WARNING!!! Alcohol abuse and intense mental breakdown.

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The door to her room slammed open several hours later.

Groaning, a drunk Lyra stumbled inside, looking a vainglorious state.

Her feet dragged, her vision tripled from the amount of alcohol she had consumed, and her attire was far from collected.

One of the corners of her shirt hung out of her trousers, crumpled and haphazard. The buttons on her vest had been tore open, her new cravat stuffed somewhere in the back of her pocket, shirt hanging halfway undone down her torso to allow room for air.

She had not been that drunk in quite some time.

Good.

This had been exactly what she needed anyway.

Swaying on her feet, she assessed her room with lazy, hooded eyes. The moon was shining through the window, illuminating the room in a pale light. The usual mess of scattered papers littered her floor, but she barely registered it.

She attempted a step forward.

Only to end up crashing backwards into the drawer behind her.

Lyra hissed in pain, then hiccuped.

But with that, nausea washed over her in one go and her whole body felt set aflame.

Catapulting into the bathroom, she ripped the lid of the toilet upwards in a rushed struggle, before collapsing and throwing up everything she had consumed that night.

Her gut burnt, acidic puke rushing out.

She did not know how much time had passed, but when she finally collapsed backwards against her tub, she was struggling to level her breath.

Scattered on the floor, saliva dripping from the corner of her mouth, Lyra felt unwell.

Her head fell backwards, hitting the side of her bathtub with a soft thud.

Closing her eyes, she took measured gasps of air, attempting to stop the need to hurl again.

She sat still for a moment, a steady ringing piercing her ears and skull.

Everything was loud, or it seemed loud, and even though she was sitting in complete darkness, everything felt bright.

Pressing her lids shut, she forced her shoulders to relax.

The sound of her own breathing screaming into her ears.

The bathroom tiles cold, her limbs weak.

Lyra tried to breathe.

"Nari?"

Her eyes flew open and she shot forward, gasping.

Wild eyes searched her bathroom and hallway, chest rattled.

She was alone.

But his voice felt so real.

A faded memory, suddenly so strong and vivid that she felt sick again.

"Nari."

That caring voice.

A whine left her lips without her realising and suddenly her chest was tight and she wanted to cry.

She fell backwards, legs pulling to her chest, arms grasping at them tightly.

"It's not real, it's not real." She muttered to herself, fearful eyes wide, hair spilling from her bun.

She did not realise she was now rocking back and forth, her mind loud, everything screaming, everything feeling scolding hot.

"Nari..."

A soft whisper with that gently rolling accent, filled with love, admiration. It felt like it was right in her ear, she could almost feel his breath on it, that familiar smell, the smell of the river toxins and hot milk, burning her nose.

"NO!" She screamed, clamping her eyes shut, teeth sinking into her lower lip. "You were supposed to be gone, I was suppose to be—you were supposed to be—you left, you left, you left, you fucking left me!"

And she was crying.

Sobs loud, breaths coming out in raspy howls.

"You fucking left me." She cried, and her own words were so gut wrenching to her own ears that she only wept louder.

And suddenly she could almost see his sad features contorting in worry, could feel his hands on her arms as he looked at her with those damnable amber eyes.

"Nari..."

"THAT'S NOT MY NAME!" She screamed so loud it ricocheted off the walls of her bathroom like a full blown orchestra.

"That's not my name, that's not my name, she's dead, he killed her, he killed her because you left!" She sobbed, hands pulling at her hair, nails drawing blood from her skin. "You left her, you left me, you left me and I loved you!"

And she slipped sideways onto the floor and cried hard, curled up into a ball in the darkness.

She did not know how long it took it for her sobs to stop, or how long she laid there. But by the end of it, she was just there, still, laid quietly and staring ahead with unseeing eyes.

Her head hurt. Both its insides from the remaining effects of the alcohol, as well as the top where she had clawed at herself in frenzied madness.

She dragged herself up then, slowly, leaning with difficulty onto the side of her tub and almost falling forward once more as her limbs gave out beneath her.

Staggering forward, she caught a glance of herself in the mirror.

Locks of white curls sprawled around her head, unkept, uncombed, sticking out in the air, longer strands of it draping her shoulders.

Her mascara had smudged, dripping down her cheeks with dried tears, smudges of black coating the bottoms of her eyes in painted eye bags. Ironic, considering she used all that make up to cover her real ones.

She wiped her face with her clothed arm, before shuffling out.

Her door was still open, but she knew no one would have heard her. After all, she was the only person living in that wing of the building. A choice made with purpose, a personal request she put through with her mentor a long time ago, which he obliged her with.

Lazily kicking her door shut with the heel of her shoe, she absentmindedly wandered forward.

The moon had shifted in the sky. Informing her that she had been in that bathroom for at least an hour.

Rubbing her face tiredly, Lyra dragged her feet onward.

With heavy movements, she unlocked one of the lower compartments in her desk, pulling out an old bottle she kept stashed for her long sleepless nights.

Popping the lid open with her teeth and spitting it out with little elegance, she took a large swing of the opaque liquid.

The alcohol burned her throat, still sore with the acid from her hurling. She winced at the disgusting taste and almost coughed it out, but forced herself to swallow. She wanted the haze of drunkness now more than ever.

Kicking the drawer closed, Lyra struggled to climb up on her desk.

With the promise and apologies she had offered the Professor earlier that day clear in her mind, she unlatched the window and climbed out.

The cold air hit her like a ton of bricks.

It was still dark outside, it was late, and she knew her limbs were ridden with alcohol induced incoordination.

Still, swaying lightly, she shuffled slightly sideways and plopped down on the concerete lining her building.

And once again she sat there, like she had done so many times before, and drank herself blind.

Time rolled by, the moon moving along with it across the sky.

But she stayed put, staring unseeingly forward.

Alcohol rushing in her veins, vision blurry, the skin of her face feeling dry and sticky with the residue of makeup and tears. Her limbs were shivering steadily, the undone shirt doing little to protect her from the nightly wind.

But she welcomed it, revealed in the pain in which the wind slashed at her skin.

Even then, nothing felt quiet.

She could hear faint laughters at the back of her mind, memories long forgotten of two children playing in dusty sands and stony caves.

"I'm here, Nari, I'm here. You're safe."

That soft voice.

"You'll never be alone."

She barked a soft laugh at those words and stifled the sob that threatened to spill once more. He had spoken those words to her that one day a long time ago, when she had come climbing in through his window deep in the night.

When he had held her, a small crying child, until she eventually fell asleep.

"I'll always be here."

"Liar." She snapped with little emotion, then latched onto the bottle once more. It was half empty now, she realised.

Perhaps it had been the alcohol.

Perhaps it was how tired she was, (after all, she usually truly was).

Or maybe it was because she really did not care, buried too deep into her own thoughts, distracted by his honeyed accent and the familiar flashes of his home, his caring eyes, his arms holding her with care she had only ever known from him.

But she did not see when somewhere far below, twenty minutes earlier, a figure halted its slow steps in the middle of the yard abruptly.

If she had, maybe what happened next, would not have.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

The bottle she was holding almost slipped out and skipped to its untimely destruction seven stories below at the sheer force of her sudden jump.

She stifled a yelp, eyes blowing wide as her head whipped to the side with force.

The face popping out from her window stared at her with such ire she almost choked on her breath.

Particularly, considering the person it belonged.

"What the fuck!" Lyra screamed, words slurred, eyebrows furrowed. "The fuck are you doing in my room, get out!"

Viktor's curls whipped softly in the nightly wind, hands gripping the windowsill. She noted somewhere in her hazy stupor that the eye bags under his eyes seemed more prominent than earlier that day.

Though that was the least of her worries at the present time.

He levelled her with an unyielding glare, eyes burning wild. "Are you honestly so moronically birdbrained? It's one drop and you're dead!"

"Oh for fuck's sake!" She groaned, struggling upwards, limbs wobbly from her inebriation, a clumsy, swinging hand gripping the neck of the bottle. "I know what I'm doing, I do this all the damn time!"

"While intoxicated out of your mind??" He hissed back, voice hard, accent coming out sharper with his anger.

That familiar accent.

She shook her head, grimacing at him in a childish manner. "Yuh-ha!"

Viktor stared at her in outrage. "And you think that's fine??"

She had not realised she had began staggering over in her hazed state until she stood in front of him, on the outside of the building.

He leaned back brusquely, face contorted in disgust as she stumbled into his direct vision, amber eyes giving her a snidely once over.

In her anger and haziness, she forgot about how indecent she looked. Her shirt half open, hair spilling in all directions, eyes marked with dark patches of dried make up.

She was too focused on him and the way he was sitting on the side of her desk, propping on it to be able to level her. The way his lean torso contorted and his long fingers gripped at the wood.

It made her even angrier.

"I don't care if it's fine!" She slurred, voice loud in her ears, arms flailing around erratically. A particularly rebellious finger popped into his direction and his eyes widened before his glare steeled further. "I don't care that you don't think it's fine, I can handle myself." She hissed, attempting to jab it at him.

But she lost her balance.

Lyra yelped, feeling herself reclining dangerously back.

Before a drastic tragedy could occur, a hand latched tightly onto her wrist.

Her eyes widened shooting towards him, heat rushing to her face.

His frown and the way his lips steeled into a scowl did not help her situation, her eyes suddenly registering the way the shadows of her room fell in sharp angles over his pointed features.

It was hard to believe that the boy she once knew was now the man staring her down with predatory eyes, dangerous and positively fuming.

Her breath hitched at the sight and her heart skipped an uncomfortably long beat.

"Inside. Now." He growled, and she gulped.

With a strong pull, she was brusquely and mercilessly shoved forward, her stomach hitting the windowpane in a way that made her huff.

Grumbling, she reluctantly obliged, following the tug on her wrist and manoeuvring herself upward and over her desk.

She realised that he moved out of her way once the hand on her disappeared, along with his presence.

She did not know why, but that pissed her off more.

"Fucking stick in the mud." She grumbled as she swung her legs off her desk and stumbled off it.

"Excuse me?"

She spun around inelegantly to level him with a glare. "You damn well heard me!"

Her eyes suddenly found his figure, stood still in the middle of her room, and she felt like slapping herself. Realising the double meaning of her poor wording.

"Shit, I didn't mean it like that—"

"You think this is some kind of joke?" Viktor hissed, voice loud as he took a step towards her. "What the hell are you thinking, throwing everything to the wind with your childish attitude? Are you not ashamed?? Millions would give to be in your position, to have the kind of resources you do for your research, and you go about treating it as a passing fancy?"

Her eyes narrowed at him, burning back with equal hatred. "Hey, back off, assistant, you know fuck-all about me and the kind of person that I am!"

"Oh, I know just the kind of person you are." Another step forward, a sardonic smile stretching across his lips, haunting amber eyes glimmering in the pale light. "Textbook Piltovian Academy pledge! A selfish hellion, throwing away your life and other people's time for your own gains. Drinking yourself blind, partying without a care in the world, because it all turns out well for you regardless. Never having to work hard for a thing in your whole life."

Another stride, but she stayed put, forcing her position to steel, her shoulders squaring.

"You judge everything and everyone as you sit in your marble laboratory, looking down on people over your nose as if they're roaches to be stepped on." He shouted, stopping so close that their chests were inches apart. "Proudly ignoring that there are people who struggle, crawl and bleed to get where you are now."

He leaned forward and her grip on the bottle tightened, jaw setting with such force pain shot through her bones.

He was staring directly at her, eyes burning into hers with passionate loathing, their noses a breath away.

And he bellowed, "You're a self-pitying child who throws a tantrum anytime she doesn't get her way, and overall a conceited, all-rounded, self-indulgent, spoiled brat!"

Slap.

Viktor staggered back, eyes widening under his furrowed brows.

An angry red mark flared up on his cheek and he blinked, suddenly silent, looking up at her in shock.

Lyra stood still, her head low, eyes hidden by the hair falling haphazardly around her.

Her chest was rising in unmeasured breaths, her shoulders along with it.

The sibilant sound with which she engulfed and released her breaths echoed within the room with startling clarity.

"Get out." She growled, her voice low.

She did not look up at him.

But heard the sound of his steps as he walked off, slamming the door behind him.

Her hand shot out and she sent the bottle in it flying with force.

It shattered upon colliding with her door, falling into scattered pieces on her floor.

Lyra stood still, breaths uneven, eyes burning.

Then, all at once, she collapsed to her knees and cried again.