Pacing, tracing, shouting, screaming, singing, silence —

Sutekh stared hard at a photo on his lab desk, head hammering a beat against his skull as he tried to make sense of what he saw. Everything forbid it. His thoughts could not form. Static danced and swirled and crackled over what he /knew/ was someone else.

There is pacing now.

He walked endless cycles on the floor of his lab, tail furious and ignoring the gashes it produced on his legs. Something was missing, something *big* was missing. The static ached, screamed for eight thousand years' worth of memory. He traced a slight indent in his ring finger. Missing, lost, forgotten — his heart twisted. His throat knotted. It hurt. It h u r t.

He screamed.

He screamed until his throat was raw, until his lungs burned and ribs ached. Some of it was words, some of it was nonsense. All of it, all of it was coated with his frustration and pain. He ended up curled against a wall, back pressed harshly to where he could *feel* something else was missing. Something trivial. Something warm. Something comforting.

Days of this went by. Weeks. Almost a month of this fervor.

There was singing now.

A tune long forgotten, lyrics never quite right. Notes off by one. He tried to remember, tried to think of it. Any attempt to write it down had forced his hand to shatter his utensil. Glass, wood, plastic — all crumbled beneath him. He cared not, wrote with blood. Tore the pages, tore his mind. He tried for a month. He failed for a month. Nothing felt right. There was an acrid taste in his throat.

— Silence.

A month he spent wordless, soundless. Photo frames cracked and photos folded over, placed face-side down. He couldn't bear the ache. He couldn't touch upon the void in his mind. He could only stand at the horizon, forbidden to see what lies within. It did not steal anything new. It did not take what it shouldn't. But it festers on his mind. It hisses, growls, burbles.

Sutekh was lost. Lost and alone, with no true guidance. No 'other half.' It left a hole in his mind, his heart, his soul. He could not tell its shape. He could not feel its name.

But he knew.
And that was enough for it to burn him from within.

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