The next time Xisuma awoke, it wasn't where he expected to be. He felt around, and found himself lying on a bumpy material. Hang on. I'm not dead..? The room seemed blurry- and strangely purple. He reached up to rub his eyes, but only succeeded in knocking his fingers against a hard glass. What is this? It felt like a helmet, and he was just reaching to take it off, when-

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." X looked up to see who had spoken, and saw the door- which he hadn't noticed before, was open, and someone was standing there. They looked relatively normal, despite some interesting clothing choices. All they wore was a long white shirt, going down to mid thigh. "Not unless you value your life."

"What? Where am I? And why," Xisuma wrinkled his nose- unfortunately the helmet didn't come with a smell filter- "does everything smell like fish."

"Well, yeah, sorry about that," the person laughed apologetically. "But we live under the sea, we can't really help it."

"Wait. Did you just say under the sea? How am I still alive? Why did you bring me here?"

"Let's take it slow, buddy," he said. "Let's start with names. Bdubs." He offered, holding out a hand to shake.

"Xisuma." He cautiously took the hand, finding it to be surprisingly warm, despite how cold it was around him.

"Great! Now we're on name basis, let's answer some of your questions, shall we?"

"Right.. what does this helmet do?" He asked, tapping it. The purple visor was kind of distracting, but it was alright.

"It keeps you alive, basically," Bdubs shrugged. "We had limited colour choices. But anyway, it allows you to breathe. You see, most of us can already do that."

"Why'd you bring me back..?" He asked, genuinely curious. He wondered if the others who had disappeared into the ocean had gone the same route as he had.

"It's not every day you see a half- scratch that, seventy-five percent dead human floating in your seas. Especially when the portal's open.." he said nonchalantly, despite having just referenced something that shouldn't be possible to create according to the laws of physics. "Actually, we've had quite a lot of people dropping in. Two, as far as I remember. You're our third. Be proud. Who were they? Ariane, and what was it? X-something." He looked up, scrutinising Xisuma. "You remind me of him a lot."

Time seemed to freeze as Xisuma processed what he'd just heard. Could it be..? By then, X thought that Bdubs could probably hear his heartbeat, it was so loud. "Xavier?" He questioned, heart pounding in his throat.

"Yes! Xavier. You seem to know him; that's a huge coincidence."

X nodded, quickly standing up, trying to hide his excitement and happiness. How could it be? That his brother hadn't actually died? The thought was cut short as they stepped out of the relative warmth of the room, and he was hit with a sudden wave of cold.

"Oops, sorry, forgot to warn you.. it gets kind of cold outside the houses."

-

It was true. Xisuma stared at his brother in shock, only barely able to see his face through the red visor on his head. He didn't register anything after that, just them hugging and crying, and if this wasn't the best feeling in the world, he didn't know what was.

"Oh, and here's Ariane. She's been here for a while." Bdubs interrupted. A woman was walking towards them.

"Hello."

And everything else that was missing suddenly clicked into place. Xisuma knew that voice, remembered it speaking softly to him as a child. That familiar, harmonious, gentle tone.

Remembered everything.

There were still so many questions unanswered, but what did it matter? The family was finally back together again.

lol this is short and bad quality