Misfortune (Vi x OC)

|12| Rebirth

A strange hum rippled through my chest, a pulse of something new, something unfamiliar. The cold surface of the ground was something unlike anything I could describe, and I could feel the change in my fingers, pulsing where skin once was. I moved slowly, like something unbinding itself, shedding the remnants of what I'd been. Jayce and Mona lay slumped over, heads on the desk, their breaths even, faces worn and tired. They'd stayed, all this time, waiting. Hoping.

But I didn't feel any of that hope in myself. Only a hollow reverence—a distance. Like I was something else now, a vessel filled with function, not feeling. And standing here, watching them... I couldn't remember what it was to be held in such faith. I felt almost removed, like I was watching a memory from outside of it, some part of me drawn thin between what I was and what I'd become.

I stepped closer, but my footsteps made no sound. There was a lightness to this form that felt almost ethereal, as if I was slipping out of human bounds, beyond their world. I had twisted my own fate to stay, torn flesh, bounding myself to this life that felt... so far away. A being not of flesh alone, but something crafted, something unfeeling, edged with purpose and distance. And yet they had waited, bound to me by their mortal fragility, blind hope anchoring them.

"I... don't belong here," I whispered, and it felt like a confession. The reflection in the glass caught my eye—a stranger, something both alive and less than alive. I'd survived, yes, but it wasn't grace. It was something else, something hollow, something otherworldly. And in that moment, it was clear to me: this was not my place. Not anymore.

"I can feel this body dying all around me..."

Mona's head lifted first, her face blurring, then clearing as the awareness struck her. Her eyes widened with a look so desperate, so fragile. She was beside me before I could find the words—or perhaps I had no words left to give. She held a blanket in trembling hands, wrapping it around me with such devotion that I could not grasp, the warmth seeping through but never reaching. I should feel something, I thought. But the emotions that had once stirred in me felt distant, like a forgotten melody.

I could hear her voice break, raw with emotion as she clung to me, her tears stinging my skin. I understood the weight of her grief, yet I felt no flicker of response, no ember of what had once connected us. Instead, there was only a stillness, a yawning void in me, and the echo of a question that had taken root the moment I awoke: Why?

In that moment, it felt as though I were a something immortal miscast on human soil, lost somewhere between life and death. The world around me pulsed in shades I could see but not feel, as though I was watching from a great distance. And Mona... she clung to a memory, to the man I had been.

"Jayce? Mona" I said "Viktor? My God." Jayce then pulled me into a long hug, but still, nothing. "What... am I?" I asked again "You're... You're alive." Mona chuckled shakily "You're... You're alive."

"Sorry if the blanket is thin—You must be cold." Mona said through sniffles

"Cold. No, I don't think so. I sense a charge. A potential. A recursive impulse. Unpleasant, but... "cold" isn't its name." I responded, Jayce stuttered "The Hexcore. Viktor, it saved you. Somehow it... It adapted to your injuries, changing and evolving. It was as if it was connected to you. I did my best using the notes from your leg. Recorded everything. There are still so many questions, but..."

"I was supposed to die. You promised to destroy the Hexcore."

"No. Don't you see? Heimerdinger was wrong. We were wrong. It's not as bad as we..."

"It killed Sky, Jayce." I interrupted

"What? No."

"She had such dreams. As did we once."