The prophetic dream struck with unprecedented crity, awakening Lucius hours before his usual rising time. Unlike his visions of Nova—always a male hybrid with different appearances but recognizably the same essence—this dream centered on an entirely human woman leading a primitive tribe through harsh wilderness.

  "Cassandra," he whispered, the name coming to him unbidden as he processed the vision's details.

  What disoriented him most profoundly was the unexpected spiritual signature he recognized within this unknown woman—the same unmistakable essence he had come to know through his visions of Nova. But this made no sense. All versions of Nova, regardless of appearance or name, had been male hybrids born of human and wereanimal parents. This Cassandra was entirely human, female, and lived in what appeared to be near-primitive conditions.

  The possibility that his visions of Nova had been fundamentally wrong troubled him deeply. Had he misunderstood some critical aspect of his prophetic gift? Was this human woman the actual manifestation of the being he had awaited for centuries?

  Yet when he closed his eyes again, his established visions of Nova remained unchanged—still male, still hybrid, still unmistakably distinct from this Cassandra. This inconsistency created profound dissonance until subsequent dreams gradually revealed a more complex truth.

  As he continued experiencing visions of both Cassandra and Nova in different timelines, Lucius slowly pieced together an extraordinary revetion: Cassandra represented a previous incarnation of the same soul that would eventually become Nova. She was not Nova, yet at her essence, she carried the same spirit that would ter inhabit the hybrid he awaited.

  This understanding of reincarnation—that souls could return in different forms across centuries—transformed Lucius's comprehension of his own prophetic abilities. His visions had always shown him souls rather than merely physical beings, though he had never recognized this distinction until confronted with the same essence in two dramatically different forms.

  Most troubling was what his visions revealed about their future interaction. He would meet Cassandra centuries before Nova's birth, forming a connection that would end with her inevitable death due to human mortality. For Nova to be born in his destined form, Cassandra must first live and die, completing her human existence so that her soul could eventually return as the hybrid being from Lucius's original visions.

  The emotional implications created an impossible dilemma. If he avoided meeting Cassandra to spare himself the pain of her loss, would that choice somehow prevent Nova's eventual existence? If he met her knowing her death was inevitable, could he maintain the necessary emotional distance to survive that loss with his sanity intact?

  After careful contemption, Lucius made his choice—he would not attempt to prevent their meeting when it eventually occurred. Though painful, he recognized it as a necessary step in the soul's journey toward eventually becoming Nova. This understanding brought neither comfort nor peace, only crity about the unavoidable path before him.

  The experience fundamentally altered Lucius's understanding of time, fate, and even his own nature. If souls could return across centuries in different forms, what did that suggest about his own potential beyond his current existence? What rger pattern might his seemingly unique experience as Subject 23 represent within some cosmic cycle he could not yet comprehend?

  These questions remained unanswered as dawn approached, yet Lucius felt strange reassurance in the revetion of this cyclical spiritual journey. The soul he had come to love through visions of Nova was even more remarkable than he had initially understood—having lived, suffered, and persisted across multiple existences while maintaining its essential nature through each incarnation.