Chapter 2

I rushed into my apartment, raising my key-weapon over my head.

"We gotta go," said Jeremiah, who's presence stopped me in my tracks.

I nodded.

"Phaedra, follow us," I instructed.

As we walked into the hallway, we were attacked by a few of the shadow-creatures.

"Shit, I can't keep this up, man," Jeremiah complained. "I'm getting tired."

"You've got me now," I responded. "I can take a few."

While Jeremiah opened the fight with a trademark jibe, I knocked a shadow on the underside of the head by bringing my key up. I brought it down to finish it off. I turned to slash another, and bumped my shoulder painfully on the wall while trying to fight around Jeremiah.

"Nice!" Phaedra complimented us when the shadows were destroyed.

"We need to get to open ground," I recommended to Jeremiah. "It's too hard to fight in close quarters with these keys."

He nodded, and we ran to the main door, taking out any shadows that we encountered. When we reached the main door, Jeremiah opened it, and we saw something shocking.

"Holy shit!" I cursed.

The entire world in front of us was disappearing, blackening.

"What's going on?" Phaedra asked, almost to herself.

I saw that Jeremiah was upset, but knew that there was nothing that I could do. Suddenly, though, he lifted the key, and pointed it straight ahead. He turned it, and a circle of white light opened in front of the encroaching darkness.

"Is that...a portal?" Phaedra asked.

Jeremiah shrugged. "Should we go through it?"

"Do we have any other choice?" I asked in return.

"Guess not," Jeremiah answered. He jumped epically into the white portal.

Phaedra and I followed, walking calmly into the circle.

Inside the Portal

It was cold, and snow was covering the ground. It looked like we were next to a park, in the middle of a modern city.

"Where the hell are we?" Phaedra asked, breaking her promise about cursing yet again.

Jeremiah stood up, having landed face-first after leaping through the portal.

"It's freakin' cold," he complained.

"Man up!" Phaedra commanded him jokingly.

"Hey! I'm short, so I don't hold in much heat," Jeremiah informed her.

All of a sudden, Jeremiah was distracted, so I followed his line of sight to the portal, and saw a few of the shadows jump through before it closed.

They were all the same as before, accept one shadow was larger: it looked like it was wearing a knight's helmet, too.

I ran towards the larger one, determined to destroy it, when I heard a large thump! I turned and looked, and spotted a woman, slightly older than I, with dyed hair and an extremely large mallet. A guy the same age (possibly her boyfriend) with a shirt advertising fruits was behind her, looking scared and amazed at the same time.

'Okay,' I thought, 'I have more help. Time to kill some shadows!'

I ran to the knight-headed shadow, swept its' legs, and brought my key down upon its' head, destroying it instantaneously. A smaller one jumped at me; I blocked its' attack with my key, then used the key to slam it into the sidewalk.

"Eat the pavement!" I shouted, as I curb-stomped its' body, vaporizing it.

"Damn!" Phaedra admired. "Where can I get one of those?"

"You'll have to wait; these things just materialize when they want."

We walked over to Jeremiah, who was talking with the woman, who slid her mallet into her tiny purse.

"I can't keep fighting shadows like this," Jeremiah complained.

"You mean Heartless?" The girl, who I would later learn was named Ramona Flowers asked.

"You know what these things are?" I realized.

"Yeah. Don't they teach you this in Canada."

'What's Canada?' I wondered.

"We're not exactly from your world," Jeremiah admitted.

"Well, then," Ramona said exhaustedly. "Things must be bad."

"We don't exactly know what we're doing, other than running," I informed her. "Can you tell us anything?"

"I will, but first we have to go inside," Ramona answered. "It's too cold for this to take place outside. I know a place."

As we began walking to Ramona's house, I heard a radio from an apartment above us, playing music like I had never heard before.

A woman was singing:

Hello, again/ Friend of a friend/ I knew you when/ Our common goal, was waiting for/ The world to end!

"Man," I shook my head, "We really are in another dimension."

"You don't have music like this in your dimension?" Ramona's friend asked.

"No. What is it called?"

"I, um, think that it's just rock. I'm Scott, by the way."

"Rock doesn't sound quite like that where I come from," I said. "Ianus is my name."

"Are you guys okay?" Scott asked.

"As well as someone could be after fighting those Heartless-things and crossing dimensional borders, I guess," I answered.