AN: So...I wrote this a while ago. I've had it on my computer for a while so I don't really remember where I got the idea, but I liked it and figured 'Why not post?'. I have a couple more of these, just as random but similar enough that I might as well post them all together. They'll be up after I get a chance to look over and edit them. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

There was darkness, thick and suffocating, pressing in from all sides. It felt like sludge was filling his lungs, and yet he still somehow managed to breathe through it all…

But it hurt….

God did it hurt, and he wanted nothing more than to escape the seemingly endless barrage of pain. The more he struggled against the darkness, the harder it squeezed. He fought against the air being pulled into his lungs, and yet he was still breathing. His heart was beating, his heart was beating.

He was pulled along with the current, being dragged to the surface against his will. The darkness gave way to light, and against all odds, Allen Walker opened his eyes.

There was a brief moment where there was literally nothing going through his head. Like a blank slate, a stark whiteness that was almost overwhelming. Then everything came rushing back, and there was just too much. Faces and names flashed by, voices-screaming, crying, laughing, and smiling- all combined into a senseless melody of white noise. The air seemed all too sweet as it filled his lungs, and the light was almost blinding.

I'm… I'm… alive?

His muscles screamed as pushed himself up, his attention going straight to the overwhelming emptiness that had once been his left arm. He would have panicked right then and there, had a familiar voice not tickled the back of his mind. He instead turned his attention to the rest of him, covered in bandages and aching absolutely everywhere. The sound of his heart beating was startlingly clear, the aches and sharp burning pain was impossible to ignore.

Alive…

Tears came unbidden to his eyes, glistening like stars as they cascaded down his face. He curled up into himself, pressing his face into his bandaged right arm.

Why am I crying?

I'm alive… shouldn't I be… happy? Relieved?

No, no that's-

That's not why I'm crying.

He jerked up in realization, being careful not to stir the strange girl lying at his bedside. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed, ripping out the IV in his arm and lurching forward into the hall. He didn't know where he was going, could barely care at the moment.

Something was calling to him, luring him out of the room and into the maze he had awoken in. Tears still fell from his eyes as he recalled the death of a close friend, a brother, from what seemed like a life time ago.

It had been a life time ago, or at least, three and a half decades. Years that were lost to him, almost as if they had never existed, because for him they hadn't. There were the nineteen years he spent with Mana, Neah, Marian, and Bookman. Then there were the thirty five that just didn't exist for him. And then, there was now. This lifetime. A life where there was only Allen Walker, sweet, kind, and selfless Allen walker. A boy of only sixteen, when he should have been well past his fortieth year.

He cried for the time he had lost, for the people he had left behind, who had left him behind. He cried in relief, relief that he remembered, relief that there was still a chance at putting an end to it all, relief because he had finally remembered his purpose.

Allen Walker wandered until his legs gave out on him, and when he was found by those who had saved him, he spoke without thinking too much of it. He allowed his instinct to rule his actions, played his role as he was meant to. It wasn't until he stepped into the Ark that he allowed his mask to fall, the mask of Allen, the mask of a boy who never truly existed, who was nothing but bits and pieces of a picture that had been torn and crumpled almost beyond recognition.

He took only a moment to mourn that loss of innocence, the naïve and unrealistic ideals that he had lived up to for so long. He embraced the truth, as painful and ugly as it was, he welcomed it with open arms.

Then, he just kept walking.