All he wanted to do was write. The keys gave under the tips of his fingers as they glided across the keyboard in fluent, rapid motions. There was a story trapped inside his mind that begged to be told. Ienzo's heart fluttered, and a slight smile lit up his cheeks. He felt at peace within the familiarity of his imagination and the words that gilded the screen. The music that he had chosen for the occasion fit well into the story he was writing out.

Then, quite suddenly, a man pulled out the chair that was in front of him. At first, Ienzo dismissed the man; many students nabbed extra empty chairs for their friends in the cafeteria. It was an everyday occurrence, especially during the afternoon. But, the strange man simply took a seat in front of him.

Ienzo felt anxiety creep into his skin and make his stomach flip. The man was gazing at him, unnervingly calculating, yet soft. Since he had decided to sit at Ienzo's table, he felt obligated to engage with him. Ienzo tried to ignore his disappointment as he plucked his earbuds out and rolled them between his fingers nervously.

"Hello." Ienzo spoke softly.

The man smiled pleasantly. "Hello. I hope you don't mind. It's very crowded here." He gestured to the rest of the room, which was filled with students going about their own casual business. Some were eating fervently, while others were too occupied with their textbooks to bother lifting their heads. It was the usual, somewhat comforting chaos that one would expect two weeks before college finals.

"It's okay." Ienzo shrugged. He returned to his writing without so much of a sideways glance at the man, but he knew that he was still watching him intently. He tried to make himself feel somewhat smaller under the man's golden hued eyes.

"Are you working on a project?" The man piped up, nearly causing Ienzo to flinch.

"Ah, no." He said, shyly. He saved his work and shut his laptop. "I um," Ienzo gulped, suddenly filled with the need to get away from the man and the cafeteria altogether. The man made him feel entirely uneasy. It felt like his body was screaming at him to get away, but he did not understand why. "I have a class soon, so I-I have to go."

He shoved his arms into the straps of his backpack and got to his feet. Before he could get away with his laptop under his arm, the man grabbed his wrist. Ienzo froze, his heart beating hard and fast. The entire room seemed to freeze as time slowed down between the two of them. Ienzo's steely gray eyes locked on to the man's own. Without saying anything, the man loosened his grasp on Ienzo, but he did not let go. His calloused fingers pressed gently against the underside of Ienzo's wrist, where his frantic pulse beat in a steady, quick rhythm. The man smiled once again, as if he knew something that Ienzo did not.

"Do not go far, Ienzo."

0-0-0

That night, Ienzo lay in the darkness of his room and shuddered when he thought about the man. How had he known Ienzo's name? He could not shake the strange feeling of familiarity that the man radiated. His calculating eyes observing Ienzo's every movement still flickered in his mind, consistent and permanent since he had met the man. Ienzo could feel his anxiety build with the very thought of what had happened, so he turned onto his side and hugged himself tightly under the bedcovers. He closed his eyelids and tried to even his breathe, focusing on the elevation and decompression of his lungs until his muscles relaxed.

When he reopened them, he panicked and jumped up, sitting stock still against the headboard. There, in the pitch blackness, were two bright, beady eyeballs. They flicked back and forth as the creature swayed in place. Its claws were as sharp as talon's and its feet shuffled side-to-side. Then, the odd little beast sunk into the floor and disappeared. Ienzo's breathing picked up; he felt like he was gasping. He flinched violently when he noticed that the darkness inside his bedroom was moving like a living being, waiting to strike. The walls rolled and danced with new life, and a dozen yellow spots lit up the room.

Ienzo leapt from the bed and braced himself against the opposite wall. He fumbled for the light switch and, once it was upturned, fluorescent light brightened the room. Ienzo whipped around and saw nothing unusual any longer. The strange creatures were gone, but he had a feeling that they were still somewhere near, waiting for their chance to strike in the dark once again. Ienzo collapsed in a heap against his bedroom door, shaking and terrified.

He kept the lights on the rest of the night.

0-0-0

After such a horrifying, sleepless night, Ienzo was too exhausted to bear writing at school the next day. Instead of going to the cafeteria, he stuck to his classes and did not linger between them. He ducked between the halls with his head down and kept to himself, as he usually did. He did not want to risk running into that man. If he did, he knew that everything he thought he understood would change.

0-0-0

At first, he thought he was imagining it, but he saw the creatures with claws in every dark corner or under-table. They were watching him, he realized. They were waiting for the perfect, darkest moment to attack. Ienzo made sure he had a light, wherever he went, to keep the darkness at bay. He had never felt so terrified in his entire life.

0-0-0

The days after his encounter with the man were filled with darting eyes and paranoid glances around his classrooms. His anxiety was worse than ever, and it only continued to get awful as the hours slowly dragged by. His fellow classmates sent annoyed stares his way, and Ienzo quickly realized that they could not see the monsters that were following him. He was on his own.

Then, during his advanced literature class one afternoon, a thunderstorm brewed outside. The entire humanities sector shook as the sky darkened and rumbled fiercely. Ienzo felt abruptly trapped within the concrete walls of the room; there were no windows to let in any natural light if the power happened to fail during the storm.

He tapped his pencil against his desk unnervingly. The professor's lecture faded from his thoughts as the lights waned for a moment. Ienzo felt his heart slow. In the slight seconds of darkness that had followed, he had seen several of the creatures skitter across the floor, faces locked on only him, bodies poised to leap at any moment. Ienzo gasped and jumped up from his seat in blind panic, capturing the attention of everyone in the room.

The professor eyed him silently. Ienzo's face paled, and he whispered something dismissive as he rushed from the room and into the hallway. He ran down the empty corridor quickly. Alarms were blaring in his mind: he had to get out of the school. He turned into a different section of the campus, which most of the students and staff considered the central hub. The library was on his left, and straight ahead was the cafeteria. He wondered if the man was there, waiting for him.

Before he could decide where to go next, the power flicked off, and darkness overwhelmed him. He froze in the middle of the hall. The ringing in his ears rose higher and higher, until it he could hardly bear it. He pressed his palms over his ears as his head started to pound. In the empty space surrounding him, the darkness warped and rolled in erratic waves. The creatures began to rise up as one; the room was alive with countless eyes, all focused on him. Their stout little forms wavered with impatience.

"Ienzo!" A gruff, urgent voice called out from behind him. He whipped around and saw none other than the man from days ago, silhouetted in an archway past the army of creatures.

Ienzo simply stared at him, too afraid to speak. One of the creatures lashed out at his leg. Ienzo nearly doubled over in pain. His leg throbbed as blood poured from the wound and soaked his clothing. He hobbled backward, his anxiety lifting all the while.

Distantly, he realized that the man was slowly making his way through the mob. He cut through them with ease as he swung his oddly shaped blades in a wide arch. However, the attacks seemed to be in vain; the beasts kept reappearing, stronger and faster than before. Ienzo lurched sideways when another one thrust forward, claws aimed at his face. Soon, it seemed like each one of them were trying to get a good hit in. They swarmed him in a swath of darkness, completely robbing him of his vision. Ienzo's knees gave out and he crumpled to the floor in a heap. Their claws were all over him now, tearing through his sweater and ripping apart his flesh.

"Zexion!"

The name resonated within his very heart, beating in a melody that felt unfamiliar now, like his pulse was not his own. The agony of the monsters and the darkened hallway fell away, into a quiet, comfortable darkness that was pleasant. He could feel himself falling away through nothingness, until the air gently pushed him upright and onto his feet. The ground was a shallow of pristine water, so clear that his own reflection was looking back at him. A ripple of water smoothed out to the edge of the platform, where the blackness towered high into a night sky full of stars.

Despite the sudden shift, Ienzo felt at ease. Somehow, he recognized this place, as if he had been here before in a far-off dream that he could not recall. The weight in his chest had disappeared altogether. His conscience was silent and at peace. The wounds he had sustained were gone.

Across the platform, a shadow appeared from wisps of darkness. It strode forward confidently, wearing a black cloak and a hood over his head. The stranger stopped feet away from Ienzo, who finally asked, "Who are you?"

The being merely unconcealed his face, revealing startling features that had been hidden underneath. It was Ienzo, standing before himself with different clothing. His face was sharp and null of any hint of emotion. His eyes were the same gray as his own, but strangely empty and distant, as if he could not see clearly.

"I am you." The clone said, its tone dull.

Ienzo merely shook his head. "No," He said, voice calm. "You're Zexion."

The other Ienzo simply raised one of his eyebrows. "So, you do remember."

"No." Ienzo struggled to find the right words. He had been so sure when he had said it, but now he felt like he did not truly understand the significance of the name. His mind went fuzzy and he held his hand to his head.

"Your memories are still missing, Ienzo." The clone approached him. "But, they will return soon." His footsteps ceased to disturb the water as he stopped in front of him. Ienzo managed to straighten and look at him once again, blinking hard when he saw double the clones.

"Who…" He stopped, he felt strangely ill and faint. "Who am I?"

The clone smiled, without happiness. His gaze held a hint of malicious intent. He grasped Ienzo's shoulders, stopping him from swaying. He held Ienzo upright and leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

"You are me."

The clone phased into Ienzo and disappeared. He screamed in agony as his veins seemed to burn with white hot fire every time his heart beat. He grasped his hair so tightly that he was surely pulling strands out of his scalp. His mind felt overwhelmed with hundreds of pictures that flashed across his vision in incomprehensible, tumbling waves. He fell to the floor hard, reawakening back in the school hallway with the creatures still coating him.

No…they were not mere creatures. They were worse than that; heartless.

His wounds continued to bleed and burn profusely. Ienzo felt something…something powerful and great pushing against his very skin, begging to be released from the confines of his bones. His blood boiled with a newfound energy that his body had never experienced before. He cried out when the heartless piled on his curled-up form, pressing down with all their might. Ienzo could hear the man calling his name; Zexion's name.

Ienzo did the only thing he could possibly do: he released his power.

In a hypnotizing swirl of black and violet, the heartless were cast backwards. They twitched and scrambled to their feet like a swarm of ants. Ienzo lay in the middle of the floor with a dark haze shivering around him. Scripture appeared out of thin air. Words and sentences with no sense of meaning or place cut through the hallway. Ienzo could not read what they said, as he was too exhausted to stay conscious much longer. The abrupt release of his energy had sapped away what had remained of his strength and left him weak.

The darkness danced across his body like a black flame. The floating sentences twisted around in the air, quickly substituting different words for others and numbers for roman numerals. Ienzo's foggy brain struggled to make sense of what they were saying. Then, the scripture shifted into many chain links that wrapped around the heartless one-by-one and squeezed their life away. The chains moved from one target to the next without mercy. The heartless dissipated into fragments of darkness that melded into the floor and faded away. Within moments, the room was barren.

Trembling and weak against the floor, Ienzo could only watch as the man approached him. As he got closer, Ienzo recognized him at once. He berated himself for being so blind before his memories had been restored.

"Ansem." He whispered.

Although time had weathered Ansem's youthfulness away, his eyes still held that familiar twinkle of light that had always contrasted his stark intellect. His straw blonde hair had grown even longer since Ienzo had last laid eyes on the man a lifetime ago as his young apprentice. His signature white cloak and crimson scarf hung loose on his thin, older frame.

Ansem crouched in front of him and took Ienzo's hand into his own. It was coated with deep red blood. Ienzo felt like his life was being sucked out of his wounds. His clothes were heavy and stuck against his exposed skin. He tried to move and hissed at once when a thousand pangs of agony ripped through his body. Ansem squeezed his hand in sympathy. Ienzo looked at his master desperately.

"It will be all right, Ienzo." Ansem's voice was total and sure, despite the situation. The creases on his face were the only features that dared to give away his concern for the youth. Ansem paused to focus, then a bright, white light radiated from the palm of his wrinkled hand and into Ienzo's. The warmth of the light seemed to flood his entire body with a calmness that was only comparable to a relaxing sedative, soaking away the pain as it traveled along his limbs and settled in the marrow of his bones.

A deep drowsiness took hold of Ienzo's remaining consciousness, and he felt that he could barely keep his eyes open. He watched the light between their linked hands with fascination. Ansem was observing him closely, and Ienzo noticed that his fingers were placed on the underside of his wrist once again, feeling for his pulse. Ansem smiled slightly, in what looked to be pure relief. He gazed back at Ienzo with content in his eyes.

"Sleep, Ienzo. When you awaken, the others will be waiting."

And just like that, Ienzo could no longer fight the heavy shroud that had fallen over his mind. He drifted off into a deep, dreamless slumber.


Please leave a review! I'm already working on the second chapter.