Chapter 1

The setting sun shimmered over the ocean horizon. Riku and his friends were watching the sun set by the paopu fruit tree like they did almost every day. Sora and Kairi sat on the long tilting trunk while Riku leaned against it, talking about the little things that had happened that day. But Riku wasn't paying attention to anything they were saying today. His thoughts were elsewhere.

Riku closed his eyes and listened to the soft waves rush across the shore line. Destiny Islands… a place he called home but somehow didn't feel like it really was. He dreamt of adventure, other worlds to explore. But instead he was stuck here, doing the same thing every day. It wasn't all bad; he had two best friends, Sora and Kairi that spent every bit of their free time together with him. He didn't know what he would do if they weren't there to keep him sane. Nothing exciting ever happened on this island.

"Hey, are you even listening to me?" Kairi whined as she shook Riku's shoulder. Riku opened his eyes and looked at up at her with an apologetic expression. Kairi shot Sora an annoyed scowl as Sora just uncomfortably rubbed the back of his spikey brown hair and gave her an awkward smile. She motioned her head towards Riku urging Sora to say something to him. Sora cleared his throat and leaned forward so Riku could see him, "What's going on with you Riku? You seem like something's been on your mind lately."

Riku shook his head, making his silver hair sway back and forth, before speaking as if to clear his mind of useless thoughts, "I just can't stop thinking about what's out there." Gesturing his arm towards the ocean, "I mean, I can't believe that this island is all there is. There has to be more." He leaned off the trunk and walked forward to face his friends. "We know there has to be something; Kairi couldn't have just fallen from nothing."

Kairi shivered when Riku mentioned her falling. She wasn't born on Destiny Islands. In fact, she had no idea where she was born. When she was a small child she just appeared on the island. According to Sora she had fallen from the sky in what looked like a falling star. A bright beam had broken through the clouds and crashed into the ocean. The fall wasn't something she remembered. But just thinking that she had been taken from her home and suddenly transported to another place entirely chilled her to the bone. She was terrified of it happening again; especially since she had no idea why or how it happened in the first place.

Just thinking about the incident was starting to make her feel increasingly uncomfortable. Sora intuitively noticed Kairi's discomfort and placed his hand reassuringly on her shoulder. She looked over at him, pushed a few short strands of auburn hair behind her ear, and gave him a smile of silent thanks as Riku continued. "We need to find a way to get out of here," he ranted, without noticing how his previous comment had affected Kairi. He turned his back to them and looked out into the ocean. Sora and Kairi gave each other concerned glances. They too wanted to see what was out there. Kairi especially wanted to find the world she came from, to learn how and why she ended up on the islands. Yet, their curiosity hadn't consumed them nearly as much as it was Riku. Lately it had been all he could think about.

Before either of them could speak up to address Riku's obsession an ear piercing roar rang through the air and the sky flashed. A blinding ray shot through the clouds and struck the ocean. Riku put his hands over his ears, trying to tune out the high pitched ringing they were producing. He scanned the ocean for where the beam had hit. Suddenly his eyes caught something floating in the water. It was too far away to make out exactly what it was; so rather than guess he decided to go check it out for himself. He immediately dove into the ocean and began to swim towards the unnamed object. After a minute of swimming he paused to catch his breath and to see if he could begin to see what he was after. The sight made him gasp as he realized that the floating object was in fact a human being. Instantly he pushed himself to swim as fast as his muscles would allow him. The waves of the uncaring ocean clashed against him. Almost as if they were trying to keep him from getting aid for the helpless human who did not seem to be moving, let alone breathing. Once Riku reached the person he wrapped his arm around their waist and began rushing back towards the shore. Keeping their heads above water was proving much more difficult than he needed right now. The waves seemed to only be getting more aggressive, crashing against them and pushing them underwater, making Riku get a mouth full of salt water. Yet he wasn't about to let go and give up on getting this person back. He pushed through to the shore until his muscles were screaming at him to stop, and even then ignoring their plea as he trudged on. It all paid off as he finally landed on the wet sand and pulled the person onto the shore, far enough away from the tide.

Only then did he realize that the person he saved had been a girl; a girl that did not seem to be breathing. Frantically Riku looked for Sora or Kairi and yelled, "Go get help! I don't think she's breathing!"

Sora nodded at Riku and lightly grabbed Kairi's wrist, "Come on! We need to find help!" But Kairi couldn't move. Her legs seemed glued to the sand as she just stared terrified at the girl in Riku's arms. It had happened again. The same thing that had brought her here was happening all over. Sora noticed Kairi's immobility but didn't have the time to calm her down. He just resided to giving a supportive squeeze to her wrist before turning to run for help.

Riku placed two of his fingers on the girl's neck, trying to check for a nonexistent pulse. There had to be a way to get her breathing again. His eyes widened when he remembered the CPR class he had just finished a couple months ago. Never in his lifetime did he think he would actually have to use those skills but now here it was. He took a deep breath as he got his hands in position on the girl's chest. He felt his face burn red as he realized he had never touched a girl here before; especially one he didn't even know the name of, but considering the circumstance he hoped she wouldn't mind too terribly.

"One, two, three," he counted as he pressed down on her chest, trying to get her to catch a breath. He continued frantically, just hoping that he hadn't been too late in getting her out of the water. But just as he was losing that hope, the girl's eyes shot open and she began to cough. Riku sprang back as the girl doubled over spewing sea water that had made its way into her lungs. She gasped for air and fell back onto the sand, very weak but alive. She briefly looked over at Riku before sighing and passing out again. Then, as if on cue, Sora came running up with a crowd of people and a few paramedics that were carrying a medical stretcher. Gasps and murmurs could be heard from the crowd as the medics carefully lifted the girl and placed her onto the stretcher. Riku was still in shock over what happened until Sora came over to him and offered him a hand to help him up.

He scanned the multiple people Sora had brought along, "I thought I said get help, not the whole island," he halfheartedly teased.

Sora chuckled and placed his hands behind his head, "Yeah well, once people saw the paramedics following me with the stretcher, they all just sort of began following too."

Riku just smiled back at Sora, trying to take in everything that had just happened. Before either of them could say anything further one of the paramedics approached them. The middle aged woman put her hand on Riku's shoulder, "Well, that was some fast thinking. I don't know if she would have made it without you. We are going to be keeping her at the clinic for a while so she can recover. Feel free to come visit her. In fact if she is anything like our last visitor…" She glanced up at Kairi who was still standing by the paopu tree watching everything transpire, "She's going to need some people help her get settled into her new life here."

Just then the crowd of people who had just been watching the paramedics began to swarm Riku, congratulating him on saving the girl's life and asking what had happened. Sora took that opportunity to slip away and check on Kairi. As he climbed up to the paopu tree he noticed that Kairi had finally turned around from watching the shore line where Riku and the crowd were. She had her head pointed downwards as if she was deep in thought and one of her arms was behind her back with her hand holding the forearm of the other. Sora walked up to her slowly as if not to startle her. He could tell that she had just been through a lot. After coming up beside her he found he didn't really know what to say. He just decided to stick with, "Hey. Are you okay?"

Without looking up Kairi replied, "Is that what happened when I came here? Did someone have to save me?"

Honestly, Sora had no idea. He was only six when Kairi had come to Destiny Islands. The whole incident back then was a blur to him. "I-I don't know," He finally decided to say, "I don't really remember." When she didn't really react at all he leaned down so she could see his face and added, "But I bet we can find someone who does!"

This caused Kairi to look up at least. Before today she never really had an interest in knowing anything about the day she came to the island. Since she didn't remember anything about where she had come from, she liked to pretend that she was actually born here. But to think that someone could have saved her life, why would someone not tell her about it? She may not have wanted to know before, but now she and Sora were going to find out.