Disclaimer: I do not own rights to Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Disney, or any of the characters within. Thomas and his relatives are the only characters of my creation and the only ones that I own rights to in this chapter. I have no money, so don't sue me.
Chapter One
Aimless Life
My life has not been a normal one. For some reason, I was chosen to spend my life protecting the lives of others. I have to tell you that I don't really know why I'm writing all this down. Maybe I need to do it to keep my sanity. Maybe to regain my sanity. Maybe I need to do it so I won't forget. Maybe so it will be easier to forget and move on. I have seen things that no one should ever have to see. I have fought things that should not exist. I'll never be the same for it. I'm stronger now. But I don't know that I'm still human enough for it to matter. I'll try to remember how I felt at the time of each event. Looking back, I prefer not to remember most of it. I think it is important that you know the truth, what really threatens us. That is why I take the burden of remembering for what I hope is the last time.
This whole thing started with what I thought was a video game. I finally beat Kingdom Hearts II on hard mode on a Saturday two years ago. I knew that it was the only way that I could beat it before going to Disney World. It bugged my 9 year old sister, Danielle, that I hogged the T.V. all day, but I didn't care. I didn't know what better things I could have been doing then. I hadn't had enough life experience yet. I saw the hidden video and thought it was worth the time and sister torment. It was the third time I had beaten the game. Once on easy mode, once on normal, and once on hard. That was back when I thought nearly two hundred hours of my life was expendable. Back when I had so few cares. It was the last time that I was at home before I was changed forever.
The plane ride to Florida was uneventful. I slept most of the way. I had stayed up too late beating my precious game. We stayed in the hotel a night. I had an all too familiar dream. I thought that it was just a result of having played too much.
I was standing on a stained glass window. I looked down, and I saw Sora in the foreground holding the Kingdom Key high above his head. Riku and Kairi were in the background on either side of Sora, each holding their keyblades in the same way as Sora was holding his. I saw three pedestals in front of me. One held a sword, one a shield, and one a staff. An impulse told me to choose one. I thought for a second and took the sword, which is what I had always done in the game. I felt compelled to cast one into the darkness surrounding me. I chose the shield, just like the game, again. I felt what seemed like thoughts being inserted into my mind: "The darkness is a strange thing. It can be your ally and your enemy at the same time. It can overtake you." I felt a great rumbling in the glass beneath me and braced myself for battle. "But if you conquer it you will become stronger." What came for me was not what I had expected. It was gigantic, no doubt. But it was a hodgepodge of things. Its left arm and right leg were like Darkside's, from the original Kingdom Hearts. Its right arm and left leg were like Twilight Thorn's from Kingdom Hearts II. It's head was also a combination of the two, Twilight Thorn on the left half, Darkside on the right. The body, however was very different. It had no body. There was an imprisoned girl, maybe a little bit older than me, floating, suspended by what appeared to be glowing blue ropes. Her eyes were opened, but only the whites were visible. She had long, silky black hair. I noticed that she was wearing a flowing blue cloak that met in front, almost like a shirt, with a black shirt and pair of shorts underneath. She was extremely beautiful, which proved distracting at first. When her heartless/nobody body parts attacked me, however, I realized that I was in danger. "The darkness is ever changing, so beware." I jumped out of the way of the swinging arms. "It is difficult to attack the unpredictable." A giant shadow appeared underneath one of the legs of the monster. "But be vigilant! The realm of light depends on you!" Smaller shadows began jumping out of the ground, out of the shadow under the monster's foot. Heartless. "If you do not fight, then all is lost." I slew all the heartless. They disappeared in puffs of black smoke. I had no idea of how to fight with a sword. I just batted away at them and pretty much always hit.
Once the heartless were gone, I decided to take on the main body. It didn't take long before thorny black vines erupted from the ground and tried to skewer me. I somehow rolled out of the way in midair, just as Roxas had done in his battle with the Twilight Thorn. I struck whenever I got the chance, always rolling or swinging. Several times, I failed at dodging the vines and they would scrape me up. I landed more hits, however. I landed and the vines stopped coming. I managed to get in a few more hits on the beast before shadows began appearing again.
We went through the same waltz several times. I hit the body several times by accident. A previously invisible field flashed and my blade went through as though it were hitting any other part of the monster's body. Finally, the monster fell. The arms, legs, and head disappeared, and the barrier disappeared. The girls blue eyes rolled back into the front of her head. "Thank you," she said softly. Then, there was a bright flash of light.
When I woke up, I was excited. I always loved Disney World. I knew that most teenagers did not feel the same way about the "kiddy park", but I didn't really care. I loved being myself, and I was a child at heart. Why should I change myself so other people will like me more? That is one of the few things that is the same about me now. I am myself.
The first park of the trip was the Magic Kingdom. My parents, Danielle, and I entered the park with the usual few breaths of seemingly lighter air. We grabbed a map, trying to decide what attraction we would go to first. We never got a chance to decide. If you've ever been to the Magic Kingdom, then you know that Cinderella's Castle is very close to the entrance of the park. We were all bent over the map and speaking rather loudly when a huge shadow appeared over us. We looked up and saw a huge white castle looming over us above where Cinderella's Castle should have been firmly planted in the ground. Green flame erupted from one of the balconies and a huge shadow poured out of it. We watched in horror as the shadow came to the ground and broke up into a million small shadows. Shadows! Heartless! "No, it can't be!" I thought to myself. I looked back up at the castle and saw that it looked exactly like the castle of Organization XIII from the game. There was one huge difference, however. It had the crest of the heartless in the place of the nobody crest. "Maleficent!" I thought. No, I yelled it out loud this time. I watched, stunned, as the floating castle was replaced by the regular white and blue Cinderella's Castle. My parents and sister looked at me, wondering what I was doing. I recovered my reason and yelled, "We have to leave!" Just then, a large group of people ran by. I held up my arms to protect myself. Everyone ran right by me, but when I looked, my parents and sister were on the ground. I still don't know if they were unconscious or dead. I never got to find out.
The shadows overtook me and my motionless family and surrounded us. I saw a display of souvenir umbrellas at a nearby stand. The first thing that popped into my mind was the word "weapon". I grabbed an umbrella and began swinging. I forgot that no normal person could defeat a heartless. I swung and the umbrella went straight through the heartless without fazing them. I took a second and third swing and missed them just the same. I then realized my folly. I took a few steps backwards and took a fourth swing out of desperation, hoping that something would happen. I have never been more terrified than I was during that fourth swing. I knew that I could not fight back without a miracle happening. I got my miracle. My umbrella disappeared in a bright flash of light. The heartless disappeared in a puff of black smoke. I looked in my hand and saw my destiny.