Chapter 1
Sora walks down the hall.
Slam! Thud.
"Sora? Sora! Wake up, you idiot!" Roxas yells at Sora before kicking him hard in the side.
Sora moans and opens his eyes, "What are you doing here? Aren't you suppose to be… I don't know, somewhere else?"
Roxas crosses his arms, "I'm the one who is 'suppose' to be here, you on the other hand are not."
Sora leaps to his feet. He draws his keyblade, ready to throw Roxas back to the darkness of his heart. "I dare you to say that again!"
Roxas facepalms. "Your head must of hit the floor a little too hard. Bounty hunters cannot see his majesty unless sent an invitation and present it to me. And if one is not able to see his majesty one must not be in this hallway."
Sora finally realizes he's not in Destiny Islands anymore. He briefly glances around the giant pastel yellow hallway. The ceiling is ten times its usual sides and all around the room are radioactive orange pillars. Sora let's the tip of his key drop to the floor and disappear. "Had too much ice cream? Me, a bounty hunter? And I thought you didn't have a sense of humor, Roxas."
"That is Sir Roxas to you, peasant. If you do not leave the premises I will have to escort you out myself." Roxas glares sinisterly at Sora.
"Pushy, pushy. Where is this place anyway? Is that a cotton candy chandelier?" Sora squints as he looks up at a giant pink cloud floating under the high arches on the ceiling of the palace.
"That is none of your business, Sora. Remember your place."
"Can't you just tell me why I woke up in this My Little Pony Castle?" Sora mocks.
"Enough!" Roxas yells and summons Oathkeeper. He hurls the giant key at Sora. Sora ducks just before it knocks his head to smithereens.
"Is that the best you got, Roxas! Your aim is pitiful."
"Who said I was aiming at you?" Roxas replies. He stares past Sora and makes a jerking motion with his hands like he is twisting a giant key. Sora glances behind himself to see what Roxas is looking at. Oathkeeper is jammed in between two giant doors. It turns sharply and with a click the doors swing open. Oathkeeper disappears in a flash of light.
The floor under Sora starts to move toward the door. Sora turns back around toward Roxas. He walks to keep his place on the floor. "If you think I'm leaving without an expla-!" Roxas disappears in a pool of darkness on the floor.
"Hey! I'm talking to you, Ice Cream Breath!" The floor increases its speed. Sora does the same.
"You can't just kick me out!" The floor increases its speed once again. Sora has to fight to keep his position from faltering.
The doors grow impatient with the so-called bounty hunter. They begin sucking all the air from the room. The great vortex throws Sora into the air. Sora grabs onto an arch. He holds on for dear life as he yells, "I'm not leaving without answers!"
A giant pink puffy cloud blasts into Sora's face like a dodgeball smothered in fungified mayonnaise. It burns his eyes and strangles his throat. Sora coughs, "I will not give-" Sora reopens his eyes just in time to see Oblivion smash into his arms throwing him off the arch and out the door.
The wind drops Sora onto a sticky black street. "Don't think you won 'cause it's not over!" The doors to the palace slam close in response. Sora lets his head drop onto the gum like street.
"Shouldn't you be attacking grumples instead of laying in the street, hunter?" A female voice says with a laugh.
Sora looks up from the stickyness. A set of mouth-wateringly gorgeous angelic ankles sat beside him. The woman attached to the ankles was beautiful with her neon orange hair, but those ankles were molded beyond perfection.
"Laying in the Soul Consuming is not a good idea, hunter." She teases.
"Huh?" Sora looks at the ground. The black gunk has started to crawl up his arm. The words the lady said click in his head. He leaps out of his spot and onto the grass. "Umm, uh, Soul Consuming?" Sora asks.
"When the Dark wizards Sem and An collided their powers were absorbed into the world and bubbled up here. Their thirst for power made the walkway stretch out to the souls of the living and the deceased. With enough souls the walkway will no longer be underfoot, but the one doing the foot setting."
The woman's voice had a strange echo to it that announced that she has power and that she wants the misfortune she described to fall upon the world. Sora looks at the orange haired lady slightly confused at her words. "Ok, nice talking to you." He walks away as fast as he can from the perfect ankled woman. Something about her seemed off, and he is not sure he wants to find out what.
When he got a good distance away from the lady he looked around. He had ran down the mountain that had the palace and the orange haired woman on top of it. Around him he could see only empty fields and the winding Soul Consuming.
"Where the hell am I? I remember being in the cafeteria, and walking toward my classroom then… I must have fallen asleep… This has to be a dream." Sora tells himself.
"Dream? What dream?" A voice calls out from the Soul Consuming. Sora looks down at where the voice came from. A boy, only a year younger than Sora, floated in the sticky walkway. His eyes stare beyond the world and his silver hair is cemented to the Soul Consuming.
"Aren't people not suppose to lay in the Soul Consuming?" Sora asks concerned about the boy's well being. The people here probably don't call it Soul Consuming just because they were bored.
"People? Did you hear that, Freckles? Are they not suppose to soul consume?" The boy answers with questions. His glazed over eyes don't acknowledge Sora's presence.
"Here, I'll give you a hand. We need to get you out of there." Sora walks over to the edge of the grass and reaches toward the dazed boy.
"Here? Hand? Out?"
"Yes, give me your hand and I'll get you out." Sora insists.
"Me?" The boy ponders.
"Yes, you. Now give me your hand!" Sora gets annoyed and bends down closer to the boy.
"Yes?" The boy questions without moving an inch.
Sora grunts in frustration and reaches his hands into the goop pool of a road. He grabs the boy's arm and drags him out of the gunk.
The boy is dirtied from head to toe in the Soul Consuming liquid, but he still doesn't seem to notice he was pulled out of the road.
"So, who are you?" Sora asks.
"Are you? …Freckles?"
"Freckles? I'm not Freckles. Is that the name of a friend of yours?"
"Not? …Friend?" The boy's question had a sad ring to it. He puts his giant sleeves together and mumbles quietly twirling the fabric.
"I am a friend. I'm here to help you. Could you tell me your name, please?"
The boy pauses for a long time. Sora waits patiently for him to speak. "Z."
Sora smiles, "Hello, Z. My name is Sora. Would you like to travel with me? You probably know more about this land than I do."
The boy grabs Sora's foot with his greasy sleeve covered hand. "Sora? Are you a hunter?"
"That's what they keep telling me, but to tell you the truth, I just woke up here."
"Keep telling? Freckles believes…?" Z pauses and nods. "Woke up when?"
Sora puts his hands behind his head. "Only a couple minutes ago. Who is this Freckles you keep mentioning?"
"Who?" Z asks.
"Never mind." Sora says with a laugh. "So are you coming?"
"I…go?" Z stretches a twisted smile across his face and nods excitedly. He lets go of Sora's foot and stumbles up from the grass. His first steps are awkward and off balance, but he quickly remembers how gravity works. Sora and Z start walking beside the Soul Consuming seeing where the cursed pathway leads to.