In a place far from where anyone would know, far from where they all believed he rested, a white-haired lady lay.
Her six fox-like tails swayed slowly, mesmerizing like waves caught in a gentle tide. Her blue eyes, the eyes of a spirit fox, glinted with a soft, mournful light as she gazed upon the perfect face of the man she had come to love with everything she was.
The space around them didn't belong to the world outside. It was untouched by the neon glare and cybernetic noise of the new age. It was quiet. Timeless. Almost too normal for a world that had long since forgotten how to be still.
And there he lay. The Emperor. The Crimson Emperor. Ethan Smith. Silent and unchanged, locked in a slumber that had lasted for twenty long years.
Clara pressed her lips to his, searching for the warmth she remembered—craved. But it wasn't there.
And it hurt.
It hurt that he was right there, yet so far from her reach.
Her heart ached with the weight of that truth.