@carolxferris i started thinking about how halallax would react to carol’s death and then this happened oops
The four stages of grief are typically as follows: Denial, leading into Anger, which is followed by Bargaining, until finally one arrives at Acceptance.
When he finds out that Carol Ferris is dead, however, things go a little... differently.
Denial is fleeting. But oh so cold. Like everything around him freezes, the planets stop spinning and light stops dancing, but there really is no reason for it to last more than a moment. Why should it? This universe was already unfair and indiscriminate in who it took, no matter how deserving. Why should he expect anything else? What is the point in denial, when it’s all too easy to believe, no matter how it tears at him and resounds like a howl in his ears and in his throat.
Ah yes. That’s the anger. So familiar. So easy to embrace. So easy to let the rage wash over him, fury like exploding stars bursting in his chest and burning behind his eyes, and he will not let this happen, he will not let the universe take yet another person he cares about from him. The wrath of a supernova condenses into a single blade of white hot purpose, though it is his nails that cut into his hand deeply enough to draw blood as he stands and says-
He does not bargain. Bargaining suggests that he expects the universe to come to a compromise. Bargaining implies that he will give. That it wrong. He will take her back, and there will be no bargain, there will be no compromise, there will be no deal. Reality has no choice but to bend to his meagerest of whims; this, his demand, his order, his decree, his will- it will break for him.
The only acceptance he will find is when death has returned what it should never have taken, and she is in his arms once more.