Winners of the Chapter 1 Contest: First place goes to Art Witch - Aka Mizu! Second place goes to lollipopdiego! And third place goes to Ashley0120!

Art Witch - Aka Mizu's name (Aka) will be featured in this chapter, and a few after this, then she'll be in the talk show at the end of this one :) lollipopdiego will be in the next talk show in chapter 4, and Ashley0120's name (Ashley) will be featured in the next chapter or so.

:D

Dream

I leaned against the rail of the boat, watching Sunny Island disappear once again. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I felt weak and tired. Why was my life so difficult?

First, I nearly died when a house collapsed on top of me. Then, I got accused of something I didn't do and had to run away from a corporate giant. And now, Sunny Island, my home, was abandoned and no one knows where everyone went.

Great. Just great.

I wiped away the tears and went to sit beside Vaughn. He was staring at the floor, his eyes blank. I looped my arm through his and rested my head on his shoulder.

"What now?" I whispered softly, closing my eyes.

"I don't know..." Vaughn said, kissing the top of my head. "I guess we go to the city and see if anyone knows what happened."

"I doubt anyone knows," I said. "What if they're... dead?"

"They're not dead," Vaughn said, looking down at me. "Trust me."

I nodded solemnly and got up. "I'm going to go down to the cabin..." I said. "I'm tired..."

Vaughn nodded, and I hurried below deck to the cabin we had been given for the trip. As soon as I got in there, I collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep. Soon, I started dreaming I was back on the island, and everything was normal again...

I was sitting on a blanket on the beach, with Vaughn beside me. Almost everyone on the island was there, enjoying the hot summer afternoon.

But something was different... Everyone seemed older and Taro was missing. I guessed he was just back home, being Taro.

Julia walked up beside me, a little girl with pink hair beside her, holding her hand. The girl's hair was in two pigtails tied together by blue ribbons, and she was wearing a cute light blue bathing suit with frills at the end.

"Hi, Chelsea," Julia said with a smile.

"Hey, Julia," I heard myself say. I looked at the little girl and smiled at her.

The little girl smiled back. "Hi, Auntie Chelsea," she said.

Auntie? How was I her aunt...? Maybe she considered me her aunt or something...

Julia sat herself down on the sand, and the little girl sat in her lap.

Julia opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she could, a huge gust of wind came out of nowhere and whipped the sand up everywhere. I closed my eyes and swung at the sand to try and get it away from me.

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in the cabin bed, and Vaughn was gently shaking me.

"Chelsea..." he said. "Chelsea... Time to wake up. We're at the city."

I nodded, dazed, and climbed out of bed. As we were walking back up to the deck, I told Vaughn about my dream.

"That's weird..." Vaughn said, raising an eyebrow. "But I'm sure it didn't mean anything. Dreams rarely do."

"Yeah," I said with a weak smile. "You're right. I'm probably just missing the island and everyone a lot..."

The boat docked, and we clambered off into the city with everyone else.

"Where do we go now?" I asked as we stopped in front of a restaurant.

"I guess we need a place to stay..." Vaughn said, sighing. "If we're going to stay here."

"Well there's no shortage of hotels," I said, and grabbed a map of the city from some guy who was handing them out in front of the restaurant. When I opened it up, I found to hotel mark and searched the map for it. In a few seconds, I had found at least a dozen hotels.

"But we don't have enough money to stay at a hotel," Vaughn pointed out.

I thought for a minute. "Then where do we go?" I folded up the map and stuck it in my rucksack.

"What about your sister?" Vaughn asked. "In Forget-Me-Not Valley?"

"I guess we could go stay with her," I said. "We have nowhere else to go."

Vaughn nodded and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small black wallet and reached inside of that. When he pulled his hand out he was holding a small wad of cash.

"Is that all the money we have?" I asked.

"Yeah," Vaughn said quietly. He started flipping through the money, counting aloud. When he was done, he looked back up at me. "We have just enough money to buy one-way tickets to Forget-Me-Not Valley."

I nodded, and we started towards the docks at the other end of the city, where the boat to Forget-Me-Not Valley was.

I was starting to get tired of boats. It seems all I ever did was ride to and from places on ships, ferries, boats...

"It'll be ok," Vaughn snapped me from my thoughts when he put his arm around my shoulders.

We walked in silence until we reached the docks, where we bought two tickets to Forget-Me-Not Valley and boarded the ship. I sat down on a chair the leaned against the rail, and Vaughn sat beside me.

A few minutes later, the boat started moving along. Waves lapped against the side of the boat and water splashed up into my face. I was turned around in my seat watching the city disappear when someone sat down beside me.

I turned to see a young woman who seemed about my age looking at the ocean. She had dark brown hair with loose curls that framed her face, light brown eyes and glasses. She was wearing a white and light blue striped tank top, white shorts, and silver strapped sandals.

When she turned back from the ocean, she jumped a little in her seat when she saw me.

"Oh, hello," she said, putting her hand on her chest. "You scared me!"

I sat down properly in my seat and smiled at her. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "Didn't mean to scare you... I'm Chelsea."

"Aka," the woman said.

"What a nice name," I said. I turned to face Vaughn and poked him on the shoulder. He was staring empty eyed at the floor.

"What?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the floor.

"Come say hi," I said, tugging at his sleeve.

"To who?" he stopped staring at the floor and looked at me. His eyes were sad and life less.

"Her," I put a hand on Aka's shoulder. "Aka, this is Vaughn."

"Hello," Aka said, smiling kindly.

"Hi," Vaughn said coldly, and started looking back at the floor.

"Don't worry," I said, seeing Aka's hurt expression. "He's just... upset."

"Why?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.

"Well..." I sighed, leaning back in my chair.

I started telling her the whole story, starting when Jonathon arrived on the island.

"Aw, I'm so sorry!" Aka said, hugging me. "I would be very upset if that happened to me!"

I nodded. "So now we're going to stay with my sister in Forget-Me-Not Valley."

"Really?" Aka said, pulling away from me. "I'm going to Forget-Me-Not Valley too!"

"Cool," I said, not knowing what else to say. "Why?"

"My great-aunt Romana and cousin Lumina are there," Aka said. "I'm going to visit them for the rest of the summer."

"Oh," I said. "Forget-Me-Not Valley's really nice. Of course, the last time I was there it was because I was hiding from the police..."

Aka nodded, and we sat in silence for the rest of the ride.

Me: Hello and welcome to the Rebuilding Talk Show! Our guest today is Art Witch - Aka Mizu, or Aka.

Aka: Hello!

Me: So, how do you like the story so far?

Aka: So far, the story is very interesting. It's much like a soap opera. It's hard to believe that after they go through all the trouble of getting home, everyone's just gone! In other words, I love it.

Me: Haha, yeah... Did you like the two stories before this one?

Aka: Yes I LOVED Ruins and Walking in a Devastated Area .They're like separate stories that fit together.

Me: Yeah, I got all your reviews and I was just like... :O Woah... How do you think this will all play out?

Aka: I think they'll find everyone and the villagers will explain what happened. I think the W. Princess has something to do with it.

Me: Probably. So what made you start reading these stories?

Aka: I was looking through Denny X Chelsea fics, and I saw your 'lost chapter' of Fearless. So, I checked out Fearless. I'm the kind of person who looks through other stories by authors I like, so I eventually decided to read Ruins.

Me: Cool. What's your favourite HM couple?

Aka: My favorite HM couple is (obviously) Denny and Chelsea! Yay! :3

Me: Yeah, Denny's pretty cool :3 But I like my cold cowboys! Well, thank you!

Aka: Your welcome!