[ the truth is even more gruesome: that it wasn't heine who killed everyone, but rather that once the scientists had their führer candidate, they no longer needed the others. they had been corralled into an arena like livestock to the abattoir and made to slaughter each other, angelika einstürzen's promise in their ears: "i will love whichever of you survives."

the item being set before him jolts heine slightly out of his daze, and with some effort he focuses his eyes on it. ] What's this?

[ but even as he asks, he knows: this is daan's burden the way the lily is heine's. why else would daan choose now to show it to him?

he reaches out a fingertip, but doesn't touch the sewing kit. just lets his hand fall back to the bartop as he processes daan's words. ]

For a long time I lived because I didn't have a choice. [ the hand he'd dropped to the bartop lifts again to tug down just a bit of the bandages that encircle heine's throat, showing daan the scar tissue, the metal collar embedded in his skin. ] Then I lived to find the underground, so I could go down and—I don't know. Piss on my mother's corpse, I guess.

[ and now... now. ]

Now I— [ stuck in his throat, again. heine no longer believes himself capable of justice, of redemption, of something so noble as saving anyone, but... ] Guess I live for revenge. So the kids she's kidnapped don't have to grow up the way I did.