billions of light years

Chapter 11

In the end, back to the original starting point.If the trajectory of time is compared to a long river, then each space-time is a waterline that composes the river.All the choices made by everyone from childhood to adulthood will cause the waterline to split.These currents may blend and converge for a short time, but they will eventually part again.No one can escape this rule, just as the river itself cannot resist gravity.

They sneaked back to London again. When Erik and Charles teamed up, it was as easy as hell to sneak into.It's snowing in London. I really don't know what the North Atlantic Current is doing. "This is not a good sign." Erik commented, "Perhaps Apocalypse has helped another mutant develop his abilities, and your burden is heavier, Mr. Charles, the warrior who saved the world."

One of them was all black and the other all white. They played around like children in knee-length padded jackets, and finally they all rolled into the snowdrift.Little Charles sat on top of Erik, laughing loudly and kissing his green eyes. Erik didn't fight back, just lying in the snow smiling with little Charles.After a while he suddenly said, "The snow is going to stop."

Little Charles blinked and looked at the little ice crystal in the air, "Well, it's much smaller."

"When the snow stops, you should go home." Erik obediently let him ride on him, unable to restrain his hands that wanted to touch his cheek.

"Go home and take a hot bath together? I allow you to come with me, I'm serious." The little Charles, dressed in white, smiled like a snow-carved angel full of impure content, almost matching the snow in the background Melted into one, Erik felt like he was going snowblind.This whiteness is like the shimmering moonlight, or the frost on the steel. Erik almost couldn't bear to say the next thing.

"I mean—you should go back, Charles, back to when it all started, back to London in [-] when there wasn't a lot of snow."

Little Charles was taken aback.On the side of his face was Erik's cold hand, and he could feel the metal knuckles sticking to his tongue if he tried to put his fingers in his mouth.

Thanks to the physical contact, he knew it wasn't a lie.After the snow stopped, he would disappear too. 18 years later, he is really accurate, maybe he has even considered these three months?

"And," Erik felt the snow in his eyes, hot. "Maybe your memory won't be preserved. No one can say for sure. You'd better give yourself a mental hint."

Little Charles didn't cry, his eyes were just red.He took off his coat silently.

"Wait Charles," Erik panicked, his voice rising a little, "you're still young and it's not the time to commit yourself—"

"What are you thinking!" Little Charles blushed behind his ears, almost out of breath, "Look," he rolled up the sleeves of his clothes, and Erik's eyes suddenly widened—he saw a faint glow on the inside of little Charles' arm. The red mark on his face looks like a tattoo that has been removed. If you don't look carefully, you will think that this is the same humiliation mark as Erik, representing the memory of the concentration camp.

"1947-1965 with Erik"

1947年，Charles15岁。1965年，Charles33岁。而现在呢？15岁的他和33岁的自己交换了。

"You know, although matter determines consciousness, and consciousness has a reaction to matter, but no matter how much I imagine that I can fly, I still can't grow a pair of wings. But there are traces left by the future on my arm..." Maybe because Too impatient, Charles spoke a little disorganized, "What? You're wondering why you haven't seen it in me in 18 years?"

Little Charles was pale, but still smiling, "Probably because it's a new world. Can you understand, Erik? We might never see each other again anyway, please let me tell you everything—"

"Imagine all parallel universes as a falling waterfall composed of countless water lines. The ending of this waterfall is: In 1965, I became the new reincarnated body of Apocalypse, and you tried to revenge, but was killed by Apocalypse."

Little Charles said, "In this waterfall, the first drop of water to fall into the abyss is the future me in one of the waterlines. I wanted to go back to the past and change everything, but I couldn't. So I turned to other people for help. The bottom line of the universe itself is lowered again and again: save the whole world, save my friends, save myself, save you...What about the ending? But even if it is to let you live alone, you can't do it!"

Little Charles didn't give Erik a chance to interject, "Don't ask me why I didn't tell you, Erik! The Charles of the future tried, tried countless times, failed fail failed—! Constantly changing variables, jumping from one parallel universe to another One... all the attempts made by these tens of thousands of Charles in various universes have all failed! I alone cannot change history at all, I am just a small bearing on the historical machine, and I can only rotate involuntarily That’s all! I’m telling you that you will still fail, whether it’s teaming up in the Apocalypse catastrophe or rebelling after the cataclysm... all of them are failures! We even fell into self-doubt for a while, doubting whether Apocalypse is a god after all, doubting whether the person who can overthrow him has not yet been born... "

Little Charles smiled sadly, "So, Charles thought of another way. Maybe this is the meaning of my existence. Except for me, no one can 'tour' their consciousness upward."

The telepathy was activated, and Erik saw the waterfall above the cliff with a thunderous force.Among them, there is a small drop of water named Charles Xavier going up against the flow of time, trying to return to the time when the waterfall was not yet formed and it was still a small river, jumping from one river to another.This little drop of water failed again and again, until all the Charles in all the waterlines of the waterfall rose together—from point to line, these Charles would eventually shake the entire waterfall.

Little Charles held back tears, his blue eyes glancing down at him and then quickly looking away, like a poor, abandoned animal. "There is a future with you and hope..." Xue became even smaller.You can hardly feel it when you hit the face, but it is more glaring and colder.

"Why don't you always believe me?" Erik said hoarsely. "Either you or him, why didn't you tell me?"

"It's enough for you to trust me. And you're an unconventional, stubborn, dying bastard like me. I knew it from the beginning." Little Charles tried to say in a lighthearted tone This sentence.In fact, he himself wanted to ask why it ended like that.Who would have thought that you, the head of the apocalyptic Gestapo, would die in love with me?Why do you have to make him unable to keep the last bottom line?Is it because they were too young to learn to be open and honest, let alone compromise?

Looking at little Charles' moist blue eyes through a snowflake, the almost transparent color was just like the sky at this time.He was a little bit reluctant, "Snow, it's about to stop."

——? !

Bigger snow fell overwhelmingly, attracting everyone's attention.It's a rose.White rose petals floated down from the sky, falling one after another like snow.Bunches of white roses swirled in the air and fell on this London, which was destined to be extraordinary in winter.Seeing Charles staring blankly at the sky, Erik couldn't help but give a thumbs up to Raven, who was full of romance, and Azazel, his good subordinate who was exhausted.

This snow will probably never stop.

Little Charles was amused by the routine that had been abandoned for centuries, "What is it like chasing girls—"

"I thought you would like it." Erik rubbed his ears that might have been red from the cold with some embarrassment, "You said, how could the heavy snow in your heart stop...?"

Little Charles' body gradually became transparent, like a milky white ghost. Erik lightened in his arms.Everything is still the same, but a person who shouldn't exist has disappeared, taking away memories that shouldn't be left behind. Charles disappeared into the snow, disappeared into the sky full of white roses.

Erik wiped away the tears from his eyelashes, which were as cold as if they'd been frozen the moment they were secreted. "The plan begins." He took down the small walkie-talkie hidden in the stand collar, and let himself fall on his back on the blanket mixed with flowers and snow.He raised his elbow to block the sun, "How many times is this?" How many times has he taken Erik's place in this world and watched little Charles disappear?

Logan's voice came from the buzzing intercom in his hand, "Is it really okay not to tell the professor?"

"You know how many times he failed. Or would you have come to me?" Erik twirled the black-hulled walkie-talkie in his hand, feeling the spinning, fuzzy metal outlines like a malfunctioning compass needle, pointing their uncertain future. "If Charles' strategy is vertical, then I'm horizontal." He seemed to be saying it to himself, or to strengthen the confidence that he didn't know if he should still maintain for the equally tired Logan, "All Erik Lehnsherr together, The long river of time must be able to converge to the same point, that is... after traveling hundreds of millions of light years, all those found will no longer have to face painful choices, have unlimited possibilities, and all Erik and Charles can have a future, The river that swallows all sorrows."

Another river far away. 14-year-old Charles woke up from a quagmire-like nightmare with a sore arm.He opened the sleeves of his pajamas and gasped.There was a line of faint marks on his arm, which seemed to be numbers, but they couldn't be seen clearly.There is only one name that is still clear, as if it has just been scalded by a soldering iron, and it hurts - Erik.

Little Charles frantically found gauze to wrap it up, but was puzzled to find that there was no blood coming out.

Who is this name?Why do you feel pain in your chest when you read it once?

Did he forget something?Or is this person not yet in his life?

Did he forget the sunset in Crete?Or forget the new wind at the end of the world?

Did he forget the waves of the Aegean Sea?Or forget a pair of gray-green eyes?

Little Charles seemed to remember some fragments.Perhaps it was a prophecy, he thought.Anyway, it's unscientific enough to be able to hear what others are saying, and it's not uncommon to dream about something in the future.

He thought of the heavy snow all over the sky, like roses.He went to the window and looked up at the billions of stars.As usual, they were sleeping in the child's pupils in a cute manner.On the pitch-black sky, some snowflakes suddenly fell.Like petals, one after another.Little Charles approached, breathing a white mist on the window pane.United States in December, Westchester, New York.Snow is normal.

Little Charles wrapped the quilt tightly around his body, as if he heard a word that spanned billions of light years, imprinted deep in his heart, and was as indelible as the name on his arm——

He murmured, "Tell me, how could the heavy snow in my heart stop?..."

billions of light years

☆, postscript

postscript

The time traveler finally collapsed, laughing foolishly at the same ending, chose the beginning and showed his cards.But even so, his laziness on the sofa is still like spicy tobacco and sweet spirits.

"Charles, even if that's the case, we should try to change, to fight, not accept it or even run away." The listener was equally exhausted, equally silent.The two of them were like rotting, dusty medieval vampires indulging in a drink.

"Do I want to escape, Erik? Have you finished listening?" He stretched his arms lazily, "As long as you erase your memory, at least one of us can be saved..."

"Then let's go together, Charles. One person can't, what about everyone together? Let's fight together to change the future, even if I die in battle, I will enter heaven with a smile on my face, and go to see God who plays with everyone's fate... What about you, what have you got? The joy of sacrifice willing to die? The insult of the victor, the contempt of the villain? Or the next millennium that belongs to the apocalypse that you can witness with your own eyes?"

Charles seemed to have been slapped on the head and face several times, his eardrums buzzed, and every word Erik said set off a tsunami and a gust of wind in his heart. "You win," he said. "Let's join forces."

Across hundreds of millions of light-years, the left and right hands that hold each other, the people who fought alone finally joined forces victoriously, and the spoils are the unique future in the billions of worlds.