Chapter I: Dive Into The Soul

"Nothing is real..."

"I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like is any of this for real? Or Not?"

A young boy floated through darkness, his body weightless. He had chestnut hair, wore a black shirt covered by a red jacket, he wore white jeans and on his feet were red shoes. This was Jaden Yuki.

Slowly, but gaining speed quickly, Jaden began to sink through what appeared to be dark water. Suddenly he stopped and opened his brown eyes, finding himself on a beach. The sun blazed down, forcing him to squint to see the other, new boy standing knee-deep in the clear, bright blue water in front of him. This new boy had long dark blue hair and a white jacket crossed with two straps in the middle, he also wore simple jeans. This was Zane Truesdale.

Zane had his back turned to Jaden and seemed to be watching a giant wave form farther out in the ocean. As the wave approached, Zane turned calmly turned to Jaden and reached out his hand. His turquoise irises, occasionally blocked by dark blue bangs, met Jaden's brown ones, inviting him out into the ocean. Jaden stepped forward and felt his shoe land in water. The urge to run out and meet Zane and the wave began to form in his mind and push him forward. Zane's hand still stretched out, unmoving. He showed no sign of knowing about the wave behind him. Jaden began to sprint through the water with all his might, trying to reach Zane before the wave did. Just as Zane was in spitting's distance, the wave crashed down, sending Jaden flying back, head-over-heels. When the tumbling stopped, Jaden found himself completely underwater. Zane floated a few feet away, arm outstretched. Completely unperturbed. Jaden moved through the water, trying to reach Zane, but a strong current flowed past his friend and shoved the chestnut-haired boy back mercilessly. Jaden attempted to fight it, but the current was too strong.

Jaden felt himself moving upwards and soon broke the surface of the water. It was now evening and the sun was setting behind him, sending off rays of red and pink light to paint the clouds. He heard a voice call to him from the shore and he looked over to see a young girl about his age waving to him. She had long, peach hair and grey eyes. She wore a sleeveless white shirt, blue skirt and a pair of blue boots. She was smiling. This was Alexis Rhodes.

Jaden waved back and began trudging to shore. When he reached it, he leaned on his knees to catch his breath. Oddly, he was tired. Alexis giggled at his being out of breath in so short a time. Suddenly, something above and behind Jaden caught Alexis's attention and her jaw dropped. Jaden straightened and looked up. Meteors were falling. He was wondering what Alexis had found so odd about them, when he noticed that one of the falling objects was definitely not a meteor. He looked back at Alexis to see her still staring at said object, mouth covered in shock. Jaden turned back and looked closer. Whatever it was it was coming toward them-

It was him.

Jaden couldn't say anything, just staring. What does one think when you see yourself falling from the sky?

It was at this moment that Jaden lost all sensation of the ground and felt himself begin to fall. Alexis looked away from the Meteor Shower and stepped back in surprise as Jaden began to flail. She reached out a hand to grab him, but by then it was too late. Jaden was falling through the ground and into the sky. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was Alexis looking down after him, then disappearing in a ripple; like someone had thrown a stone into the water of the sky.

Jaden felt the sensation of wind rushing past him, and the his body passing through water. He hadn't felt when he entered the water, there was no transition from the air to the liquid. After a small while, Jaden felt his body righting itself and felt his feet touch down on something. His eyes snapped open and he found he was standing atop a huge, circular green stain-glass mural. There appeared to be a woman portrayed in the center of the glass. Jaden looked around for something, for anything, but there was nothing but darkness on all sides.

Suddenly, he heard something. A voice.

A voice in the Darkness.

"So much to do...so little time..."

Jaden spun around, looking for the source of the voice. It was deep, yet it was light. It was hearty and yet soft. It was kind, yet hard. It was ground-shaking, yet it was as quiet as the whisper on a late summer's evening.

"Take your time, don't be afraid," the voice from nothing continued.

What was he doing here? Where was this voice coming from?

"The Door is still shut"

What? What door?

A light began to shine from above and he walked out into it's clarity.

"A power sleeps within you."

Within...him? What was happe-

Before his thought could be finished, the green stain-glass crumbled below him and he fell, and fell and fell.

He could have fallen for hours or it could've been just minutes. But the boy finally crashed into another stain-glass platform, this one with a purple-blue hue and another woman shown in the middle.

"There will be times when you have to fight." the voice spoke.

Him? Fight what?

"You must keep your light burning strong"

No sooner had the voice finished speaking than shadows began appearing on the purple glass. The Black of the shadows oddly fit well with the dark coloring of the stain glass.

The shadows began to grow, and as Jaden looked on in surprise and horror, they took 3D forms as small beings with bright, glowing yellow eyes. Their heads jerked around every few seconds, like one is prone to do when they smell something particularly delicious.

Jaden closed his eyes and braced himself for an attack, but he felt something heavy materialize in his hands. He blinked open his eyes and in a split-second found that he now had a sword in his hand. He held it up firmly and slashes at a leaping shadow. It disappeared in a puff of black smoke. The rest of the beings disappeared as well, unprepared for prey with weapons.

Jaden didn't have long to revel in his "victory" because the blue on the floor slowly was turning to darkness and the darkness was sucking him in. He began to struggle against it, but it seemed to be choking him. It felt like struggling to prevent drowning. He wondered if he could drown in darkness?

But as soon as he began to move around, he found himself laying on another platform. A red-pink coloring was displayed on this one and yet another woman in the center. He noticed that the sword was gone.

Across the platform, a white colored door appeared, about twice the height of Jaden.

He made his way warily over to it, and upon opening it, found himself bathed in blinding-white light.

The Voice returned.

"The day you will open the door is both far off and very near."

Jaden found himself walking onto a red and yellow platform, with thorns etched into the stain glass. Another woman was portrayed in the middle of it. Mere moments after entering, more Shadows appeared.

Jaden's eyes widened, wondering why they were back. He took a ready stance that he had learned from-

Oddly enough, he did not remember who.

Who was he again?

The sword reappeared without any call.

The shadows charged at him and he charged to meet them. A few hacks and slashes later, all the shadows had dissipated into black smoke.

He turned to find a staircase of multicolored stain-glass that had not been there before. He followed it's direction with his eyes and found that it led to another platform higher up. A yellow one this time. Curious, he began to climb.

Upon reaching the yellow platform, the voice returned.

"The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes."

Jaden looked behind him and found, just as he was expecting, his shadow had grown longer.

Perfectly normal when one is standing close to light.

But then his shadow began to grow, and stand up; taking form. This surprised and scared Jaden, who knew that this definitely was not normal behavior for one's shadow.

The voice, seeming to sense his worry, continued.

"But don't be afraid."

Jaden continued to step back, and the shadow continued to grow taller and change.

"And don't forget..."

Jaden finally broke and turned to run, but found that the platform wasn't nearly as big as he'd thought, just catching himself before tumbling over into nothingness. The shadow was now at least ten times his size. It had glowing yellow eyes, and long black tentacles where hair should've been. But, by far, the most prominent feature on this behemoth was a huge eye-shaped hole right through its torso.

Jaden expected the voice to continue, to give him some sage advice or to tell him how to proceed, or to at least tell him what not to forget, but the voice remained silent. The monstrosity lifted it's fist and brought it down toward the boy.

Jaden, now knowing he was on his own, turned and ran to his left to escape. Just when he thought he had escaped the falling fist, a shock-wave shook the ground beneath him and threw him off his feet. When he had stood back up, he saw that the same sword from earlier had found it's way to his hand.

Given a bit of new courage by the sword, the boy charged through the puddle of darkness about the hand and began to slash at it.

The monster, seemingly tired of his hand being attacked, leaned back away from Jaden. Wary, Jaden stood back and watched. A swirling black and purple light began to shine from the eye-shaped hole in the monster's abdomen, and while Jaden tried to figure out what this meant, large comets of black and purple energy flew forth from the swirling light and bee-lined straight for him.

Jaden began to dodge the lights, back and forth, knowing that it would not be a good time for him if they made contact. In his peripheral vision, he noticed that the monster's hand was close enough to the ground to try and assault. Maybe he could-

Unable to speak, Jaden's mind screamed as one of the projectiles took advantage of his distraction and slammed into his back. He felt sheer cold spread down his spine, and from there to the rest of his body.

Maybe he should just focus on dodging the flying darkness beams...

The monster, deeming it was a fine time to try smashing Jaden again, brought it's fist high into the air and down toward him. Or at least where Jaden used to be standing.

Jaden had dodged out of the way just in time and, using the time allotted by the monster when it brought it's fist up, prepared himself for what was coming.

The moment the shadow beast's fist struck the ground, Jaden made a jump toward the hand and brought the sword down heavily upon the pillar-like giant howled in pain as it's hand separated from it's body in a puff of smoke. It swung the stubbed arm into Jaden, sending him tumbling away. The sword disappeared from the boy's hand.

Well this wasn't good.

At this time, Jaden thought that he couldn't have any more problems than he already did. Lost somewhere in this darkness, not remembering much about himself, and being attacked by this monster. Not a good day. But just as he finished thinking this, the floor turned to darkness and began pulling him in. He guessed he was wrong.

"-But don't be afraid."

The Voice.

The monster reared up for a final strike, darkness oozing from it like blood.

"You hold the mightiest weapon of all"

Jaden continued to be sucked down. Both his legs and one of his arms had disappeared.

"So don't forget:"

The monster's swing came down just as Jaden's vision was covered by darkness. He saw nothing more. No monster, no swords, no platforms and no shadows.

Just restful darkness.

"You are the one who will open the door."