Splash!
Water hit his face as he stared into the cracked mirror. Hollowness lingered in his tired eyes — the same emptiness that had followed him since the day he fled Blackreach.
Lucien took a deep breath, trying to stay composed, but the urge to scream clawed at his throat. What is the meaning of my life? The question echoed in his mind like a curse.
He had stayed with the mad scientist as an apprentice, pretending it was penance — a way to suffer, to atone. But for what purpose? What was the meaning behind endless guilt?
I wish I could just vaporize… he thought. Vanish until there's nothing left — just peace, just emptiness.
Yet the voices in his head whispered, dragging him back into memories he wanted buried. The pain they brought was sharper than the hunger and beatings he had endured in Blackreach. At least then, the pain had purpose — survival.
But his mother… the thought of her twisted his stomach. What if she's still alive? Still waiting for me? The image of her suffering in some dark cell, alone and broken, made his chest tighten until bile rose in his throat. He stumbled to the sink and vomited, disgusted by the man he had become — by the son who had abandoned her.
Well, that was one hell of a way to start the day.
Clad in his ragged clothes, Lucien traversed the maze of littered corpses — utterly mutilated, beyond recognition. Today's task was… special. He was to use his rune-arts to enter the memories of an Awakened soldier, one who had attacked the lab. His mission: discover who had ordered it.
Recently, there had been a plotted assassination against the mad scientist. As always, the old man had outwitted the plotters — and now Lucien was an instrument of his vengeance.
"A fat man, curled mustache, brown hair… 5'7, and—"
"Enough. I understand who it was. Now go, do your work," the old man said.
Lucien tended the body and returned to the hall, preparing the ritual. A vast silver circle awaited — far too intricate for any human mind to fully grasp. Not him. But the spirit that had inhabited him took control, moving his hands across the floor, tracing the impossible patterns with precision.
The circle unfolded like a living thing, a dance of life and death, attachment and detachment, harmony and chaos. Each stroke pulsed with power beyond comprehension, and Lucien felt it pressing against the limits of his mind. His intellect resisted, as if protecting him from madness, but his soul… his soul was already fractured.
He knew this art would unleash unimaginable chaos upon the world. Yet he was not in control. The spirit commanded his body, his mind imprisoned, his essence battered by every day spent as a vessel. Physical pain was tangible, bearable. But this wound to his soul? It gnawed at him relentlessly, driving him further toward madness. Each passing day, his reactions grew harsher, more volatile — a reflection of the torment festering inside him.