Chapter Text
His eighty fifth birthday was supposed to be quiet, at least that was what Zandik had told you. No grand celebrations or official gatherings with fatui, he had grown intolerant of those things with his age. The younger versions of himself would have called it sentimentality, the older Zandik simply called it exhaustion. You remembered the faint smile on his face the previous evening as he sat beside the fireplace, one hand resting over yours while pages of some ancient manuscript lay forgotten in his lap.
"Just dinner," he had said.
His voice had become rougher over the years, deeper around the edges.
"Only dinner," you had laugh. "What do you want for your birthday?"
He didn’t even look up from the page. "Nothing."
You frowned immediately. "That’s such a boring answer."
That finally earned you a glance. There was faint amusement hidden behind his exhaustion, subtle enough that most people would have missed it entirely.
"Then I'll give you a better one,"
His both hand quietly found yours, fingers slipping between them with familiar ease.
"Another year with you."
The memory struck like a blade now, because those had been the last words he ever said to you.
The morning on his birthday arrived wrapped in silence, an unnatural silence that felt wrong before you even understood why. The residence was unusually quiet as you walked through the corridors carrying a small box wrapped in dark blue paper. The gift inside was insignificant compared to everything the two of you had shared over the years, yet you knew he would appreciate it regardless. You were already planning how the conversation would go, how he would inevitably criticize the wrapping and how he would pretend not to care then he would secretly keep it forever regardless.
Then you reached the laboratory, the doors stood partially open as you immediately noticed several voice inside, too many voices. Your footstep slowed as you felt something cold settled in your stomach, the gift box slipped slightly in your grasp, and then you entered. The package fell from your hands as the sound echoed through the laboratory, nobody looked at you as you watch your husband lay motionless upon the floor. His hair spread around him like spilled silver beneath the harsh laboratory lights, one arm rested awkwardly against his chest while the other remained stretched toward the nearby worktable as if he had been reaching for something or someone moments before death claimed him.
His eyes were closed as he surrounded by his own segments, they formed a circle around his dead body as if observing them like a mere specimen. For several seconds your mind refused to understand what you were seeing, because none of them looked devastated or broken. None of them looked like they had just lost the original consciousness from which they had been born. Instead, they look fascinated or excited even. A chill crawled up your spine, one segment crouched beside the body examining his hands. Another appeared to be documenting visible signs of age, several were already discussing possible cause of death openly as if standing before a remarkable discovery.
"What happened?" The words escaped your throat in a whisper.
Several heads turned, as if they just realized that you're here. One of them adjusted his glasses, another glanced down at a recording device while the third merely shrugged.
"Cardiac failure appears most likely."
The response felt absurd as you stared at them, and then back at Zandik who lying on the floor. Something inside your chest shattered as you stumbled forward fell to your knees beside him, your hands immediately found his face. His face felt cold in your hand, cold enough to destroy every remaining fragment of hope. The scream that escaped you echoed through the laboratory, it bounced off steel walls a sound so raw and broken it barely resembled a human voice.
The segments watched you with visible confusion. They understood that you were grieving your husband's death, but wasn't he still here? Weren't they all parts of him? Fragments of the same mind, the same person some of them would even argue better versions of Zandik. They couldn't understand the sorrow etched across your face. To some of them, it seemed absurd. The immortal elixir had worked perfectly on you years had passed, yet you still looked as young as ever. Meanwhile, the original Zandik had grown old long before his death.
So why mourn him so desperately?
Surely you should have been relieved. If anything, you had been given a younger version of him in return. At least, that was how some of the segments saw it, they failed to understand that while they shared his memories, his face, and pieces of his soul, none of them were the man you had lost.
Then Segment Forty five spoke. The fur lining his coat shifted slightly as he moved.
"The Main just died, and the body's still fresh. I need all hands on deck," he said, already sounding far too enthusiastic. "We need to prepare for the autopsy and start recording immediately."
You slowly lifted your head, staring at the sick, twisted excitement written across his face.
"What?" The word barely left your mouth.
The rest of the conversation became a blur as you stared at them in disbelief. Your husband had been dead for less than an hour, and they were already discussing how to cut him open. As if he were nothing more than another specimen lying on an examination table, as if the man who had loved you for years was no longer a person, but a research subject waiting to be studied. You looked down at Zandik, the man who had lived eighty five years, the man who had laughed with you yesterday. And surrounding his corpse stood reflections of his younger selves eagerly debating who would get to hold the scalpel first.
The laboratory suddenly felt too small and too loud, you remained kneeling beside Zandik's body while voices continued rising around you, overlapping into a blur observations and detached speculation. You could still feel the lingering cold beneath your fingertips where your hand rested against his face, and yet the segments had already begun discussing preservations methods, tissue degradation rates, neurological examination procedures, and countless other things that made your stomach twist.
You slowly lifted your gaze. The youngest segment, the one preserved at eight years old stood near the doorway. Despite his age, there was no fear on his face. No horror at the corpse lying before him, no discomfort at the sight of death. Instead, he looked confused. His eyes flickered repeatedly between the body and the older segments gathered around it, his brow furrowing slightly as if he were trying to solve a particularly difficult problem. It was the kind of confusion that should not have existed in a child standing before a dead man. Not a grief or shock, merely a quiet inability to understand why everyone was reacting differently than expected.
One of the older segments placed a hand upon his shoulder, "Leave."
The child frowned at that, "But—"
"Leave."
The second command carried enough authority to kill the argument before it could even begin. The child glanced one last time toward Zandik’s body, then toward you. There was still that strange confusion lingering in his expression, quiet and unsettling, as though he could not understand why the atmosphere in the room felt so heavy. Then he allowed himself to be escorted from the laboratory, the heavy doors shut behind him with a dull metallic thud, sealing the room back into silence.
You feel sick to your stomach by keep hearing them speak about to cut your husband open, slowly you stood. The movement finally drew their attention, for the first time since entering the laboratory, the corpse ceased being the center of attention, but you.
An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, despite their fascination with Zandik's death, every single segment had also been watching you. You had always known it. Through years of marriage and countless encounters, the segments had never looked at you the way ordinary people did. There was always something unsettling in their gaze, something that lingered a little too long, observed a little too closely.
Especially Segment Thirty Five.
Omega build.
Ever since you had entered the room, his eyes had never left you. Not once or even for a moment, while the others examined the body sprawled across the floor, Omega watched you instead. As if your grief was far more interesting than death itself.
"Where are you going?"
The Segment Thirty or he called himself as Webttore build step forward looking at you with confusion, his white suit appeared immaculate despite the circumstances with his strange blue and white mask concealed most of his expression. You stared at him, at the face resembled Zandik's, at eyes that possessed none of his age, his wisdom and none of his humanity.
"Away from here." Your voice sounded colder than intended.
His brow furrowed at that, "You shouldn't leave."
The statement almost made you laugh. A bitter, broken sound rose in your throat, threatening to escape.
Shouldn't?
Your husband had been dead for less than an hour. And already the segments were discussing how best to dissect him, how to preserve their findings, how to turn the man you loved into another subject of study. Yet somehow, you were the one who wasn't allowed to leave. Your fingers curled into trembling fists, did they expect you to stay? To stand there and watch as they cut him open? To watch cold instruments carve through the same hands that had held yours, the same chest you had rested your head against, the same body that had shared centuries of his life with you?
The Twenty five year old segment adjusted his glasses, "We understand your emotional state."
"No." Your word cut through the room sharply.
"None of you understand."
Before you could leave, Omega stepped into your path, effortlessly blocking the doorway. His hand settled on your shoulder, the grip deceptively gentle as his fingers pressed down ever so slightly.
"Should I sent you back to the manor?"
A chill crawled down your spine the moment your eyes met his, you had seen that look before. You were not blind, neither was Zandik. Neither of you had ever spoken about it aloud, but you both knew. You had caught Omega staring too many times over the years, his gaze lingering just a little too long whenever he thought no one was paying attention. It was not affection or admiration, it was hunger. A quiet, patient hunger that made your skin crawl whenever it settled on you. Your stomach twisted, without a word, you brushed his hand off your shoulder. The contact lasted only a second, yet it felt suffocating all the same.
"There's no need."
You look once more toward Zandik's body, and then without another word, you brushed past Omega and headed for the door. Immediately footsteps and voiced followed,
"Wait."
"Listen."
"You shouldn't be alone."
"You need supervision."
Omega watched your retreating figure disappear through the doorway, his crimson eyes lingering long after you were gone. Around him, the laboratory buzzed with discussion and question about your retreating figured, yet for the first time in years, he found himself unable to care. A slow, twisted smile tugged at the corner of his lips as something warm and ugly unfurled inside his chest. Freedom.
The feeling was so intoxicating he almost laughed. For years, every lingering glance, every selfish thought, every forbidden desire had been kept firmly beneath the shadow of the man lying lifeless on the floor behind him. The original had always been there, an immovable barrier standing between Omega and the one thing he could never have. But now that barrier was gone. At last, there would be no one left to stop him from reaching for what he had spent years wanting.