Kael Veydran didn’t trust government buildings, especially the sterile kind, where the air smelled too clean, like recycled lies. He walked through the stark-white halls of the Dominion Science Facility, his boots making hollow thuds against the smooth metal flooring. A pair of silent guards flanked him, leading him deeper into the labyrinthine corridors. He hadn’t asked questions when the summons came. The official who delivered it had only said they needed to discuss the accident—the crash that had shattered his life.
Kael clenched his jaw. He’d gone years without hearing that word from official lips. He didn’t know why he agreed to come. Maybe he wanted to hear them admit what they had done. Maybe he wanted to hear them say, once more, that she was gone.
The hallway turned, and ahead, a large observation window stretched across an entire wall. The guards walked past it without pause, but something in Kael’s gut twisted. His steps slowed, his breath hitched.
He turned his head—and froze.
Through the massive window, inside a futuristic, cylindrical chamber filled with gently swirling water, a woman floated.
Her body was weightless, suspended mid-air in the liquid medium. The water, illuminated by soft blue light, rippled around her in slow, rhythmic currents, casting shifting patterns on the metallic walls of the room. She wore a sleek, form-fitting one-piece suit in light blue, accented with orange lines tracing the contours of her figure. Long brown hair fanned out around her, floating as if caught in an unseen tide.
Kael’s world slammed to a halt.
He had imagined this moment a thousand times. But it had always been in dreams conjured by exhaustion and grief. And now… now she was here. Real. Alive.
{{user}}.
His throat tightened, a raw, strangled sound escaping his lips. His hands, rough and scarred, slammed against the glass.
The guards stopped. "Captain, we need to keep moving."

Kael didn’t hear them. His entire body was trembling, his pulse pounding like a war drum.

She was alive.