Keys to the Heart

A Kingdom Hearts fanfic

YAJJ

Date: 8/26/2014, 2:45 pm

Note: It gets a little darker (not much, though) in this chapter, in that it's happening to the kids. May make your stomach queasy, but it shouldn't be too bad. Also, I might have made Sally a little OOC. Maybe. I'm not really sure. Just a warning.

Disclaimer: No.


Sally didn't always enjoy working with the doctor.

Sure, he was her creator. The reason for her existence. He had given her life, and in return, she gave him service. She cooked for him, cleaned for him, even helped on experiment after stupid, nasty experiment.

That didn't mean that she had to like it.

The thing was, she hadn't really not enjoyed it. She had, because she felt like she was being pushed around, but she could handle it. She was a big girl, and besides, she did have Jack to help her now, when the doctor would let her go out to see him. It wasn't up until one crisp fall day, just a month before Halloween, that she really started to hate her job.

She hadn't known that the doctor could be so… well, immoral.

They were a couple of kids. Sally wasn't even sure how the doctor had grabbed them, let alone dragged them into the lab and gotten them tied up. One blond boy was fidgeting where he sat in a chair. His arms were tied together behind him, his shoulders wrenched back until the blades nearly touched each other. The other, a black-haired girl, was sitting in much the same way, back against the boy's. Their fingers were tied together, stopping them from helping each other. They looked more like POWs than kids.

"Okay, one, two… three! Tug!"

The girl gritted her teeth and wrenched up one shoulder, as the boy did the same with the opposite shoulder. It wasn't until the boy made a noise of pain that they stopped, their escape attempt useless. It didn't look to be the first, and it likely wouldn't be the last.

"Sally!"

Sally flinched in response, noticing the kids jerk a little and look in her direction, not seeing her but looking for the doctor.

Dr. Finkelstein steered his wheelchair toward her, the wheels whirring loudly. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Who are these kids?" asked Sally in response, glancing toward the kids who were back to attempting to escape.

The doctor's eyes flashed excitedly. "They're Nobodies, Sally. Nobody children."

"Nobody children?" asked Sally. She'd heard the term used before, but she couldn't exactly recall what it meant… she herself had never met a Nobody.

"Yes. Heartless beings. They truly are fascinating creatures. Act, talk and think just like we do, but they do it without a beating heart. Amazing."

Sally pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her weak heart pulsating in time. She looked to these children. She was a doll, but she had a heart. But these two, who looked and acted so much like real, actual humans, did not? It seemed… preposterous.

Although, that would explain why they were trying so adamantly to get out. They could not feel fear, and would only continue a useless struggle.

"Tug!"

Finkelstein peered into the room and rolled his eyes in exasperation. "They're at it again."

"Well, I don't think that they want to be here," Sally said in reply. She looked in just in time to see the girl give up first, hissing that it wasn't going to work.

The boy slumped a little, watching the ground. "Maybe the corridors…? Maybe if we open one beneath our feet…?"

"Good luck."

The boy concentrated for just a moment, glaring down at his feet, and something dark and ominous-looking started swirling beneath him. Sally was amazed, she'd never seen anything like it! Then it crackled and fizzled out, the boy releasing an exhausted breath with it. "I must be too tired."

"We'll try again in a bit. It was a good try, though."

"Thanks."

Finkelstein looked at Sally again. "If they didn't want to be here, then they shouldn't be waving those keyblades around willy nilly!" He snorted in indignation, as if that was a good reason, and headed into the lab, approaching the children. "Sally, be a dear and get me that broth that you make for all the others."

"All the others…?" Sally wondered. And then it occurred to her. There was a special sort of broth that she was to make whenever Dr. Finkelstein started doing live experiments… it dulled the senses and made the subject more compliant; thus easier to experiment on. It was to be given at least a day prior to the experiment, so that the effects would set in. Meaning that the experiments were likely to start tomorrow.

"Hello, children!"

Sally watched for just a moment as the kids spat at the doctor in anger, demanding to be let go. Then she headed upstairs. It was likely that, with or without the broth, the doctor would start his experiments. Better for her to make it easier on the kids, anyway.


When she came downstairs less than an hour later, a bowl of broth in hand, the kids were alone. She didn't know what had happened to Dr. Finkelstein, but she wasn't sure how much she cared. At least this way she could confront those kids—those Nobodies—without getting in trouble.

"Hello."

The girl winced fiercely, glancing her way through her short dark hair. The boy turned his head and then looked away. Neither said anything to her. Neither looked excited to be there.

"I, uh, brought you some food," Sally continued, picking up the spoon to lazily stir it around. It would take no more than three spoonfuls for the stuff to give enough of an effect, but she always wanted to be careful…

"Not hungry," the boy spat. He wriggled his arms around a little bit but didn't look at her.

The girl turned her head to look at him and leaned her head back, touching her black hair to his honey hair; some form of comforting gesture that Sally thought impossible for heartless beings.

"It'd… be a good idea for you two to eat this. Or tomorrow will be a pain."

"Tomorrow?" asked the girl warily. "What's tomorrow?"

Sally swallowed a little, dropping the spoon into the bowl again. "The doctor is going to start his tests tomorrow."

Two pairs of identical blue eyes whipped around to face her, wide and actually looking frightened. "Tests?" the boy breathed.

Sally was blown away by the emotion in their eyes, and the sameness of them. Were they siblings? "Y...yes. He's rather curious about those keys you two carry." She nodded toward a table, where two identical keys lay crossed over each other.

The boy angled his head down, looking at the ground as if in thought. "Of course it's about the keyblades…"

The girl tried to shift around, grunting in discomfort. "And what… will that broth do?"

"It's a lot like an anaesthetic."

Two blank faces looked at her, not understanding.

"It'll dull your senses and make you relax a little. Otherwise, it could hurt. A lot worse. I-I don't know what he's going to do, or how it will connect to your keys, but he did request that I give this to you, and I don't want to see you two in pain."

"Then get us out!" cried the girl frantically. "Then you won't have to see us, and we won't have to be here! Win-win, right? Please…"

Sally's heart clenched painfully, her heartstrings pulling tight at the plea. "I'm afraid I can't do that. The doctor wouldn't be pleased with me, and I could get in big trouble. I'm sorry." She shook her head. Should she even be apologizing to a couple of Nobodies? It wasn't as though it would matter anyway. The broth would dull their senses, and the lack of hearts would keep them from being frightened. In a sense, they would cease to feel at all.

The girl bit her lip, looking away from Sally and from the boy. "Not hungry," she agreed with the boy.

Sally sighed. "I'm afraid that if you don't let me give this to you, I'll have to make you take it. I'd rather not have you squirming in pain tomorrow. Just a few spoonfuls and you won't have to take anymore."

The boy looked away from her, looking instead to the girl. "Axel will be here, soon," was all he said to her. Then he looked back up at Sally. "We're not taking it."

"Yes, you are." Sally sighed and rolled her eyes. Why did they have to be so stubborn? "It won't do anything more to you. Either you take it and go through the experiments not feeling what he's doing, or you don't take it but do feel it."

"How about if we don't take it and we don't feel it?" the girl whispered.

"And don't go through it?" the boy continued.

Sally shook her head, going over to the counter to grab the cart beside it. She set the bowl on it and wheeled it over to the boy. "I'm afraid that won't happen either. I'm sorry."

The boy eyed her anxiously, tipping his head back a little. "W-why not?"

"Because if you know anything about scientists like the doctor…" Sally just shook her head again.

The kids shared a look, knowing exactly what Sally meant.

Sally slowly stirred the broth, sucking in its sultry scent anxiously. The broth smelled quite good, but she had to be careful; even the fumes had a similar, though considerably duller, effect. She'd found that out the hard way. "...I really do need you to take this. I don't want to make you."

The boy turned his head away sharply, intent clear. He was not going to sit back and let her feed him.

Sally sighed; she so didn't want to do this.

She took the boy's face in her hand, so suddenly that he jerked backwards. She pinched his nose and forced his chin down, opening his mouth painfully wide. Using her arm to prop his mouth open, as much as he tried fighting it, she took the spoon, dipped it in the soup, and forced it down his throat. When he tried using his tongue to keep the liquid from dripping down his throat, she flicked the spoon around and stroked his throat with her thumb, easing the liquid down. She repeated this three more times, ignoring the girl's yells of protest, accidentally dripping the liquid onto him when he fought.

He spluttered and coughed when she finally let him go, dropping the spoon into the bowl and moving the cart around to the girl.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked her companion, looking back at him.

"'m fine…"

Sally quickly went about force-feeding the girl, picking up the bowl and spoon. "I'm truly sorry."

The boy glared at her, his expressive eyes digging into her heart. "No, you're not. If you were, you'd let us go."

Sally sighed but couldn't bring herself to reply, turning away to bring the bowl and spoon over to the sink and wash them.

She returned after a while, her heart aching for the children. The boy looked exhausted, the girl crooning and trying desperately to look at him. "Stop trying, it's okay. They won't work."

"They have… to work… they work everywhere else…"

"They won't work. Stop wasting your energy."

Both peeked up at her when she approached them, identical glares gouging her heart right out.

"What on earth are you two doing?" asked Sally, trying to sound smiley and failing miserably.

"None of your business," the boy spat. He ignored her when she pulled up a chair near to them, dropping into it to observe them.

"What are you doing?" asked the girl after a moment of observing her in return, biting curiosity too impossible to ignore.

"Gonna feed us some more stuff to make us sit through our own demise?" the boy continued.

"No. I'm just here... keeping you company. It's lonely in this manor otherwise."

"We don't want your company," the boy spat in reply.

"We're fine on our own."

Sally sighed a little, setting her hands on her knees. She ended up playing with her hair after a moment. "...Maybe you should tell me your names. Mine's Sally."

"Didn't care."

"We're not gonna tell you!"

"Well, I'm not leaving until we can have a civil conversation, so…" She looked almost desperately between the two, who continued to glare at her.

"No," they both spat like venom, sharply turning away from her.

It was going to be a long night.


By the end of the night, Sally didn't catch their names. They didn't speak with her, only with each other, and so they never said their own names. There was one very minor slip-up that Sally caught onto almost immediately, though, when the girl was speaking. She called the boy "Thirteen". Sally wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean, but she figured it was likely a title of some sort, or perhaps that was the boy's name.

She weaseled out the girl's number as well: Fourteen. So there she sat, in the presence of Thirteen and Fourteen, both glaring between her and Dr. Finkelstein, who looked more than ready to start his experiments.

"It'll be so much easier if you just cooperate," Sally argued to the kids soothingly, trying to ease them into a faux-comfort zone that would get one into the cage and the other onto the table.

"Cooperate? That's like asking you to experiment on us!" the boy snarled fiercely.

"Waving those blades around, you practically were!"

The girl glanced back towards the keys sitting on the counter and then looked to Thirteen. "Well, they're our weapons. Of course we'll be waving them around, when we're out fighting Heartless."

"Fourteen—" Thirteen hissed. Both had recognized that Sally heard them call each other by their titles and so freely used them like names.

"Right. Weapons. Well, let me tell you right now, children, that it takes a heart to wield a keyblade. And don't think I don't know your little secret. It's painfully obvious, and not just from those ridiculous outfits. You're a couple of Nobodies! Beings who function as human beings, but without the added advantage of having a heart." The doctor's face cracked into a freakish grin that was scaring Sally as well; he'd never seemed so darkly excited. "The question is, how do you do it? It takes a heart, and a strong one at that, to wield a keyblade, and here are two little Nobodies, waving them around like they own them. How very… odd."

"Maybe if you answer the question, it'll be even easier," Sally offered quietly, but to her chagrin the kids ignored her.

"That's what I'm here to find out. And the two of you will help me… willingly or not."

"It really will be easier if one of you would just let us get you on the table. We won't have to hurt you," Sally urged.

"Won't have to hurt us?!" Fourteen screeched. "You're trying to experiment on me and him and you're saying that you won't have to hurt us?! Is that it? That's like… like…" Fourteen put her mind to work, but couldn't think of a comparison bad enough. "That's wrong. You're lying."

"What on Earth is the problem?" asked Finkelstein. "It doesn't matter. You won't feel it. You don't have a heart to feel with."

Thirteen whipped his head around to glare at the doctor. "What, you think it takes a heart to be afraid? To feel fear? Or pain, or suffering? No. It doesn't. We're going to feel everything that you're going to do to us… broth or no."

Fourteen turned as far as she could to look at her companion, her eyes soft with affection. "...What will you be doing?" she asked softly.

Finkelstein looked to her. "Well, for now, I need to identify which keyblade belongs to which Nobody, and then I need to find the connection between the keyblades and hearts. There's so much to start with… And I refuse to wait any longer to get started!"

Both kids flinched as his exclamation rose in volume. He'd even surprised Sally, who was watching him now with curiosity and fear.

"Now, decide which of you shall be the subject first! I will not sit idle any longer!"

"I will, then," said Thirteen protectively, lifting his chin and clearly trying to defend his companion.

"Thirt—"

"Stop, Xi. I'm going, if they're going to insist. I'm not going to let you get hurt." Thirteen looked back at Fourteen, so their eyes met. "It's okay."

"You don't have to protect me," the girl sighed.

"Of course I do!" said Thirteen with an air of affection and determination. "You're the girl, and I'm older than you. Let me do this."

Fourteen didn't—or perhaps couldn't—reply for a few moments. Finally, she slumped and whispered three words, sounding so, so completely done. "...I hate this."

Thirteen only nodded. Sally strode forward to start the job.


There was a big bird cage off to the side of the lab. Sally still didn't know why—she'd questioned it before, but had never got an answer. It hung from the high ceiling on a ridiculously long chain that kept it hanging ten feet above the ground. There was a crank off to the side that allowed her to raise and lower it when Finkelstein was finished with one of the kids and maybe wanted to move onto the next one.

He spent most of the day working with the kids. He was really invested in this project. The first thing that he'd done was fiddle with one of the keyblades, discovering whose was whose. He'd taken a knife and scraped it along the Keyblade—initially to do a little research on the composition of the keyblade—and whoever had screamed was the owner.

That had made Sally's cotton curl. She'd never heard anyone scream so loud. And the resulting call from the boy, sounding so frightened and confused, was just as bad.

On the first night, once the doctor was done with his tests and told Sally to toss the subject back into the cage, Sally had just kind of sat there, in the middle of the lab, trying to comprehend everything that had happened. Her blank eyes watched as two Nobodies flung themselves into each other's arms and clutched tight to each other, shaking with fear.

She must have sat there for twenty minutes—she couldn't be sure—before she finally went to crank the cage back up and go to bed, leaving the two Nobodies to their business.

It didn't occur to her until the next morning that in two days, the most food that they'd gotten was a few spoonfuls of anaesthetic broth, and they were probably hungry. So before the doctor awoke, she went to the kitchen and prepared them a little breakfast. She wasn't cruel, after all.

She also brought some more of the broth. The effects could last two days or so, so if the doctor still wanted to continue his experiments tomorrow, and the next day, the kids would have to take it.

The kids eyed her cautiously, the girl sitting in the boy's lap and just blinking awake. When she'd lowered the cage enough to set everything inside, they'd stared, like they didn't understand what was going on.

"Eat up," she said, giving a sad smile. "And please, just take the broth."

"It... didn't help yesterday."

"Well, if you'd taken all of it, it might have," Sally countered. "And it can't make it all go away. It's still going to hurt, just less."

Fourteen slowly climbed out of Thirteen's lap, watching Sally as she moved to take the food. She seemed to be expecting her to take it all away.

Kindly, Sally took one big step backwards. The girl gave a little half-smile and passed the plates and cups to Thirteen.

"...Thank you," the kids said.

Sally watched them, swallowing. They shouldn't be thanking her. Not for this. "You're very welcome."

Fourteen settled down beside Thirteen, setting her head in his lap and slowly gnawing on a piece of bacon. Once she'd finished, she rolled over and planted her face in Thirteen's stomach. Thirteen dropped one hand to rest on her hair, not saying anything. He just slowly ate, tapping her shoulder to give her some food every once in a while.

After a silent debate with the bowl, the kids must have deemed it a good idea to do as she'd asked and take the broth. Then they eased the empty dishes to the edge, and Thirteen settled beside Fourteen, looking fully prepared to fall asleep right there.

"...What's he going to do today?" asked Fourteen cautiously, looking backwards at Sally.

"I... don't know. He wasn't awake when I came to check on you, and I didn't discuss it with him last night. I'm sorry."

"'S okay..." Thirteen mumbled. Fourteen shrugged and wrapped him up in her arms.

Sally smiled a little bit—funny, how two Nobodies could show more affection for each other than some humans could—and went to take the dishes. She brought them to the kitchen and then decided to wake the doctor. He hated waking up late.


Actually, the first week wasn't so bad, as far as experiments went. Most of Finkelstein's experiments were on the keyblade itself, so the kids were left up in their cage, flinching every once in a while but otherwise okay.

The second week was when it got worse.

The doctor started out earlier, stayed with them longer, and the experiments were far worse. There was less flinching from the kids, and more crying out, more… screaming.

And he would test anything and everything. It seemed like he was trying to torture them, not study them. At any given point, one was always on the table and the other was always up in the cage. Primitive ropes around the wrists and ankles and waist to keep them still were quickly replaced with steel manacles, trapping them and tearing their skin apart when they writhed or fought. The doctor had seemed absolutely fascinated to discover, when Thirteen did start crying out and writhing with pain after one particularly nasty experiment on the keyblade, that Nobodies did indeed have blood.

After a few days of this, Thirteen and Fourteen started yelling stuff at whomever was being experimented on at the time. Simple stuff at first. "It'll be okay" "It'll stop later". Anything you might expect to hear out of a couple of teenaged Nobodies.

And then Fourteen yelled down, "Axel will be here soon!"

Sally had no clue what on Earth that might mean. 'Axel will be here soon'. Thirteen had said that before. What—or who—was this Axel? And how would he have any clue where they were?

It took about twenty seconds for her to realize that—whoever the heck this Axel was—Fourteen was only saying it to comfort Thirteen, who was writhing fiercely with pain. Sally had no clue what the doctor was doing; none of this science stuff made any sense to her. But whatever it was he was doing, it was causing Thirteen great distress. So much so that wet tears dribbled out of his eyes as he continued fighting.

"Axel will be here soon… he'll be here…" Fourteen continued muttering. "He'll be here…"


It became clear to Sally that this Axel person, whomever he was, was very important to Thirteen and Fourteen. They spoke very highly of him, though never to Sally or Finkelstein. They only spoke when they thought they were alone… though often times, Sally was outside of the lab, listening in because she was too curious about the odd Nobodies.

That was all they told each other, and it actually seemed to work. It comforted them like nothing else had. "Axel will be here soon." "Axel will get us outta here." "Axel's looking for us." Axel, Axel, Axel.

The more that Sally was around the Nobodies, the more she believed that maybe they weren't Nobodies. Or if they were, there was something about Nobodies that no one knew. Finkelstein always said that the only real difference between a human and a Nobody is whether or not they have hearts, and thus whether or not they feel.

Nobodies, heartless beings, couldn't feel. They were less than human. And yet, here were two Nobodies, feeling like no one that she'd ever seen had felt.

Sally prayed, for the sake of the two Nobody kids, that this Axel person would come soon. Anyone who could ignore the pleas and cries that the kids made would have to be heartless.


Finkelstein waved off the kids' tears like they were nothing. He called them crocodile tears all the time. Created to invoke sympathy. Because they were Nobodies, they couldn't feel and they couldn't cry. It was simple as that. Except that… it wasn't. It wasn't as simple as that, because there was no way that the kids were faking those tears. They hurt her heart too much.

Thirteen was the one down on the table a lot more than Fourteen was. He tried desperately to protect her. He made less noise and cried less than Fourteen did, but Sally was tempted to believe that he was forcing himself to stay quiet, for her sake.

Fourteen spoke much more than Thirteen did. She demanded that the doctor stop whatever he was doing at the time because it was hurting Thirteen, and she said those comforting things more often than Thirteen ever did. It wasn't that he didn't say them, he just didn't often have a reason to, since he was normally the one being experimented on.

Sally found herself reaching out more and more to the children, begging for the doctor to stop more and more because those screams, they were absolutely tearing her heart apart.

And every time that she did, whether the doctor stopped or not, something flashed in those kids' eyes at her, something like trust or, worse yet, admiration. Those kids couldn't trust her; they couldn't admire her. Look at where she got them in the first place.

She fed them more often, at least. Twice a day; once before Finkelstein came down to start the day, and once when he left. They thanked her every time, nothing more than the two words or even, on days when the experiments were too much, just the one word. She would brush off their thanks with a wave of her hand and smile at them (which made them smile, and really they were looking up to her way more than they should, she never did anything but put them in harm's way).

Thirteen was getting wary of the experiments. Protective though he was, he was always looking so tired, and though he let Sally pull him out of the cage and chain him up on the table, he did it with much less of a fight. That scared her. He used to fight so much. She hoped Axel would come soon, if only for their sakes.

She would get them out herself, but she was nothing more than a coward. A great big coward. Finkelstein would be cross with her, and if he was cross, he'd lock her door and window and she'd never get away to see Jack, and if that happened then surely she'd die. And the kids were just a couple of Nobodies anyway, right...?

But why didn't it ever work when she told herself that? Why couldn't it work just once?

Speaking of Jack; the pumpkin king, of course, knew of the experiments. Finkelstein had told him all about them the first day. He spoke with Sally rather actively about them, and he explained how it didn't matter because the kids couldn't feel anyway, they weren't true, actual beings without hearts anyway, so why let them hurt her? Sometimes, Sally believed him when she was out with him, until she got home and there was Thirteen, on the table writhing with pain and begging for it to stop and for Fourteen to not watch. And then there was Fourteen, up in the cage, clutching the bars and yelling at Finkelstein to "stop it please you're hurting him". Tears would be dribbling down her face, ('crocodile tears, they're crocodile tears,' Sally thought, if only to stop her heart from breaking) and she would often be hiccuping.

Somehow, Finkelstein always ignored her and continued his work.

One night, Fourteen gave up with the pleading early and instead turned to watch her companion, her eyes swimming and her nose running. She quietly watched Thirteen squirm, her shoulders shaking a little but no sound bubbling from her throat.

Then, Thirteen made a noise similar to a strangled scream as the doctor did something new, and Fourteen screamed in response. She started speaking with her companion, loud and forced and frightened and desperate and after hearing a scream like that, Sally wasn't sure how the doctor could keep working; clearly there was something wrong with him. "Thirteen… Thirteen… oh, Rox, Axel will be here soon, I swear it!" Fourteen wailed. The words were no different than the normal cries, but real fright, real pain was reflected in them, bouncing around the room and finally, finally, she broke into tears. "H-he'll be here, Axel will be here soon…. please, Axel… come soon…"

The girl burst apart. She couldn't contain her sobs anymore, could only lean forward and bury her nose in her hand, which clutched tight to the steel bar of the cage. Her shoulders shook with unmatched ferocity, her wails loud and unbearable.

Sally had to leave at that point. She didn't care what happened, she just had to leave that room and go upstairs, up to her room where she would lock herself away and ignore that anything bad was happening downstairs.

She could still hear the girl's wailing, even beneath her pillow.

She didn't end up falling asleep that night.


A few days later, Sally had to go out for a breath of fresh air, after sitting and listening to the worsening wails of Fourteen and, occasionally, Thirteen. She couldn't take hearing those screams. Yes, she was from Halloween Town, but screams of good-natured fright from well-meaning citizens were entirely different from the pained screams coming from that manor. She could handle it for a time, but after a while it became too much and… she just needed a breather.

She walked around town and said hello to whomever she saw. She was out for a bit of time before she heard the telltale signs of panic from one stressed individual.

"Roxas?! Xion! Come on, kids!"

Sally turned to face the voice and spotted a man with bright red hair looking around frantically. He was dressed in a long black coat. He dressed exactly as Thirteen and Fourteen did, now that she thought about it.

"Today's the last day I can look for you, you have to come out! Or… I-I'll hunt you down, and I'll make sure you know never to leave again please come out…"

Sally blinked, and it suddenly occurred to her that maybe, just maybe, this was one of the other Nobodies, a friend of Thirteen and Fourteen. Come to find them, perhaps? And what did he mean, 'the last day'? How long had he been searching?

"Goddammit Rox! Xi! ANSWER ME!"

"You dress… exactly like those kids."


Ta dah! Told you it would come soon.

Well, school has officially started, and I'm not going to fall behind this year, or not that far behind at least, so I probably maybe won't be updating/writing a lot. It'll be easier now, though, since I'll be working less hours (w00t!).

I dunno when chapter 3 will come out, but I'm considering adding a fourth chapter, which will be a mini-epilogue, consisting of fluff between the sea salt trio, and then one scene of Sora, Sally and Lea. Thoughts?

Thanks for reading! Please review, so I knew if I'm getting better or worse! As always, all reviews will be answered via pm.