And moving on to the next story…

Mizuki should be fine, she has dealt with the Heartless before. She will figure something out, she seems like an intelligent, independent person. I told her not to worry about me jumping back into the Darkness but a part of me is afraid of the outcome. It is not too late to take this Master Emerald shard and run, but to where? Heartless fill the streets, there are barely people around, and my temporary home is not safe either now that it has fallen from its aerial dominion. There is nowhere to flee to, nowhere is actually safe. And I cannot go looking for Knuckles. I cannot face him just yet, not after everything that has happened-it is my dream we never find each other again or better yet he assumes I have died and forgets all about me. I am letting my mind wander, right now I have to find out where these Heartless are coming from and put a stop to them.

Grasping the shard in my hands, I hustle towards the fallen island. It has to give me some clue to getting to their world; the Master Emerald has spoken to me before. It warned me not to go with Clancy but I did not listen, if I had this world would not be drowning in Darkness. Getting on the island is not so bad, it is the Heartless that are swarming the altar that gives this place an unpleasant feeling. As I rush up the altar steps, I strike down the Heartless that sense my presence early. They are not organized and cunning, they are just insects attacking all at once so that is good news. After the altar is clear of the black creatures, I notice other chunks at my feet. There are more Master Emerald shards, it is clear someone is collecting them, Knuckles most likely. These were shown to me when my life was hanging by a thread in the Dark abyss by the man who kept showing me what happened in my past. "You saved me before," I bend down, talking to the shards. "Thank you."

I drop the shard along with the rest and view the island briefly. Nothing has changed, it is as if the island is its own separate world, free from the chaos around it despite its descent from the sky. Funny, that is how Mizuki, Mia, and I ended up here, we all fell from the same sky. If I could fly, then I could find our worlds among the skies and bring them back that way. Mizuki is working hard to protect this world and here I am daydreaming about frivolous things. "How to bring Angel Island back up to its dominion? That is the question," I take a seat on the fragments and decide to think aloud to myself. I should not stick around since it is clear Knuckles has been here but where else can I go? "I know where the Heartless come from but the question is how to get there?" Clancy used a portal to get them here probably after trapping me in the darkness.

I thought for the longest time he was dead and looking for him was a lost cause. Sometimes I would try to stay hopeful but the worsening circumstances would discourage me. But he is still alive and I have to find him and talk to him. Try to break him from whatever is holding him-Clancy does not normally act like that. His face is usually warm and inviting but when I saw him in that abyss he was the total opposite. How could Clancy act that way, I am his friend. "That was not the Clancy I knew." When I met Clancy years ago he was a considerate, amiable kid. In the village, everyone liked him because he was so friendly. Always cheerful, always optimistic, and although he lost his parents when he was five years old to an illness, he always brightened up everyone's day. At the time that I started talking to him was when I was beginning to lose any sort of feelings I had left. Everything around me seemed grey, I would only talk to Miriam and my father, and I did not have anyone I could confide in. After getting cursed, there was no one that I really wanted to talk to but everyone wanted to talk to me. "It's Risa, she took down some thugs the other day!" "Hey Risa, is it true that you chopped down a willow tree with your own sword?" "You keep a hood over your head because you're actually a demon?"

"They always asked such stupid questions," I snort, getting my behind comfortable on the shattered gem fragments. Some of those stories were real but they asked them without any consideration. There were some kids who did not want to get near me, their parents warned them I was a dangerous child who should not play with anybody. Clancy did not care, he talked to me anyway; he asked me why I did the bad things I did, asked me why I could not just say no to my father, personal things like that irked me and made me think about why I was the way I was. I started to trust him more than I trusted Miriam. "Trust is when you pull your heart out and give it to someone and then they stomp on it as if it were an insect," Father used to say to me pessimistically. Perhaps it was Mother he was talking about-when this all over, I have to talk to her about my family. Clancy too is part of my family, metaphorically speaking, and whatever is holding him, I have to get him out of it.

His face was so different, his hair was darker, and his usual optimistic countenance was swallowed by anger. Is he angry at me because I could not get to him in time? Who knows how long Clancy was in that abyss for and how long it took for him to snap? His glaring brown eyes spoke words of sheer volumes that he did not have to express with his distorted voice. I cannot afford to cling to the past and hold my remorse the way Mia does. Whatever happened to in her life when her world was taken by Darkness, she carries it like a parasol, shielding herself from any happiness. I do not think I ever saw her smile before or laugh. Mizuki is the opposite, she does not let things take her down for a while. I am sure she has her moments of distress and doubt but she always manages to make some wise joke or encourage us to do our best. She told me the future she saw has a lot in store for us, I can only hope that the three of us can handle what happens from here. An act of desperation-is that where we are now Mother? Are the three of us worms-no, are all the people here worms trying to escape an inevitable fate?

I sigh anxiously. "Knuckles will come back, I should leave now." I have done enough mental maundering for now. When I get off the fragments, I get on my knees. "Thank you for showing me the light. I know you cannot hear my voice but could you help me one last time?" I am talking to rocks, what kind of insanity have I fallen into? But as I wait, the broken rocks respond to me with a weak green glow and then revert to their sickly grey luster. I stand up and scrutinize the black door that was not there when I first got here. "The black door. It is only a plain door standing up by itself," I realize as I check for the back of the door. "This must be the black door that Erick explained to us when we all first got here. It is already opened ajar."

When I open the door completely, thick, bubbly plasma Darkness growls and fizzes furiously at me. I will not let it pull me in but instead I will have the gumption to step through. I will do whatever it takes to keep this world out of harm's way. Closing my eyes, I step through the penetrable Darkness.

J.G.P.