Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
It unsettled him, looking into Inspector Turpin's eyes. Here was a man who was everything Victor was not. Pious. Disciplined. Religious. It was easier to dismiss him as an ignorant fool. An enemy of progress. But now as they stood upon the ancient castle walls, Victor the only thing between Turpin and a Creature incapable of reason or empathy, something struck Victor about those dark eyes. There was life in them. So unlike the milky gaze of his Prometheus. There was life. Fear. Hope. Worlds Victor could not begin to fathom.
There was a man, who despite his dogged pursuit of Victor, his raging condemnation of all Victor stood for, would risk his life to possibly save Victor's. And he understood something.
There was a spark in the eyes of men and women – living men and women – that told histories, thoughts, hopes, dreams fears. It made them complex. It made them alive. Whatever Turpin thought of Victor… Whatever Victor thought of Turpin… They were the same in that their eyes made them human. And whatever Prometheus was, it was not human. Not nearly as worthy of protection as the man standing with a gun trained upon the Creature.
And when the Creature flung Turpin into a mass of live wires, the bellow that rose from somewhere deep within Victor was truly one of despair. He never wanted this. He had only wanted to preserve life.
And in the end, he destroyed it.
He would never know the secrets Turpin's large, dark eyes had once held. No one ever would. And if he had the time, Victor would mourn the loss. Turpin, Finnegan, Dettweiler… and the other dozen men who had given their lives – their complex, rich, mysterious lives – in slavish devotion to this dream of Victor's. He had failed them all. Curtailed their lives.
But there was no time to mourn. Only time to get to safety. Only time to wonder how long it would be before it was his life or Igor's taken by the monster.