"Who... was that little girl...?" he murmured under his breath. "I’ve been seeing her ever since I stepped onto Jupiter..."

He recalled the vision he had.

He stood again beneath a sky too vast to belong to any one world, the same impossible expanse he had first witnessed the moment he stepped through the portal at Blackwood Tower and tore through its defenses. Back then, after the destruction, after he had lifted his head and stared into the void above Jupiter’s horizon, he had seen her for the first time.

A small figure in the distance in the cosmos, waving at him.

And because he had looked at her instead of the surroundings, the missile had caught him in the face.

Ever since then, he had been dreaming of that little figure, and with every vision, it was getting clearer and clearer than the last. He was able to go near her and saw her crying, and that was when his hover. Now he stood in that same suspended space once more. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

The ground beneath him resembled stone, though it had no weight. The horizon stretched without depth. And ahead of him, seated on what looked like a low, worn slab, was the little figure.

Her hair was pale, falling around her shoulders in soft strands. Her back was to him. Her small frame shook slightly.

She was crying.

Xavier felt the familiar restraint begin to settle over him — the sense that his body would no longer belong to him, that the vision would unfold like the others, forcing him to watch as a participant without will.

But it didn’t come.

The weight never locked in place. He tested it carefully by moving his fingers, and they obeyed.

He took a step forward and the ground responded.

This was not the same.

It reminded him of the moment he had stood before the broken and weakened Zephyrus — a vision that had allowed him to move, speak, and act freely.

He exhaled slowly.

Then he walked toward her.

She did not turn as he approached. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sobbed, small hands clenched in her lap.

When he was close enough, he extended his hand and placed it gently on her shoulder.

"Hey," he said quietly. "Who are you? Why are you crying?"

She reacted instantly.

She flinched away as if burned, scrambling backward across the stone and turning to face him. Her eyes were wide, luminous gold not in brightness but in depth, as if something immeasurable lived behind them.

Shock filled her expression.

"Who are you?!" she demanded, voice sharp and confused. "What are you doing here?!"

Xavier didn’t answer immediately. He studied her first, the way he would study a weapon he didn’t recognize.

"I could ask you the same thing," he said. "Last thing I remember, I was under running water. Now I’m here."

She stared at him like he had just insulted the laws of existence.

"No one just ’comes’ here."

"Well I didn’t take a ticket," he replied. "So explain it to me."

She pushed herself to her feet, brushing at her face where tears had been moments ago. The crying didn’t stop her from sounding irritated.

"No one enters this place unless they’ve crossed over," she said. "And once someone enters, they don’t go back."

He glanced around again, slower this time, mapping the horizon, the distance to the sound of water, the crystalline structure to his right. There was no sky he recognized, no sun, no source of light he could locate.

"Then you have a design flaw," he said. "Because I’m not supposed to be here."

"You are," she insisted.

"I was showering."

"You were erased."

He looked at her properly then.

"Erased?" He raised a brow.

She held his gaze without flinching. "Your body disintegrated. There was nothing left to repair."

He didn’t like how certain she sounded.

"This doesn’t feel like death," he said.

"It isn’t supposed to feel like anything," she replied. "It’s transition."

He absorbed that without accepting it.

"You said people don’t leave."

"They don’t leave the way you’re thinking."

"That sounds like a loophole."

"This is where the Golden Lineage comes after death," she said. "They remain until they finish what they must. When they’re ready, they enter the river and move on."

He tilted his head slightly.

"Golden Lineage."

She stared at him.

"Yes."

"Is that some prophetic bloodline category I missed?"

Her confusion replaced her frustration.

"How do you not know what that is?"

"I don’t recall signing up."

"You are one," she said.

He let that sit.

Then he turned toward the crystalline formation beside him, drawn by something he hadn’t registered earlier. The surface caught his reflection in sharp detail.

The face staring back at him wasn’t entirely familiar.

His hair looked lighter. Not washed out by light. Lighter in essence. His eyes held gold within them, like something beneath the surface was looking out.

He stepped closer, and the reflection did the same.

He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair. Pale strands shifted between his fingers.

He exhaled slowly.

"That’s new. But damn I am hot."

Behind him, she watched with a mixture of frustration and something close to disbelief.

"You carry it," she said. "Whether you remember it or not."

He didn’t turn around immediately.

He kept studying the version of himself in the crystal, measuring it against what he knew.

Then he asked, without looking at her, "If this is where your Golden Lineage waits... what are you doing here?"

Her expression changed slightly.

"I haven’t left yet."

He glanced back at her.

"Why not? You don’t know how to swim in the river?" he chuckled.

She didn’t answer right away.

And for the first time since he had arrived, the absurdity of the situation settled in quietly at the back of his mind. He was standing in what might be an afterlife, questioning a crying child about metaphysical infrastructure, and the only thing that felt unstable was the fact that she seemed to know more about him than he did.