The Arrow of Time

Danger

"Hey, do you hear that?" Magolor tried to mask the fear in his voice, but his body language gave him away.

Taranza almost instinctively pulled him closer. "Oh no... oh no oh no oh no oh no..." The sound grew louder.

Magolor pivoted to look him directly in the eyes. "I'm going to make sure the others are safe. Do you want to come with me or stay here, where it's... probably safe?"

"I'll go with you." Taranza tried to talk through his increasingly scrambled thoughts as the sound got louder and louder. They left the cave and looked around for the others. There was no sign of them on either side of the cave. Suddenly, they heard an explosion on the other side of the mountain. A few rocks tumbled down the side of the cliff, with one hitting Taranza in the side of the head. "Owwwww..."

"Oh no!" Magolor cupped Taranza's head in his hands. "Okay, stay with me, I'll get you back in that cave. Can you move?"

"Oughh, aghhh, my head..."

Magolor ushered him back into the cave and set him down against the wall. "I'll stay here. The nineteen others can take care of each other, but they don't know where you are. Just make sure you don't move recklessly, alright? Head injuries can be a lot worse than they originally seem."

Taranza nodded weakly, feeling the head injury combined with the beeping giving him an awful headache. "Can you hug me...?"

"Of course." He gently lay himself on top of him, putting his hands behind Taranza's head. Another explosion made the walls shake. Taranza stiffened like he was about to jump up and bolt out of the cave. Magolor hugged him tighter. "It's okay. It's okay. You're gonna be fine. And so are they. They're all together. They can protect each other. You need help, they don't."

"Ngk... okay." Taranza tried his best to relax amidst the beeping, occasional explosion, and the faint screaming that had now joined into the crescendo. Eventually, the noise got quiet enough that he could barely hear it. His head was foggy from the aftereffects of the beeping and the blow to his head. That, and Magolor's soft body on top of him was making him drowsy. He tried to say, "Would you stay up if I fell asleep?" but what came out was a jumbled mess of incoherent sounds.

Somehow, Magolor still understood. "Yeah. I will. Rest up, okay?"

Taranza relaxed into the large hand behind his head. Almost involuntarily, his consciousness collapsed under the weight of the muffling silence.

.... .- -. -.. / .--. .. .-.. .-.. --- .--

"Hey! In here!" Elfilin waved to the rest of the group. "It can't get us if we just go in this cave!"

The rest of them dashed through the small hole into the cave. Dedede scooped up the stragglers, Rick and Gooey, and hauled them in with the others. "Is everyone okay?"

Bandee set down the tank that Kine was in. "Did I knock you around in there?"

"Nope! I'm fit as a fiddle! What about everyone else?"

Zan Partizanne looked around the cave at everyone. "I, for one, am doing most excellen-" An explosion caused the entrance to be completely blocked off by rocks. "Uh oh."

Meta Knight hesitated, then climbed to the top of the rock pile. He pulled out a rock and was immediately knocked backwards by an explosion. "Hide!" The others gathered in a lower corner of the cave.

To their surprise, the explosions stopped. "Why is this happening?" Francisca buried her face in her hands. "Everything I know says this shouldn't happen. It shouldn't be possible. So then, why...?"

Coo scratched under one of his wings. "I do hope Magolor and Taranza are okay. It seems to only be going after us, so they should be fine. Hopefully."

Daroach shuddered. "I wonder if the reason why it stopped is because it's now going after them."