Chapter 5: [5] One More Chance
The shot still rang in Xavier's ears as darkness swept over him. He'd expected pain—a final explosion of agony before oblivion—but instead felt only a curious weightlessness, as though someone had cut the strings holding him to the earth.
Well. That was dramatic.
He tried to blink, realized he had no eyelids to blink with. No eyes either. No body at all. Just consciousness floating in an endless void that wasn't quite darkness, wasn't quite light, but something maddeningly in-between.
Am I dead? This feels like dead.
The space around him—if it could be called space—shifted like smoke, formless yet somehow solid enough to hold him. No temperature, no sound except the echo of his own thoughts, no sensation beyond existence itself.
So this is the afterlife. No pearly gates. No fire and brimstone. Just... nothing.
Xavier attempted to look down at himself but found no body to examine. Just awareness suspended in limbo. He tried to remember the penthouse, the bullet, the moment of impact, but the memories slipped away like water through cupped hands.
I wonder if this is the waiting room. Purgatory. The cosmic DMV where they process your paperwork before sending you to your final destination.
He'd never been religious—hard to believe in divine justice when you've seen the things he had—but he'd absorbed enough cultural mythology to have expectations. Heaven. Hell. Reincarnation. Something besides this featureless nowhere.
Hell. It's definitely going to be hell for me.
I mean, is there any reason it wouldn't be? Twenty years of lies, manipulation, seduction, and murder. That's not exactly Saint Peter's VIP list material.