Yes, it's here; the partner fic to Eyes of a Nobody. I hope you're happy. I didn't expect to get such praise for EoaN, really, but I guess I did well. Let's hope people like this one even more! It's told in the perspective of the OC.

Disclaimer for the whole story: The only people I own in here are Elizabeth and April, and everyone else is c. Disney and/or Square Enix.

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My jaws hurt.

Yeah, I know that's an odd way to start telling my story, but it was true; I had been chomping on a piece of gum ever since last period at school. Not only that, but I was in the process of trying to get out of going shopping with my older sister. Trust me, that one took a lot of talking.

"You sure you don't wanna come with?" April asked, leaning over the empty passenger seat of her shiny new Convertable. Her hazel eyes, wide with innocence, were trying to get me a puppy dog look. It never worked, she knew, but she still did it.

I shifted my weight from my right to my left foot, flipping a stray strand of curly brown hair out of my eyes. "It's fine! You took me shopping last week, and I got plenty of clothes that time." A reassuring smile found its way onto my face for good measure. "Really!"

April stared at me for a long, long time. I rarely turned people down for things because a) It benefited me in some way, and b) It made me feel awful when the person would finally go away, but this time I had a project to work on along with my regular load of homework. The day I went shopping on a day like today was the end of the world.

Finally she shifted her car into drive again and gave me a careless shrug. "Alright, I understand. But you're coming with me next time I ask, ok?"

The reasurring smile turned into a grin. I hoisted my backpack higher on my back. "Ok."

My sister gave me a wink before zipping along down the road, newly-tuned engine grumbling noisily. I watched her go, coughing a little at the resulting exhaust fumes.

I think I should've taken her up on that offer. Sure, I'd just be putting off my work. Sure, I'd have to stay up until the wee hours of the morning trying to finish my homework, becoming so exhausted I'd sleep right through my presentation the next day. At least I'd have something more interesting to do and I could enjoy myself. I didn't know that what was about to happen was probably going to be more exciting than a shopping trip with my big sister.

I usually walk home alone, and today was no exception. My mom and dad worked until five or six, so I had the house to myself until they or my sister came home. I wasn't always lonely; if April went on shopping trips every afternoon, she'd be grounded for spending all our frickin' money. I liked when I had the house to myself, and I liked walking home alone. It gave me time to think.

I was currently in the process of watching for the crosswalk light to change when someone joined me at the stop. While waiting, I glanced over to them casually.

They were wearing a dark cloak, the hood drawn up over their head so I couldn't see their face. I eyed them suspiciously as the light changed, and we started to walk along the street. They didn't notice me, and even shoved me past so that they were ahead of me.

I opened my mouth to shout after them, then thought better of it. They were probably from any of the schools in the area...on second thought, they couldn't be, since there was only one high school in the town, and they couldn't be from the middle school or elementary schools, as they were pretty tall and broad; a full grown man, it looked like. They're probably from the high school, I thought, still going at my normal pace, They came down the path from it.

The mysterious cloaked person was heading my route. They were going so fast that they were more trotting than walking, and they were almost out of my sight when suddenly they made an abrupt turn into the woods on one side of the sidewalk.

I stopped in my tracks near the gas station. What were they doing?! A high schooler would be smoking pot or something if they went into the woods-

Maybe they were going home.

I shook my head. No, there weren't any houses down there...were there? Not even my brother, who's been everywhere in the neighborhood, has ever brought his biking buddies down there, and there were rumors flying around school that it was a big smoking place, not a neighborhood.

Despite everything I had learned about rapists and strangers from my parents and from teachers, I followed the guy.

They had been running so fast that their footsteps had stamped out a barely visible path through the undergrowth. I made my way through it carefully, eyeing the signs of passage closely to confirm that I was going the right way. The person, student or not, was going the other way past the normal way that the smokers took, and were going into the deepest part of the woods.

Right, left, right, left...

Finally, I found them.

Or, rather, I found what they had left behind.

There was what looked like a glowing black orb hovering at the end of the path. Little tendrils of matching black smoke (or was it dry ice or something like that?) came out, dissolving a few feet away from where I stood. Delicately I approached it, the twigs and leaves snapping under my feet. Birds twittered high up in the trees, warning trills that something was wrong.

When I reached the thing, I reached my hand out and touched it. The orb was ice cold, my hand disappearing straight through. I withdrew my hand in disgust, rubbing it to get the little bits of smoke off of it.

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath when a little black piece became firmly implanted in my arm, impervious to my scrubbing. I leaned forward and put in both of my hands, watching with interest and curiosity as both of them disappeared.

I put in one foot, then another, then my whole body...

That was the biggest mistake I've made in my life.

Yup. Definitely should have gone on that shopping trip.