(Carter POV)

I saw her mouth move. And then she was no more.

Zia's body was thrown away to the wind, and it was the last time I saw her. In fact, it was the last I saw of anything, before the blinding light reached my eyes.

A lashing pain across my chest. My legs gave way. I fell to my knees; trying desperately to cover my head from the searing heat. I hear, somewhat distantly, a voice; my sister's: "Carter!"

And then, nothing...

I experienced something different then. Imagine, a cleansing; pain, and then the direct opposite. Bliss? No, something more; more subtle than that. I think the closest thing to it would be the sensation after a roller coaster ride- the action is gone, but your hands can't forget it. Whenever I went on a ride, I would always shiver after it. My friends called it "thrill".

I wouldn't call this thrill though. Soon enough, it recedes, and I open my eyes.

I am floating in the middle of nowhere. I don't recognize it, and believe me, I've been to a lot of places. A mist grows thicker, incrementally, next to me. The dust packs together, growing denser and denser until it forms something familiar: my sister. Her eyes open.

(Sadie's POV)

The first thing I see when I wake up is Carter's ugly face. It traumatizes you. [He says "I heard that."] It surprised me so much that when I tried to get up knocked my head against his face instead.

Then I heard a resonating noise. Have you ever heard a bass clarinet? The sound of it is soothing; subtle yet clear. Then, I realized that the noise was actually several words.

"Good afternoon, Sadie and Carter Kane. My name is Heh." An apparition floats down from the ceiling.

I bit my cheek and tried to withhold my laughter. I looked over and saw Carter doing the same.

He speaks up: "I can't really tell if it's afternoon or evening or morning in this place-"

I interrupt, "So, if you really don't mind, where the heck are we?"

"That's a good question, so let's start with that. This is what I call the In-Between. There's probably an Egyptian word for it, but let's go with In-Between for now. Nice place, is it not?"

"You're dead. Or at least, you are going to be. Or you were going to be. I can't really deal with tenses here. The point is, instead of you dying and rotting in the depths of eternal hell, or whatever Apophis planned for you, you're here."

He took a rather large breath. "Take a guess at who I am."

Carter took this opportunity to brag about his knowledge. "God of time and infinity", he said.

Heh smiled. "Ever since the beginning, I have been able to see through all of time. Unlike my fellow omnipotent beings, I try not to interfere with mortal affairs; Horus' and Isis' messing-around caused this whole mess. However, that also meant that I couldn't change anything. I've seen everything that would happen here for the past eon and a half."

Silence. I asked him, "So you know what's happened for- forever?"

"Yes. But, the moment I interfered, Apophis would gain even more power. If the power of good is increased, so is the power of evil."

We nodded.

"So, I've been watching, stuck on the sidelines; this whole song and dance on repeat, forever. But then it struck me. What if, instead of directly interfering, I would enlist you to be my- how could you phrase this- my method of prevention."

"What are you getting at?"

"I am the god of time. I want to send you back in time, to fix this whole mess. I cannot give away everything, or else the balance of the universe would dangerously tip. You know what happened in the last several years. But you; you're mortal, and with your knowledge, you can change the outcome of this war."

"You mean-"

"You mean, we could prevent everything?" Carter interrupted me. "We could save our father?"

"I would not recommend that; without your father's… disappearance, you could not have joined the House of Life. However, perhaps you could… engineer this situation to your advantage, let's just say that."

"I don't have much time to keep you here; this dimension is unstable and imperfect. I have one last piece of advice to give you. I would like you to remember to never assume what will happen. Time is unpredictable- killing a moth in Chile can cause an earthquake in China. Think carefully of what you do."

And with those words, Heh began dissolving into tiny pieces of mist, and before I knew it, I no longer existed.