They say that the end of the world started with humans losing their humanities, blood becoming a familiar scene, and the world crashing down little by little, leaving nothing but the dull scent of death lingering in the air.

Kai thought that he will be long gone when that happens, but the view he saw once he opened his eyes might have proven how wrong he was. He saw blood, a lot of blood, and the dead. Corpses built a small mountain across the field. The ground became the bed of the dead.

He gasped, horrified.

He felt a heavy weight sitting firmly in his head, his dizziness mixed together with the nauseous feeling that he felt at the pit of his stomach. He wanted to throw up, but then he remembered of what had happened, and his eyes frantically searched for a figure smaller than his with eyes resembling the full moon.

Kyungsoo was lying sprawled a few meters from him, and he quickly scrambled to his feet, albeit falling back on the ground a few times, but eventually managed to get over to his twin’s place. “Kyungsoo!”

“Ngggh…!” Kyungsoo groaned. He placed a hand on his temple, seemingly trying to get rid the pain in his head. He caught his younger twin groan in somewhat a relieved tone before he fell to the ground beside Kyungsoo.

“Where are we?” He questioned. He didn’t address it to anyone in particular, hoping that someone could at least give him a solid answer. He was, like his twin, caught completely off guard when the thunder crashed in between their circle back in the grotto.

“We are in our world,” Luhan offered an answer as he emerged from behind a tree.

Sehun was spotted walking towards them from the opposite direction. Both of the identical twins looked in much better shape compared to Kai and Kyungsoo, who were still trying to lessen their headaches.

“Your world…?” Kai looked confused as he stared at the grey-haired twin. Luhan was crouching down beside Kyungsoo, his slim fingers reaching out for the other’s temple with an apologetic expression on his face. Kyungsoo sighed in relief after a few seconds, and Luhan turned to Kai to do the same thing.

“It’s the world before yours, the world where we both come from.” Sehun explained as he stood beside Kai. His eyes wandered around them, looking through mountain after mountain of corpses.

“There, do you feel much better?” Luhan asked with the same apologetic expression he had previously, and the younger twin nodded his head slowl, skipping the urge to ask what Luhan had just done to him.

“I apologize for not warning you both of the aftereffect beforehand,” he offered as a soft smile crept onto his thin lips.

Kyungsoo dusted off his trousers without another word. There were too many issues crowding in his mind, and he could barely think of anything wise to say. Kai mirrored his twin’s action even though his mouth was getting itchy with curiosity and confusion.

 “So,” he started, and for the first time ever, Kai was hesitating with his words, “we are in the past?” He gulped down nervously when Sehun nodded. “How far back are we?”

“A thousand years.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes widened even more than they already were. “How old are you both then?”

Luhan frowned while looking at him. “We have never worried over that.” He shrugged.

“You are saying that you don’t know how old you are, is that it?” It was Kyungsoo’s turn to frown now, especially after seeing how nonchalant Luhan had looked like when he shrugged.

“Are we seriously going to argue about their age now, Kyungsoo?” Kai asked in the midst of the argument. He was still confused about the whole ordeal and he didn’t like it even for a bit. “Have you seen what we have around us?” He directed the question to his older twin and Kyungsoo swiftly moved his head to look around them.

A loud gasp was heard and Kai can feel his rapidly beating heart slowing down a bit. At least he was not seeing things. Kyungsoo, on the other hand, was having a difficult time trying to justify what he was seeing with his eyes. He didn’t notice the strong odor of death and blood lingering in that place until he set his eyes on the ugly scenery, the aftermath of a war.

“Wha-what…?” He couldn’t even form any proper words to say because the aftermath of war, as they always say, was the most awful sight to see.

“Welcome to Cleora, the world before yours.” Luhan beat him before he could say anything else. The identical twins were standing in front of them with their backs facing them both, but even Kyungsoo could see how tensed their shoulders had looked like despite their calm demeanor.

--

They have started walking past the corpses and across the war scene now. Neither of the fraternal twins questioned their journey, both too astounded by the amount of death they were seeing. Besides, they have been told by Sehun that there was something that they need to see beyond the woods across the abandoned war scene.

“What kind of world was yours before? If that question even made any sense to you,” Kai asked out of sudden, causing both of the eldest twins to look behind their shoulders—their eyes filled with sadness and sorrow.

“It was a ruthless and ugly world, one that was filled with enormous desire and hideous wars that will only end with the dead and more dead.” Sehun answered as they continued walking on the path created in between the dead bodies. “We lived in fear of tomorrow, afraid that either one of us could die in the war. If that happened, what will be the fate of the ones who survive?”

Kyungsoo watched as Luhan stole a glance at his twin. His words brought a deep sense of sentiment that only he knew, and it stirred something in him. Because just like Luhan, he too had the same fear as well.

“Our world is not like yours. It was a world with no kings and queens. There were no knights nor guardians. There were only leaders and their people, and the desire to become the most powerful clan in Cleora. No rules were made either, except for the sole purpose we lived: the strongest one will be the leader of all the kin and clans.”

Kai’s frown was getting deeper and deeper the more he listened to their explanation. Such an ugly world, he wanted to say, but the words were left hanging in his throat because as much as he hated the world he was living now, he didn’t think he could accept it coming from another person, who lived in a different world than him.

“So, all of you live only to fight and to survive the day?”

Kyungsoo glanced at his twin, observing how Kai’s eyes sparkled with curiosity and disgust the more he asked about Cleora, the world where none of the two could ever understand the logic behind it.

“You could say that. I’ve forgotten the real reason of living, and even more so, the true meaning of happiness. In my years, I only knew happiness is when your clan wins the war, when you defeat the strongest warrior of the rival clans, and when…” Sehun paused for a moment, his eyes stealing a quick glance at his twin. “... your other half