She was still holding the wooden spoon.
Rush knelt beside her body, his hands trembling. The apartment was destroyed—walls cracked, windows blown out, furniture splintered into kindling. But the spoon was still in her hand, as if she had been making soup when they came for her.
Soup for him.
He had been gone for an hour. Just an hour. Running an errand she had asked him to run. When he returned, the door was off its hinges, the hallway was painted with blood, and she was lying face down on the kitchen floor.
"She didn't have to die."
The voice came from behind him. Cold. Tired. Carrying the weight of someone who had done this many times before.
Rush turned.
A man stood in the shattered doorway. He wore a long dark coat that seemed to drink the light. His face was unremarkable—ordinary features, ordinary age—but his eyes were not. They were ancient. Empty. The eyes of someone who had seen too much to care anymore.
"Who are you?" Rush's voice cracked.
"Artemis."
"I don't know that name."
"No. You wouldn't."
Artemis took a step into the ruined apartment. His boots crunched on broken glass.
"I have searched a thousand worlds for your life signature. This world was simply the last."
Rush's hands clenched into fists.
"I don't understand."
"You don't need to."
"Why did you kill her?"
The words tore out of him, raw and shaking.
"She never hurt anyone. Why?"
Artemis's expression didn't change.
"She was in the way."
Something inside Rush broke. Rage took over.
And something else awakened.
Flames spiraled around his clenched fist. The windows that had somehow survived the initial destruction shattered. Not outward—inward, as if the pressure inside the room had become too great for glass to bear. The floor cracked beneath his feet. A violent, untamed energy erupted from his chest—purple, crackling, alive—and sent Artemis stumbling back a step.
Rush looked at his own hands. They were engulfed by flames but didn't burn him. Violet veins of light pulsed beneath his skin, climbing his forearms like living vines.
"What—what is this?"
Artemis studied him with something that might have been curiosity.
"So it's true. You are one of them."
"One of what?"
"The Beyonder."
Artemis straightened his coat.
"Masters have been searching for you for years. And now you've awakened on your own. Pity."
He tilted his head.
"Not that it matters. You're too weak. Too new."
Rush didn't understand half of what Artemis had said. But he understood weak. He understood too new.
He lunged.
The violet energy followed his movement, lashing out like a second set of limbs. He had never thrown a punch like this—never felt speed like this, power like this. The air screamed around his burning fist.
Artemis didn't even flinch.
He moved—not fast, just before. He stepped into Rush's arc, caught his wrist with one hand, and held it like it weighed nothing. The flames extinguished.
"Impressive for a novice," Artemis said. "But insufficient."
A blade appeared in Artemis's other hand. Rush didn't see where it came from. He only felt it slide between his ribs, just below the heart.
The violet light died.
Rush's knees hit the broken floor. His vision blurred. He looked past Artemis, toward the kitchen, toward the woman who had called him son. The spoon was still in her hand.
"Why?" he whispered. "Why me?"
Artemis knelt, bringing his face level with Rush's. For a moment—just a moment—something flickered in those ancient eyes. Not pity. Recognition.
"Because you are dangerous," he said quietly. "Not because of what you've done. Because of what you could become. My Masters cannot allow that."
"I don't even know who they are."
"And you will die not knowing."
The blade twisted. Rush felt himself leave his body—not all at once, but piece by piece. The last thing he saw was the wooden spoon still clutched in her stiffening fingers.
Then darkness. Cold. Silence.
And then—
White.
Not the gray of dying. Not the black of death. White—endless, clean, and completely silent.
Rush was standing. His body was whole again. No wound, no pain, no blood. He touched his chest where the blade had entered. Nothing.
"You are dead."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It was calm. Ancient. Neither kind nor cruel.
"Where am I?" Rush asked.
"The space between. From here, one may return, move forward, or begin anew."
Rush looked at his hands. Unmarked.
"I want to go back."
"You cannot. Your body is gone. Your world is dead."
A figure materialized in the white—not a person, exactly. More a suggestion of a person. A shape with no edges, wearing robes that shifted between colors that didn't have names.
"Who are you?"
"I am Osiris. I oversee the passage of souls between lives."
"So you're the God."
Rush's jaw tightened.
"Then you saw what happened. You saw her die."
"I did."
"And you did nothing."
"I cannot interfere directly. That is not my role."
Rush wanted to be angry. But he was exhausted. The rage that had filled him in the apartment was gone, replaced by a hollow coldness.
"Then why am I here?"
Osiris studied him for a long moment.
"To give you a chance. A chance to find answers. To become what they fear."
Rush's chest tightened.
"What kind of chance?"
"Reincarnation. A new life. A new world — Etherion."
Rush stared at the endless white.
"Will I remember? Any of this?"
"No. That is the ultimate rule. When you are reborn, your past life is sealed. You will not remember Artemis. You will not remember your mother. You will not remember this conversation."
"Then how am I supposed to do anything?"
Osiris inclined its head—an almost human gesture.
"Etherion holds the answers you seek. They will find you when you are ready. Not before."
Rush was silent for a long moment.
"And if I refuse?"
"You cease. Entirely. No rebirth. No rest. Just… nothing."
He thought of her face. The way she had smiled at him. The wooden spoon still in her hand.
He thought of Artemis. The coldness in his eyes. The way he had said she was in the way.
"I have one more question," Rush said.
"Ask."
"Why me? Why was Artemis after me? And what are the Masters?"
Osiris was silent. Then:
"That is not for me to tell you. There are rules older than I am. I cannot give you answers. I can only give you a path to the answers."
Rush looked at the shifting robes, the faceless shape, the endless white.
He had nothing left. No home. No family. No future.
But he had a chance.
"Do it," he said. "Send me there."
Osiris raised a hand.
"Then sleep, child. When you wake, you will be someone new. But the truth will find you. And when it does—"
Osiris paused.
"—be ready."
The white swallowed him completely.
Sleep claimed the reality.