April 8th, 1987

Staufen im Breisgau, Germany

The outside air still clung to a wintry chill of sorts, but the sun felt like spring as its rays touched the first pale green buds of the year. A single cut crocus bloomed sweetly from a graduated flask on the windowsill. Inside the little room, Eliza again played the part of the sleeping beauty. Her fair hair, spread out over the pillows that were dressed in flowered covers from home, gave her the look of such a golden princess. Her hands, folded peacefully upon her breast, had grown from plump little girl's hands into the slender hands of a lady, white and long.

This peaceful scene, however, did not reflect itself outside the wooden door, which thankfully remained closed.

"She is dying now, Mister Hirsch. We have two options remaining to us: experimental care or preparing her for the end of her life. There are no other options." Doctor Faust's voice had grown very firm, almost impatient. His son, Johann, stood by, looking quite deranged with his eyes all but hidden by his nest of unkempt hair and laughably thick spectacles. He wordlessly rustled through a thick stack of folders. Brilliant he was, but no bedside manner to speak of.

"This is your fault," Hirsch accused, his voice cracking and betraying more sorrow than anger. "If only you hadn't started her on that, that... imapro-whatsitcalled, she would never h-have…" He trailed off, unable to stop himself as tears dripped into his wiry mustache. He couldn't truly lay the blame on the good doctor who was the likely reason his daughter had made it to her seventeenth year. But he had to blame someone, something, anything… His hands, balled into fists, trembled as he stifled his sobs.

"Father, we have to start the transplant today or else it might be too—"

"Silence, Johann, this isn't the time." Doctor Faust shot a glare at his son, who promptly fell silent again. He knew that if there was one person in the room who still believed that Eliza would recover, it was his son. And he also knew that if there was one person in the room who had never once dealt with the inevitability of Eliza's death, it was his son. Faced with it, it seemed that Johann had resolved to proceed with hope in his heart. Doctor Faust felt proud, especially knowing that the experimental therapy that could become Eliza's last chance was Johann's invention. But he needed Hirsch to grasp at this last bit of hope, as well. It was clear to him that Eliza's mother, Mrs. Hirsch had reached for this hope long ago when she had agreed to become the donor. But her husband seemed weary of swinging from spider's thread to spider's thread, to put it metaphorically. Doctor Faust could not blame him. All he could do was offer him a piece of sterile drape to blow his nose on. How powerless they all were in the face of Death.

Johann cared not to waste time. He felt how, as each day passed, Eliza's hand grew cooler in his as he grasped it, praying to God for a miracle to save her. He noticed as her breaths had grown shallower, her cheeks hollower, her skin paler. And just today, he'd nearly fainted when he went to her room to take her pulse and he could not find it. Desperately, he had listened at her chest for her heartbeat and it was there, but her pulse was so feeble that it could barely be felt. He knew, more intimately than anyone, that Eliza did not have time. Death already hovered over her, beckoning her away from him. And he would have to depend on only himself for a miracle. He understood this well in his cynical doctor's mind.

With Eliza's father lost in his despair in the hallway outside, Johann disappeared into the peaceful little room with the wooden door. He washed his hands before running his thumb over Eliza's thin cheek.

"Please stay with me, my dearest Eliza," he whispered as he knelt down by the head of the bed. Cradling her face in his hand, he laid a kiss on her brow before gently pulling the covers down. His fingers slipped over her cold skin as he unbuttoned her dress.

Johann Faust VIII turned twenty-one years of age in that room as he inserted the central line to deliver the treatment that would save Eliza Hirsch's life.