07-20-2025, 05:10 AM
Chapter 1: Longly Flame ("longly"? really? I am really thinking thats a typo that's never been corrected to Lonely)
This is satisfying. I love stories I can read. If Zayne was using himself in his experiments/as an experimental model, was that his heart then encased/intertwined with crystal? was that a cause or an effect? did Zayne gives himself Protocore Syndrome trying to work with protocores? but what is Protocore Syndrome anyways, when we had it too and were unstable until we got the second half of our aether core, which "fixed" us. We still have a crystalline mass embedded in our heart but its (apparently) no longer a problem.
- well the thumbnail looks like its a Zayne thing. i really love the design of that ice caduceus.
- oh, its a text story. nice! i love those.
- so... oh, man. pathos in the first three sentences. William's girl is dropping off what looks like a box of his possessions to Zayne. wonderful.
- worse. his posthumous medal.
- okay, so Zayne and Dr. Noah always turn up for first year admissions at "school", which I guess would be for the wanna-be doctors. There's the first mention of "Carter" which I remember ended up working for Xander Sciences and was trying to pressure Zayne into coming over as well. Apparently William was too busy most of the time for this yearly thing and Carter apparently isn't up to snuff, as implied by Noah. Zayne says he'll come every year but Noah reminds him that patients are more important (being that Noah is all retired and Zayne sure isn't, I guess)
- 47th First Year Medical Student Oath Ceremony, so I guess this school survived the Chronorift.
- per this very excited staff member, Zayne is "the legendary 35th academic god that we all pray to before exams".. so, if the Rift was 14 years ago, Zayne graduated 2 years after it? also, i do recall that Zayne gets prayed to by stressed medical students was mentioned somewhere in one of his cards (I think the one where he takes MC to the food truck) but that is so amusing to be reminded of that. and wow, he's even being propositioned for photographs.
- Zayne was younger than most during his 1st year in medical school. I remember in that other card that he completed the four year course in just two.
- Ghost in the Office? that seems like such a nod.
- so now we're flashing back to Dr Noah and the year 2040. /does some napkin math. so this Ghost rumor started four years after Zayne graduated, when he proposed a new model of protocore research, working under the mentorship of Noah. The "ghost" seems to just be Zayne working on stuff after hours, flipping lights on when nobody was supposed to be around and people jumping to wild conclusions.
- Zayne's parents were also doctors? oh, interesting.
- ah. so he was influenced to be a doctor by his parents but also "because of... someone." oh, ookay. "I don't want to be incapable of doing anything again when I become a threat to her."
- nani? so something happened in the past where Zayne wasn't able to "do anything" and he thinks he will become a threat in the future (which is something he said in this flashback past, so...). i am guessing that even at this early stage in his life his evol was going wonky.
- oh. wow. okay. Zayne destroyed part of his experimental data, working on this new medical protocore theory and he's being taken to task for it by the medical dean. "Sure, it doesn't affect others but it could have helped this project..." so the data was specific to Zayne himself? why would Zayne destroy any data? he's a good doctor and a great researcher.
- oh HO, Carter was his labmate and "his (Zayne's) senior". Noah won't let Carter speak first about the data loss.
- looks like there's a small time skip, Noah pushes "the students" out and talks to the dean himself.
- afterwards, Noah confesses that he told the dean that Zayne' wants to "leave the group too", whatever that means? who else wants to leave? Carter, i guess? and that Zayne is brave for being willing to abandon his research that he put so much effort into.
- "Dr Noah, this project is about the application of Protocore Energy in interventional cardiology procedures.." nice, okay. then Zayne shows Noah the only remaining image from the experiment, of a heart that looks like its beating and growing in the middle of a mass of black crystals.
- and big time skip, we're back in the present day but it says "year 2047" so this means this segment is actually a year before the main story starts with our becoming a Hunter. walking by the flowerbed where he had that conversation with Zayne so long ago, where he said he became a doctor "for someone", Noah asks Zayne if he's visited her yet. Zayne: "Not yet." "Are you afraid?" "No."
- Watching Zayne drive away, Noah thinks that Zayne will never be a part of the crowd. He remembers a single light glowing at a campsite in a blizzard in the Arctic. A lonely figure leaving in the cold wind the next day when the experiment's data was destroyed. And that he's destined to walk alone. Noah hopes that one day a fork in the road will appear for the young man to offer him tranquil respite.
This is satisfying. I love stories I can read. If Zayne was using himself in his experiments/as an experimental model, was that his heart then encased/intertwined with crystal? was that a cause or an effect? did Zayne gives himself Protocore Syndrome trying to work with protocores? but what is Protocore Syndrome anyways, when we had it too and were unstable until we got the second half of our aether core, which "fixed" us. We still have a crystalline mass embedded in our heart but its (apparently) no longer a problem.
![[Image: abyssw-alker-v0-wx0feo9sd3yod500x100.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/LXBKwXgL/abyssw-alker-v0-wx0feo9sd3yod500x100.jpg)