Everything had been dark before; a type of midnight shadow full of silence, serene like the depths of an ocean. It had been unknowingness, dreamless sleep and endless drifting. Drowning without dying, or maybe what death itself felt like. The boy didn't know. The boy couldn't know. Not after being swallowed by the dark for a minute… or an eternity, it didn't matter. And heck, he couldn't even bring himself to care. The numb was nice, neither hot nor cold on him, not painful, not anything. It was better than the alternative, whatever that could be.

He found out soon enough what that was, the force hitting him in searing waves, light blinding his eyes as consciousness finally pierced his mind. Waking was a world of pain that he struggled futilely against, body near writhing in resistance. He gasped and panted for breathable air, chest heaving in short, panicked, pained breaths and eyelids fluttering. Sight was impossible at the moment, and his ears rung, sending his mind spinning in a flurry of disorientation. At least he could just barely sense a hard surface under his back, ground of some sort so he could tell up from down. It was a jarring change from weightlessness, but it didn't hurt, warm as opposed to the expected chill. In fact, of all the sudden sensations, this one was the one that was the least awful.

In a fit of nausea, he was able to move his leaden body to the side to gag, still shaken and vertigo-ridden as he tried to rid himself of the acid and bile threatening the back of his throat and mind. The taste on his tongue was awful, but nothing came of the retching except for an ache in his stomach and a worsening tremor. So he curled, eyes squeezed shut against the light, knees pulling up to his chest, head bowed and hands pressed to the floor so his fingertips could attempt to find purchase. It was the only position he could manage at the moment due to the weakness of his muscles and aches in his bones, no matter how uncomfortable his hip pressed into the ground.

His head did stop spinning eventually, not a full stop but a slow petering out until his existence was unmoving. His breaths evened into slow, deep draws of air, the noise in his ears ceased. If he knew how, he would have felt relieved. As it was, he only felt helpless, too tired to move and too overwhelmed to understand. At the very least, his eyes, reflecting topaz in the light, were adjusting so his vision was near clear. Too bad what he was seeing answered exactly zero of his questions.

From what he could tell, he was on a platform of some sort, one that exuded light from its surface. Weird, but he could live with it. It let him see, and it was giving him much needed warmth and grounding. Even the obnoxious colors were okay, granted he didn't stare too long at any one patch. A blue there, a red there. The pattern was unfamiliar, incomprehensible, especially from the angle of his head. The vast darkness that spanned beyond the light, however, he understood very well. It was like what he'd known before, bottomless, endless depths of stillness. Empty. He was finding himself preferring the little bastion of light he was on, faced with the void. Although, the bliss of numbness had been significantly nicer than the hollowness and pain in his chest, not to mention the headache that threatened from all of the brightness. So really, it was a moot point where he preferred to be, not that he had a choice in the matter.

Hey, can you stand?

Hearing a voice suddenly was alarming. Hearing a voice from dead silence, with no one else around was worse. The boy lifted his head as quickly as he could to try to find the source, but found nothing but a sharp pain in his neck. It had been an eerily familiar sound, like the voice of someone he once knew, but couldn't remember. A boy's voice, not his own, or was it? He wasn't sure what he himself sounded like, but he hadn't spoken, so…

Get up. You need to get up now.

He glared weakly at the darkness above him. The words weren't said meanly, but he could already tell he didn't like being ordered around, seeing as he could feel molten anger creep into his chest. It should have made him sick, such a feeling. It shouldn't have lasted. But it stayed burning and simmering in a way he wasn't familiar with. In accordance to his indignant feelings, he stubbornly stayed lying down. No voice was going to order him around, no way.

And then the silence stretched on without more orders. Whoever had been speaking was obviously going to leave him alone as long as he ignored the order. Good. It'd teach that disembodied voice a lesson, even if it did have a point. Lying down did him nothing besides staving off the inevitable. He couldn't be prone like this in a foreign place forever. That was not only boring, but the floor was beginning to get increasingly uncomfortable.

It was with great displeasure that he forced movement into his body. Hands and knees first, wobble, steady. It was a start, no matter how much everything protested. He stared, catching his breath. Were those his hands? They were attached to him, so yes, but the red and black fabric covering them was something he couldn't quite describe to himself mentally. It didn't belong there. It did belong there. They should have been mostly uncovered, or maybe not.

The train of thought almost threw him back into dizzy confusion, but pressing his forehead to the ground below for a few seconds did wonders. With mind clear, he pushed against the colored ground—glass, he was figuring out. Definitely glass. It took more effort than he thought it might to get himself upright, and he nearly came right back down the moment his feet were planted on the floor. He had no balance, head spinning and colors blurring as he wavered. Some sort of miracle allowed him to stand, head held high and all. His head felt wrong too. Too light. Or maybe too heavy? It was too confusing, how wrong his body felt, how not his own but at the same time, so obviously his.

There you go.

And there came the voice. It was almost smug sounding, and it earned another upwards glare. The anger still burned. The boy wished it was just from frustration, or normal hatred. Those were manageable and short. This lingered and didn't have aim, like he'd forgotten why he was feeling it in the first place. It made a scream threaten to tear from his throat, violent anger to express itself in his fists. To his ire, he didn't have energy for that, and nothing to enact these things upon. Inevitably, this made everything worse.

It was quiet again. What was he supposed to do now? Stand around like a dumbass? He was trapped on a platform for pete's sake. No way down in sight. Unless he was missing something, of course. With that in mind, he took a few wobbly steps forward. Good so far. A few more… he ended up making a small circle before he was confident in walking. Another circle, and he was running. A little abuse was just what his muscles needed to get going again.

"I'm up! What d'ya want with me!?" Seeing as it was the first thing he had said in a while, maybe yelling hadn't been the best idea, but the knives in his throat were worth the feeling of breaking the silence. Even his voice sounded weird in his ears, but he trumped that up to the gravelly quality it had from complete disuse.

Open the door.

The boy stood and stared at the shadows above his head with an expression of doubt and irritation. Door. What door? He was stranded on what looked to be stained glass. No door here. He turned slowly, scowl firmly on his face. Maybe there was a trick to it. A ladder or a pathway leading to a secret place—

Or the door would spontaneously appear. Where had that come from? That hadn't been there a second ago.

The door was easily two feet taller than himself, made of white stone and glass. Just as fancy as anything else around, he supposed. Although stained glass wasn't the sturdiest of materials, this place seemed to love it. He took a short breath before grabbing the handles of the door. The gold didn't sting or burn, which was good, no tricks there. What was bad was that they didn't budge when pulled on.

The door was locked. How was he supposed to open a locked door? He pulled a few more times with increasing intensity. The voice told him to open the damn door, why wasn't it opening!? It didn't even rattle with how much force he used. Whatever the door was, it was solid. He gave a final, vicious tug. Not only did the door rudely not open, but his hands slipped, sending him to the floor in a series of grabbing motions.

The pain he felt didn't compare to the sudden, inexplicable feeling of hopelessness and disappointment. It was just a locked door. Feeling so viscerally awful about being unable to open it wasn't logical. He groaned and fell onto his back, the heels of his palms pressing into his eyes painfully. What did he do wrong? There shouldn't have been a trick to opening a door.

Don't give up now! This way.

And the voice was back. Happy day. What if he wanted to give up? Giving up sounded nice. He still hurt and he was exhausted, after all. He could give up, go back to sleep, and forget that he woke up at all. It was a solid plan. A perfectly acceptable, solid plan.

He got up anyway. The voice hadn't been wrong about the door, so it probably wasn't wrong about there being somewhere to go. His eyes tracked up the other side of the platform. Lo and behold, a staircase of light had appeared, just like the door before it. Convenient. He was unsure of the lack of siding on it, though. One misstep and he would fall into the oblivion below, with how narrow it was. But it was the only path.

Now resigned to having to follow directions from an unseen source, he trekked up the path, watching it build itself as he progressed, always just a step or two ahead. It was unsettling how similar it was to walking on air, especially when he glanced behind and saw the original platform grow distant, and what he had walked upon gone. There was no turning back, so how was he supposed to open the door now? What purpose did it serve?

He stopped walking. The platform he'd been on seemed hazy from this height, warped by the darkness around it, but at last he could see what the colored glass formed: the image of a sleeping boy holding a key. He could make out a few other faces too, but none of them were quite so distinct. The image's features were boyish and round, framed by untamable brown hair. Not a man yet, far from it, innocent to the world. Who was he, so peaceful in the warm glow of light? Why was he familiar? Why was that key familiar? He wanted to know.

Before he could stop it, his mind reeled again, a different sort of feeling displacing the burn of anger and the cold of helplessness. This one was aching and deep, recognizable as longing. It wasn't a longing to know, either, even if he did want to understand. It was too strong for that. It was a longing for something unknown, a feeling misplaced like all the others.

He was reaching for the image before he could stop himself, taking a step and falling. All his breath left his chest, and he reached up to grab onto something to stop the decent, but found nothing. What had been above him was gone, and there was nothing below him in his sight. Just endless dark, like he'd thought. He was going to fall forever.

Until he suddenly wasn't of course. He didn't remember closing his eyes at any point, but he suddenly found himself with eyes firmly squeezed shut and ground very solidly below his back. Going from falling down to being sideways was an interesting change indeed. Like waking up from a dream all over again. Opening his eyes and standing were significantly easier than his first attempt, however. Barely any stumbling to be found.

It was another platform, like the first. Not a big surprise, these stations of light were all that seemed to exist in the sea of dark. The pattern in the glass, however, was significantly different. The cool blues were replaced with warm purples and reds, casting an eerie, but comfortable light on him and his surroundings. Up this close, he didn't know who the subject of the mural was, but it wasn't the same person by a long shot. This one was cloaked in black.

You can't fall like that, don't give up.

"I wasn't giving up. It was an accident." He tried to sound angry and threatening, but his voice managed a half-hearted growl at best. There was no way he had energy for any of this. The only reason he was moving was pure will, probably. Pure will and frustration.

Once again, he found himself stuck on a featureless platform. There was no way up or down from its edges, no mysterious doors appearing from nowhere. This all had to be a sick joke, with all the dead ends and unopenable doors, the ups and downs and sideways. But why would someone do this? He couldn't recall any motive, any person who would want to mess with him this way. Then again, that did follow logic, seeing as he didn't remember much of anything. What he did remember mostly came in vague emotions; it was instinct more than solid facts. The back of his mind played with the idea that this should worry him, but anxiety didn't arise, nor fear. He had better things to worry about, better things to feel.

"What now?" His voice was swallowed by the silence without echo. There wasn't an answer for some time, frustration crawling up on him as hot as the anger before. It was ridiculous, that he had to yell at the sky for instruction, that there wasn't a path for him to follow, that he didn't know what he was doing. As the silence continued, he stormed to the edge of the glass and stared out into the dark distance.

"Tell me! What now!?" He received an answer this time, but in a different voice completely. It was definitely male, but higher, more insistent.

Run!

A light path like the one before appeared at his feet, leading up and up. Run? Why would he run? There wasn't anything to be afraid of. Someone really had to be messing with him at this point.

It wasn't even a second later that he felt claws dig into his back. He whirled around with a cry of pain, shaking the beast, whatever it was, off of him. Without his notice, dark creatures, angular and blue, had begun to seep out of the floor—no, not the floor, his shadow. The first was joined by a second, then a third, red eyes sharp as their claws. Where they came from, he couldn't even begin to guess, but he was unarmed, defenseless, and his shadow was growing with the number of monsters.

Run! Now!

He didn't question it this time, forcing his body into a sprint up the light, which curved and twisted into a complicated spiral stair-case of sorts, seemingly leading nowhere. It didn't end though, it never did, letting him climb up and up unendingly. His breath came in quick pants, eyes focused forward on where he was running. He somehow didn't need to look back to know that the monsters were following him in droves, merciless. There was no way he could do this forever. His body was tiring again, and his pursuers were not, no matter the distance he was able to put between them.

Maybe, just maybe, the road would lead to somewhere safe. He was told to run on it, and although the voices had been steering him pretty wrong so far, it was the only hope he had of survival. The sharp pain in his back was proof of that. But hope didn't come to him, the despair from before clawing cold into where the heat of anger used to nestle. He had no hope to feel, and perhaps that was for the better. His mind told him that hope was useless and false anyway.

As if to prove him right, the path stopped abruptly in a drop-off. With the monsters behind him, he had no way back. With the path stopped, broken, it looked like, there was no way forward. He was going to be eaten alive in a cruel twist of fate, a pathetic end to a pathetic boy.

Don't give up.

It was the first voice again. "You said that last time! Now look! There's no fucking way forward or back. I'm stuck." Finally he managed some acid into his voice, some animalistic snarl. How dare this voice lead him astray like this then have the gall to be preachy.

There's always a way. You can do it.

"Do what?! Die? Because I'm going to do a great job at that!" The monsters were coming. He could see them devour the light of the road in a twitching horde. It was either he get torn apart or he jump. Although, falling hadn't turned out so bad last time.

Have hope.

"I don't have any!" Didn't this guy get it? It was pointless, all of this was. What did it matter anyway? All he knew was pain, that's all he'd been feeling since waking. Maybe dying would be better after all. More of that dreamless numb.

Then make some. You have that power within you. Use it!

His only response was a frustrated groan. "Could you cut it out with the riddles already? It's getting old." The voice didn't come again, and the monsters advanced. When had they gotten so close? On reflex, he took a step back, foot catching the ledge of the path. There really was nowhere to go, just down into the darkness. So he had two choices, the coward's way out, or fighting the monsters with all he had. Neither was appealing. He turned toward the edge and looked down. Jumping would be quicker, less painful, and had a chance of survival.

That's really all you've got?

He froze and glared up at the sky. That was the second voice, definitely. "What'd you just say?" The words were familiar, but not in a good way, making his jaw clench and teeth grit. Again, no answer, but there was no way he was going to lose to a disembodied voice. No way. He turned back around to the encroaching monsters. If it was a fight they wanted, it was a fight they would get. No voice got to taunt him like that and get away with it.

"I'll show you what I've got." Even if he was completely unarmed, he could probably take out a few of them with his bare hands, or at least one of them. They were upon him before he could even act, claws tearing and grabbing. His struggles didn't do much either, the beasts heavy on his arms and intent on ripping him apart.

"Let me go!" There was a sudden feeling of release and a burst. Not of light, but of something that was cold enough to burn, bright on the eyes in a completely different way. It wasn't unlike the nothing around him, but it had more substance, more life. The monsters were easily knocked aside by it, and before the boy could figure out what it was, it had changed from energy to matter, solid metal in his hand. A sword made of an amalgam of parts, blade both blue steel and black, handle red and bronze. A chain hung off of it loosely like a maker's signature. It was strange, it was heavy, and it was perfect.

What remained of the monsters was undeterred by the sudden weapon, attacking only to be hit away. Holding a sword was something familiar and comfortable, wielding one was even more so. With him armed, his attackers didn't stand a chance.

But for every one defeated, another two sprung from the dark, and he felt a little more winded, a little more hurt. Even with his blade—keyblade his mind supplied—it was hopeless. He wasn't strong enough, he would never be strong enough to fight off the darkness.

Don't be afraid, Vanitas.

Vanitas… was that his name? It sounded right, and it was good to know for the last few moments of his life. He had something to call himself now. If he was any less angry, he would have thanked the second voice.

"I'm not."

Even in the deepest dark, there's a light. So you don't have to be.

The first voice returned, as optimistic as normal. The ground began to shake with its echo, the light under his feet intensifying. The monsters seemed to flee from it. Maybe he should have too.

You aren't alone.

The light consumed everything, even the ground under his feet. He was falling again in no time at all. Vaguely he wondered if this was going to become a reoccurring thing, but mainly his mind was filled with terror. He couldn't see again, and he didn't know if he was going to hit ground or not. It was likely he'd find out soon.

Contrary to anything expected, his fall slowed and softened as the light cleared. There was another platform below him that he could see clearly. Stained glass as well. Did this place have anything besides stained glass? It was pretty the first two times. Now it just seemed annoying.

The picture was interesting though. Two boys this time, with two keys, sleeping parallel of each other, head to foot. Just like the first, it was painfully familiar to look at, although he didn't know either of the people depicted. The black-haired one looked like the first boy, but that was where his knowledge ended. And the blonde? He wasn't sure what to make of it, but the longing he felt before had returned twice-fold looking at the blonde boy's sleeping face. It was so familiar, no matter how much he didn't remember it.

He wasn't given any time to think further, feet touching down on the surface, right on the torso of the dark-haired boy. The black and red matched his shoes, he noticed, and his pants. In fact, the outfit he'd been wearing looked startlingly like his own… well, clothes were clothes. They were unimportant in the long run. All that mattered was where he was, and how he was going to proceed. Just like all the platforms before, this one was bare, to his ire.

"Hey! What now!? You were right!" There was dead silence. No response, not even if he waited for it. "Hey!" The floor shook again, more violently than before. Had he done something wrong? He'd just gotten to solid ground, he couldn't take much more of this.

While the shaking didn't stop, the light didn't return either. Instead, the dark creatures creeped up the glass and pooled into liquid shadow, surrounding him with spots of dark. He counted six on either side, and one in front of him. For the moment, they didn't move, finishing their gathering and wavering in their places. The tension in the air was thick, constricting on his throat. What did they want? Why weren't they attacking?

He watched the one in front of him with the most apprehension. It was the biggest, with the most monsters coalescing in its shade. It too was doing nothing. Somehow, this was more terrifying than if they had been acting. At least he would have had an idea how to proceed.

After another beat of silence, he decided to take a step forward. The darkness spiked, then settled. Another step. It rose higher, as if coaxed to life by his movement. Another. Higher. Some were near monstrous in size by the time he got to the one front and center. That one had been made of the most monsters, but yet it only rose to his height. He stopped in front of it and stared. There was something not right here. Something off.

As suddenly as the shaking had started, it stopped, the entire platform going still. As if on cue, the twelve monstrous shades slunk off, back down into the pit from where they came. The thirteenth, it stayed. And approached.

He nearly reeled back in surprise at this, taking step after step backward as the darkness made solid came forward. Each movement cemented form for it, its blob-like nature hardening into legs, a torso, arms, and by the time he was backed to the edge, the shadows had become the silhouette of the black-haired boy, head covered by a shiny black helmet.

For the first time, Vanitas was able to see his face reflected in the dark glass before him. He hadn't remembered how he looked, but he supposed this explained the familiarity of two of the boys on the murals. The one with brown hair looked like him, and the one with black hair must have been him himself, for some reason. The alarmed question of 'why' flickered through his mind, but it was replaced by panic and doubt. It wasn't the time to think about his handsome face.

His grip tightened around his keyblade. Absently he noted that his gloves had disappeared somehow, at some point, but the touch of skin to grip was more reassuring than it was alarming. This creature… person? No, definitely creature, meant him harm, that was obvious. He didn't need to see an expression to figure that out. The helmet was threatening enough, along with the advance, like a predator's stalk.

"What do you want from me?" His voice was just as angry as before, but it wavered in fear. It was unlikely that this… thing would answer, but he had spoken on impulse. The monster stopped mid-step and seemed to stare. It was motionless and unnerving, as if assessing.

Then it started to laugh. It couldn't even quite be called a laugh, but it sounded close enough: harsh, halting, mocking noises in close succession. It was a horrible sound, and Vanitas found himself unable to tell if he should be angry or scared. As a precaution, he settled on both. It was a good call, as the next thing the shadow did was draw its own weapon and pounce.

Sword locked on sword, the metal pieces catching on each other with a clashing sound. The force of the blow had been strong, but Vanitas was able to block with relative ease due to battle instincts he didn't consciously remember. The other sword looked to be a keyblade too, one more familiar than the one in Vanitas's own hand. It was made of gears and dark metal, intricate and complex as opposed to the simple one he was holding now. Deep down he wanted to claim it from this shade—this copy, he was starting to realize—but it would have been useless, as even without memories he could tell it wasn't real.

The monster broke the block first, pushing Vanitas back and taking another swing at him. The edge caught his side, drawing a hiss and a yell from the pain. That was just cheap. The fake keyblade had better reach. He snarled and ignored the injury to launch himself straight at his opponent. It was a reckless move, but rewarded with causing damage of his own. The block had not been thrown up in time to divert the blow.

This same exchange occurred for a while, attacks too similar and easily matched for one to win out over the other. The creature had the advantage of not feeling pain, and Vanitas relied on pure fury to ignore his own injury. They finally ended up in a standstill, swords once again caught on each other. Vanitas was shaking, but so was the monster, forms identical in every manner. They were unable to breach each other's blocks, for when one moved, the other did the same.

It was pissing Vanitas off to no end, and while this anger usually translated into strength, the shadow's strength seemed to just grow in proportion. It was a perfect match, pitting him against himself. His original theory of being screwed around with felt more and more plausible. "Why can't I beat this thing...?!" Maybe it was impossible. Fighting yourself? It was a hopeless cause. It would just do everything the same.

A devious grin creeped onto his face. It would only do what he would do. So all he had to do was something else. In a flippant move, he relaxed his guard and let the copy's blade fall through, breaking the block. The shadow keyblade cut deep into his shoulder, causing blood to well up under its teeth. Before it could be moved, however, Vanitas shoved his own blade into the monster's chest, forcing it all the way through.

With what sounded like the echo of a scream, it, and its weapon, collapsed into darkness and slunk off like the creatures before it. Good riddance. Vanitas himself collapsed moments later, clutching his shoulder with his free hand. It hurt, and it was going to hurt for a long time, somewhere between aching and burning. It was likely the blow only stopped when it hit bone.

"…So, what now?" He stared up into the darkness. The voices hadn't said anything the entire time, useless things. They could have sent help, like the first time on the stairs, but no, of course they couldn't. There was more silence. Nothing. Well, it was just his luck. He would have to find out what to do on his own.

It hurt, but he was able sit up and look around. The platform hadn't changed any since he last looked at it a few minutes ago, but there was a new addition that caught his eye.

Open the door.

"Could have guessed that for myself, you know." But what use was the door appearing, if it was just locked again? Unless it wasn't. He stood shakily and approached the door, which stood the same as the first time he saw it, sturdy and obvious tightly closed. "What's the big idea with these locked doors? It's not like I have a…"

He looked down to his hand and almost smacked himself. A key. A keyblade. How was he so stupid? With a roll of his eyes and a near smirk, he raised the sword and pointed it at the door. "Don't say a word." Neither voice did, not even when a beam of energy streamed from the keyblade into the door, and it swung wide open. The light from beyond it was more intense than he had ever known. The light of awakening, and of his escape from the monsters, had been nothing compared to this.

Despite this fact, he walked straight into it, and knew no more.