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“Goddammit, I’m bored.” Kai sighed for the umpteenth time. He had been floating in pitch black space for a while. He didn’t know what to do. In times like this, he usually waited until something happened. But nothing happened. It was just dark.

It was then that Kai realized the problem was his incompetence. He slapped himself straight across the face and tried to focus.

“Alright, where am I trying to go? Think Kai, think.” He closed his eyes shut and thought quietly. Eventually he crash-landed onto the ground. He opened his eyes and sat up. He was sitting on gray carpet, but everything was still dark. One thing changed though. In front of Kai was a door; a standard, wooden, brown one. Beside that one was another one. Kai looked around and realized he was in some pitch black hallway of doors.  He walked and walked, but the hallway would never end. Some doors were closed, some were open.

Kai decided to walk through one of the doors. He pulled the doorknob and walked in.

Tao’s Sanctuary

“I cannot help you, ge.”

Kai opened his eyes to a room filled with black. The wall and floor were actually visible this time, but were black in color. He was standing in a corner of the room. From there he could see a large grandfather clock against the wall. At first, he thought it was snowing. Looking closer to the white things falling from the ceiling, he realized they were rose petals. There was no end to them; they just kept on drifting down.

There were also two people in the middle of the room. The male standing had short jet-black hair, matching the room. He also wore a long red shirt and grey pants. His left arm was wrapped in black leather while his right was hugging a flat metal stick. A Chinese charm dangled from it.

The other man, who was kneeling on the ground, had on a white collar shirt and black jacket. His eyebrows were thick and his short chestnut hair covered half of his face. There was one thing about him that stood out so blatantly to Kai though. Rather, there were two things. Coming out of this man’s back, were two scaly wings. Horns stuck out at random places, bumps and lumps decorated them hideously. Random patches of black contrasted against the dark red skin. Even veins were visible here and there.

The two of them didn't seem to notice Kai's presence. Maybe it was because Kai was camouflaging with the wall in his black clothes. It was at this moment that Kai considered his wardrobe choices. Suddenly Kai felt a sharp pain in his head. “…I haven’t had a headache in a while…”

The argument between the two other men snapped Kai out of his thoughts.

"Please Tao! Just...Just help me." The one with the wings pleaded.

The one called Tao sighed. "I do not like repeating myself. For the last time, I cannot help you, ge." He stomped his metal stick onto the floor.

"Why?! Lay wouldn't help me, and now you too?! I just want these ing ugly wings to heal! Is that so much to ask?!"

"Ge, I-"

The man on his knees suddenly stood up, his wings flapping behind him. "I trusted you, Tao. I can't believe this." He hovered in the air for a bit and flew out the door. Tiny trails of fire lingered in his flight before disappearing.

"KRIS!" The other called. Seeing as he already left, Tao sighed and turned around. It was then that Tao saw Kai standing there. 

Faster than Kai could teleport, Tao had picked up his stick and held it at Kai's neck. His glare seemed to pierce through Kai's head. "Who are you?" He questioned.

"I-I'm Kai..." Kai found it hard to think straight under pressure. "A-And I'm sorry for walking into your lovers' quarrel."

Tao furrowed his eyebrows even more and lightly pushed his weapon against Kai's skin. "Are you making fun of me?"

"N-No! I didn't mean that. I'm Kai, from the other asylum."

Tao's eyes widened and then went back to glaring. "Do you have any proof?"

Kai breathed. He stared at the grandfather clock for awhile and then shut his eyes. Tao was surprised when Kai disappeared and reappeared behind him in front of the clock. "...And you?" Kai grinned.

Tao lowered his weapon and walked up to him. "I am Tao. I see that your power is teleportation."

Kai nodded. "What's yours? Wushu?"

"Partly," Tao answered coyly. "My actual power is..." He paused, looking up to the ceiling.

Kai followed, looking up. He realized that the never ending rain of rose petals had stopped. The petals were stuck in midair, as if they were frozen in…

"Time," Kai whispered, taking in the sight above him. "You control time."

"Indeed."

"Then..." Kai turned back to Tao. "Who the heck is your parallel? It doesn't seem like time could opposite anything."

Tao thought for a moment. "Ah... I believe it is the guardian who controls the winds."

Kai raised an eyebrow. "You're Sehun's parallel? Oh, now that I think about it, you two do seem similar... Too uptight."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing, nothing." Kai then remembered what he came all the way here for. "Oh yeah, I need to talk to you about something."

Tao raised a hand to Kai's face. "That must wait until later. As you can see, I do have a small problem at the moment."

"But-"

"If you can get ge- ah, Kris, that half-dragon, to forgive me, I'll listen to you."

Kai sighed. "What'd you do?"

"It is more of a case of what I did not do," Tao drew imaginary pictures on the floor with his stick. "...It is quite a personal matter."

"I'll listen." Kai assured. Tao hesitated for a moment, but told him the circumstances.

Kris has self-esteem issues, was what Kai got from Tao's rambling. Apparently Kris was so self-conscious about his unappealing wings that he went to both Lay and Tao in hopes to revive them. Tao had tried to tell Kris that it's how they were; you can't fix something that isn't broken. Kris didn't listen, and that ended up with Kris's fiery exit.

Kai nodded. "I'll... I'll see what I can do about him. Where did he go?" He asked, looking out the open double doors. He could see dim sunshine outside.

"North," Tao replied. "If you keep heading straight from here you will reach to where he is..." Tao bowed. "Thank you for your help."

"No problem." Kai turned and started walking out to the door; the door leading to outside, the parallel world.

Whoa, so Kai made it into the parallel world. He meets Sehun's parallel there, and it's Tao, guardian of time. 

We also meet Kris, the half-dragon. You'll see why I made him into hybrid/chimera/androdracon/ldkjfdlk in the next, NEXT chapter.