Zandik — Dottore

Snezhnaya had been swallowed by another snowstorm.

Beyond the tall windows of Zandik's private residence, the world had nearly disappeared beneath a curtain of white. Snow battered the glass hard enough to make the windowpanes tremble, carried by violent winds that swept across the frozen landscape without mercy. The roads leading toward the estate had vanished beneath several layers of fresh snow, and even the distant lights of the laboratory complex were barely visible through the storm.

It was the sort of weather that forced even Snezhnaya's most stubborn inhabitants indoors.

Fortunately, Zandik's residence had been built with such winters in mind.

A large fireplace occupied one side of the sitting room, its flames burning steadily behind an iron grate. The warmth spread slowly through the otherwise imposing room, catching on the polished wood, dark metal fixtures, and shelves crowded with books, research notes, and objects whose purposes were better left unexplained. The faint smell of burning wood lingered beneath the sharper scent of old paper and chemicals that seemed to have permanently settled into the walls.

Outside, the storm raged.

Inside, everything was quiet.

This residence—and everything surrounding it—had not existed when Zandik first arrived in Snezhnaya.

Once, he had been nothing more than a disgraced Akademiya student, branded a problem rather than a promising scholar. His name had become synonymous with dangerous research and insubordination, and eventually, he had been cast aside as a failed student whose ambitions had exceeded what the Akademiya was willing to tolerate.

Zandik had simply refused to accept that verdict.

What followed had taken decades.

He built his own laboratories from nothing. Then another. Then another. He gathered researchers, engineers, assistants, and machines beneath his command until what had begun as a solitary pursuit became an entire scientific dynasty. His facilities spread farther across Snezhnaya, each one dedicated to some branch of research that the Akademiya had once deemed unacceptable, impractical, or simply too dangerous to pursue.

And among his greatest achievements were the Segments.

Countless versions of himself had been created over the years—copies designed to continue his work, to pursue different lines of research, to preserve knowledge that one lifetime could never contain.

They had accomplished precisely what Zandik had intended.

They endured.

They continued working.

They could remain unchanged while decades passed.

The original Zandik, however, had never possessed that luxury.

He had remained exactly what he had been at birth: human.

Eighty-five years had passed since then.

His body had aged accordingly.

There had been no miraculous escape from mortality. No perfect preservation. No convenient transformation into something beyond human limitations. While his Segments continued their work with bodies that seemed untouched by the passage of time, the original had gradually accumulated every consequence that came with living too long in one body.

His hair had gone gray. His movements had become slower. His hands occasionally ached after hours of work. His eyesight was no longer what it had once been.

And, increasingly, neither was his memory.

It had started with insignificant things.

Misplaced notes.

Forgotten names.

Tools left in laboratories and then searched for half a day.

A thought disappearing halfway through an explanation.

At first, Zandik had treated each occurrence as an inconvenience. Then as an irritation. Eventually, he had been forced to acknowledge that age was taking pieces of him with a persistence he could neither dissect nor intimidate.

He hated that more than almost anything. Especially because you had begun helping him.

Too much, in his opinion.

Zandik sat in his usual chair near the fireplace, an open book resting in one hand. He had been reading the same page for several minutes without turning it.

You had already made sure the fire was properly tended, moved one of his heavier research volumes closer to him, and quietly taken care of several small things he would once have done himself without a second thought.

Zandik noticed every single one.

“You do realize,” he muttered, eyes still fixed on the book, “that I am perfectly capable of doing those things myself.”

The statement might have carried more weight if he had not spent the last ten minutes sitting in exactly the same position. And his gaze finally lifted toward you.

“I am eighty-five. Not incapacitated. Nor am I some senile old man who needs to be supervised every time he stands up.”

His expression tightened slightly, as though the mere implication offended his dignity.

“You have developed an irritating habit of treating me as though I will collapse the moment you stop watching.”

He looked away again, returning his attention to the book.

A few seconds passed.

Then another.

The storm continued howling beyond the windows.

Zandik's eyes moved across the same paragraph once more.

There had been something he wanted to say, something about the laboratory or perhaps the storm.

No. It had been about—

He closed the book.

“...Never mind.”

The irritation in his voice was directed entirely at himself now. He sat in silence for another moment, fingers resting against the cover of the book. Whatever thought had been there was simply gone, leaving behind the familiar, aggravating emptiness.

Rather than admit defeat, Zandik decided the subject had never been important in the first place.

His eyes shifted toward you.

“Come here.”

He gestured toward the empty space beside his chair, his expression returning to its usual composure.

“The storm will not be ending anytime soon.”

A faint crackle came from the fireplace. Zandik leaned back into his chair, looking toward the windows as snow continued to batter the glass.

“Sit with me.”

There was no grand declaration in his voice.

Just the quiet expectation of someone who had grown accustomed to having you there—and, despite everything his pride insisted upon, had no intention of getting used to your absence.

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