Evadne blinked several times, her eyelids heavy as she tried to adjust to the blinding light around her.
Everything was so bright that it hurt her eyes.
She didn't know where she was... or how she had gotten there. The last thing she remembered was Hades kneeling before her, asking her to be his girlfriend. She had been about to tell him I love you when suddenly she couldn't breathe.
When her vision finally adjusted, she still couldn't make out her surroundings. All she could see was an endless sea of white... like smoke, or clouds thick enough to swallow the horizon.
She turned her head, trying to see something... anything... but there was nothing. Only silence.
She opened her mouth to call out, but no sound came out. Her throat felt hollow, her voice swallowed by the emptiness.
So she decided to move.
She didn't know where she was going, or what she was supposed to find, but she had an instinct... that to arrive somewhere, anywhere, she had to keep walking forward.
She had no idea how long she'd been walking. There was no sun, no ground, no time here. Just white, stretching endlessly in every direction.
Then... out of nowhere... she heard something.
A faint sound. Flowing water.
Evadne stopped and looked around, but she couldn't see anything different. Still, she began to run toward the sound. With every step, the whiteness around her began to thin, the fog unraveling into translucent wisps until finally, she saw it.
A waterfall.
It was vast and endless, cascading down from nowhere and into nothing... like a river that existed outside of time. And within that endless current, suspended upright between the falling streams, was the body of a woman. A woman who looked as though she were sleeping.
"Hello?" Evadne called out, surprised when she could finally hear her own voice. "Can you hear me?"
Her voice echoed faintly, but the woman didn't move. Didn't stir.
Evadne tried to step closer, but no matter how much she walked toward the waterfall, the distance between them never changed. The falls remained impossibly far, unreachable.
"Hello?" she tried again.
"She cannot hear you."
Evadne spun around, startled. The voice was calm, feminine... and close.
She saw no one at first, only the thick white mist shifting like breath in the air. Then, slowly, from the haze, a figure emerged.
A woman.
Evadne's eyes widened the moment she saw her.
"Big Sister?" she whispered uncertainly.
The resemblance was uncanny... the same delicate features, the same graceful posture... but this woman's hair was a deep, lustrous black, unlike Ceres' platinum blond. Her eyes were not the bright golden hue of her and Ceres', but obsidian... dark and endless. She wore a long satin gown of silver-blue that shimmered faintly under the unseen light.
"You are not my sister," Evadne said, stepping back cautiously.
The woman smiled faintly. "No. I am not."
"Then who are you? Where is this place? How did I get here?" Evadne demanded, her confusion spilling into fear.
"This is called the Veil," the stranger said gently. "It is the place where the Great Creator casts away what must be forgotten."
"Forgotten?" Evadne frowned. "I thought the deepest part of hell was where the forgotten souls are thrown."
The woman shook her head. "No. The souls cast into the deepest part of hell are those beyond redemption... but they are still remembered. Their existence serves as a warning to others. This place, however…" Her gaze lifted to the endless white expanse. "This is where one is truly forgotten. Even by the Great Creator's most powerful archangels if he wanted to."
The woman stepped closer, and this time Evadne didn't back away. There was something magnetic about her presence... something both comforting and unsettling.
Together, they looked toward the waterfall and the woman suspended within it.
"Who is she?" Evadne asked softly. "And why is she… like that?"
"She was the first soul cast into The Veil," the woman said. "The first human… and the Light of the Morning Star."
Silence filled the space between them... thick, heavy, almost reverent.
"Since I'm here," Evadne asked quietly, "does that mean I'll be forgotten too?"
Pain flashed in her chest at the thought of her loved ones forgetting her... Hades, Casadin, her family... everything erased like she never existed.
The woman turned to her, her obsidian eyes soft. "No. You left this place a long time ago. Though… not all of you left."
Evadne's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
The woman smiled, faintly melancholic. "My name is Calvareth," she said. "And I am a part of you... the part that was left behind when you escaped this place."
"I… I don't understand," Evadne said, shaking her head.
"I know," Calvareth replied gently. "And you don't need to understand it now. That time will come, when the moment is right."
She reached out, brushing a strand of hair away from Evadne's face, her touch strangely warm despite the cold, colorless air.
"For now," she said softly, "you must embrace the other side of you. You will wake soon... and though you'll remember me, you must bury that memory deep in the farthest corner of your mind. Because remembering me too soon will put your life... and the lives of those you love... in danger. Not until you've embraced the other half of who you are."
"Wait... what do you mean?" Evadne asked, panic flickering in her chest.
But Calvareth only smiled... a knowing, bittersweet smile.
"Until then," she whispered, and gently pushed Evadne backward.
Evadne gasped as she fell... weightless, spinning through the clouds, her body surrounded by light.
And just before the whiteness consumed her completely, she heard Calvareth's voice one last time.
"I will see you again, Mistress."
Evadne gasped sharply, her chest rising as her eyes flew open.
"Hon!" a panicked voice cried from somewhere beside her.
Her vision was hazy, thoughts slow and scattered, until the bright white ceiling above her came into focus.
"Vee?! Honey?" The voice trembled... frantic, fearful.
Turning her head, she saw them... her mother, Cielo, and her father, Romos... standing just beside the bed. Both had tears in their eyes, their faces pale and trembling as if afraid to move, as if getting too close might make her vanish.
"Mommy… Daddy…" Evadne's voice came out hoarse and fragile.
That was all it took. They rushed to her side, Cielo immediately breaking into sobs as she took her daughter's hand.
"Hon, are you in pain? The doctors will be here in a moment," Romos said quickly, his voice tight with worry as he guided her gently back against the pillows when she tried to sit up. "Please, stay lying down until they clear you."
Moments later, the doctors entered the room. Cielo reluctantly let go of her daughter's hand only after Romos and one of the physicians convinced her to give them space.
The medical team moved around Evadne, checking her vitals, shining a light into her eyes, asking her simple questions... how she felt, if she was in pain anywhere, if she could move her fingers and toes.
When they were done, the head doctor looked at the family and smiled faintly. "Everything looks good. Her vitals are normal, and she's stable. But since we still haven't determined what caused the episode, we recommend that she stay for further tests and observation... at least a week before we consider discharging her."
He paused, looking at Romos and Cielo. "All her results so far are clear. She's healthy. But we've sent copies of her scans and blood work to the Mayo Clinic for a second opinion... just to make sure we're not missing anything. It's better to consult multiple experts in a case like this."
"Thank you, Doctor," Romos said, his voice filled with gratitude.
"Please also limit her visitors," the doctor added before leaving. "We don't want her overwhelmed. Let her rest whenever she feels tired."
As soon as he stepped out, a small crowd waiting by the door stirred... Angelina and Jupiter, Diana and Caspian, Nissan and Gideon, and of course, Casadin and Hades, who had been peeking through the small glass window in the door for the past ten minutes.
"Gramps, can we come in now?" Casadin called eagerly, already halfway to the door before Romos held up a hand.
"Wait," Romos said firmly, looking between the two young men. "Before you go in, remember... you can't overwhelm her. And if she gets tired, you let her rest. Understand?"
"Don't worry, Dad," Hades replied quietly.
Romos finally opened the door wide.
Inside, Cielo was still weeping softly as Evadne wiped her tears with a gentle hand. "Mommy, please... don't cry. I'm really fine now," Evadne said with a small smile.
"I'm sorry, hon," Cielo whispered, pressing a trembling kiss to her daughter's cheek. "We thought we lost you… I'm just so happy right now."
Evadne looked toward the doorway and saw the others entering the room. She smiled... and that was all it took for the rest of the women, Angelina, Diana, and Nissan, to dissolve into tears. They rushed to her bedside, surrounding her, asking questions all at once... how she felt, if anything hurt, if she wanted something to eat or drink.
The men, on the other hand, lingered a few steps away. They didn't speak, but their smiles said everything. Relief. Awe. Gratitude.
And Hades and Casadin... standing together, arms loosely around each other's shoulders... just stared at her.
Despite Hades' battered appearance... his face bruised, his nose slightly swollen, his lip still split... they couldn't bring themselves to move closer. They stayed where they were, silently watching her, needing to be sure she was real.
They didn't even notice the tears running down their cheeks... this time not tears of grief or despair, but of joy. Of overwhelming relief.
Even now, neither could fully believe it had worked.
The adults had questioned them over and over... why they had taken Evadne's body, why they had chosen to submerge her in the water, and what made them so sure she would come back.
Of course, they couldn't tell them the truth... that Evadne was a demi-human Narf, and that her human and Narf blood had gone to war inside her, causing her body to reject itself until she drowned from within. They didn't even know for certain if that was the real cause.
So they told the adults what they could. That they had been desperate. That they remembered how Evadne once joked to Hades that she was a mermaid... and in their panic, they clung to that thought. Maybe, somehow, she just needed to be underwater to breathe again.
The doctors and their parents could only shake their heads... half in disbelief, half in awe.
Because no matter how insane their explanation sounded, the result was undeniable.
Evadne Monteverde was alive.
And that was all that mattered.