***
{Outside The Projection}
Thankfully for Layla's honor.
Or rather, for all their lives...
The projection had skipped over the "extraction."
All they saw was the end, and even then...
Even then, there was a lot to take in.
Way, way too much, if they were honest.
They were denied the expected catharsis from such "meet the father" moments.
Tears were never going to happen; they knew that much, but at least some big emotional confrontation, a 'something' to crack.
Instead, all they were left with was Malik still in his void, trying and failing to be something more, and Hakim coming across as more pragmatic than fatherly.
It had fully crystallized the 'Circle of Fools' built earlier.
Malik's entire life had been about fathers and him, a son—fathers failing him, fathers abandoning him in sacrifice, fathers repeating the same cycle of cruelty, depending on him, for there was no one else to depend on.
