The first thing Kerberos noticed, when he arrived on his homeworld, was that it was alarmingly quiet.

Over his past few visits, he had gotten used to the sound of the violin-crickets—it had taken so little time to acclimate to their music, and the diminishing of it was a shock that made him jolt as he opened his eyes. It wasn’t quite totally silent—he could hear them faintly—but they sounded fewer, and quieter.

The second thing he noticed was that he was in the garden he had last visited with Lyndin, and the flowers were wilting.

His heart dropped into his feet.

There was something terribly, terribly wrong, and he knew it the moment he saw that. The work of years spent restoring his world, undone somehow—and not on a natural cycle. They didn’t look wilted, or dormant—the vines were dead.

He had been gone from his homeworld for a few weeks, struggling with the tumult of his emotions, trying to keep himself from collapsing back into the monster he’d been. It had been difficult. And frightening. And incredibly stressful. And now here he was, back on his world…and it was dying.

No. This couldn’t be happening. He’d wavered recently, certainly, wondered if he’d made the right choice, wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier to have just stayed in the Negaverse—but he’d always talked himself back. He’d worked so hard to demonstrate to himself that the waverings he was feeling were just exhaustion, or stress, or maybe the lingering results of seeing Sheikh, beheaded and bloody—that kind of sight could make anyone question their choices.

But his world was—

His world was dying.

He was more sure of that as he walked towards the doorway to the temple—to Irit’s living quarters—and there, on the steps, were the little, snuffed-out bodies of dozens of the whispering butterflies and reflection moths, distinguishable now only by the markings on their wings, which had lost all their luster.

Kerberos wanted to be sick. He wanted to run, to go back to Earth, to forget what he’d seen here. Maybe if he didn’t stay, maybe if he didn’t keep looking, he could pretend there was nothing wrong, and just…just let it go.

He could pretend that it didn’t look like the awful version of his world he knew in that nightmare future. The ravaged, crumbling hellscape, dead and dying and destroyed by his own hands, because he had given himself to Chaos completely. Because he had become the monster that roared up in him again when the arrogant <********> of a CAptain crushed that starseed in front of his eyes.

He wanted to run away. Go home, hide, try to avoid what was going on here. Because the answer that was in front of him was wrong. And maybe if he just gave up, it would get easier…maybe if he went back and just let all of this go, gave up, went back to Metallia’s embrace—

It hit him then that this was more than just reminiscent. tHat it was familiar. That he knew the sick feeling that hung in the air, like an oily fog, clinging and sinking in.

It felt like…

It felt like Chaos.

The thought struck him like a lightning bolt, and he was more sure now of what he was feeling before it hit him. It felt like Chaos, clinging and toxic and awful, and it made him sick. It couldn’t be—not here—not on his world, not when he’d worked so hard to protect it—but he moved inside, and followed the sick feeling and a trail of dead butterflies and moths. Followed it deep in the temple, towards the First Flower. He pushed the doors to the hidden room open, and gasped.

The flower that had been in bloom when he’d been there before was withered. Worse than withered—it looked diseased, black splotches growing in its vines and on its petals. And the feeling here was strong, clinging, sickening. And known.

This—Kerberosd wondered if this was what Lyndin had spoken of. Things they could not understand, things they had to be prepared for. Enemies from outside, that risked all the progress they’d made.

“No,” Kerberos growled. He knew, realistically, he couldn’t fix this on his own, but this was his planet. And he’d revived the First Flower before, breathed life into its withered stalks, so he strode over to it and held out a hand. He tried, as he had before, to give it energy. Tried to bolster it.

Something inside it rumbled to life, and lashed out. Inky-black thorny vines slammed into Kerberos’s midsection, and sent him flying, and he hissed in pain as he slammed into the opposite wall. He was left dazed, for a moment, but as his focus came back, he saw it—a tangle of vines and thorns in the shape of some sort of creature, lashing out towards him. Aiming to skewer.

He rolled out of the way, and booked it for the doors. He’d known he couldn’t do this alone, but he hadn’t realized how much help he would need—how chillingly powerful whatever had taken root on his world was. He needed to retreat, needed to regroup, needed to come back.

Thorny vines tried to tangle him, and Kreberos turned.

“Thousand Asphodel Chorus!”

The magic leapt out of him, tore beyond his control—flower petals whirled, and the vines retreated, but he stumbled, and the doors shut, and his legs wobbled as he stood there.

He was exhausted, suddenly, like that one attack had taken more from him than he had to give. He wanted to….wanted to sleep, wanted to close his eyes and curl up by those doors, and—

And—

He wasn’t sure what the “and” was. He didn’t want to stick around and find out.

He took a breath. Two. Moved further away, and pulled out his phone, a wary eye on the doors that seemed to have barred themselves (as if his planet was still trying to protect him.) He let himself be carried back to Earth, and staggered when he arrived.

He was bleeding, he knew. And he also knew that he desperately needed to find help. Not just for his injuries and the sudden exhaustion, but for whatever was happening on his planet.

He couldn’t defeat that alone—knew that if he tried, he would just end up dead, and then no one would be helped. It was just a matter of who to ask.