After I had finally been able to get back on my feet and leave my room a few weeks after his disappearance I started to look for anything he might have left behind. None of my other friends had ever heard of someone by that name, his house and his parents vanished along with him, and in all of the pictures of us together his face had vanished leaving me alone. It was like my whole life had been a lie and I was just starting to figure out the truth. I stopped talking about him to people after the first month because they treated me like I was crazy, and maybe I was. Crazy with desire to find out what happened to the only person I had ever been really close friends with, the only person I had really liked more than a friend. Everyday I woke up thinking about him and every night I fell asleep with the image of him smiling on the beach the last time I saw him. It was a habit I couldn't and wouldn't break, just in case. For the first year I constantly woke up with nightmares about that day, and no matter what I did they just didn't seem to go away. I would wake up screaming or out of breath or with a cold shiver running down my spine. All I could ever think was that never again would I get to see Axel, or even figure out if he was real or just a figment of my imagination.

It was now four years since Axel disappeared, and a feeling that Axel never really existed in the first continued to consume me. I had changed tremendously in the four years both physically and mentally. I was taller, my voice had changed, I still had a somewhat lanky and almost feminine build, but I wasn't weak or dainty and could hold my own whenever the need arose. My hair still refused to do anything but stick straight up in blond spikes and my once bright blue eyes had slightly dulled, I guessed because of the stress of losing Axel and the hopelessness that ensued. I made new friends, but I never really let any of them worm their way into my heart the way that Axel had. Sometimes people asked me about when I was twelve and thirteen and who my friend was that had disappeared, but I shrugged it off or ignored the comment. I was numb to the memory and wouldn't discuss it with just anyone. Sometime, only sometimes, I used to talk to Sora about it, but even as my cousin I could see he really didn't understand, so I let it go.

Three months after my seventeenth birthday things were fairly normal. I still thought about Axel, and I missed him, but I had convinced myself that real or not he probably wasn't coming back at least for a while, and if he did he wouldn't want to see me sitting around moping like a little crybaby. I joined track my junior year of high school, made new friends but the kind that I really only talked to in school. I tried my best to always seem happy, even when I was in a really nostalgic mood that happened to come around every few months and made me think about Axel more. Thing were still fairly normal, until the night of my prom. I went with a girl on my track team named Xion. She was quiet, but we were pretty good friends, and she was so shy at times that I figured I was one of the only guys she would dare go with. The night went by smoothly, mainly because I wasn't awkward because I liked her, Axel had kind of prevented any kind of serious feelings to develop because my heart was afraid that anyone I grew close to in that way would disappear too. Our group went to a crazy party thrown by my very own cousin. After a while I was starting to get claustrophobic and sick, so I pushed my way through to the door and ran into the cool night air. I saw Xion sitting on a bench in the backyard so I walked over and asked her if she wanted to go on a walk with me, and she agreed.

"Did you have fun tonight?" I asked her, trying to make small talk even though I was so tired and hot. I had shed my jacket and was left in my long-sleeve white-collar shirt, a dark blue vest and matching tie. She nodded, but seemed distracted.

"Yeah, me too. So do you-"

"I need to talk to you about something serious." I was surprised at being interrupted by her normally quiet voice, but I looked over at her as we kept walking. "It's about Axel."

I tripped but caught myself fairly quickly. She wanted to talk about Axel? I never remembered even telling her about him. "He's still alive, and he isn't just some weird memory, he's real." I was stunned, so much so that I stopped walking. How could I have seen that a night so normal and easygoing lead up to something this… unbelievable. She opened her mouth to say something again but something moved in the darkness ahead of us in the road and she stopped. Suddenly I felt her tiny frame shoving me harder than I though she could behind a parked car. "Don't move, don't make a sound. No matter what, don't move." I gave a dazed nod and started to ask her what was going on but she clasped her hand over my mouth. "Not a sound." And then she was gone. I knelt and looked through the car windows towards where Xion stood, with a look of complete fearlessness on her face.

"Xion," a man's voice, probably someone a few years older than me, pierced the night silence. "I'm sorry, I didn't want it to come to this."

"I know," she replied as her face relaxed a little, obviously recognizing the voice. It seemed familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. "I always knew this day was coming, I'm at least glad that you're the one who came."

The man steeped forward into the light, and I couldn't see his face because it was shrouded beneath a dark hood like the rest of his body. All I could tell was that he was extremely tall, probably almost a foot taller than me, and was lanky and thin.

"Me too." He paused, reaching up with a hand and nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "How's he doing?"

"He's fine, still here. He was devastated after what happened, but he bounced back." The man's shoulder's slumped and he reached his hand under his hood and braced his forehead on it.

"I knew he would be, he's always been a softy like that."

"It wasn't your fault, don't forget that. You didn't choose to go, they came for you and there was no way of getting around it."

"Yeah I know but still. I'm missed him so much, and now I'm here but I still can't see him."

"I know it's hard, but you've got to get through it for just a little longer. We probably should get going though, they'll start to get suspicious and come looking for you and me. And I'm positive that you don't want them here, because if you miss him that much it means you care about him and don't want to put him in harms way, am I right?" Behind the car I was captivated listening to their conversation, waiting to see what was going to happen next, and who the man was, though I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach.

He pulled his hand away from his head and straightened up. "Yeah, you're right." His voice sounded disappointed. Turning so his back was to me he extended his right hand an out of the ground started to appear strands of darkness that shot up and formed together until what seemed like a swirling dark portal had appeared. From the portal came a rush of freezing cold air that hit the man and intern me, making me shiver with fright and cold. Xion walked in first, confident and fearless, and though I was worried about where she was going I felt like she could handle herself. The man paused for a moment, pushed his hood down and started for the portal. That was when I saw the man had bright flaming red hair.

I shot up from my hiding place and ran towards him, but he was already half gone, the portal closing behind him.

"Axel!" I shouted shaking with anticipation as the man slowly turned around. I caught a glimpse of his green eye that caught in the light from a nearby house grow wide with surprise.

"Roxas?" He whispered it with a hint of question, and then, just as the portal was about to close completely, he realized I was really there. "Roxas!"

And then he was gone, again. He had vanished as quickly as he had appeared, but at least now I knew he wasn't all in my head. Then, a wave of despair washed over me as I sank to my knee in the middle of the street. Now I had lost Xion, and I had lost Axel for a second time. I felt tears involuntarily pool up in my eyes.

Life and it's unfairness was definitely getting to me.