-- The Uncanny X-Men #101 "Like A Phoenix From The Ashes" (Marvel Comics)
Art by David Cockrum
A passage from the Uncanny X-Men #254:
Irenè Adler, also called Destiny, blessed and cursed with the powers of precognition, has a prophetic dream of the end of the world as well as her own passing:
"Time -- the frame and arbiter of our existence. For all save me, people's perceptions are confined to the experiences of their own lives -- short mayfly flashes of light against the backdrop of infinity. Past and present have reality, because we've lived through them. The future, that great unknown, remains but a dream, for all save me. I am Destiny.
"I have been blind since birth, yet my inner sight has served me well, if not better, than any eyes. If anything, it has grown keener with age and use. Yet in all I can remember, I have never found myself in a place such as this. A room of purest crystal, embraced by crystal gardens beyond, wherein I find a statue of Raven Darkhölme... She has never looked more lovely. This is Raven as I know her, the spiritsoul within my dearest friend -- full of strength and courage and passion -- that I have loved from the moment we met.
"But she is not alone here. Everywhere I turn, statues abound, each exemplifying the noblest, finest aspects of the person they represent, possessing such beauty they make my heart ache. Then I realise, that everything around me is carved from crystal. Birds, animals, insects, flowers, even the distant mountains and the ground beneath my feet -- all frozen.in a moment of sublime, absolute, transcendent perfection. Overhead, a crystal moon glitters in the firmament beside a crystal sun. And suddenly, I am the one overhead with the vast panoply of the Milky Way strewn before me. All the stars that ever were, the beings that live on their attendant worlds, no more.
"I weep, without knowing whether from grief at what's been lost, or the joy at the indescribable glory that remains. And with those tears, the awareness that my moment has come. Yet even as glory envelops me, I hear some small part of me shriek a denial. Calling on me to fight and somehow save myself -- too late."
