A/N: Oh my. I'm so excited to be posting this! This is the first in a series of thirteen short stories as written for the community 13fears on livejournal (my claim being for Organization XIII). I'll be writing and posting these in order of the members so, of course, first up is our darling Xemnas. Who is really hard to capture, but at least writing as if from his thoughts is a lot better than making him talk. Ye gads.

Warnings: Nothing for this one.

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, they belong to Squaresoft and Disney and probably some other folk who aren't me. Pity.

Summary: This is as close to fear as it gets. (Thirteen phobias. Thirteen stories.)


01. catoptrophobia; the fear of mirrors (they reflect our true selves to us)

There were no mirrors in The World That Never Was, no way to see your reflection except in the puddles of water that congregated every time it rained—which was not as often as it ought to have been. Even the few windows were colored, nearly opaque, and they reflected nothing.

Xemnas knew the members outside of the original six whispered about this fact in the hallways, debating the reason for it as passionately as their nonexistent hearts would allow. Some said it was because Xemnas didn't want anyone to be tempted to truly care about their appearance, to find some false comfort in pretending to feel as if they looked good. A few muttered that Lexaeus had broken all the mirrors when he first saw himself, a concept that would have been funny if Xemnas could feel. But not one of them could ever even hope to touch upon the true reason. Because the simple fact was that Xemnas, inasmuch as it was possible for him to do so, feared his own reflection. Not that he'd ever admit to such a weakness.

Xemnas had looked into a mirror once and only once, the day he'd woken up as the Nobody instead of the Somebody. He'd seen a handsome young man with a serious face and a longing look in his eyes, intelligence hidden by a certain blankness caused by his amnesia. He was dressed in ridiculous frills, pale colors, the look of a scholar. The man who somehow lived in Xemnas still, impossibly yearning for a heart that he shouldn't want. In short, he'd seen a fool.

The image had caused him to lash out, to attack the mirror with all his considerable strength and crunch the reflecting shards under his feet until there were a million fools looking out at him, each more taunting than the last. He'd lifted a hand to his chest, feeling for a heartbeat he knew couldn't be there, and ran from the room with a strangled cry. He couldn't feel, but he remembered fear, and his body tricked him into believing he felt it, powerful and numbing.

When he'd later collapsed in the bed that had belonged to the hearted fool, he'd laughed until he couldn't move from exhaustion, and then built up every wall he could think of. He had no feelings. He would be calm, collected, heartless. And he would never look in a mirror again, because he knew that doing so would break those walls in an instant and he'd once again become the fool he'd seen once in the mirror and every night after in his dreams.

There were no mirrors in his castle, in the world he had created. He couldn't afford to be a fool.


A/N: Like the concept, hate how I wrote it. Such is life. Next up, The Freeshooter!