The Wonder of Celsus was a large and spacious building; a labyrinthine mess of corridors, passageways, rooms, and offices all clustered together in a haphazard sort of way. There was little to no organization, though there should have been; Aurelius had not, for the most part, been very good at that sort of thing. There were stacks of weathered old books, shelves of miscellaneous objects crammed side by side, dusty, ragged curtains hanging from the windows. Crumbling parchment piled once high and now dissolving into shorter, tumbling heaps that fell off the desk at the merest touch and were sent scattering across the marble floor.

Celsus did not want to be here. He felt edgy, unsettled, his chest throbbing with a sort of ache that seemed to seep into his very bones. The hands that had used to hold his whip and paintbrushes so steadily were now shaking with a consistent tremor that was unable to be quelled, even when painting, and the canvases were splattered with color, messy and violent.

A constant thrum inside of his head made him wonder if he needed new glasses, or maybe just a new body in general. This one was relatively worthless, after all. He couldn't ever seem to get it to do what he wanted it to, and no matter how hard he tried, he could not get onto the path that he needed to. The world around him was continuing to move forward, and yet here he stood, trapped in place as though his legs were mired in thick mud that wrapped around his ankles and climbed steadily higher.

Celsus stood now in what had once been Aurelius' office. It was where he'd found his signet ring, where he'd first realized what his calling was - or thought he'd known. Where he'd transcended, where he spent most of his time when at the Wonder. It was a large, open room built circular, with gaping, latticed windows, a heavy wooden desk, and a myriad of shelves all clambered together in a very welcoming sort of way.

It was not welcoming now. It felt dismal, heavy, the weight of what had once been too much on his tired shoulders. Celsus shifted slightly, and the hem of his cape brushed over some of the parchment on the floor, rustling it as he passed, a wince fluttering across his pale face as he made his way towards the desk, trying not to think too much.

Impossible; he always thought too much.

Sitting on a pile of papers on the desk was a book. Not a book of fiction, or even a book of anything other than just simple paper wrapped together in leather, bound by strings, a name stamped onto the front of it. Aurelius' journal, neatly tucked away as though it always belonged there, though Celsus had just discovered it recently. He hadn't looked at it other than briefly glanced, because it felt too much like prying, like peering into a soul that was still around. Aurelius could show up at any moment, and Celsus had no desire to be found reading the words he had once written.

He maintained this desire even now, but something about the journal was different. There was a soft pulse emanating from it, as though drawing him in. Celsus felt his throat work to swallow, his chest tightening, and it was pulling him towards it.

No, he thought, No.

He could not go near it, and yet he still did. Fingertips brushed across the surface of the journal, trembling with restraint, and then he was pulling open the cover with a sharp gasp, bitten off and swallowed so that it was more of a strangled sound than anything else.

There was something in the journal - a wave of light met his eyes, glowing and throbbing gently, bright and circular, shifting and slipping mistily in front of him. Celsus stared at it, and wanted to take a step back, but his feet were rooted to the spot, his body as tense and strung as wire that was ready to snap at any moment. He felt as though the air in the world had dissolved, and that his lungs were working too hard to drag air into them, great heaving breaths that were almost painful working in and out.

"You," he whispered, and his voice was hoarse, barely audible, because he knew what this was, and he didn't want it, didn't want to face it, now or ever. "No - "

It floated lazily there, silent and still. Celsus swallowed hard, and it hurt, throat feeling bruised. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence, so thick that it felt suffocating, claustrophobic in its intensity and its all-enveloping presence. He thought he might drown in the wake of it, that he would just slip away into nothingness, into a deeper blackness than the one he was already in.

His voice shook.

"Why - "

The words would not come. They felt leaden on his tongue, like tasting acid. Saying it out loud would only make it more real, even though the reality of it pressed in upon him like a vice, like a room where the walls came closer and closer, inch by inch, and there was no escaping, no running.

"Why did you pick me?"

Hoarse in the echoing silence, angry and desperate, as though maybe he was mistaken, and this was all going to be just another nightmare to wake from, voice rising into a yell at the end because he couldn't hold it back anymore. The question burst from him like a sudden explosion, hot and fierce, and he wanted to know.

(He didn't want to know.)

Celsus felt the Code shift.

"I didn't."

The world was falling away, the blackness closing in. Ice was running through his veins, chilling him from the inside out, slipping and sliding and coiling cold fingers around his heart, so that every breath he took was agony and fire.

And it kept talking.

"And I regret that I have only you to fill the shoes of your ancestors."

He couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

"You are so…inadequate."

He was falling, crashing, shattering. He did not remember slamming the book shut, did not remember turning and running from the room as though his legs would give away if he stopped. He did not remember fumbling, gasping, sending himself home without a second thought, and then continuing to run through the streets of Destiny City until his legs ached, until his lungs burned, until there was nothing but the blur of lights imprinted in his mind, and the smell of snow and cold, cold, cold.

Never again.

Never again will I return.

It's over. I'm over. I'm done.

It's all over.