the heavier tools and grabbed the hammer, having to hold it with two hands. He felt the Precursors growing more wild and frantic and knew he wouldn't have much time.

"You are a beautiful piece of technology and I'm sorry to do this, but…" He ran and swung the hammer as hard as he could, ending his sentence with the sound of metal crunching.
He didn't waste any time, hitting the points that seemed crucial from only a short examination, trying to destroy as much as possible before the inevitable happened. Minutes later, the Precursors grew to the peak of the anger and Newton felt the huge drain on his energy. His hurt hand screamed in pain, his arms felt like solid lead. They were starting to take his control away and he knew he couldn't stop them.

"You can't… stop me…" he huffed, short of breath as he labored over another hammer swing, breaking apart the control panel. "You'll have to… kill me…"

We will not kill you yet, Newton. Thanks to you, there are repairs to make.

Newton growled, gripping the hammer so tightly that both his hands ached. "Fine. Then I'll do it myself."

Hermann heard his phone ring, but the noise seemed like the buzz of a lone bee on the far side of the room as he worked out the plausibility of his calculations on his computer. He drew up hologram models, graphs, everything came up negative. Based on what he was researching, it should've been a good sign, but he felt deep in his mind that something was off. It frustrated him to no end that he couldn't figure out the exact problem.

About fifteen minutes after the call, Hermann stopped to take a short break, to walk away from his work and collect his thoughts before going back into it. He walked through the tables, picking up his phone from one of them and his lunch from the fridge along the way before settling down in one of the chairs. The lab assistants were working quietly at the back of the room and Hermann had almost forgotten they were there.

He unlocked his phone, choosing to check his message first, though he felt hesitant after seeing it was from Newton. As soon as it started to play, Hermann's heart beat faster, worry constricting the muscle as Newton spoke. He said that he loved him, that he was doing something to save the world. Hermann's eyes widened, all thoughts of lunch gone, all thoughts of anything gone.

Newton wasn't in a mentally stable state, he knew only that, so he had no idea what he was about to do or what he was capable of doing. Not much of his message made sense, especially the dream part, but his stomach clenched and his breaths came through in short, panicked bursts. His mind raced at what Newton could be doing and immediately he searched for Newton's phone through the GPS tracker, hoping he had it on him.

The wait for the results felt like it took ages, but finally Newton's position showed up on a map. The Lichtenberg district, not too far from where he'd been the last time he'd used the GPS. He was so far away and based on the voice mail, Hermann felt like he didn't have much time. In a rush, he pushed himself to his feet with his cane and walked over to the interns, smacking the cane against a table leg to grab their attention.

"Which one of you owns a car and is willing to vastly exceed the speed limits for money?" he said, his expression grim as he looked over each of them.

After a quick glance at each other, Anna, Erika, and Bryson each raised their hands.

"All right. You," he said, pointing at Anna, "grab whatever you need. We're leaving right now. It's important we get there as fast as possible."

Anna leapt up, grabbing her coat off a hook by the door. "Where are we going, Dr. Gottlieb?"

"I'll give information on a need to know basis," he snapped, his anxiety getting the better of him. He frowned and shook his head, looking at poor, startled Anna apologetically. "Let's just get to the car."

The entire ride there, Hermann couldn't help but feel restless. He fidgeted with his cane, couldn't concentrate on anything but getting there in time. He only spoke when he needed to tell Anna where to turn, unable to keep the harshness of worry from his tone. Yet, upon reaching the frightful looking building, being at his destination didn't ease his anxiety. The area felt like the middle of nowhere, a lone building that no one would've ever guessed existed. Hermann unbuckled his seatbelt and Anna went to do the same, but Hermann held out his hand to stop her.

"Wait here," he said as he opened the car door. "I honestly don't know what I'll find in there. It is best if you just stay put. In fact, here."

Hermann pulled out his wallet and handed her all the euros he had in it. "Just take that and go. I'll find another way back. Thank you."

"Thank you, doctor," she said, looking hesitantly at the warehouse before turning back to him. "Stay safe."

Hermann nodded before exiting the car with help from his cane. Once Anna had left, he looked to the building as if the structure held horrors beyond his imagination. But even though that's what he feared to find, he never truly expected to find anything so nightmarish. So, he approached the warehouse and knocked on the door while opening it.

"Newton? Newton, are you in here?"

The place seemed to be just as abandoned as it looked. He stepped further inside and pulled out his phone to check the tracker again when the wreckage of a large machine caught his eye.

"What is th—"

The end of the sentence caught in his throat as he was thrown from his feet onto the floor. He let go of his cane and it clattered to the concrete just as the air left his lungs from his own hard impact. The edges of his vision blurred for a moment but returned to focus when a man bent over him, tightly gripping his neck. Hermann gasped for air but when he looked up into a pair of luminescent blue eyes, he stopped breathing altogether.

"N-Newton?" he asked, his eyes wide, heart pounding in his chest.

The blue light consumed the entirety of his eyes, so when he smiled, the inhumanity of the expression planted a deep seed of fear in Hermann's heart. Blood covered most of the top half of his face like a mask, splattered onto his broken glasses, gushing from a forehead wound.

Newton started to speak and when he spoke it sounded like many voices at once, none of them his. "I regret to inform you that Newton is no longer with us."