Authors' notes: Hey everybody, I've noticed that lately, there's been a lack of non-pairing based stories here, so I thought I would have a crack at writing something myself. I apologise if characters are a little OoC, I tried to keep them as in character as possible, but I don't own the final fantasy that Selphie comes from, and I haven't played FFX in a fair while. Also, I have Selphie with a skipping rope and Tidus with a pole because that's what they use in KH, and that's what I'm trying to write. Anyway, constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated, as would a beta reader who has good knowledge of the games. Hopefully I don't need either of those things too much, and I hope you enjoy the story!

Selphie's adventure

Glancing at her friends, Selphie sighed. It was so sweet, the way that neither of them seemed to notice how much they liked each other. She kept watching, as Riku walked towards them, tossing a heavy looking log onto Sora's lap. Kairi laughed, her dark red hair swinging in her face, before she brushed it off. The trio were building a raft, and today, they were collecting supplies to finish it. Selphie wondered how much hair gel they were going to need to bring for Sora's chocolate brown hair to stay spiked up in every direction possible like it always seemed to be. Selphie wasn't sure if she had ever seen him with it down, one time she saw him resurface from underwater, and it was still spiked up! Maybe it grew like that naturally. The three seemed to have decided on who was getting what, and Selphie watched them split up, this time, her eyes following Riku. The boy's hair was an odd silver colour, and grew to about the end of his neck. She had to wonder, was the 15 year old prematurely grey? Selphie couldn't remember it ever being a different colour.

She stopped her train of thought just in time to see Riku cross the bridge to the little island with the bent papou tree on it. Selphie was fairly sure that Riku knew of the legends surrounding the star-shaped fruit the tree grew, but wondered if Sora and Kairi did. She resolved she would have to tell them tomorrow. Selphie giggled to herself. "Those two would be so cute together!"

While Sora and co. worked on their raft, Selphie trotted back over to her friends Tidus, and Wakka. Tidus, Like Selphie, was fourteen; he had very light brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. Selphie had to admit, he was pretty cute. Wakka was the third member of their group. He was fifteen, and a bit taller than the other two. With his orange-red hair and brown eyes, Wakka sometimes seemed like an older brother, except that he wasn't that annoying.

While the other trio of kids on the island were planning a raft trip, Selphie, Tidus and Wakka were planning a bit of a camping trip. The large tree house seemed like a great place to spend the night, they would have a roof over their heads, and there weren't any stories about ghosts and other things haunting it. None that Selphie had heard anyway.

"Okay, so, lemme get this straight. You want me to bring all the food? Why, man? Do you have any idea how much you eat?" Tidus complained, "C'mon Wakka, what happened to all of us bringing our own stuff?"

"We were gonna do dat, until you said you couldn't bring a sleeping bag or nothing'! Remember mon, Selphie's gonna bring da blankets and stuff, I'm bringin' stuff to do, and you're bringin' da food." Wakka said with a laugh, "It's not hard man, try and remember!"

"Hey Wakka, don't forget, you're bringing the torches too!" Selphie broke in, "You still can, right? 'Cause they're kinda important."

"No problem, Selphie. I'm not gonna forget. I just didn't mention it. That's all."

"Sure."

Conversations carried on like this for the rest of the day, the three occasionally taking breaks to spar with Sora, Riku and Kairi. Selphie was pleased with the day's work. Everything was organised for the sleepover in the tree house tomorrow night, and she had managed to tell Sora about the papou fruit. Turns out he didn't know, after all. She hoped he got her hint and shared one with Kairi. That would be sweet.

The next morning, Selphie turned up at the islands, carrying a large bundle of blankets and pillows. Nobody else was at the island yet, so after unloading her stuff at the tree house; she walked down to the beach where the now finished raft was. Sora had said the day before, that they just needed to collect food and water and they would be ready to leave. Selphie was surprised at the workmanship of the raft, it was very well built, much better than she had expected. When Riku had first suggested building a raft, Selphie didn't think any of the three would get around to finishing it. She still wasn't sure how a raft was going to get them to other worlds though. The young girl sat down on the raft, twisting her yellow dress until she was comfortable. She would wait here until she heard someone else.

Waiting took longer than she thought, and Selphie was considering whether or not her clock at home was an hour or so fast, because she was pretty sure that Tidus and Wakka had agreed the 12 o' Clock was a good time, and they could easily be there. Or maybe the boys just forgot. Whatever the reason, Selphie finally heard two boats approaching about an hour and a half later.

"Aw man, we're so late! Selphie's gonna be mad!"

"Naw, it'll be fine mon, she won't mind, we aren't even that late."

"Yeah Wakka," Selphie said, approaching the two boys, "an hour and a half isn't late at all!"

"Geez, we're really sorry Selphie." Tidus apologised meekly.

"It's okay. I already took my stuff to the tree house, do you guys need help?"

"That would be nice; can you carry this for me then?" Wakka asked, handing Selphie a bag full of supplies.

The trio made their way to the tree house, and started to arrange their stuff on the floor, making beds and chattering about what they were going to do later at night. Everyone was in a good mood, seeing as plans were going perfectly, and watching Sora climbing trees in an attempt to reach a seagulls egg was hilarious. Tidus and Wakka decided to check out the secret place, to have a look at some of the old pictures that had been scratched onto the walls. They decided that since Selphie has declined their offer to come with them, and didn't know what did or didn't happen, they would make up a really scary story about what happened. Sunset came, and Sora, Riku and Kairi went home for the night, leaving Selphie, Tidus and Wakka alone on the island.

"So, Selphie, Wakka and I were thinking you might like to hear about what happened when we were exploring the Secret Place?" Tidus grinned from ear to ear, the tale they had made was perfect, Selphie would think they were so brave!

"What happened? That place is boring. The most exciting thing that could happen there is if you found a spider or something... was that it? You found a spider?" Selphie didn't seem so impressed so far.

"Well yeah, we did actually, but that's not the point. Just let me tell the story Selphie."

"Okay, okay."

"Good. Okay, so me and Wakka went into the Secret Place, right? And we found this tunnel, that went further in-"

"Tidus, there isn't a tunnel in the Secret Place; it's just a room with a door that doesn't open."

"Stop interruptin' da story Selphie!"

"Sorry Wakka. Keep going then."

"Uh, yeah. Anyway, as I was saying, we went through this tunnel, and it came out in this big room, and there were these stairs leading down, right?" Wakka nodded. "Yeah, and I said 'wow! The must go under the water! We should check it out!' And then we did, and there was this massive alien civilisation! And-"

"Alright, Tidus? You're crazy! No way is there aliens! Especially not under the water! You're making it up!"

"No, really! There were so! Weren't there Wakka!" Tidus wasn't expecting Selphie not to believe the story. True, he was making it up, but he didn't want Selphie to know that.

"Yeah mon, dere was!" Wakka exclaimed, he wasn't about to let the story die." Dey were these giant bug tings, really big, with these long feelers and yellow eyes and-"

"You mean like that?" Selphie said pointing behind Wakka, her hand shaking with fear.

Wakka knew the description of their aliens perfectly; he and Tidus had made it up after finding a colony of ants, and this thing did look similar to what they had described, but the problem was that they hadn't actually seen anything. The whatever-it-was could be dangerous, it was kinda creepy looking, and gave you chills down your spine from just being near it. All three of the islanders drew their weapons, Wakka with a blitzball, Selphie with her jump rope, and Tidus with his wooden pole, and got ready to defend themselves against the creature. It was dark now, and there wasn't any light to help them see, but luckily, Wakka noticed the thing leap towards them, and threw his blitzball, hitting it clean in the face and knocking the creepy critter to the ground.

"RUN!!!!!" Wakka yelled, and the trio sped out of the tree house, only to find the creatures were swarming all over the island. Selphie looked across to the dock, to make sure their boats were still intact, and saw that three more had turned up without her noticing. Her eyes travelled to the papou tree island, where she saw Riku and Sora, owners of two of the boats, being covered by darkness while those black things circled around menacingly.

"Selphie! Behind you!" Tidus' voice brought her attention back to her little group, and as she turned around to attack the bug-looking thing, she saw that the islands seemed to be falling apart. Selphie successfully defeated the creature, and as it disappeared, she realised that they were surrounded. The group fought the things, but they just kept coming back, and it didn't matter how many were destroyed, more seemed to slide up from the floor and take their defeated comrades place.

Selphie looked up again only to find that she could no longer see Sora; in fact, she couldn't really see anything at all! All there that was anywhere was darkness, everywhere, and seemingly inescapable. Selphie found the ground under her feet shift, and suddenly she was up to her knees in darkness. She cried out in shock and surprise, alerting Tidus, who promptly reached out and grabbed her hand. Selphie appreciated this, except she was still being pulled under. Wakka grabbed Tidus' leg to stop him from falling in too, but soon enough, Wakka had his arms elbow deep is the darkness too, and despite all of their best efforts, all three islanders were pulled under.