The Speed of a Heartbeat
Maria found it difficult to breathe. Every second felt like a day. The dark, pitch black creature had taken her by surprise, and she felt her own heartbeat fade away... The Heartless had gotten her, and the last thing she saw before it all went forever black, was her heart disappearing and being absorbed by the creature, and its yellow, glowing eyes.
The peace of the Light is disturbed.
Only an hour earlier, she had been sitting beneath a bridge, crying. She had nothing left but herself. She had lived with her mother, who had been a doctor. But as time has passed, she had died – she got heart cancer, and decided to end her own life, not wanting to die the way her body had decided for her, but by her own hands, not giving another thought to her little girl, only seeing her own misery. And so, Maria had been left to fend for herself. Sixteen years old, and just about old enough to get a small job to keep a daily income, even though it was only a dollar a day. Some days, she would barely even get that much. Her 'job' consisted more of small services, lending out a hand to whoever would need it, whether it would be need of help with the house, babysitting kids, or stalking someone suspicious for the local police, who had been the only ones to really give her much of a chance the last weeks of her life. The small town she lived in had never been quite that prosperous, and they were greedy and needy enough to keep most of their money to themselves, unwilling to share. She had not lived and died in a town too friendly.
Red City, or the Town of Eternal Dawn, was a phenomenon in other ways than simply being cheap. For unknown reasons, no alive scientists had been able to reach a conclusion as for why the sun would never rise or set, but was standing quite still as the dawn, never move. It was the year of 2035 – technology had improved, but the humans were mostly the same, albeit a tad different. The current biggest focus technology-wise was time and space, and huge debates were going every day about whether or not the human race would be able to bend the laws of nature. Maria had often found herself wondering when she saw, heard or read about these debates.
The global warming that had grown into a serious emergency about fifteen years earlier, had caused the scientists to finally figure out what to do – the world they had lived in had been separated, split, torn into various much smaller worlds. Many small worlds were now circling the sun from a healthier distance to keep the heat at bay, and everyone had started to finally watch the environment with more care. After all, the new worlds were only just about the sizes of the cities of the old Earth – if one world died away because it could not watch over itself properly enough to avoid a repeat of history, no other worlds were likely to start up a space travelling vessel to come to their defense. Could they not aid themselves, were they not likely to be able to ever pay them back from the help.
The world had truly changed. Physically, yes. But the people in it had changed as well, slowly. The human race were more suspicious, untrusting, and greedy. Some had learned to value life. Many had ended their own life, not wanting to die by nature's hands, or being separated unwillingly from their friends and family. The likelyhood of living a long, good life had decreased by every year. The human hearts were devoured by the darkness...
And Maria's last moments under the bridge had been sad, frightening, and happy. Sad, because she knew she was about to die, because she had not earned money for proper food in almost a week. Frightening, when she saw the dark creature emerge from the ground, appear like a ghost, and creep towards her. Happy, because she knew by instinct that this was a dangerous creature, and it would most likely end her life, and take her away from the bitter world she lived in, away from the darkness of the eternal dawn. And maybe, just maybe, she would finally feel free.
The Darkness moves.
As the Heartless had taken her heart, devoured it, she had felt... nothing. The only feeling she had, was the lack of a heart. She felt no happiness, nor sadness or anger. Nothing. Without her heart, she was empty. Yet, something inside of her told her she would still remember her feelings in certain situations, even if she would not be able to feel them like she once had.
"Another one consumed by the darkness."
A dark, unrecognisable voice spoke. Maria reacted, flinging her eyes open.
She was no longer in the small town she had grown up in. She found herself on soft grass, in a forest. The forest consisted of white, long trees. She could smell the fresh air of a morning, of grass wet with small droplets of some fog that had most likely been wherever she was now, only an hour ago at most. Also, the clothes she had been wearing before had been changed to a simple white dress.
She sat up, and looked around. The forest appeared empty. Where did that voice come from? She could see something that looked like a castle on the outskirts of the forest. Her mind whirred.
Where there were buildings, there would most likely be people. Maybe someone who could tell her where she was, and... who she was.
Who was she? She had forgotten. She had faint memories of a dark creature, a place she couldn't remember what looked like, and a past she no longer had any memories of. She had a feeling she would not want to remember it, so she was fine with that.
Time seemed to pass endlessly as she walked up through the forest, searching for the castle she could see more clearly with every step, yet it felt like it was getting further away by every movement she made.
She stopped walking.
The In-Between shakes.
"Whoever you are, come out," she said, deciding to keep it simple. "I don't know who you are, or who I am myself, but I know you have been following me."
She heard a "tsh", comfirming her suspicion. "Really? And here I though I was being sneaky. I guess you caught me." The voice sounded like it belonged to a young man, or a boy.
"Show yourself," she demanded. From behind a tree she had not noticed, a boy indeed stepped out. He couldn't possibly be much older than herself. He was wearing a long, black, hooded cloak, with a zipper that was mostly closed. She noticed some strands of blond hair blowing in the soft wind, a slightly darker colour than her own. He looked at her, and she caught a glance of ocean blue eyes.
"You're a new Nobody, aren't you," he asked, or more like stated, causing her to glare at him.
"I may be a stranger, but that gives you no reason to insult me." She could remember the feeling of anger.
The boy shaked his head. "I am merely making a statement. I have no intention of insulting you. I, like you, are a Nobody. We who have lost our hearts."
She walked up to him, slowly. "Hearts? Tell me what you know about all of this. I know nothing about myself anymore, this pitiful existance where I only feel as an empty shell. I want to know."
"I know you do. That would be why I am here to take you to the Castle."
Maria walked all the way up to him until she was only a reach of the hand away from him. "What castle? The one over there?"
"Yes. Come with me." The boy reached out a hand to his left, and something that looked like a small black hole appeared. He motioned for her to go inside it.
She looked at the portal-like swirl the boy had created by a simple movement of his hand, taking in the little info he had given her, and the command for her to enter it. What else could she do? She had no reason to doubt him. If he was speaking the truth, he would take her somewhere she could get answers. If not... Well, she had nothing to lose anymore either way. She walked in, even though she did not know what would happen when she did.
The In-Between is pierced by the darkness.
The sensation was not one she had expected. It was nothing like anything she had ever experienced before. It was overwhelming, threatening to rip apart her mind. A nauseous feeling she really wished she would have forgotten entirely welled up in her as she fell to a floor on the other side of the portal, inside a room with white walls. She promptly clenched her stomach, hoping it would go away. Soon enough, it faded off enough for her to look up properly.
As she did, she met with several pairs of eyes she had not seen before, and the blue orbs of the boy who had brought her there. A blond man with a small, closely shaved beard and moustache, looking like her were in his thirties, looked at her with mild curiousity. A young-looking boy with blue hair covering the right side of his face, carrying a large, black book, eyed her for about ten seconds, before apparing to lose interest. Another blond, this one long-haired, man looked at her as if she was food on his plate. He appeared quite interested, or more amused, in seeing a new face. A young man who couldn't possible be more than nineteen also looked at her with some interest. His features were slim, and his hair was flaming red, spiking out to every direction. Yet another blond boy caught her eye, sitting on the floor. He appeared somewhat more gentle than the others, having softer features and a seemingly more relaxed attitude. His hair was mostly sticking up in a mullet. They were all wearing the same cloak, though each one slightly, barely visibly, personalized. She quickly noticed that one had broader shoulders, and one was slimmer. The other small modifications on each one's cloak were harder to make out.
"Well, well. What do we have here? It appears we have a newcomer to the castle," the redhead said lightly.
"How can that be? I've never seen anyone like her," the long-haired man said, a slight irritation in his voice. "Who is she?"
"Why don't you ask her? None of us have any reason to be able to give you a good answer," a snicker came from the moustache-and-beard-faced man.
"It's not like she's going to be able to answer." The young blue-haired boy was not asking a question. "No Nobodies have ever been able to answer to that on their first day here. You all know this already."
"Be quiet, Zexion, no one asked your opinion," the long-haired man sneered.
The boy with the mullet looked up at them. "Hey, let's be nice to the newcomer. At least we could introduce ourselves."
The other ones sighed, but gave in. "Fine. I'll go first," the mullet boy said gently. "My name is Demyx. I'm number IX in the Organization – number nine. I play the sitar, and can control water." He smiled at her.
"I'm Vexen, number IV. Meaning I'm ranked number four. I have the ability to control ice, and will usually be in the lab." This came from the long-haired blonde man.
"I'm Axel," the redhead grinned. "I control fire. You might not want to wear too easily flammable clothing in here, at least when I'm around. You'll probably be wearing the cloak soon enough either way, so I guess that won't be a problem. Oh, and I'm VII – number seven here."
The blue-haired boy looked at her. "My name is Zexion. I am number VI, meaning number six, and I have the element of illusion. I'm usually in the library or IV's lab. If I appear busy, which I usually might, it would be most unwise to disturb me unless you have a good excuse. I do not have to respect you for anything you have not proven worthy of my attention." He looked back at his book, seeming to make a small note about something.
"I am Roxas," the blonde boy who had brought her there said, picking up where the previous speaker had stopped. "Number XIII. Thirteen. My element would be light. I only came here a few weeks ago, so I do not have much to say about myself yet."
"I'm Luxord, number X. Ten. I'm a gambler, and I control time."
Maria looked up at him. "Time."
This got everyone's attention. "Hey, she's speaking already," Axel said, looking slightly impressed. The others sent her and each other slightly curious looks. Demyx gave a small laugh.
Luxord only grinned at her. "Well, what are the odds of that... You interested in time, then? I can tell you more about that later, if you'd like."
"Quiet, Ten," Zexion said. "She must be brought to the Superior immidiately. I am sure he will be impatient if we drag this out for long."
The In-Between is fading into darkness.
A few hours later, she was assigned a room of her own, where she would spend most of her time the next days. She had put on the cloak she had gotten.
"I'm number XIV. Fourteen," she said to herself. "XIV. Fourteen."
She had also been given a name. Xairam.
Was that her name?
It felt strange, yet familiar. "Xairam," she tried. "Xairam."
The Superior had given her the name. He had presented himself as Xemnas. Number I – one.
She walked out of her room. The castle was huge – and even though the castle has appeared dark and mysterious on the outside, it was completely white and quite intriguing on the inside. It was like a maze. Still, she did not have much trouble finding her way back to the room where she had first been introduced to the members.
As she opened the double doors and entered, a few glances were sent her way. Demyx was playing a big, blue sitar as he sat in a light-coloured sofa. The calm music filled the room, soothing and relaxing, and reminding her of the feeling of contentment. Zexion was reading a book. She was not too surprised. Axel was playing with some burning candles on the table by the sofa, seeming lost in thought as he cupped his head in his palm, staring into the lights. She could not see neither Vexen nor Roxas. She decided they were probably away, in a lab or their rooms. In another sofa, Luxord appeared to entertain himself with flicking cards into mini versions of the dark portals, both portals next to each other on the table.
Xairam walked up behind him, staring at the simple game. He threw a card into the portal on the right, and as it disappeared into the middle of the small whirlwind of dark materia, it appeared in the left one, bouncing up with the same speed it had been thrown in. The card lost gravity, and fell back down in the left one, reappearing in the right one. It bounced like that for about ten seconds before he reached out over the left portal, catching the card between his index and middle fingers.
"Ever tried defying the laws of nature?" he asked. Xairam knew who he was talking to. She simply sat down next to him, without a word. He looked at her, showing her a King of Hearts.
"We Nobodies can do a lot of this weird stuff. There are thirteen of us in the Organization. Well, fourteen with you." She listened, and looked at the card. "We, the members of the Organization, are the strongest Nobodies. Only we lost our hearts and managed to keep a human appearance. It's because we're strong beings."
"King of Hearts..." she whispered. "Thirteenth."
"You know your cards," he smiled slyly. "Yes. The deck of cards has thirteen cards of each colour. Until you came, we have only been thirteen, making the deck of cards somewhat intriguing. Meaning there are members you haven't met, though they are away at another castle for the time being."
"Thirteen," she repeated. "Only thirteen?"
"Yeah," Luxord said. "Each one of us have been represented by a card from my deck. But I don't have a fourteenth card."
"No card."
"That's right. And my deck has never failed me with the logic of the thirteen members before this." He shuffled his deck and laid out the cards in four rows. "The Hearts," he said, pointing to the stack of thirteen cards with hearts corresponding to their number. "The Darkness of our Hearts," he continued, moving his hand to the spades. "Our elements." He moved his hand further, to the stack of clubs. Finally, he moved his hand to the diamonds. "The Somebodies."
"Somebodies?" Xairam asked unsure. "Heartless?"
Luxord nodded solemny. "The Somebodies are the whole beings. They consist mainly of a body, a heart, and a mind."
"Body. Heart. Mind," she repeated, trying to absorb this new information. "Somebodies."
"Yes. When a Somebody loses its heart to the darkness, but not its mind and body, it becomes a Nobody. We are the mind and body that is left."
"Darkness." It sounded familiar. "Nobody. No heart."
"That's right. But when a person's heart is lost in the darkness in itself, when the darkness devours the heart, it loses it's mind. That's how the Heartless are born. Their name lies, yet it is true at the same time. They do have hearts, in a way. But the heart is gone, the darkness having taken it."
"Heartless." She stared at the stack of cards, mainly the one of the spades. "Dark beings. Black. Yellow light."
"You remember being taken by a Heartless, I can hear. I won't assume you remember much more, though. Losing your heart to a being that craves a purer heart than its own, is almost always overwhelming enough to erase most of your memory. Well, those shining yellow eyes could creep anyone out even without attacking, I guess." Luxord stared at the cards, and started sorting them by numbers rather than colours. Thirteen stacks.
"Thirteen," Xairam whispered again. "Only thirteen."
Luxord gave the cards a bitter look. "Yeah."
She looked at him. "Me?"
"Sorry. There are only thirteen stacks." He sighed. "We did have a fourteenth member before. She was a girl, like you."
Xairam looked up. "Tell me."
He looked at her, and took a couple of cards in his hand. She couldn't see what cards, though they did not seem to be from any of the thirteen stacks. "Her name was Xion. She was merely an experiment, though it seems she was a failed one. She did well for a little while." He paused. "But it did not take long before we had to get rid of her." He didn't want to elaborate.
"Fourteen... Thirteen."
"Yeah. She didn't really come from a true Somebody. She was just an experiment. She didn't have an individual element, either – she had light, like Roxas. She was made out of some part of his Somebody. She wasn't a real Nobody. She was more like a bad replica."
"Not Nobody." Xairam looked at the blonde man, and the cards he was hiding in his hand. "Xion."
"Xion did not have a Heartless corresponding to her Nobody being, like we did. Do you see? She had no true heart, no darkness in the heart she lacked, no personal element, no Somebody of her own." He sighed. "No cards."
"No cards," she said, frowning. "I have no cards."
"Well, in a stack of cards, there can be more than the four colour with thirteen numbers." Luxord gave a small smile.
"More?" she asked, confused. She looked back at the cards. "Only thirteen."
"No. There are some other cards. Wildcards. The jokers." He showed her the two cards he had been holding. One was slightly ripped. They were joker cards.
Luxord patiently waited for her to understand. And Xairam understood, after looking at them for a while. "Xion," she said pointing to the ripped card. "Xion gone."
"Yes."
She examined the other cards. It almost looked like the joker on it had some of her features. "Me?"
"That's my theory. The fourteenth members. Jokers. The cards you rarely play – the disposable ones. The ones that can disappear without being concidered crucial for a continued game," Luxord mused. "You get my point. The fourteenth members aren't all that lucky here."
"Disposable."
The Darkness is slowly devouring the ones with no light left.
The next day, she woke up, having barely slept. She had been trying to make sense of it all, and summarize what she had learned the previous day.
First of all, she had no heart. It had been devoured by a creature born of darkness. Without a heart, she could not experience feelings properly. Secondly, she was disposable, and had no cards. Her card would be ripped soon.
She decided to get something to eat. The kitchen was not far away from the living room. Some of the others seemed to have started without her. Luxord looked up, greeting her with a nod. "So you're up already." He continued eating after making his simple statement. Zexion was also in there.
"About time."
This reminded Xairam of something. "What time is it?" she asked silently, barely audible for the two Nobodies listening.
"It's what time I want it to be," Luxord replied. "If I decide today is boring, I can let the time fly until nightfall. Or I can drag it out to feel like weeks. Hey, you want to learn more about it? You might as well learn a few tricks. Who knows how long it'll take before you're out," he said, waving the joker from the day before. The fact that Nobodies had no feelings was quite obvious – empathy was without a doubt no strong side. Xairam, lacking the ability to properly feel any of it herself, couldn't care much less. She was still trying to understand.
"Sure."
"You're going to train her in your element, Ten? I thought you liked being the only time master around," Zexion mused silently. "Or are you hoping to lose another card?"
"I am not hoping to lose anyone who can aid the Organization," he replied shortly, sipping on a cup of tea. "However, I am prepared for that possibility. Meanwhile, I might as well let her have some fun, unless you are planning to have her learn about your own element."
"... Have fun training the newcomer, Ten."
The next days were spent teaching Xairam how to make dark portals appear and disappear at her will – basic knowlegde for the Organization members, but completely new for Xairam. After a day of struggling, she showed herself as a quick learner, however, making everything quite a lot easier for Luxord.
By the fourth day with portal play, she had started to experiment a little on her own. She liked having the power to bend the space by herself. She had also gotten more used to the nausea that followed when travelling through the dark corridors. She had been told now, the nausea came because she was not used to it.
"Travelling through dark corridors is just about the same as opening a door to a house in which you have never been, and jump out the window next to the tree you want to pick an apple from. You enter the Darkness, and leave at the place you are planning to go. But to find your way, you need to know where you start and where you want to end. If you fail at focusing on your destination when creating the portal, you might get lost easily. Though, no matter how long you stay in the dark, the time and space formula will be concrete, and when you find your way out, it will be at the exact point in real-time. If you enter a portal at two o'clock, you can stay in the darkness for weeks if you don't have control, and the darkness will do what it can to devour the light you have left, but when you finally emerge, it will still be at two o'clock. This is because you will be on another Plane. There are three main Planes. The Plane of Light, where most worlds are. The Plane of In-Between – where your world was, I assume. And where we are now. And the Plane of Darkness. The one we travel through. Time is the same everywhere, but you won't spend time on more than one plane at once."
Luxord had explained a lot to her about time and space.
She had kept experimenting. Her eyes had slowly started fading of their light, green colour and were visibly darker, after only a short week.
The Darkness is taking the Fourteenth.
"Four, I understand your worry. The Plane of Darkness has been pierced by the many corridors Fourteen creates at once... She needs to be controlled properly before it goes too far."
"It already has."
The Light fades away.
Xairam had discovered that she could make more corridors at once than needed. She made one on the floor, and another in the roof. And a corresponding one on one of the walls. And one directly parallell on the other side. She let herself fall down into the one on the floor. She fell through it, and came out from the roof. When she again fell through the one directly below, she changed it to lead her to the one on the wall. With the same speed as she had fallen through the one on the floor thanks to gravity, she was fired from the wall portal and into the next one, which let her back to the one in the roof.
It was a circle, with ever growing speed.
She couldn't get out.
"Darkness!" she shouted. Her room being close to the living room, Axel and Demyx heard her clearly, glancing at each other, rushing to her room.
When they arrived, she appeared to be unconscious from the darkness and the endless flinging.
Demyx stared at Axel, showing signs of the emotion he remembered as fear. "Axel, get Luxord here. Or Vexen. Or even the Superior, if needed. Just GET SOMEONE."
Axel, being a rank higher than the blonde, scowled slightly at receiving commands from him, but knew there was no reason not to listen. He turned and ran to Luxord's room, to find the gambler shuffling his cards in various ways.
"Hey, Luxord. I think the newbie is needing your help. I thought you taught her how to get control of those corridors! She wasn't supposed to be able to trap herself in them!"
Luxord quickly pocketed his cards, keeping a single one in his hand. "I thought I told her to STOP playing around with those. How bad is it now?"
"Come see for yourself."
By the time they arrived, all the members that were in the castle were present in the room, watching how the girl had began speeding furiously, the darkness confusing the laws of nature enough to make her fall from down to up – she was going the other way by now, still unconscious. Xemnas, the Superior, was practically fuming.
"Luxord! What took you so long? Slow down time, the darkness will devour the whole castle if she keeps it going like that!" he barked, silver hair flowing around as he turned, yellow eyes piercing through the gambler.
Luxord snapped his fingers, having been able to control time well enough for a long time to slow it down or speed it up as he wished. The others looked at him, and quickly looked back at Xairam, expecting her to slow down. Instead, she kept falling, even faster.
Suddenly, he snapped his fingers again, just as she entered one of the portals. They disappeared.
So did she.
"What are you doing?!" Demyx protested. "She'll just disappear!"
Luxord closed his eyes, and laid a card where the floor portal had been. "It was already too late." With those words, he left the room.
"Why is that card ripped?" Axel asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
A/N: Made sense to me... Wrote this for my mock exam today, decided to post it. What fangirl would I be not to include fanfiction into my school work? Also, first KH fic I've made. No, I'm not a Luxord fan. But the topic was 'time' and 'time travel' Who else culd I write about? Oh, and Maria/Xairam belongs to me. My cute little OC. Made her months ago, really..