I find myself realizing things now: time in the darkness brings a new form of clarity. Little things I noticed; random, obscure, unneeded pieces of information. Tickling my mind like lice in your hair; it drove me mad.

Castle Oblivion, just for example. There are three ways to get to where you're headed in that glistening castle. You know exactly where you are, where you are headed, you have a map, or my god you are a damn lucky Fool. Nobodies, of course, do not need to know the maze-like hallways of their refuge; they have those stupid portals that take them to the ends of the Worlds and back.

Lucky Bastards.

I suppose we should give that Sora kid a freaking medal, huh? Riku was there, guiding and saving his hide on occasion. Oh, do not forget the maps! You know the ones that are always right there? Why would he not win? They're all gone now, because of him. All of them. . .

Lost in the Darkness.

I was searching for awhile. They never bled, nor did they seem to be in pain; they didn't die. Of course they didn't; they simply disappeared into a different form of their obnoxious portals. Without realizing they were being transported, of course. Maybe they were sent to a new place. Like how there were two Twilight Towns? I can only hope. I cannot deny, however; after searching so fruitlessly, that the darkness began to close in on my heart. A few weeks, or so it seemed in my opinion, left me unbearably tired, maybe the disappointment was getting to me; amplified by my inability to see.

Would you hold it against me that I slept?

I felt as if I failed Them.

I feel so empty. The door closed after I entered. It's so dark... I'm alone in Nothing. The polished halls of Castle Oblivion; even if they were abandoned, felt so welcoming compared to this. Just for the light, I would run back into the echoing emptiness that even the light of the Castle was forced to hold.

…Were they afraid of the dark too?

…Were the Nobodies afraid of the Darkness too?

So many thoughts but now I can only repeat them, over and over, dimly in my mind. There's nothing left to think about besides the memories and ideas bashing against the back of my mind to be discussed with people who aren't even here! The frustration is abolishing. I cannot help but to pull up my legs and sit with head on my arms. Open my eyes-…Or are they already open? I couldn't tell until I poked myself in the eye. Ow? It proves I'm awake to, I guess. So much for the nightmare idea I had going on for a short while.

Don't be fooled that I'm truly alone. Oh, no. There are noises. The shuffling and gliding, if you can even hear what that sounds like, as small figures blacker than the darkness I was surrounded by flitted past.

I lied. You could see one thing-

The golden optics of their eyes; but I only caught glimpses as I shut my own eyes tight once again and tried to sleep.

I felt them touch me. There was a soft nudge on the arm on occasion, or a jab of their claw-like fingers; wondering why I never bothered to run from them, most likely.

Not like they cared, right? Aha.

Won't the light ever return?

\\ ~ \\

// Thump. //

The echo that followed made me flinch. Some of the heartless seemed to have stumbled over one of their own as it for no reason chose to stand back up from below the floor. They garbled angrily but just as soon went back to slipping along the floor. I smiled as I realized what most had not; heartless had no hearts, but that did not make them any less living creatures.

I began to watch. They left me alone, for the most part; they had no reason to suspect me of anything after all. Thanks to them, I had regained my will to try. I suppose I owed them that much not to try to hurt them later. The chirrups, clicks, and insignificant garbles became a normal set of sounds for my ears as I grew to react to them. They had no reason to speak, normally; they seemed to not care what happened to the others. Loners by heart it seemed, for a lack of wording, forgive the bad pun. They were mindless, almost drone-like, but not stupid. ..I straightened my posture on an urge and held out my hand, "Come here," and one of the Heartless stared;

That is, until it crawled forward.

Thin smiles, gentle cooing, and finally my hand slipped along the tip of its nose and along the jagged edge of its ear. It was odd at first, like running your hand over a puddle of wet ink, but no residue was left behind. Yet for the watery feeling against the palm of my hand, they were not sticky, nor were they slippery. Like scales, almost, maybe a fish..

Of course I could never tame them. There would most likely be no loyalty behind them, I heard they simply respected power. "I won't hurt you, Love," I suddenly remembered what my voice sounded like; it seemed so foreign. The Heartless glided and twitched its way towards me, no specific pattern designated its movements. It looked more like random spastic twitches. I laughed. The Heartless flinched and moved to lunge. I returned to the gentle encouraging coos, my hand never retracted. Like my mother used to say, "You have to let the feral puppy bite you before it allows you near it." It came close enough so that I could finally lift it up. It weighed nothing, as if I picked up water. I set it- well; I'll just call it a male, in my lap and began to run my fingers along his arm. He reminded me of a small alien.

Others came; and I began to tell them stories. Childhood stories I'd read, I'd always been such a bookworm when I was younger. The fact I'd finally opened my eyes for these creatures gave me courage, it seemed the stronger the courage I held, the more the Heartless listened to me; rather than straying off like they had in the beginning. I would glance around on occasion, only to be met with outlines of all shapes and sizes, and towards the tops, a set of golden, hollow optics staring back at me. The only thing I could process then was the question; were they even looking at me, or the heart I held within my chest? At the time I just could not bring myself to care. My arms slipped around the little creature, and I hugged it to my bosom. All I could hear was the thumping of my heart against my chest and how glad I was they didn't take it.

So many Realizations.

I realized that the Heartless could understand my stories. I told them the riddle of Mary and her Lamb and a small play of Heartless, by then I'd begun to see their forms against the dark, one leading a heartless along on all fours as a group of others played her classmates and her teacher. I laughed at the strangely cute scene, they had gotten used to the sound of my laugh by that time.

"Would you like to hear another one?" A chorus of garbles and clanking of metal from the stronger heartless started up, they seemed to enjoy my stories, and so I would set off onto a new place within my memories. If I couldn't remember one, I made one up. They enjoyed those the best; from their reactions. By then a rather large group had formed to surround myself and the Heartless who appeared to be glued to my lap. Forms that I had never seen, the ones that had been locked within the darkness for so long they had never been able to resurface.

I had no need to eat, or drink; anything besides breathing was no longer a necessity. I was thankful; it left me with the ability to sit for days, weeks, and possibly months with the Heartless that saved me from my isolation. I picked up things that most would never care to learn, the subtle movements and clicks that signaled a thought, or what they wanted. I grew accustom to telling stories that held the genre they wanted. Light and happy ending, or dark and sorrow filled. If I grew tired, they allowed me to sleep, curling alongside and around my body, almost like dogs. For now they seemed just as loyal. If only I could trust them to always be, but who could trust a Heartless?

Finally after I awoke one, well, I could not really say it was morning, so; I awoke to the sound of fluttering Heartless nearby as they stood up and slipped past and around each other in a never ending system of organized chaos. I realized my last and final thought before I made up my mind, possibly months after I showed up originally.

"I need a favor." I started. Yellow eyes darted up to stare, multiple pairs; I could only guess a few dozen or so. "Could one of you take me to Organization XIII?" How would they know who the Organization was? It was a stupid question. They stared at me blankly, knowing I would understand somehow that they did not know.

"Err. Rather-.." I ripped past mile long vocabulary pages in my mind to organize a fitting sentence. "Have any of you seen a group of, mostly, men, in black cloaks; they are called Nobodies." The stiffness that arched within the Heartless was easy to notice. Who hated a Nobody more than a Heartless? Easy, No one. One Heartless picked up my hand and tugged me along after a moment of silence; I found out they knew where the Nobodies were.

What I did not know at the time was that they were leading me to a whole new chapter of my Destiny.