Crystals floated around her and her skin sparkled in the light. I could see diamond tears covering her cheeks; she knew as well as I did that we wouldn’t survive this. The refractions hadn’t been in our favor this time.

It was a risk we ran, mirror traveling throughout realm, yet up to this point, we always outran them. Although we'd never say it out loud, we thought we were invincible. Mission after mission, we made it. Sometimes we were a little worse for wear, but we always lived to tell our tales.

Not this time though. This time, we traveled right into a trap laid out for us by the very entity we had spent our careers, our lives, trying to take down. Our stepping through the portal into the room planted with a sea of glass, mirrors, and jewels trigged an explosion that sent a wave of shards crashing toward us.

In the breath, the split second, after the explosion, the whole world slowed to a crawl. My head snapped to where I knew she was at my side. If this was going to be my last moment, I knew I wanted to spend it looking at her.

Her eyes were brimming with love - for me, for our work, for our life - and I knew for sure the same love was reflected in mine. It was far from easy and at times, certainly not glamorous. Our luck was bound to catch up to us, I suppose. But we had a hell of a run. We paved the way for so many other agents and missions in the fight to create the realm we wanted for us and for our future. I knew without a doubt that our team would carry on where we left off, and I was already so proud of them. And in this moment, surrounded by both my end and my reason, I was at peace. It was all more than worth it, I decided, as the split second ended and the world sped back up.

I was enveloped by glass, pain, and then darkness.