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While all love interests inLove And Deepspacehave alternate selves in some form or another, Dr. Zayne and Dawnbreaker are the only two to communicate with each other between their respective timelines. Dawnbreaker and Dr. Zayne have been in each other’s lives since they were both twelve years old.
Why the two men became connected in the first place is still a mystery, but they’ve been seeing each other in dreams and nightmares for fifteen years. For Dr. Zayne, Dawnbreaker is the dark apparition that haunts his nightmares. For Dawnbreaker, Dr. Zayne is everything he wishes he could be.
This article contains spoilers for the main story and several of Zayne’s memory cards.
Who Is Dawnbreaker?
Dawnbreakeris an incarnation of Zayne existingdecades in the future.For unknown reasons, the two men have beenconnected since they were twelveyears old.
On Dawnbreaker Zayne’stwelfth birthday, his adoptive fatherturned into a monsterright before his eyes. Zayne watched him kill his adoptive mother and then try to attack him, too. Terrified, he didn’t know what to do, and, using his Evol, summoneda shard of black ice to kill his adoptive father.
That same night, Dawnbreaker began todream about Dr. Zayne. He saw Dr. Zayne in Akso hospital,treating a girl. He had many dreams of Dr. Zayne treating patients andspending time with the girl (the MC). They had become the only moments of warmth in his cold, death-filled life.
However, decades in the past,Dr. Zayne had dreams of Dawnbreaker, too. Only, Dr. Zayne’s dreams weredark and bleak, showing him the many horrors Dawnbreaker had seen and the mercy kills he had made.
Dr. Zaynedid not know the full story behind Dawnbreaker’s life, but he knew he never wanted to become him. Henever wanted to killto be kind. Instead, he wanted to learn medicine andsave as many lives as he could. Dawnbreaker wanted that, too, but he lived in a world where such things were impossible for him.
Seeing it his duty to freeze’Abominations'— those unfortunate souls whoturned into Wanderers—Dawnbreaker began to cleanse the city by killinganyone who showed signs of change.
Living a life so full of death, Dawnbreaker Zayne grew up to becold and aloof. He hadno friends or familyremaining. No one but the police knew him, and even then, they knew him only as theserial killer dubbed ‘Dawnbreaker.‘None of them knew the truth behind the killings. None of them knew theman behind the name.
Who Is Georgie?
Georgie is a young eleven-year-old boy whosemother worked in aProtocoreFactory. After his mother was laid off, the pair struggled to make ends meet.
One night in a dark alleyway, Georgie and his mother werecornered by an Abomination.Desperate to protect her child, Georgie’s mother threw her son out of the way and ran into the arms of the monster. It was at that moment thatDawnbreaker appeared.
With brutal efficiency, he shot shards of black ice into the monster,killing it and Georgie’s motherin one fell swoop. The monster disintegrated into shards ofblack crystalline dust, butGeorgie’s mother remainedmotionless on the ground.
Not understanding what had happened, Georgie wondered if the man who had killed the monster was theGrim Reaper. But when Georgie asked Zayne who he was, he turned coldly away andleft the boy in the alley.
BelievingDawnbreaker had saved himby killing the monster, Georgie set out to find the mysterious man again. He wanted Dawnbreaker’s helpfinding the person who killed his mother.
In chapter six of Zayne’s anecdote,Still In The Dark, it is revealed that Georgie’s mother hadasked Zayne to kill her long beforehe met them in the alley. She suspected her exposure to Protocores in the factory was going tomutate herandmade Zayne promise to kill herbefore she ever hurt her son.
Georgie tried for days to get Zayne to speak with him, but never with any success, until one day whenGeorgie brought a jar of chocolatesto Zayne’s doorstep. Zayne reluctantly accepts the chocolates andlets Georgie stay with him.
The two spend time together and Georgie learns very little about Zayne except that heloves chocolate, cares for ajasmine flower,doesn’t celebrate his birthday, and hasdreamed the memories of a doctorsince he was twelve years old.
Zaynetells him about his dreamsof Dr. Zayne in Linkon after Georgie has anightmare. The two talk about what dreams and nightmares could mean, and Georgie quotes his mother saying,‘Dreams are the opposite of reality.’
When Dawnbreaker notices a protrusion underneath Georgie’s eye, he realizes that thelittle boy is about to changeinto a wanderer. He prepares an ice shard behind his back, but Georgie tells him that the next day is his twelfth birthday. Georgie would like tocelebrate with Zayne.
Just like Dr. Zayne, Dawnbreaker Zayne has asweet tooth.
The next day, Zayne takes Georgie to a dessert shop where theyshare a birthday cake. During their celebration, Zayne asks Georgie what it would mean if someone looked at the sunset andfelt nothing at all. Georgie replies thatit would be like being dead.
Shortly thereafter, several armedpolice officersburst into the dessert shop and intend toarrest Dawnbreaker.However, at that moment, Georgie begins the transition into an Abomination andZayne kills the little boywith a shard of ice.
Later, Zaynevisits the gravesof Georgie and his mother. There, the same detective who had led the near-arrest comes to speak with Zayne, admitting that he believeshumans are being turned into Abominationssimilar to wanderers.
The detective promises to stop the investigation into Dawnbreaker anderase all records of him from the worldso that Zayne can continuecleansing the streetsof the Abominations.
How Is Dawnbreaker Connected To Zayne?
While Dawnbreaker Zayne and Dr. Zayneshare a face, name, and voice, they arenotthe same person. Dawnbreaker existsdecades in the future, in a world whereWanderers roam the streetsinstead of people.
However, the two share glimpses of each other’s livesthrough dreams.
Dawnbreaker sees Zayne’s life in snippetsout of orderwhen he dreams. Since his life is so bleak in comparison,he lives solely for these dreamsof a better world. He sees Zayne’s journey through med school, memories with his family, and most of all,Zayne’s memories of the MC.
Dawnbreaker feelsdeeply attachedto the MC, though he knows he will never get to know her. He hasfallen in love with the MCjust like Dr. Zayne did.
However, Dr. Zayne only sees Dawnbreaker’s memories inrecurrent nightmares.In those nightmares, he sees Dawnbreakerkill the MCwith shards of black ice, just before she turns into a Wanderer. He considers Dawnbreaker a warning andfears he may one day become like him.
In themain story branch,Thorns Under The Moon, Dr. Zayne is pulled into these recurring nightmares by a Wanderer known asMyst.He and the MC aretrapped in Dawnbreaker’s bleak world, Dr. Zayne’s own personal torture.
To keep Zayne anchored in reality, the MC tells him the same thing that Georgie’s mother did:
Dreams are the opposite of reality.
Dr. Zayne and the MC eventuallymake it out of the dreamscape, but at the very end ofThorns Under The Moon, Zayne has yet another nightmare of Dawnbreakerkilling the MC. Each time he has these nightmares, he seems less and less able to differentiatewhere Dawnbreaker ends and he begins.
Some players have even theorized that as the main story progresses and Zayne’s Evol becomes more out of control, Zayne is slowlymerging with Dawnbreaker.There’sno definitive evidenceof this, but with more and more story chapters and memories involving Dawnbreaker,it’s not impossibleeither.
