“Kairos!”
A sharp, stinging sensation soared across Kairos’s body, starting from his chest and resonating outwards.
“Kairos! Come on, come back!”
The sensation returned, this time stretching out into his arms and legs, right down to the tip of his tail.
“KAIROS!”
The Whenvern’s eyes snapped open, only to be met by a very worried Thantophor. He blinked several times, feeling weirdly bruised and battered. As if someone had been pounding on his chest.
“Uh… what happened?” Kairos found it hard to sit upright. Something felt very wrong. For some reason, Arkadin looked different. More starry. And he didn’t normally have large, blue wings. The Thantophor was also placing piles of ice on Kairos’s chest to ease the pain and bruises.
Arkadin looked up at Kairos. “I was going to ask the same thing of you!” There was a hint of panic in Arkadin’s voice. “What happened to you? You were completely L.I.V.!”
“L.I.V.?”
“Uh… Lacking in Vitals. You weren’t responding to external stimuli and you were… it was like you were dead! Like, you… you died briefly.”
“I… I died?” Kairos felt very confused. He also felt a lot of pain. The Whenvern never normally felt pain.
“I don’t know!” Arkadin exclaimed. “Do you know what happened before you passed out?”
Kairos shook out his wings, stretching his limbs. The bruised feeling was going away. Slowly. “When did I pass out?”
“The four of us split up after that little jaunt around that Skyan mall and you said you went home to sleep but that you’d come back… I was just cleaning up the mess you all made and then things started slowing down and I came here and you were…” Arkadin was speaking really quickly. “Kairos, you… you’re not right…”
“I don’t remember what happened.”
“Like, nothing?”
“I came here, I felt tired, I passed out…” Kairos’s eyes suddenly widened. He stood up straight, ignoring any pain and nearly knocking Arkadin over. “IS THE UNIVERSE OKAY?”
Arkadin sighed as he picked himself up. “The universe is fine. I seamlessly took over the second you were unable to… do your job. Then when things were settled, I immediately came looking for you.”
“What about the others though?” Kairos panicked. Arkadin put his hands up in front of Kairos, in a vague attempt to calm him down.
“Everyone is fine. Yisini went off and hid. Epani’s a bit miffed that you nearly died. Kinisis is on her way now and I wanted to talk to you and try and work out what happened before Kinisis gets… angry…”
Kairos did eventually calm down. But confusion clouded his mind.
“Brother, do you remember anything? Anything at all?”
“No. I don’t remember anything. It’s as if I returned here and just… fainted. Just disappeared.”
“You really have… no idea?” Arkadin was getting more and more worried. “Like, did you eat something or do something or what?”
“I remember nothing.”
Arkadin sighed, not sure what to do. As he did so, something knocked on the crystal door above them. Kinisis had arrived, with Kenon and Epani in tow. Yisini was nowhere to be seen, but that was to be expected, she would always scarper away whenever something like this would happen.
“Why did you save me, Arky?” Kairos suddenly asked.
“I may be the god of death, but I’m also the god of making sure this universe lives long enough for me to eventually kill it when the time is right.”
“Oh…” Kairos trailed off, then glanced at the door. He didn’t want to scare his family any more, so he dropped the subject. “Well, thank you, brother…”