Kairos was adjusting his glasses when out of nowhere, he was shoved.
“Loser!”
Then one second later, the exact thing happened again.
“Loser!”
Kairos did not say anything and kept a tight hold onto his glasses, which fell off of his face. A fairly burly guy walked on ahead, but not before flashing him a cocky smile.
Then doing it again.
Well, that wasn’t the most accurate way to describe what actually happened. But that was pretty accurate in terms of what Kairos saw.
For as long as he could remember, he experienced things twice. There would be the first time, then the second time one second later. When he was still a little kid, he thought that it was normal.
That everybody experienced things twice.
It was especially annoying since it made him not only have to eat his spinach once, but a second time afterwards.
After recovering from that shove, Kairos continued to walk down the street with his hands in his pockets and his head down.
One time, when he was a little kid, Kairos went through a rather traumatizing experience. He walked over to the bookshelf in his house and pulled out one of his favorite books.
However, there was also a pair of scissors higher up on the shelf which he did not know about. The small force he used to pull out the book was enough to make the scissors fall down as well.
Kairos felt the scissors pierce his skull, causing him unimaginable amounts of pain. He immediately lifted his book upwards. He braced himself for the second wave of pain, but for some reason…
It never came.
In fact, the pain from before disappeared as well. That is, other than the phantom pain that was left behind.
Kairos slowly looked up to see one of the blades of the scissors pierce straight through his favorite book, while the tip was just a few centimeters away from his forehead.
He immediately tossed the book away and began crying, rushing towards his parents’ embrace.
“Mom, Dad, my head, my head!”
His parents hurriedly rushed over, trying their best to console him.
“What happened honey?”
“Don’t be afraid! We are here for you.”
Kairos pointed to his head.
“The scissors! It hurt my head!”
At first, his parents seemed concerned. His mother gently brushed his short black hair back to reveal a bare forehead. His father let out a sigh of relief.
“Thankfully, you weren’t injured.”
Kairos shook his head.
“I was injured! Look, look!”
He continued to point at his forehead, where he still felt the pain. His father had another look before standing up and walking towards where he came from.
“Oh no. The scissors have torn up your favorite book!”
His mother quickly stood up.
“What? How did that happen? I put them on the top shelf.”
Kairos’ father frowned.
“…They must’ve fallen off the top shelf. It seems this book saved him. No more putting scissors in high places, they must be locked away safely.”
His mother nodded hurriedly.
“Oh dear, I am sorry, that was even your favorite book! I will buy you a new book, ok?”
Kairos simply stood there. Confusion had completely overtaken his previous sadness. He gently brushed his forehead with the tips of his fingers.
And sure enough, he was fine.
Then, he looked at the book on the floor.
This was when Kairos first realized that he wasn’t exactly experiencing things twice. After a little bit of experimentation, Kairos found that what he first saw, wasn’t actually what happened.
It was a vision of the future, albeit only one second ahead.
When he first realized this, he excitedly shared this discovery with his parents. They played along and pretended to believe him, thinking it was just a kid fantasizing.
Kairos then went on to share it with his other friends.
The moment he proclaimed it so, a little girl with short black hair giggled.
“I have a superpower too! I can become invisible!”
Kairos let out a gasp, completely believing her.
“Show me, show me!”
The little girl then proceeded to cover her eyes with her hands.
“See? I’m invisible now!”
Kairos blinked a few times, visibly confused.
“But I can still see you.”
The little girl giggled.
“What do you mean? I’m completely invisible!”
A little boy with fairly long blonde hair on the side put his hands on his hips confidently.
“My power is shooting a laser beam from my hands!”
Kairos soon got over his initial disappointment and smiled excitedly.
“Oh, show me, show me!”
The little boy pulled back with both hands, clasping them together. He closed his eyes and had a serious expression on his face.
“This is my strongest move.”
Kairos couldn’t help but anticipate the devastation of this, ‘strongest move’.
“Yeah, go!”
Suddenly, the little boy’s eyes flew open. Both hands shot forward and parted.
“EEEEYYYYAAAHHHHHHHH.”
…But nothing happened, other than the strange scream.
The little girl jumped up and down on the spot.
“Wow, so cool!”
As for Kairos, he was completely flabbergasted.
“What?”
It was only until a while later did he find out that his friends thought they were roleplaying, as though they had powers. This was when he found out his powers weren’t normal.
Kairos had almost made it back to his house.
That was when a girl with long black hair essentially body slammed against his side before wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“Hey, Kairos!”
Kairos saw it coming, but other than tensing up, he did not try to dodge. Instead, he let out a soft sigh.
“Do you really have to tackle me each time, Nicole?”
Nicole frowned playfully and pointed towards the fairly burly guy walking on ahead.
“Why are you bothered so much more by a sweet innocent little flower greeting you, but you completely ignore it when that jerk, Chad, shoves you?”
Kairos pushed up his glasses with a finger.
“Well, I think you have the roles reversed. If anything, Chad is the gentle flower.”
Nicole pushed him hard as a gleam flashed by her hazelnut irises.
“What! How could you say that?”
Kairos rolled his eyes as he recovered his footing.
“Because he only pushes me lightly. Whereas you are essentially trying to topple me over, like just now.”
Nicole lifted her arm up and flexed her bicep.
“That’s just because I’m really strong!”
Kairos scoffed.
“Stronger than Chad?”
Nicole coughed awkwardly and changed the subject.
“Anyway, do you want to come over to my house? You can try to teach me math and I will help you out with some Chinese!”
Kairos waved his hand dismissively.
“No thanks.”
Nicole let out an exasperated sigh.
“But I’m fluent in Chinese!”
Kairos shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe, but the level of Chinese we learn in highschool is easy enough. On the other hand, it would take a few hours for me to tutor you in math until you understood.”
Nicole clicked her tongue.
“Stingy!”
The corner of Kairos’ lip turned up.
“You know me.”
Nicole sighed.
“Alright, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Kairos nodded.
“See you.”
With that, the two of them separated, going to their respective houses which just so happened to be on opposite sides of the street.
Right after Kairos pushed open the door, he set down his bag and went over to the kitchen to get a knife.
The reason for this is because he made it a habit to always increase his pain endurance whenever he got home. Not that he was planning on actually stabbing himself, but ‘seeing’ himself get stabbed.
Since there was only an hour or so before his parents came home after he did, Kairos could only do this during that time. After all, letting out cries of pain while other people were in the house would probably cause some concern.
The reason he wished to do this, is because he wanted to use this ability to save his life. Although Kairos couldn’t say this was an ideal life, he still enjoyed living for what it was.
The very first time it saved his life, it was mostly based on luck. The pain heavily messed up his senses, throwing him off balance completely. Frankly, this ability wouldn’t help much if the pain was so bad it made his brain stop.
At first, Kairos didn’t think too much about it. However, as he got a stronger understanding of what death was, it made him afraid. Any random incident could get him killed, which most humans have to come to accept. There was only so much they could do.
However, he could do far more to prevent it, thus he wanted to take full advantage of it.
And so, every day, Kairos would plunge the knife towards himself, but right when he felt pain, he would pull away. That way he wouldn’t actually get injured. Though Kairos needed some practice to actually do it properly, he got it in the end.
At first, Kairos only did small cuts on his arm. But as time went on, he stabbed through his gut, making tears uncontrollably gush out of his eyes.
At his peak, Kairos even plunged it straight through his eye, which was not the most pleasant experience, to say the least.
He walked up to his room, pushing it open before shutting the door. It was a pretty bland place, without any of the posters that most teenagers his age would have.
There were only the bare essentials. A laptop on a table, a chair, and a bed.
Kairos took a deep breath as he mentally prepared himself for another painful session. But suddenly, he froze.
A frown formed on his face.
That was because for just a second, he saw a pale orange light come from his window.
After a few moments, the orange light returned once more. Kairos grit his teeth as a fairly strong signal of pain entered his brain. He instinctively felt that this was a vision of the future.
The light began to flash in and out of reality before becoming a deeper and deeper red.
It reminded Kairos of something.
His dream.
Ever since he was a child, he would have visions of a red sun coming up from the horizon. At first, they were really infrequent and confused him more than anything.
But as he grew older, they continued to come back and even gave a strong sense of fear. At this point in his life, he would experience them every time he fell asleep and woke up in a cold sweat.
Once, Kairos tried to stay up so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it, but he blacked out in the middle of the night and had it anyway.
Kairos even went to therapy to talk about this strange recurring dream. However, the only answer he got back was that he had too much stress and an improper sleep schedule.
As the red light continued to flash from the window, Kairos ended up dropping the knife entirely, letting it clang against the floor. The pain he was experiencing was simply too much. It was even greater than the time the scissors pierced his skull or when he plunged a knife into his eye.
Kairos began foaming at the mouth. He desperately ran towards the windows and pulled the curtains, sending the room into darkness.
The pain immediately disappeared.
Kairos fell onto the ground, panting heavily. For a few moments, he just laid there, trying to regain his bearings.
“…The fuck was that?”
Kairos’ glasses fell off while he himself had his eyes closed. Kairos reached around blindly before finding and putting them back on.
After a few minutes, Kairos suddenly felt that the room was getting hot, as in unbearably hot. He stood up and walked over to the window, intending to get some fresh air in. However, before Kairos’ hand even got close to the curtains, he saw a bright flashing red light that sent strong signals of pain to his brain.
Kairos hurriedly recoiled from the window, landing on his bed.
He furrowed his brows.
“What is happening?”
As for the answer to that question, it was something that Kairos never could’ve expected.
The red sun from within his dreams began rising above the horizon. However, this was not the end of his nightmares.
But rather, only the beginning.