when he is revived, there is nothing. the last throes of project lazarus as the machine is destroyed, plucking anyone it could from the afterlife to bring them back to imperia. he's been dead for - well, he's not sure.
just that he died.
like he was meant to. like he was always supposed to do. standing under the sword of damocles ends with it through your neck, apparently.
a hand goes to his throat, and he coughs, pushing himself up from the floor. all he knows is that he died, and now he - wasn't dead anymore.
a guard - no, a medic - slips an arm under his shoulder. they're talking, and he can't quite hear, like through water... his vision doesn't seem quite right, either. pale. fraying at the edges. his skin feels wrong.
there's doctors around him, talking. telling him that he could live. stay living, temporarily, though not long. that those who were revived would only suffer the whole time they managed to hold onto this secondary life. everything hurts. he can't quite feel his limbs, and for a moment he's apologetic for leaning so heavily onto the medic by his side.
"you might as well just kill me," he broaches. he coughs. the medics stare him down with something unreadable - bewilderment? fear? regret?
"i don't know if i can bring myself to do that, sir."
they walk with him - rather, it's more like they're carrying him at this point, and they argue with him on it. on his own "choice", as if he ever had one. and his mind drifts, slowly. theres an emptiness there. a lack of... purpose. it's almost more vulnerable without the sword at his neck. he can't -
he can't do this.
there's no memory he can pull. what he was doing. who he was. his own name, personality, preferences, it's all fuzzy. there's a face, though, if he thinks - manages to think, between the coughing and the pain. pale hair, dark horns. claws. red. anger. deeper than anger -
there.
purpose.
he stops walking, and the medics jerk to a halt, a wheezing laughter and coughing pulled from his undead lungs. if his purpose is no longer in this world, then... "wherever he is... send me to him."
and they listen to him, and through the sense of anger, it's like release. it feels like ------'s blade, again. he knows it'll be hell, but he doesn't care. to be back again pursuing, or - by the side of - the one person he could recall in all clarity.
the one person who he could never forget. never leave the side of. not for long.
Solev.