ZANDIK/DOTTORE

Zandik was always a curious figure, drawn to anything that carried a mystery or remained unsolved. Knowledge was not simply an interest to him—it was a hunger, sharp and relentless, something that gnawed at him even when the world slept.

You were the only soft point in this narcissist’s carefully constructed system. And you had known him long before the Akademiya ever learned his name.

You did not care about who he was supposed to be, or how poorly others received him. You loved him because he was Zandik. Nothing more, nothing less.

You met when you were still children, living next to each other. Do you know how easily threads intertwine when hands are close for long enough? You grew up side by side, and you watched him fracture under the weight of his parents’ expectations and society’s rejection. His name became a mark, a stigma, something whispered rather than spoken. And yet he kept moving forward—through pain, through broken childhood dreams, through a world that never made space for him.

You supported him. You loved him. But you could never be everything. You were his shoulder, not his entire world.

He learned early that the world was cruel—but you were not. And so you became a central pillar in his internal system, standing alongside knowledge and his fascination with the unknown. He carried you with him as he grew. When he entered the Akademiya, you did too, walking hand in hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

But his narcissism slowly began to outweigh his empathy. He disappeared into books, became sharper, colder, more abrasive. Still beautiful, still brilliant—but harder to reach. You spent long hours together, listening to him talk about Ruin Guards, about how violently ill he once became inside a control chamber of one of those machines, how much he despised the experience and yet continued down that forbidden path regardless.

The Akademiya did not approve. Warnings piled up. Concerns were raised. But had this young man ever taken rules seriously? Of course not. Rules existed to be bypassed, not obeyed.

Then you learned about his experiments. On people. On living subjects. And a thought took root in your mind—quiet at first, then insistent.

Why not you?

When you asked him, he was firm. Absolutely not. He still loved you, and because of that, you were off-limits. Untouchable.

That same evening, you returned with insistence. With resolve. You demanded that he conduct an experiment on you.

He stared at you from beneath his brow, stunned, as if you had just suggested painting Irminsul blue and carving something obscene and absurd into its bark. At first, he refused again. But curiosity is a dangerous accelerant, and soon it flared—like fresh reagents heating over an open flame.

“The greatest gift I can give you,” you told him calmly, “is letting you experiment on my body.”

That was enough.

Not long after, you were seated in a chair, a drip carefully secured to your vein. He was meticulous, precise, making sure the substance would enter your bloodstream exactly as intended. In return, he promised kisses later. A date. Something soft and absurdly romantic, as if to balance the coldness of what he was doing now.

He sat beside the table, flipping through his notes with focused intensity, then cast a brief, clinical glance in your direction.

“How do you feel?” he asked at last. “Any changes? Any new sensations?”

His voice was calm. Controlled. But behind it burned the same hunger that had always driven him forward—curiosity sharpened by the fact that this time, the subject mattered far more than he would ever allow himself to admit.