[ in death there is nothing. no presence, no existence. just quiet. peace, if one recalled what came before. loneliness, if one could recall who was missing. a hooked up heart spreads its shimmering drug through jayce's inert veins and arteries, causing a compulsory reaction across sickly tissue beginning with his open chest cavity: contraction. reaction. the surprise purple gleam of it glows from underneath jayce's pallor and fuses with the anomaly's uncanny coloring at their very edges. they curl, twine, it's only a touch, a greeting— magic and chemistry shake hands and wait for the perfect catalyst, while deep within jayce's consciouness, something . . . stirs. in that dark quiet speaks a voice that felt like home, accent thick and inviting:
are you ready to try again, jayce?
the shock erupts through his system, surges through his bones and decaying tissue until his veins bulge purple from the chest out, webbing and merging with the anomaly's rooted patterns from within jayce and spreading until shimmer and arcanic infection are one and the same. the rot welcomes the stimulus and feeds on it, uses it as potent fuel to repair what was needed of it. self-propagating. self-destructive.
rise up, jayce.
there were some things that this mad experiment couldn't override, or fix, but it would have to do; there were changes this world has marked him with, just as its marked viktor. jayce's open wounds do not heal in full. his chest remains splayed, the bone that's been plucked from the case of his ribs, gone. he is as cold as a corpse and would remain that way despite the concoction of chemicals in his system, but at least the pus-leaking holes are filled with symmetrical blooms that do not bleed his newly forming blood, a now viscous goop of arcane rot and shimmer kept tucked and pulsing within his circulation.
with each apparent thump from his donor's heart clearly seen through the window the herald had carved, jayce's cells reanimate. with every ripple, fingers and muscles lurch. he is unconscious, for now, but technically— he's alive.
AND WE'RE BACK
are you ready to try again, jayce?
the shock erupts through his system, surges through his bones and decaying tissue until his veins bulge purple from the chest out, webbing and merging with the anomaly's rooted patterns from within jayce and spreading until shimmer and arcanic infection are one and the same. the rot welcomes the stimulus and feeds on it, uses it as potent fuel to repair what was needed of it. self-propagating. self-destructive.
rise up, jayce.
there were some things that this mad experiment couldn't override, or fix, but it would have to do; there were changes this world has marked him with, just as its marked viktor. jayce's open wounds do not heal in full. his chest remains splayed, the bone that's been plucked from the case of his ribs, gone. he is as cold as a corpse and would remain that way despite the concoction of chemicals in his system, but at least the pus-leaking holes are filled with symmetrical blooms that do not bleed his newly forming blood, a now viscous goop of arcane rot and shimmer kept tucked and pulsing within his circulation.
with each apparent thump from his donor's heart clearly seen through the window the herald had carved, jayce's cells reanimate. with every ripple, fingers and muscles lurch. he is unconscious, for now, but technically— he's alive.
perhaps undead is the better word for it. ]