The siblings were the last to step inside the house. Marcia looked like she had just seen a new colour, while Felix looked like he had just tasted it. His head was spinning so quickly, it was a miracle he hadn’t tripped over his feet yet.

Titus and Orpheus, on the other hand, found their seats and patiently waited for their companions to enter. They did not give the siblings any looks of confusion, of course. The family’s surname already sufficed to explain their reaction.

After a few seconds of groping around awkwardly, Felix finally sat himself down on a metallic chair. He did not take his eyes off his ‘parents’. They looked younger than he remembered, although not as young as Vulcan. He’d put them in their late thirties, give or take five years. In other words, the same age as him now.

“You alright there, lad?” Apollo stared at Felix. “Something spooked ya? There isn’t anything out of place in our house, is there?”

“N— No…” Felix blinked a few times, before shaking his head frantically. “I’m just… Uhm— Tired.”

“Well, I can hardly blame ya,” Diana said cheerily. “Visitors from another world! You lot must have come a long way to get here. Do you need any healing salves, perhaps?”

Felix flinched slightly as the woman put the back of her hand against his forehead.

“It doesn’t matter,” he stuttered, moving away from her. “Let’s just get on with what we came here to do, Mo— I mean, Missus Pagonis.”

“Diana will do, dearie!” The woman snapped her fingers and the table shifted, producing another row of spellcrafts. “Now, back to business. Pardon me, this might be a little tricky.”

“Alcaeus mentioned you were looking for The Winter Solstice, am I right?” Apollo asked. “I’ll be honest. We only have a very faint idea of what that is, but we know enough to create a chain of information to find out.”

“What’s that mean?” Orpheus asked curiously.

“My wife here has an exceedingly useful ability: Psychometry,” Apollo explained. “Her power allows her to acquire any knowledge and skill by touching objects in the right order. She’ll be able to explain everything you need to know at a master’s level in no time at all.”

“Hmm, let’s see…” Diana pored over the long row of spellcrafts. “Where to begin…? Ah, perhaps I’ll start with you.”

The woman reached for a thick book—

“Wait,” Marcia spoke for the first time since she entered the house. “We have the Summer Solstice with us.”

Red flickered in Apollo’s eyes as Marcia let go of the tome, allowing it to get pulled into the man’s hand. Felix almost smiled with nostalgia. It had been so long since he last saw his parents wield their Meta abilities.

“You’re a sharp one, lass.” Apollo gave Marcia a small smile. “Not many people know when to let go. You must have experience dealing with psychokinetics. Speaking of which, we forgot to ask you to introduce yourselves!”

Felix shifted uncomfortably, so his sister spoke first.

“I’m Marcia. I can telepathically communicate with animals,” she said simply, obviously not willing to give away her surname. Felix decided to follow suit.

“I’m Felix, and I’m a… telekinetic.”

“Orpheus, Necromancer.”

“Titus, Physical enhancement. Charmed to meet you.”

“Well met, well met.” Apollo shook their hands. “Two psychic-based Metas! What are the odds? Like my wife, I’m psychic-based as well. I can control gravity.”

The man tossed The Summer Solstice lightly, allowing it to drop in an unnatural parabolic curve onto the table.

“Well, well. This certainly makes things a lot easier.” Diana smiled warmly and placed her hands on the tome, closing her eyes.

A gentle white glow emanated from behind the woman’s eyelids. Felix could already sense the psychic field around her beginning to churn. Residual psionic energy floated out of the book, as though pulled by something. It swirled in the air and mixed with the latent psychic field surrounding the woman, before being sucked into her body.

The others remained silent, even though they were simply watching Diana’s eyelids flicker once every now and then. Felix and Marcia watched on in awe.

“Oh my…” Diana let go of the book and inhaled sharply. “That’s a lot to take in. How curious… How very curious, indeed…”

“What is it, my dear?” Apollo supported his wife before she accidentally toppled from her chair.

“I wonder if your arrival to our world is fate.” Diana was staring straight at Felix before she turned to her husband. “Everything we’ve studied in our lives… All our theories have just been proven right with this artefact. Our life’s work is completed.”

Felix tilted his head in confusion. He would’ve read her mind already, if not for the fact that there was no mind to read in the first place.

“It is as we had conjectured, Apollo.” The woman nodded. “The cloud not only stores the key to our longevity but also possesses the ability to conjure portals.”

Stolen story; please report.

“By the gods, my love.” Apollo gripped her hand tightly. “Doesn’t that insinuate that we are not corporeal beings to begin with?”

“Indeed. By virtue of the entanglement theory, these twin artefacts reveal each other’s state at all times. The Winter Solstice not only has been used but also is still in use as we speak.”

Titus waved his hand at them impatiently. “Hey. In English, please?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just… It’s a lot to take in,” Diana said. “But I suppose I’ll have to start from the beginning.”

“In our lifetimes, we were magic specialists studying the principles behind spellcrafts and tomes. Being Metas ourselves, we were free to investigate them as we wished without being affected by spellcrafts. We loved what we did, so we carried on our work even after our passing in a tragic traffic accident. But we could never forget our two children, who had not been revived along with everyone else for some reason. So we focused our efforts on spellcrafts that dealt with the dead to seek out that reason.”

Diana hung her head.

“We never found it. But in our research, we came across records about two Solstices wielded by the god, Janus. Or rather, we discovered that the tomes are Janus himself,” Apollo continued in his wife’s stead. “Being in complete control of all gateways, Janus has the power to resurrect any corpse safely by creating a small door between the living and non-living realms. Any soul that passes through would be cleansed of any nascent corruption and safely reinstated in their bodies.”

Felix and Marcia shifted at the same time.

“No matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t find any more information about this topic. That was until you came to us.” Diana handed the book back to them. “After making contact with this artefact, we have just confirmed that The Winter Solstice is housed in the cloud. Not only has it been used to reinstate our existence, it is currently opening portals to other worlds to do so.”

“You lost me,” Felix said frankly. “How does that work?”

“There is a simple rule in nature. Nothing in the mortal realm naturally lasts forever,” Apollo said. “We conjectured that if our lives were unending, something else must have been giving up their lives for that to happen. The problem is, we can’t find out what that is. Try as we may, no one in this realm has ever come close to entering the cloud. We mused over many reasons, and only one made sense.”

The man leaned closer. “The cloud must exist on a different plane of existence.”

“The Winter Solstice has been opening portals for something to go through, and whatever comes back is carrying souls,” Diana explained. “If I’m deducing this correctly, the residents of this place are merely our sundered selves that do not truly exist. Our better, or worse halves are all in that cloud, slaving away to collect souls and sustain our existence.”

“Hold on. If any soul that passes through the portals can already be safely reinstated in their bodies, why is there still a need to do this?” Felix asked.

“Just because something can happen doesn’t mean that it did happen,” Apollo replied grimly. “There are many ways things can go wrong. Since Janus deals with all doorways, even the slightest margin of error would result in disastrous results, including the destruction of reality when the doors are opened wrongly.”

“Vulcan mentioned cataclysms and the shrinking of this universe…” Marcia breathed in realisation. “So that’s what happened to this world.”

“Marcia, you opened a portal in your world too, didn’t you?” Orpheus asked. “Doesn’t this just mean that the same is going to happen to it?”

Felix and Marcia snapped to the Necromancer in shock.

“All the more you need to take the Winter Solstice,” Orpheus said grimly. “Only with the power of both books can you reverse the damage done.”

“Does it work like that?” Apollo mused.

“Whatever the case is, I fear whatever we had just discussed is true,” Diana said. “There must have been an attempt to rejoin soul to body, which resulted in the death of our world. We were somehow saved by whoever did this, albeit preserved in a lesser form.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What happens if we take the Winter Solstice from this universe?” Marcia spoke up.

“Odds are, we cease to exist,” Apollo replied. “We are mere thoughts given form. Without the soul magic to sustain our being, we have nothing else to keep us this way.”

Felix shot his sister a glance as he felt her grip on his hand tightly. He tried his best to keep his emotions in check as well.

“But don’t let that stop you,” Diana said in a caring, motherly voice this time. “We are but mere shades of our former selves. Our lives are already over. Every day we exist is a blessing.”

“There must be another way…” Marcia shook her head, letting the facade fall as tears broke out of her eyes. “Mom, Dad! Don’t leave me again!”

Felix’s eyes widened in shock, but the couple weren’t looking so surprised themselves. Instead, they stood up and walked over to Marcia, giving her a tight hug.

“Silly girl. That we are spending this moment together is already a gift,” Diana whispered gently in her ear.

Marcia gasped. “You knew…?”

“We had our suspicions the moment you walked through our door. Our only memories of our daughter were when she was still a child, but we’d still recognise her, no matter her age.”

Apollo turned to Felix. “And you too. Am I right, young man?”

“Father, Mother…” Was all Felix could mutter.

“I suppose that’s where the difference in our worlds begins.” Diana brought him into a hug as well. “We had two daughters. But you are so much like her. Oh, you poor boy…”

Felix could feel her psychic power tingling around his skin, but he didn’t resist. He didn’t want to let go.

“You have come so far, and you have been so strong to endure all that hardship.” The white glow in Diana’s eyes glistened slightly. “Be strong just this once more, will you? Be strong for your world. Be strong for your sister.”

A teardrop splashed onto the floor.

“Yes, mother. I… I will,” Felix whispered. “I missed you. I really missed you both so much…”

The couple let go of them slowly, reluctantly even. Felix did not protest. They were right; every part of his journey had been a gift. He was never meant to use this second chance to fix his own world. It had been his purpose to help all the others all along.

“Where you must go, we cannot follow.” Apollo smiled. “Painful as it is, the living cannot cling onto the deceased forever, and neither can the dead hold onto life endlessly. We cannot change fate. Our journey has already ended decades ago. It is time you move on with yours.”

Felix closed his eyes in acceptance.