Science of Shadows- Seian first person backstory

As strange as it sounds, I'm glad in a way that all of this has happened. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't enjoy the suffering or death that takes place. The renegades, ESPR... It worries me. Yet, seeing the world beyond its surface and these struggles have given me the push I need to keep going on. I was barely bringing myself to go on from day to day, so little energy left after all I've lost. So little I have...

Oh, it must seem strange for someone such as me to go on like that. How can I say that when others have it so much worse, when I have a job where I help people, when I have animals to take care of? Well, truthfully, those barely keep me going on. Let me explain what I once had, and my feelings...

I think it's been ten years now. Approaching that, certainly. I was in love. I suppose I still am, but... Ah, anyway. It wasn't just one person. No, there were several, but two that were central. And the one in particular, who lived so far away, over in England. Luke... He had a condition with his adrenal system, that it was always active... A strain on his heart, and rarely letting him sleep. It promised him a short lifespan, and I couldn't accept that, so I was planning on studying better treatment for it.

I never got that chance. I can only assume he succumbed to it. Or perhaps he died when hunting, or volunteering as a fireman or something... He did all that, you know? He was capable of so much, and he kept risking himself... At any rate, he disappeared. I started worrying after a few days, but then weeks passed. I never heard from him again. I'd never had warning. I barely held on with the help of others...

With him gone, I redirected myself back toward genetics. It didn't really require a change at the time, as I was only beginning my bachelor's degree, and it all began with the same thing. The wound of his disappearance never healed though. He had been central to my life, and then when he was gone, I barely staggered on. Yet, I managed. I kept going, for his sake, and others. I barely managed it, but I was still being held together, hadn't lost my determination.

Until... Xander. That was the other one I had said was so central. It was a few years ago now, when I was already working on my doctorate for genetics. He was visiting... And I don't remember what happened. Something about an animal attack, I think I remember hearing. I don't even recall whether I blacked out. The next thing I remember clearly was my playing Russian roulette, planning on just going on until I was dead. I couldn't go on. Click. Click. I pulled the trigger twice, and nothing. The third time, I hesitated... And pulled it away at the last moment, as the bullet went flying out.

I didn't stop because I had any hope for anything. I had no reason left to go on. In the state I was in, so inconsolable, everything else had gone away, even others I'd loved. I was just too weak and too stubborn to die. Some part of me refused to die just as much as I refused to live.

It took months of both counseling and medication before I had recovered enough to continue research on my dissertation, much less actually writing. I only went on because I refused to leave things as they were. I wanted to join Xander and Luke in death, as I still do, but I couldn't leave the world as horrible as it was, as it is, and with myself still so ignorant. And, well, I suppose I knew those I cared about wouldn't have wanted me to give up.

It was for Xander that I started studying neurology. Neuroscience tied into genetics well to begin with, but I knew that he had planned to be a neurologist. So, I decided to pick up where he'd left off. I'm a doctor because of him. Getting the money together was so difficult, but somehow, I managed to pull it together.

Even with his memory, I still have gone on with the barest effort necessary. I'm still a hollow, broken man, and for all I may be called brilliant, I meet only a bare fraction of my true capability. I knew that. I couldn't stand that, or myself, and I've never been able to. I was beginning to fade again, becoming ready to finally finish what I started when I picked up that gun and pointed it to my head those few years ago.

But then, there was this whole conflict I stumbled onto, this whole hidden world... Vampires, werewolves, fae, everything. I've always been drawn to what is not human, and wanted what is beyond the world I knew... Well, finding this has given me what I need to go on for a while longer.

How long that will be, I still don't know.