If you had the choice to bring back your loved ones, would you take it?
If you could take a second try at life, a happier try at life, would you take it?
If someone offered you the world that you've always wanted, could you deny them?
But what if to get this dream, this desire you've secretly held, you had to pay a price. Is everything you've ever loved and everything you've ever wanted worth a cost?
At the age of 10, Vixy Reinard McCloud passed away. Someone had rigged her husband's car with a car-bomb, and she'd been the one to set it off.
At the age of 14, James McCloud was pronounced dead when he didn't return from a mission to Venom.
Both of these deaths were tied to the mad scientist Andross, having already been exiled to the harsh planet of Venom. He was promptly executed for his crimes against people of Corneria.
"You know Fox, we aren't that different. My family died when I was young and I was left alone."
The voice haunted me, like he was still alive. I saw him die, it was the closure I needed.
"I always wanted a chance to have them back, to have a second chance."
It killed me inside to think that this man was alive. He took... he took my mother from me when I was still practically a kit. My dad is dead, my dad is dead. Oh god, he promised he'd be back too. He left me his sunglasses though. He never went anywhere without them. They were his lucky sunglasses. I should've seen right through it.
"I now have the ability to create that second chance, but I no longer have a human form and can't take it myself."
Everything I've ever seen in my life, everything I've ever experienced, I could feel my dad guiding me. I would've died if it weren't for him. He's everything to me.
"I didn't have a hand in the deaths of your parents. They died at the hand of the Cornerian army. James McCloud had a bounty placed on him in his last hours for betraying orders. To force him into the war, the army stripped him of the last thing that was stopping him. Naturally, they killed Vixy without batting an eye. It wasn't a long-shot to frame someone who was already not trusted amongst their ranks."
My mom... my mom. She loved me more than the world, she loved me more than anything. We'd go to the park, she'd push me on the swings. Oh... We'd come home every day and bake together, laughing how we ended up with more cookie dough on each other than in the oven. Oh god...
"To go so far as to offer something like this to you would be extraordinary. James was a colleague, I would never want to see his family hurt. I always had a liking for you. You'd come to work with him."
I'm crying now, I'm genuinely crying. I haven't cried since her funeral, something broke inside me. I couldn't cry when I found out my dad was dead, I couldn't do anything. Everything in the world ended for me those days. Funny thing is, each of the events that ruined my life took a mere second to happen, if even.
"I want to give you the second chance at a life you always wanted. I want you to have your family back. I will give them to you, I will give you a chance to live your life over with them in it."
The voice echoed in and out of my mind. It was Andross, wasn't it? Andross was talking to me.
"Alls you have to do is say yes, and I will give everything you've ever wanted back to you."
"Yes..."