The air felt like stepping outside after the rain.
Cold, misty, and heavy. The feeling was familiar.
But I couldn't place it.
I lay at the bottom of a body of water, drifting in the heart of somewhere… unearthly.
Was this the afterlife?
I didn't think it would be so dull.
Twenty-three years on Earth for this? I wasn't impressed.
I closed my eyes. The water shifted around me, lifting my weight like I barely existed. Why wasn't I sinking?
Then it came back to me. My final moments.
The woman I'd saved.
The truck. The screech of tires. The heat. The white light that could've burned the sky.
I didn't think. I moved. And now?
I was drifting upward, sideways.
Everywhere. And nowhere.
All at once.
I felt sick. I didn't know how long I'd been there.
But worse than the sickness was the feeling of a voice. Not heard, but felt.
I blinked. Or maybe I didn't. It all felt the same. Movements with no sensation. A strange kind of awareness. Like I was promised something bigger than this.
I wasn't noble. Not a hero.
I was a footballer first.
A human second.
I didn't live by any deep moral code. When you're that far into your career, not many people talk to you. Even fewer talk shit on the pitch.
So.
Would I be wrong for thinking that?
I don't know which part of me came first.
Was it my heart? My mind?
Or my feet?
The same feet I used to juggle, to strike with mechanical brilliance.
Or maybe it was my mind.
I don't know. Felt like both. Or neither.
Not that it mattered now.
Red. Blue. Black. Green.
My body landed on a crystalline surface.
I fell through silence.
Then impact.
But not pain. Just stillness, pressed beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat.
My body landed on something that shimmered.
A surface like glass, but not reflective. Not ice.
Not anything from Earth.
It stretched in every direction. Clear. Infinite. Fractaled. Like the world was frozen mid-exhale, and I had cracked through it just by existing.
Light moved under it. Not above, not on top.
Under.
Like the surface was a sky flipped upside down.
I stared through it and saw constellations swimming beneath me.
Galaxies drifting just beneath my feet, distorted like starlight seen through water.
My kit was dry. Perfect.
The home colors. The one from Brazil. The number eleven stitched across my back like prophecy.
I pressed my hand to the ground.
It didn't feel like ground.
It didn't feel like anything.
Just truth, solidified.
Ahead, the stream cut through the crystal like a wound in glass, flowing with something too silver to be water.
It whispered.
Like wind through stadium rafters before kickoff.
And there by its edge…
She stood.
The woman I'd died for.
Or something wearing her shape.
I was wearing my home kit.
The one Coach hated unless I made the knockout goal of the night.
I looked up.
She was there. By a stream of flowing water. The woman I gave my life for.
But she had horns now. Her golden eyes were blue.
She didn't turn to me, but I knew she was aware.
Of all this. Of me. Her presence shimmered like heat over a flame. Unmissable, unmistakable.
I sat up slowly. Pressed my hands against the crystal. It didn't feel cold.
Didn't feel like anything. I pushed harder.
To feel something. To feel grounded.
It couldn't compare to the turf in Paris. The kit was clean. Shirt flawless. Socks rolled just right.
It was from the Brazil match.
My best game. The night I made number eleven feel holy to every fan who screamed my name… Kaviar.
Kaviar Ka'eli.
And somehow, it never truly felt like mine.
She shifted. Not her body, but the space around her.
The light. The stream.
"You expected gold gates," she said, without looking up.
Her voice wasn't hers.
Not how I remembered it.
"You expected wings. Maybe even a trophy. Like the World Cup your team won? The one where you became KK11."
She turned slightly.
"What you got instead was silence—and time."
I said nothing.
I was dead.
"You're not dead, Kaviar Ka'eli."
What?
Was she reading my mind?
"You gave your life for that woman. The one almost killed by a reckless driver," she said.
I scoffed. Rolled my eyes.
"She meant nothing to me."
"She meant everything to someone."
"She had less than a decade left…"
"One decade can save thousands."
She turned fully. Her face was calm. Expression unreadable.
Her horns were gone. Her eyes, golden again. The light returned.
She looked at me directly. Concentrated. Unmoved.
More angel than before.
"Humankind has given me many names," she said, voice solemn.
"Light is the face of mine for those who find clarity. So Lux is what you may call me."
The steam rose, fleeing upward.
"And I didn't summon you."
"Then what is this? Judgment?"
"Ka'eli. Judgment would've sent you back. Punishment would've ended your life."
A gust of wind swept past me.
Sudden, without warning.
"Truth is… you're special."
She stood. I couldn't move.
No more scoffing. No more rebuttals.
My body wouldn't listen.
"You acted without thought. No guarantee you'd survive. That trait is rare among humans."
She touched her cheek.
"And even rarer among those who never found time to show compassion."
She raised her other hand.
It was closed.
When she opened it, a glowing ember bloomed.
A flower of fire.
"This—" she said, holding her closed hand to her chest, "—comes from my child."
She didn't say a name. Didn't need to.
The air shifted. Thicker. Charged.
"She's the one who called you," Lux continued. "Not me." Her voice dimmed, as if speaking the truth out loud pulled something from her.
"I see now… why she chose you."
Then she opened her palm.
A small ember bloomed. It pulsed.
N with heat, but memory.
Like it knew me before I knew myself.
"This is her gift."
She pressed it into my chest.
The burn was quiet but it stayed.
Heat spread beneath every pore. A deep, burning sensation.
"You won't remember this," she whispered.
"But you'll feel it—every time the ground shakes beneath your feet."
She snapped her fingers.
"This is not peace, Kaviar."
"It's a beginning disguised as mercy."
"Now go live like the world owes you nothing."