It was a few weeks now, and Tadeus grew to loathe the monotony of what in his eyes amounted to maintaining a rodent zoo. He knew of course the importance of the project, he had started the damn thing, but the work on the way to his goal has been tedious and boring. It worried him, since he used to love lab work, no matter how long and repetitive his tasks were. He used to find beauty in the little "rituals" of studying a test sample, the 'waltz of science' as he liked to call it, the movements long, deliberate, practiced.

Now he couldn't stomach it. The now familiar itch for action and change was making him hate everything that made his job worthwhile to him before.

"Lena, I can't work on the project anymore."

"What?! You're just gonna shut the whole thing down halfway in?"

"Of course not. But I burned out, I think. If I spend another day tending to those rats I legitimately fear I will choke the little buggers to death. I know proper experiments take time, but I lost any sort of drive, the moment that this whole thing becomes worth it seems so far away It might as well never happen."

"So what now? Someone has to be in charge of the trials."

Tadeus let out a sigh. "I know this is a huge ask, but could you take over? You already basically co-own the project."

"Tad, this is an asshole move to dump all this on me you know that?"

"I do, but as you said it's halfway there so we would waste so much money and time if we called it off now."

"So because the consequences of your actions scare you you want me to stop them from affecting you. I thought we've come to some sort of understanding here, that you are a dependable person who has their shit together. Screw this, I already made sure there is no animal abuse here, I don't even have to be here for a minute longer. Goodbye, Tadeus." With that, she stormed off, leaving the building.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

Tad's first instinct was to try and stop her, but he quickly realized that would be pointless.

"As a famous philosopher once said 'this was at this moment that he knew. He fucked up.' " Tadeus fell back on his usual coping mechanism of gallow's humor.

----------------------------------------

"She changed ber mind yet?"

"It's been three days, Dave, she's not picking up phone, she probably left the town, and students ask me why one of the head researchers up and fucked off. She trapped me in the project; she knew I would not leave it to die, so she forced me to stay by… well, doing what I wanted to do. Serves me right, but still a dick move, and I'm getting worse at keeping my composure."

David pulled Tadeus in a hug. "We'll figure something out, man, we always do."

"I'm not so sure about that." Tadeus said, feeling better after venting, but still in a sour mood. Wanting to end the conversation and generally take his mind off of his predicament, he turned on tv. The first channel he landed on was the local news channel, for the first time in a good while.

"Starlight atttacks continue around Norfolk. The latest incident was a coordinated assault on several popular fast food restaurants. A few of them were recorded by the perpetrators themselves, and published anonymously on 4chan. We will now play one of those clips."

The screen now showed a phone recording of a man wearing a bandana over his face, talking loudly over the screams of terror in the background.

"Hear this? That's the sound of filthy capitalist pigs cowering before the blinding light of holy Stars. We will not rest until all bask in their glory and find a unanimous harmony!" There was sound of gunfire and the clip abruptly ended. The news anchor continued after a second, clearly a bit shaken by what had just been shown. "I-it also seems that Starlight's crusade inspired another criminal. He seems to be working alone, killing seemingly random people. His name is Timothy Smith, also known by his alias 'Dirty Tim'. If anyone has any information on his whereabouts, we ask you that you contact police immediately, as he is a dangerous, violent criminal." as the presenter said that, a picture appeared next to her.

"Oh shit, David look! That's the guy with powers that beat me up!"