Maybe I've finally gone crazy. I guess I've finally lost the ability to comprehend reality. But when I close my eyes, I still see him. Trying to forget all of this is like trying to remember someone you never met. I won't act like it never happened, because something that never happened couldn't possibly affect me to this point. I can't sleep. When I day dream, I dream of this place. Where you can smell the sweet scent of honey in the air and the wind tells you where you belong. This was Symphonia.

Prologue:

"Jen, get up! NOW!" Her voice, Amelia, my best friend, and the reason we got into this mess.

She kicked my leg, waking me up. I was spending the night over at Ami's apartment across the lake from mine when all this started. As I rubbed my tired eyes, the red light of the clock on the bedside table glowed too bright. It was almost 4 AM, and Ami was still awake.

"Ugh…" I groaned. "What the hell? Why are you still up?" The chill of the open window got to me. I pulled the blanket up around me, snuggling back into the warmth that was my sleeping bag.

"Uuuum… Jenni… I think we've got a serious problem here. Help." Her voice was honest and desperate.

I decided to wake up enough to hear her reason. "What's wrong?"

"Okay, I think I've lost it." She was staring at her IPod.

"Finally gone crazy, Ams?" I yawned loudly.

"Just… Tell me you see this, too." She handed me what she liked to call the "I-ToS". It was a joke between us both that this little device made by Apple (or the Lezareno company, we used to joke. The company made everything in Tales of Symphonia), had the ability to teleport the user into the world of ToS. Ami had a few theories that Symphonia was actually Earth, but thousands of years in the past. This theory entertained us for a while, but it never stuck with me.

I looked down at the bright screen, and it almost blinded me in the darkness. She was on some kind of chat application.

"Well?" She urged, almost jumping up and down beside me.


Yuan_Kafai: Hello, Amelia.

Amyninja77: Erm, sorry. Who are you again?

Yuan_Kafai: Is that supposed to be a joke?

Amyninja77: No I mean, for real. I forget which of my many friends RPs Yuan. XD

Yuan_Kafai: This is going to take too long. Just download this, and I'll see you soon.

Yuan_Kafai sent: - sylvarant base transport . exe


"Oh my god, Ams…" I said, breathlessly.

"I know, right?!" She almost yelled, very unlike her.

"This guy's a creep, DON'T download that." I said, handing it back to her, shaking my head.

She looked defiant. "But what if-"

"It's real?" She had to be kidding me. We've done weird stuff in the past, role playing characters to talk to each other, playing along like kids playing house, but, this was taking it too far at TOO early in the morning. "No Ams. Some guy found out that you liked ToS and wants to mess with you." I frowned, with a sigh, lying back down. I wasn't going to deal with psychos at four in the morning even though I could tell she was glaring a big hole on the back of my head.

"I'm gonna download it." She smiled, touching the screen to start the download.

"Uuugh. Whatever. Your IPod can get viruses, ya know…" I said. After a moment, there was some sort of a beep to indicate that the download was finished.

"It's an app…." She said with unconcealed excitement. I sat back up, looking at her IPod. She opened the app and immediately dropped the iPod in her lap.

"What?!" I spouted, raising an eye brow at my friend.

"It SHOCKED me!" She demanded.

I reached down, carefully picking up the IPod. The screen was white.

"It froze?" I wondered before noticing yet another odd thing. On the bottom of the IPod, the circular Home button was glowing red.

"Just go back to the home screen." I reached over and simply pressed the glowing button myself when she wasn't going to.

When I did so, the tips of my fingers grew numb. When I heard Ami gasp, I was distracted for a moment. I didn't realize my fingers had turned white. The screen had somehow morphed out of the glass and melted all over my hand. And it kept going. I pulled my hand away as quickly as I could. It was as if the light was alive, and it wasn't going to stop until all of me was consumed. It traveled up my wrist, over my arms and shoulders. I looked back at a sight I would probably remember forever. The fear that swept over me with this light had begun to stream over Ami as well. Starting at her knee, where I guess the iPod was touching her skin. I began to lose all control of my body, falling to the floor. This light felt like darkness, pulling me to the ground. When the light pulled around my body, I stopped breathing, holding my breath as the light traveled onto my lips. The last thing I heard was my friend screaming my name over and over again, but stopping when the light consumed her as well.

And then everything stopped. Sound, movement, cries, and heartbeats seemed to disappear into this darkness.

"Jenni… Jenni wake up…"

I was so glad that was all a dream. "Let me sleep five more minutes?" I yawned. I grabbed at the covers that surrounded me and stretched out across the bed.

"This is who you brought? I'm stuck with the help of two teenage girls?" I heard a male voice say.

My ears started to work a little better, but still rang every time they tried. I flinched, covering them as I opened my eyes. The room was too bright for me.

"Mind keeping it down!?" I yelled, making sure they could hear me. Ami was quite embarrassed. She glared at me. I bit my lip back at her. "S-sorry." I rubbed my head, looking around the room. It was futuristic, almost space-like in structure. My gaze then landed a man. He stood with his arms crossed, glaring at me. He was average height, with a handsome face and long blue hair pulled back in a pony tail.

"Um…okay. This….CAN'T be real. Ams…. Um." I really couldn't think logically at the time.

"Jen… Jenni, I know, it's crazy, but Yuan explained everything. It's real! We are really HERE! Please don't freak out."

I looked back and forth between her and blue-hair. My mouth couldn't close for the amount of shock I was in. Yuan Ka'fai, leader of the Renegades … from a video game called Tales of Symphonia was standing in front of me. I think almost 30 seconds of silence passed before something was said.

"Jennifer…" Yuan's voice giving me chills. Not because it was attractive or anything, but because it was SO weird that Yuan Kafai was speaking to me. My eyes ran over him again and again, up and down, left and right.

"What? Yeah?" I blinked, probably looking as dumb as ever. He gave a large sigh, closing his eyes and putting his hand to his forehead.

"I didn't mean to bring you here. I thought Ami was alone." He continued, annoyed with himself. "That's why you had so much…trouble. The IToS Transport I sent with the application was only meant for one person." It went quiet again for a second.

"So… we're really in the Renegade Base…? In Sym-"

"Sylvarant…Pre-journey." Ami said, mumbling to me before I could spit anything else out.

"R-right…" I said, all breathy. I felt numb without quite actually being numb. Sick to my stomach.

"Drink this." Yuan handed me a cup of red water. It didn't look like blood, it was clearer than blood. "What the heck is this? Freaky apple juice…?"

"Close, it's an Apple Gel… It will make you feel much better…"

Hesitantly, I took a sip. "Yuck…" I tried to hand it back to him.

"Drink it!" Yuan grumbled.

I sighed and gulped it down as fast as I could. It tasted like children's cold medicine.

"You learn to live with it when you've got large amounts of blood loss and pain." He said, taking the cup back. Yuan went back to crossing his arms and looking at me. "There's no way to get you back home without endangering your life again, so I guess that means you can just follow your friend." He took a step to the middle of the room, starting to pace. "You are at the renegade base, located in the Triet desert, north of Iselia. I hate to say that I don't have all the answers to what is happening, but the Chosen was sent at this exact time to take this journey."

"He knows what's going to happen?" I asked Ami.

"Not what he means…" She said vaguely.

"I had opened a portal through your friends device. We needed her here. We have been searching for her for 16 years. It was….told to me that your friend, Amelia, is next in line to be the chosen." He explained.

"That doesn't make any sense! We aren't even-"

"Do you think I decided this? Do you think I made her mana signature? All I know is that my research calls for Amelia to take the title as Chosen." He grumbled.

"Ams… Are you hearing this?" I looked to my friend in shock. She was looking down at her feet. "AMS!"

"Yes! I know, Jen! Stop yelling." She gritted her teeth, glaring at me. She was scared, I could tell. Her hands were shaking, but the rest of her was stiff. She knew what happened to Colette, to the Chosen of Sylvarant. It was like she already knew what she had to do. What was more terrifying? Knowing your best friend had been thrown into this world of fate or… not knowing what to do or say to make it better?

"Wh-what happened to Colette?" I demanded.

"Amelia asked me about a girl named Colette a few moments ago. Let's say this one more time. I'm not repeating myself again. I have no idea who you are talking about. If she is someone of importance, she'll show herself to my renegades. I even sent out my men to look for her. They reported the girl has been kidnapped from her home in Iselia a few weeks ago. Probably to the human ranch nearby. I'm sorry if she was a friend of yours, but she's of no use here."

I looked to Ami who had already had time to process this. She had already asked all she could, but no more information was given by the Renegade.

"When you leave here, it will be as if we never met. You've never seen me. I don't want to get in any trouble before the journey has yet to begin. Maybe this will all work out how it's supposed to." Yuan gulped. "I have set up your supplies in the next room. It's almost sunrise. I will give you transport to the deserts edge and a map. At noon, the light from the temple will appear, along with the Tower of Salvation." He walked back towards us.

"And that's where… It all begins?" I stood up from the bed.

"Good luck."

Once upon a time, there existed a giant tree that was the source of mana.

A war, however, caused this tree to wither away,

and a hero's life was sacrificed in order to take its place.

Grieving over the loss, the goddess disappeared unto the heavens.

The goddess left the angels with this edict:

"You must wake me, for if I should sleep, the world shall be destroyed."

The angels bore the Chosen One, who headed towards the tower that reached up unto the

heavens.

And that marked the beginning of the regeneration of the world.