Tatters of space mingled with the distant void and the space between spaces, a current of foreign airs blowing through. A large hole had punctured the side of Kinisis’s universe, and the Allmaker was absolutely furious.
“KENON, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING!” the Goddess of the Universe roared, stamping her feet in midair.
The God of the Void ignored Kinisis, inspecting the hole. All things considered, it wasn’t that big. Large enough to maybe stick a few meteors through. Kenon could probably fix it in about a day.
“KENON, ANSWER ME!”
With a shake of his antlered head, Kenon did as he was asked. “Yes, I know, Kinisis. And I apologise. But what broke in here was not a corruption but another universe. Accidentally or otherwise I don’t know.”
The two beings were interrupted by two more. Epani, the Goddess of Space and Kairos, the God of Time, had both arrived on the scene to see what was going on.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Kinisis boomed. “You SHOULD know!”
“I cannot possibly know what other universes are thinking, my beloved…” Kenon was doing his best to not make matters worse. “We need to check to make sure nothing got in.”
Epani stepped in. “I already checked. Nothing got in. But I believe something was taken out.”
“How do you know?” Kairos asked.
“Because I made most of the mass in this universe and I can tell when some of it is missing?” Epani sneered. “You, mister dragon time god, should have known this was going to happen.”
“Hey!” Kairos was about to snap back, but like Kenon, he didn’t want to make things worse. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. What’s more important is that we fix the hole and work out what’s missing, right?”
Kinisis tutted, stamped her feet again then sighed. This anger was getting her nowhere. “Yes, son. That is what we need to do.”
Kenon inspected the hole again, trying to work out what sort of thing had made the hole in the first place. Normally the boundaries of the universe were somewhat soft, designed to make physical things bounce off it. So whatever had done this must have punched through the universal walls. With considerable force. And some heat, enough to cause a small explosion. If anything, the echoes from the explosion were what alerted Kenon to the problem.
“Should I go and make some hole filler?” Epani asked, not sure what else to do with herself.
“You know how to do it, yes?” Kenon asked. “Super strong and high density.”
“Of course…” Epani rolled her eyes. “I’ve done this before.”
“Question…” Kairos interrupted. “Can you tell what exactly was taken? Like, did they steal some rocks or something? Or was this accidental?”
“I doubt it was accidental…” Kenon explained. “This hole looks forced. Deliberate. Like something really wanted in. Perhaps only to find they were incompatible with this universe.”
“Like a corruption?”
“Yes, but with no traces of corruption.” Kenon hummed to himself. “Curious…”
Epani swished her tail, then rushed off to go and make some universal boundary filler. She always kept some on standby, but she wanted to make sure this batch was nice and thick.
Replacing her was Yisini, who looked pretty upset.
“Hey, sis!” Kairos waved. “You alright?”
“No! Everything in the Life Cycle is going weird! I can’t find Arkadin!”
The three other gods stared at Yisini, then turned to the gaping hole in the side of the universe.
“Huh…” Kairos muttered. “So that’s what they stole…”