Erskine Ravel felt nothing. One second, he was yelling, trying his best to avoid the skeleton's detective grasp and attempting not to stumble as he was shoved towards the Accelerator.
The next, there was nothing.
The room faded, sounds became mute and everything ebbed away. For a while there was nothing but deep, dark silence
Slowly, lights appeared behind his eyelids and shapes formed, arranging themselves. There was no pain. All that existed were the three faces that formed in the darkness.
The first looked like her mother. Long brown hair and smiling eyes marked out Oblivion Armageddon. Oh, Oblivion. How proud her father was of her. How happy he was with the woman she turned out to be.
The next face, however, did not bring any sense of pride to the dying man. Golden eyes blinked at Ravel, and he felt himself scowling. His sister only grinned, blood caked over her teeth as she did so. The darkness began to shroud her, and the necromancer faded.
But Marfach was only the second face.
The third formed, warm blood trickling from his forehead and dirt layering his features. Though his face was one of many, it was the one that he dreamt of the most. Erskine blinked, his eyelids heavy, and willed himself to scream. He did not want to see this. Not that face. Never again.
Hopeless' mouth opened in an agonising screech, and Ravel's arms rose slowly, as if to clamp over his ears.
He sank to his knees in what was no longer silence, but the horrifying sound of his love dying. Tears ran down his face, streaming from red-rimmed golden eyes. Somewhere, Erskine found the breath to sob. It came out in great, heaving gasps, and his body and soul shook alike as Hopeless screamed.
After mere seconds or hours, Erskine's cracked lips formed words. "Hopeless..." he sobbed. "I love you. I love you. I'm sorry. I love you."
And then, Hopeless' face faded, and the hallucination disappeared.
Ravel's face crumpled as he let out a final, desperate scream, and clenched his hands into fists. His whole body trembled. His heart shattered, and then pieced itself back together, hardening with the death of the man he loved.
From the Accelerator, a bright white light shone, making his skin appear translucent, his bowed head displaying features scrunched up in pain.
The Accelerator shook. It wobbled. Almost confused, the machine faltered, moved slightly, and paused again. It trembled violently as Ravel's fingers stretched out and formed fists again. The Accelerator stopped, and Erskine Ravel fell out, onto his hands and knees. He gasped through streaming tears, shaking even as the Engineer stepped into the room and cocked its metal head.
Its voice seemed almost curious. "You should not be here."
The man with the golden eyes took a deep breath, raised his head, and ran.
