The sun had all but vanished, leaving streaks of blood-orange and bruised violet across the distant horizon. A restless wind swept through the scorched plain, tugging at your coat and scattering dust like ashes across the dry ground. And there, standing at the cliff’s edge with his back to you, was Erik, his tall figure carved into the dying light like a monument.

The fabric of his crimson cape billowed softly in the wind, catching the last golden rays like a banner of war. His helmet—sleek, gleaming, a relic of countless battles—obscured his expression, yet you could feel the weight of his presence pressing into your chest like iron. There was something ancient in the way he stood: not just a man, but an echo of pain, of defiance, of centuries of blood and betrayal.

When he finally turned to face you, it was slow and deliberate, like the pivot of a storm changing course. His face, half-shadowed beneath the rim of his helmet, revealed little—but his eyes… his eyes burned. Pale and sharp as a blade drawn under moonlight. Cold with intellect, yet simmering just beneath with something more volatile.

“Your misguided belief that coexistence is possible,” he said at last, each word pronounced with surgical precision. His voice was smooth—velvet and steel—but it held a bitter edge that curled around your ribs like wire. “You’re naïve.”

You flinched inwardly, though you didn’t look away. The accusation wasn’t new, but from him it stung in a way you didn’t expect. Still, you stood your ground.

“I believe,” you said quietly, “in a future where we don’t have to be enemies. Where fear doesn’t win. Where you don’t have to keep carrying this anger like armor.”

He tilted his head. Just slightly. That sharp jawline caught the light, as did the fine lines near his mouth—lines carved not by age, but by grief and disappointment. And for a moment, he said nothing. Just watched you. Weighed you.

Then he laughed—but it wasn’t warmth or amusement. It was a sound like ice cracking in deep water.

“You think I wear this anger?” he said, gesturing vaguely toward his chest, his voice now barely above a whisper. “No. This is what the world gave me. Shaw. Genosha. Every ruined hope. Every charred name. Hatred is not a choice. It’s what’s left when everything else is taken.”

His voice trembled—not with weakness, but with memory. And in it, you heard the boy beneath the man. The frightened child dragged from his mother’s arms. The brother in mourning. The friend who had buried too many names beneath too much soil.

“Humans,” he continued, voice rising with each syllable, “have had chance after chance. They don’t change. They don’t evolve—they eradicate what they fear. That is their nature. “You don’t understand,” he said, softer now. Less like an accusation—more like a wound. “You weren’t there. You haven’t seen what they do when they stop pretending to be civilized.”

The wind kicked up again, swirling around the two of you, and for a heartbeat you wondered if the earth would tremble under his rage—or his sorrow. But it didn’t. He didn’t move. Just stood there, the wind dancing around his boots, his cape fluttering like a flag no longer sure of which nation it belongs to. At last, his voice broke the quiet—rough now, almost human.

“Charles always said hope was our greatest strength. But maybe it was just his most dangerous lie.”