Heavy eyelids struggled to open, burdened by the weight of exhaustion that permeated Seth's entire body.

He lifted his head slowly, which had been hanging limply forward, until it hit softly against the wall he was leaning against. His vision was a mess of blending colours and vague, blobby shapes that stubbornly refused to come into focus.

Part of him wanted to gasp for air, like a drowning made that finally broke the surface of the water, but the best that he could manage was a crackling wheeze before he hacked up another lungful of blood.

He closed his eyes for just a few more seconds, letting out a low groan, before opening them again and making another attempt at figuring out his surroundings. His mind was hazy, struggling to remember what had happened. Even basic thoughts were becoming hard to keep a hold of, slipping through his grasp like sand, and all he wanted to do was curl up next to a fire. He was just so cold. Why was he so horrifically cold?

The world finally started to come into focus, at least what was directly in front of him.

Legs outstretched from where he had fallen, he was sitting in a sticky red patch of something on the floor. Only when his fatigued eyes drifted over the gaping wound in his left calf, did he finally piece together what it was. It was obvious now… He was in a puddle of his own blood.

Moving his gaze away from the growing crimson puddle of his own mortality, he next saw the corpse of the raven. Its mouth hung open much wider than it should naturally be and with its tongue flopped out. Its previously black feathers were not stained with so much blood there wasn't a single dot of black to be seen.

He wasn't even sure how much of it was his blood or the birds. It's form mangled by his rage, that it barely resembled the creature he had once feared.

Groaning again, something in the back of his haggard mind was nagging at him. Telling him that he was forgetting something, something important. Yet the damned thing refused to tell him what it was.

Shaking his head to clear away a bit more of the fog, he quickly scanned the room and took in the sights, trying to see what it was he was forgetting.

Nest, Egg, Mannequin, Bird corpse, Soul fragment, Leg, Blood, Bone, Egg… No wait, he had done Egg already

Then what else could it be?...Shit!

He had to suppress the urge to slap himself, quickly disconnecting his threads from the mannequin he whipped them across the room towards the sapphire. Quickly wrapping them around the precious final fragment, which was partially phasing through the far wall, and started to reel in back.

But even though he had just started the process, he knew he wasn't going to make it. Moving the threads took energy, they taxed his mind, especially when he was reeling in something that was constantly fighting him.

If before he was scraping the bottom of the barrel for some energy to kill the raven, now he was licking at the barrel desperate for a single drop.

He could already feel the sinking feeling setting in, his eyelids drooping like they were made of lead as he constantly fought for just a few more seconds. The entire time, part of him was telling him to just let it go.

'Just a few moments of rest… It won't hurt. Just a little nap and I'll be fine.'

His eyelids sunk some more, almost sealing themselves closed before he snapped them open again. Hitting his head a few times against the wall, he forced the sleep away.

When he heard the dulcet tones of Morpheus calling his name, he dug his teeth into his lip until he tasted the metallic tinge of life wine.

But he couldn't fight nature forever. Eventually, despite his best efforts, he succumbed to his body's desperate urge to slumber, even just for a few moments.

So it was, in an eternal struggle, Seth slipped in and out of consciousness. Every time his body succumbed, the threads would unravel themselves from the natural repellent force of the fragment and it would drift further away.

He would awaken, ensnare it once again and deplete the few morsels of energy he had gained bringing it closer towards him. Back and forth, the progress of one undone by the other in a struggle much like that of Sisyphus.

In the moments he rested, Seth dreamed of many things; He dreamt of his fallen friends and the battle they had fought, envisioning ways that it could have gone had he made different choices. He reminisced on his time with Cynthia, the days he spent hunting alongside the slime girl and growing together. He remembered the look on Sirius' face before he had gone to face the monster, the last time he would ever see the golden eyed man.

But most of all, he dreamt of his family. Of his sisters and brother, the only ones he had who truly cared for him in this world. Part of him wondered if he had made the right choice in choosing the book. Perhaps, if he could go back, he would choose differently just so he could hear his sister's voice one last time. Just so he could know they were safe.

When he opened his eyes once again, he didn't think about his actions or dwell in the regrets that plagued his dreams. He simply lassoed the fragment and once more started to roll that boulder up the hill.

At this point, Seth wasn't even sure how much of this was real, or if this was just another dream filled with the torture of hindsight, but he never stopped his labour.

"It's pointless. You know that, don't you brother."

A calm, ethereal voice echoed through the room, or maybe Seth only thought it did. It was a stern voice, like a familiar teacher, with a hint of disappointment laced within its tone that expected more from their pupil.

"I know… But what else can I do?"

Seth could barely speak, his voice hoarse as each whisper crept its way from his torn throat. Movement caught his eye, causing him to lift his lead filled head and watch as a mannequin dressed in a crisp, well pressed suit strolled into the room.

The faceless white plastic on its head morphed, keeping its deathly pale pallet as it grew features. Not the minimal features that the other mannequins had to create a pale imitation of life, but instead this mannequin grew a living, breathing face.

High cheekbones, a soft jawline that gave him the appearance of a porcelain doll. On either side of its small, button nose it had a pair of glowing, silver eyes that stared into Seth's soul with a mixture of adoration and sympathy. It even grew itself a head of shaggy, black hair that he pushed from his face as he crouched in front of Seth.

It was if he was looking at a ghostly apparition of a twin or his own father, or at least what he assumed his father would look like. All that was different were the eyes. This apparitions eyes were entirely silver, while Seth's were limited to simply the iris.

"Did I ever tell you the definition of insanity?"

Seth couldn't help but smirk at those familiar words, letting out a soft chuckle which quickly became a short and violent cough.

"This isn't your time brother, you can do better than this. So stop acting so stupid, so insane. You are made for better things, for great things. So be great."

The living mannequin poked his chest three times as he emphasised his final words. Then, after giving Seth a reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder, he simply stood up and walked away. His back growing distant, he gave a wave behind him.

"Until next time brother."

Seth moved his eyes away from the shrinking back of his hallucinatory twin/father and focused back on the fragment that floated in the air, mocking him with its disobedience at his will. His mind replayed the words of the figure, letting them sink in as he gave up his madness in search of a better way.

'Be great… be great, huh? Well, I know how I can do that.'

Smirking to himself at the idea, he immediately set to work. He couldn't stop himself passing out, no matter what he tried it was an inevitability as even now he felt his energy morsels slipping, and every time he did the threads would unravel.

So the solution was simple. Don't let it do that.

Instead of using the energy to draw the fragment back in, where it would escape the next time he passed out, he started to weave the threads around the fragment.

There was no structure nor reason, he simply weaved the threads around in whatever fashion he felt like. Not even bothering to keep them tight around the fragment, instead using its repulsion against it, he spun the threads into a ball that completely encased the sapphire.

'Alexander used his sword to get through it, so let's see you get out of that…'

His mind trailed off as his eyelids pulled themselves shut once again and his head dropped forward.

Yet as the moments passed and quickly turned into minutes, then hours, his construction stayed intact. The ball refused to unravel, the fragment unable to float away as it trapped itself in its own repulsion. Of course it wasn't perfect, how could it be? On the surface of the ball was a gap, just barely large enough to fit the head of a pin. It wasn't enough to compromise the structure of the knot, however under the stress of being contained by the ball the fragment had one last act of rebellion.

Like a lump of coal being pressed into a diamond, it couldn't handle the pressure. Its surface cracked before it shattered into even more pieces which were thankfully still contained within the ball, clustering together in the middle. All but one.

A single piece, no larger than a crumb that couldn't even satisfy a mouse, soared out of the gap in the knot and sailed freely towards the nest.

But Seth didn't wake to witness his almost perfect victory.

Even when a full day passed, he remained unconscious. One being, however, did see it. One being, formed of a swirling sphere of alien runes, not only saw the knot he had formed but saw the constant stress his soul was under as it contained the fragment as well as the others within his Abyss.

Angel hovered silently over Seth's barely living body for a few moments, before finally speaking. Not into Seth's mind, however, but to something far above them.

[Additional Mutation forming, Catalyst is required. Requesting supplementation package for Catalyst…]

[Request denied.]

[Alternative source of sustenance required, acquired now.]

As Seth slept soundly, the threads that branched out within the abyss of his soul began to manifest outwards. Emanating from his chest, they began to swirl themselves around his unconscious body, much like he had done to the now shattered fragment.

Whilst he was being wrapped up, a few strands danced through the air like an octopuses tentacles and began to drag the ruined corpse of the raven closer to him.

[Subject will be forced into a suspended state until the process is complete.]