After a few hours of me watching TV, Sora and Roxas bickering loudly, and Cloud and Taelia trying to break up their constant fights, the older pair of twins decided it was about time to start dinner preparations. To Sora and his brother's dismay, they asked me what I wanted for dinner. Of course, I had no clue what I wanted--I only ate human food to remain in check, to feel human so I could keep myself in that mind set. Asking me about dinner was useless, but I played along as best as I could.

"Um..." I mumbled, thinking for a minute. Remembering back to my childhood, before I had become a vampire, I had always loved pizza. "I like pizza," I offered, almost collapsing in relief when Cloud nodded in agreement.

"Good thing, we do too. I'll call it in...Taelia, do they still deliver?"

"No, I'll drive over and pick it up, though," she said helpfully. Sora, still lying across the couch, stiffened, and Roxas eyed him nervously. Noticing this, Cloud shot Taelia a worried glance before walking over to get the phone. I noticed as well, but in a different way--the smell of Sora's blood went cold suddenly, which obviously signified that something had scared him.

"Taelia?" Roxas asked, sitting up straighter in the recliner to see her. "Can I come with you?" Taelia smiled and nodded, and Sora put a pillow over his head and curled himself up into the very corner of the couch, apparently shaking slightly. "Sora, you okay?" his brother asked, leaning over as he looked at him.

"Just leave me alone," Sora muttered, and Roxas did. A few seconds later, he got up and walked out of the room and down a nearby hallway, leaving Roxas, Taelia, Cloud and I in a stunned, awkward silence. Cloud hung up the phone just as Sora was leaving, and turned to Roxas and Taelia.

"They told me to start over now; it should be ready by the time we get there. Do you mind if I come with you?"

"Not at all, Cloud, you can drive!" his sister said, laughing as she tossed him the car keys. "Oh, Akyra, are you all right here or do you want to come, too?"

I shrugged. "I'll stay here," I said quietly. This was an honest decision--I hadn't been in a car in eight years, and I wasn't about to start. I never liked the idea of being in such a small vehicle, much less surrounded by a group of humans whose smells were so new to me. On the other hand, Sora's smell was the hardest to resist of all, and staying here alone might be a mistake. But...the more time I spend around him, the more familiar I become with his smell...and then I won't have any trouble ignoring it. So it could be a good thing to stay, too. This thought had led me to my current decision, and I had already made myself comfortable in front of the TV by the time the other three finally left. A new episode of Saturdays was on, and I was excited at the fact that I had actually begun to follow the storyline of the show.

A few minutes into the episode, I began to wonder where Sora had gone. I shut off the TV and walked around to the other side of the couch, standing there momentarily before tip-toeing down the hallway. There were five doors, two on each side and one at the very end, and there were no lights on behind any of them, except for one. Assuming Sora was in there, I slowly and quietly pushed open the door a crack and peeked in, being careful to stay out of sight.

Sora was sitting on a bed, his back to me as he stared out the huge window in front of him. A lamp, sitting on a desk, had been turned on, and from what I could see his room was a complete mess. Comic books, clothes, school books, and assorted paraphernalia were scattered across the barely visible floor, piling up in various places. It was completely silent, now that the TV was off, and I was confused as to why Sora had shut himself up in his room so suddenly. I took another unnoticable step in, opening the door a tiny bit more. He wouldn't have noticed me if I hadn't stepped on his cellphone, which immediately made a beeping noise, causing him to spin around so fast he nearly fell off his bed.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded, looking angry. Again, I felt ashamed, but managed to stick up for myself.

"I-I was wondering why you were all alone, and not out there," I whispered, pointing towards the living room. Sora glared, unconvinced.

"And that gives you reason to come into my room?"

"Well, uh..." As hard as I tried, I couldn't find a clear reason why I had come into his room in the first place. Was it curiousity? Obviously. But there was something else, deep down, that had led me there. Something that had told me I needed to know what was wrong, so that I could help to make it right. That's...worry, isn't it? I wouldn't know. I hadn't ever worried about anyone, not even myself. But I was worried about him, I was sure of it. There was no other explanation. "I was worried."

Sora laughed bitterly. "Interesting. Thought I was a recluse, or something?"

"Not exactly...I just wanted to know where you were, that's all."

"Don't hide it; you know you were curious, too." He can tell? "Well..." he sighed. "Curiousity may have killed the cat, but it doesn't mean you can kill curiousity. Might as well fill you in." Taking a deep breath, he looked up at me seriously. "Promise you'll listen?"

I nodded. "I promise." He nodded back, and then began.

"Okay, first of all, I lied to you, while we were walking here." Confused, I titled my head to the side, but he held up a hand. "Just let me finish. I lied, because I told you my parents didn't live here. That's not the truth."

"Then what is?" I asked, completely lost.

"My parents...are dead," he said, very, very quietly.

"But that still means they don't live here," I pointed out. He scoffed and glared at me.

"It doesn't change the fact that they're dead, Akyra." I felt my blood go cold, and my eyes widened as I clamped my mouth shut. "They died in a car accident, three years ago. I was twelve." I sat in stunned silence, remembering how he'd come to my side so quickly when I had been hit by that car. Obviously, he had been afraid that I was dead. "We've lived here our entire life, and always knew that there were a lot of bars in town...and that driving at night was dangerous, unless you were really careful," Sora explained, staring at his feet sadly. "My mom was always afraid of night driving. She pretty much always refused to. Except..." he took another deep breath. "Except for that one night. I got really sick in the middle of the night, and my dad was going to go get me some medicine at the pharmacy across town. My mom planned on staying home and watching me, so she told him what medicine to get, but he kept forgetting right after she told him. Taelia and Cloud had been spending the night, so she decided to go with my dad, to make sure he got the right medicine, and told them to watch my brother and I." A tear slid down his cheek. "We never saw them again."

"What happened?" I asked gently, sensing that he was nearing a difficult part of the story.

"They were driving back home, and a drunk driver was going east on the westbound road they were on. He hit them head on at eighty or so miles per hour. They both died on impact." A violent shudder racked his body, and his speaking became very slow and choked up. "The guy that hit them got arrested and fined five hundred bucks or something. He earned himself a few years in prison on top of that, but it wasn't worth the lives of my parents. Dammit..." he muttered, starting to cry lightly. I could only sit there awkwardly, feeling like I should help but unsure of how to.

"That's awful," I mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he replied through sobs, "it's not like it's your fault. I've always felt responsible, though; like, if I wasn't sick that night, maybe they would have lived. Maybe they'd still be here."

"But you can't control that," I said quickly, stepping closer to him. "You can't blame yourself for things that are out of your control." He stared at me, and shrugged.

"That's what Taelia told me, at their funeral. A bunch of people I'd never met were there, and they all wanted to put us in foster care. But Roxas and I couldn't just leave; our home was the only part of our former lives we had left. We couldn't just toss it away like it had never been there. So Cloud and Taelia started paying the rent for us, and moved in temporarily. They went to all our school meetings, paid for our medical and dental care, everything. It's because of them that we've been able to stay here."

"Wow," I said, awed. I had never known such compassion, such love between family members. I was amazed.

"They go back and forth between this apartment and their house every now and then, and Roxas and I get along pretty well on our own anyway." Sora continued, regaining his composure slightly. "We're all we have left, the four of us."

"Is that why you were so upset, when they left tonight?" I asked, starting to put the pieces together. "You were afraid something would happen to them?" He nodded, looking out the window and sniffiling quietly. "And you came back here because you didn't want anyone to know you were bothered by it."

"Yeah, that's right. I myself haven't been in a car since then; I refuse to. I don't know why, really..." he said, sounding embarrassed, "I just get really scared all of a sudden. One time when the cops actually caught me shoplifting, I had such a panic attack in the cruiser that they drove me straight to the hospital instead of the station. It was awful."

I could relate to that, in a way--there were several things that, since I had become a vampire, I had stopped doing completely. Watching movies or TV shows with any amount of violence in them, drinking liquids that weren't clear, eating meat, and things like that. It was like I was trying to hide from anything and everything that would give me too much of an incentive to cut loose and follow my instincts, for once. For Sora, it was almost the same. He was trying to avoid all aspects connecting to his parents' deaths, and by doing so had conditioned himself to not accept those situations.

"Is that why you steal things, Sora? Is it venting, or something?" I asked. He chuckled, shaking his head.

"It's not venting, no. When I was about thirteen, I started feeling really guilty, spending money that Cloud and Taelia gave me. I thought that if I could get what I wanted for free, they could keep their money. They had given us so much already, it was the least I could do to save them their money. Or so I thought," he added, grinning. "I started shoplifting from stores, and at first everyone thought I was in some type of post-traumatic denial, or withdrawl, or whatever. When it became a habit, they figured I was just raging at the world because I felt it had raged against me enough already. I'm not so convinced that that's true."

"Aren't they half right?" At this question, he burst out laughing. It seemed he had pulled himself together again, and was back to his old self.

"You know, I guess they are, aren't they? You're pretty sharp," he said, laughing loudly. I smiled. I liked this Sora a lot better.

But he was wrong. I wasn't sharp; that wasn't why I had commented the way I did. I had said that because I knew, deep down, that that was exactly what I had been doing for the past eight years. Sora and I had one concrete thing in common--the world had turned its back on us, so we had turned our backs on the world. We denied ourselves that truth, and that's what had been hurting us all along.

"Pizza's here!" Taelia called from the kitchen. I turned my head slightly as I glanced over my shoulder, observing the hallway brighten as more lights were turned on.

Sora threw down his handful of playing cards and pointed. There were five cards--a two, a jack, a ten, an ace, and a five, all different suits. I laughed at the horrible state of his poker hand and then threw my cards down. Apparently, I had had better luck, and landed a full house. He groaned loudly and fell back on his bed. "Crap, I'm bad at this."

"Sora, get out here already!" Roxas yelled, kicking the door open suddenly. I screamed in surprise and toppled backwards, knocking over a messy stack of comic books. The two brothers stared at me for a moment before bursting into forceful laughter, and I stood back up and stomped out of the room in mock anger. Sora and Roxas vaulted over the back of the couch, landing on the cushions and falling right off again. Taelia handed me plates and a box of pizza, and pointed to the coffee table in front of the TV.

"Take that over there; I'm sure those two will calm down once they see food. They always do." I nodded, and put everything down where she had suggested. Instantly, Sora opened the box, nearly ripping off the cover in the process, and tore three pieces of pizza away from the mass of crust and cheese. Roxas took another three, leaving two for me. Two more than I would need, but I took one anyway and began nibbling it absentmindedly, paying attention to the game show Sora had just put on the TV. I'd never seen it before, and it looked interesting. A man had just lost about three hundred thousand dollars because he claimed that Snoopy from Peanuts was a border collie, not a beagle. Even I knew that was wrong; I'd read the comic in the paper before.

"Wow, are all the people on this show so stupid?" Sora asked through a mouthful of cheese, looking over to his brother for a reply. Roxas shrugged and bit off almost half a piece of pizza, chewing for a few seconds before drowning it in whatever he was drinking. What is he drinking...?

"What's that?" I asked as innocently as I could, not wanting to seem completely clueless. Nonetheless, the two boys stared at me like they had just seen a ghost. Vampire, really, but whatever, I thought sardonically. Turning my attention away from my own thoughts, I realized Sora was laughing at me.

"It's soda, what else? You can't be saying you've never seen a soda before!"

"No, I've seen it, I never knew what it was, though..." I defended, feeling embarrassed yet again.

"You've never had soda." Roxas mumbled, shaking his head. "You've been missing out. Wait here," he said, walking into the kitchen. He returned a few moments later carrying a red aluminum can, which he handed to me. Taking it, I looked from the can, to Roxas, to Sora, and back to the can, unsure of what to do next. "Do you know how to open it?" I shook my head, and he sighed before opening it for me. "Drink some, you'll like it."

It won't have any taste...I argued silently, but took a sip anyway. The liquid was cold, and though it was like drinking tasteless water, the bubbles felt good. I slurped as much as I could fit in a mouthful, regretting it instantly when the fizz burned right through to my nose. I coughed at the uncomfortable sensation, and all the soda poured out of my mouth. I was given a roll of paper towels to mop the floor up with, but it wasn't nearly dry anyway.

"That was hilarious to watch, you know," Sora commented, smiling at me. "You were like a little kid."

"Thanks a lot," I snapped sarcastically, grinning. I finished off my piece of pizza before going back to what was left of the soda, drinking it in small sips so as to not be overwhelmed by the bubbles. Taelia walked in after a moment, and Cloud stuck his head out of the kitchen doorway.

"Sora, Roxas, dishes," he said quickly before ducking back into the kitchen. The brothers groaned, but reluctantly got up and left Taelia and I alone.

"Akyra," she whispered after a moment, looking over at me. I turned away from the TV and stared at her. "Was Sora all right, after we left?"

"Um..." I said, trying to decide what to say. "He was in his room for a while." There, that seemed harmless enough. She nodded as if she had anticipated this answer.

"He told you the story, didn't he? About his parents?"

I was thrown off briefly; I hadn't expected her to be so accurate in her assumption. "Yes, he...he did tell me."

"He's had a tough time with that, more so than his brother. He won't even go near a car, much less ride in one. He'll be starting driver's ed in school next year, to get his permit, and I can only wonder how he'll handle that. Or if he'll just run from it; he has a habit of hiding from his problems. That's why he doesn't have many friends, unfortunately."

"I can relate," I admitted, feeling a little uneasy. I had never really shared the fact that I had trouble dealing with my problems, too.

"You know, you're the only person he's ever opened up to. He's never talked about that night with anyone except us, and even then he nearly has an emotional breakdown over it." She smiled at me as I sat there, amazed. Me? I, of all people, am the only person Sora's ever confided his problems in? For years, I've known nothing but keeping my problems to myself, and ignoring how they consume me. No one has ever stopped to worry about me or pay attention to me, or even to recognize that I exist. And suddenly I meet this boy, and he trusts me right from the start, and cares about me. Why? Why me? Why not someone else...? "You do realize, Akyra, that Sora has an acute sense of...other people. He can tell what they're feeling from the moment he sees them, and somehow, he just knows how to make them feel better. It's amazing, how he can recognize that, and not recognize his own inner battles. Cloud and I have known for a long time that all he needed was one friend...just one friend to help him, to give him a taste of his own medicine. You, Akyra..." she chuckled. "You're that friend. I can tell he likes you; he wouldn't have insisted on being around you any other way."

I blushed, in spite of myself. To know that for the first time in my life, someone else liked to be around me and liked me...it was almost too much to bear. I couldn't contain my surprise, and I was even more surprised when I felt a feeling of happiness, of joy, welling up inside me. I'm Sora's friend. He's my friend.

"Hey, we're done with the dishes, Taelia!" I turned around and saw Sora running in, and the happy feeling inside me exploded. I beamed and waved from my spot on the couch.

"Hi, Sora!" I said cheerfully. My voice didn't sound like my own as I said that; it sounded positive, not derogatory, like my mind had finally found a reason to look at the glass half full. For the second time in the same day, my life had taken another step closer to the road towards happiness.

As I reveled in this thought, I realized Sora was laughing. Looking over at him again, I saw him wave jokingly. "Hiya, Akyra! Miss me the whole three minutes I was gone?" I found myself laughing once more, but this time the laughing was completely and utterly genuine. I liked the sound of it, the feeling of it as I rocked back and forth, caught up in the hilarity. It was so beautiful, that laughter, that I didn't end it until long after Sora had taken his spot beside me.

Then again, I realized he didn't know the true me. Would I ever be able to tell him?

For some reason, I didn't care, right then. I only cared that I finally had reason to be happy.

The TV clicked off a final time as Cloud set the remote down on the end table, nodding towards the ink-black night sky out the window. "Bed. Now."

"Aww Cloud, c'mon! I wanna watch all those late-night horror movies!" Sora pleaded. I cringed noticabely, but no one was paying attention, thankfully.

"Yeah, right. That's exactly what you don't need, Sora. Stop arguing and just go to bed."

The younger boy pouted briefly before standing and following his brother down the hallway. Roxas went into the door across from Sora's, and Taelia trailed behind. I was confused as to why, but then she reappeared, dragging Sora behind her. "I nearly forgot--Roxas informed us that you were shoplifting again today."

"...yeah, so?" Sora replied, purposely looking away from his cousins. Cloud held out his hand.

"Empty your pockets."

"How about I don't and say I did?"

"Listen to him, Sora." Taelia said sternly, her expression changing completely. Even I was a little unsettled by her commanding stare, so it was unsurprising that Sora slowly pulled his good arm out of her grasp and reached into his pockets, taking out what was inside and laying them in Cloud's outstretched hand.

"CDs? Again?" the older boy said with exasperation, placing them on the counter. "Second time since last week, am I right?"

"You might be."

Cloud sighed. "I can't believe you. Just..." he muttered as he shook his head in frustration, "...go to bed." Sora gladly took the opportunity and went back to his room, closing the door behind him. Taelia laid a hand on Cloud's shoulder, noticing how distraught he was. "What are we going to do with him, Tae?"

"Don't worry about that now, just go to bed. I'll get Akyra settled." Cloud nodded and went down the hallway, entering the very first door on the left. "Akyra, I hope you don't mind sleeping on the couch...it's a pullout, so you'll probably be okay."

I nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Thanks."

"You're welcome...oh, wait, you don't have any pajamas, do you? Or any other clothes, for that matter." For a moment she stood silently, pondering this. "You can borrow some of mine for now, and we'll go shopping for you tomorrow. Sound okay?" Usually, I went shopping for myself using money I stole from my parents. It was different hearing someone else offer to take me, but I accepted. She gave me a pair of blue and white flannel pajama bottoms that fit well for the most part, other than being a little long, and a light blue t-shirt that was too small for her but fit me perfectly. Afterwards, I helped her move the coffee table and set up the pullout bed built into the couch. "Well, there you go. Make yourself comfortable, and if you need me, I'm in the first room on the right." I nodded, and she walked away. "Good night," she added as she went into her room.

Now I was alone. A few of the kitchen lights were still on, dimly lighting the living room through the doorway. I was all right with that; at home I kept my bathroom light on at night anyway. Something about pure darkness shook me up, and I could never deal with it for long.

Thoughts of home caused a lump to rise in my throat, but then I reminded myself why I wasn't there. My parents didn't want me. They hated me. And if they were that uncaring about their own daughter, then they didn't deserve my tears. I wasn't going to miss them. I was determined of that, now that I was convinced there were people who cared about me. Lying down on the bed and burrowing under the sheets and comforter Taelia had given me, I dismissed all those thoughts and concentrated on falling asleep. It had been almost twenty-four hours since I had been kicked out, and since then I had only gotten a few hours of rest. I was exhausted, and within minutes I drifted off to sleep.

And as I slept, I dreamed.

White. Everything around me was white. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, my clothes...everything. Like a blank sheet of paper, like an easel with no paint. Empty of everything.

I was alone in what appeared to be a small, 10 by 10 room. Tile-like flooring glistened shone beneath my white sneakers, which clicked against the glass-like crystal as I took a step foward. There were no windows in this room, no door, no way out. I felt very, very trapped, suddenly, and sat down on the floor in submission. Never in my life had I ever felt so exposed, even as I was completely and utterly alone. It was like the walls knew my secrets, like by saying nothing, everything was heard nonetheless. It was terrifying, unnerving. I tried to scream, but no sound escaped my mouth. That silence scared me to death. But what I heard next scared me more.

"Akyra? What are you doing?"

I spun around and looked towards where the voice was. "No," I whispered silently as I saw the person who stood mere feet from me. "No, no, no..."

"What's wrong with you?" Sora asked, tilting his head the way he tended to when he was confused. "Are you okay?"

"No, no, no..." I repeated noiselessly, starting to shake as the fear built up within me. I wasn't okay. I was the furthest thing from okay. I was stuck in a room with no exit, and the only person there with me was Sora. This could have been a good thing, but not now. Now, the only thing I knew was my own fear, and that smell. The smell of Sora's blood.

My throat burned so intensely with thirst I was afraid I was going to throw up from the sheer pain of it. My head spun so fast that the room seemed to be flipped upside down completely, and everything I saw was nothing but a blur. Every inch of me throbbed painfully, and I swore I would have rather been dead then put up with the pain and suffering I was experiencing right then. The worst thing was that deep down, I knew the only thing that would have any hope of stopping it was Sora's blood. And I was absolutely determined to avoid that in every way I could. "Go away," I muttered desperately. But I knew he couldn't hear me; even I couldn't hear myself. He wouldn't go away.

I finally resorted to squeezing my eyes shut, which at least ended the spinning. But that smell. I couldn't ignore it, even as I tried with every fiber of my will to cast it away as unimportant. Maybe, if I just sat here forever, my eyes closed tightly, I'd be able to pretend this wasn't happening...

"Hey, listen to me." My eyes forced themselves open at the sound, and I shrieked again. Sora was kneeling in front of me, his face inches from mine as I sat huddled against the wall, quivering. Immediately, I knew he was far too close. I couldn't hold out much longer, as much as I told myself I had to. I needed to distance myself from him, at least.

Just when I was about to stand up, he laid a hand on my shoulder. My throat seemed to burst into flame, my head throbbing as if it had just been hammered against a brick wall. I knew I had lost control the moment that I did, and knew there was no way to take it back now.

Without conciously knowing what I was doing, I roughly swatted Sora's hand away and leapt forward. It was like my mind had been turned off; I was on autopilot, and the brakes were shot, the engine gunned full speed. We flew a few feet across the room as I tackled him, and when he landed on his back, directly to my left, I instantly spun, found his neck, and bit down.

The boy screamed louder than I thought possible, and if there had been windows in the room I knew they would have broken. Normally I would have run for my life--but I was trapped, and in a daze I knew no way out of. It was too late.

A relief spread over me after a few seconds. My throat, previously feeling as though heated spikes had been driven through it, returned to normal. Everything gradually stopped spinning, and my head stopped throbbing incessantly. And, finally, I could see again--though I would have rather been blind.

Sora lay in front of me now, motionless, dead. Everything around me was spotted with red...my clothes, the floor, everything. I stood up and backed away, completely horrified, only to back into the wall behind me. I stood completely still, gasping in terror, before turning around and pressing my face against the wall to try and erase the terrible scene from my memory. I couldn't believe I had just done what I had. I had made allies with the side of myself that I hated. I had betrayed myself once and for all.

After a few moments, as tears began to slide slowly down my pale face, I opened my closed eyes. Surprisingly, the wall appeared to be gone--in its place was a mirror. I took a step back and looked into it. But the person that I saw couldn't be me. I refused to believe that.

I saw a girl with brown hair, and red eyes, wide with horror; a girl with a tear-streaked, impossibly pale face that crumpled as she viewed the image in the mirror. A girl with white clothes, stained red, and sharp, pointed white teeth tinted to match. And behind her, the victim of her instinct.

I screamed loudly, and was slightly shocked when I heard my own scream echo around me, as if my voice had found itself again. The girl in the mirror screamed too, and as the realization came to me, I crumpled onto the ground and continued screaming into the floor as I sobbed and wailed.

I was the girl in the mirror, no matter how badly I wanted to deny it. I had killed Sora.

I awoke screaming at the top of my lungs, in a cold-sweat, and shaking as though I was having a seizure. For a moment I was relieved to see that I wasn't in that white room, but in Sora's living room, buried under a heap of blankets on the pull-out couch. Outside the window, the sky was beginning to brighten. Just as soon as Sora's name entered my head, however, the terror set back in, and I began crying uncontrollably, my head stuffed underneath a pillow as I wailed.

That had been no dream. That had been, unmistakably, a full-blown nightmare.

A few lights flicked on, and I heard footsteps approaching me. "What's wrong with you?" Sora's voice called over my sobbing.

I froze. He had exactly quoted something he had said to me in my nightmare. How real had that nightmare been? Absolutely mortified, I scrambled off of the bed and dove underneath it, putting both arms over my head and burying my face in the carpet. Sora continued saying things, but I couldn't hear him, and only felt the vibrations of his footsteps as he walked away, and more as he came back. "I can't tell what happened, she just lost it!" I heard him say, sounding concerned. I was vaguely aware of the bed being folded back into the couch, and opened my eyes to see Taelia and Cloud standing above me, Sora beside them. I managed to sit up, but couldn't stop shaking.

"Akyra, are you all right?" Cloud asked, staring at me. I shook my head, shuddering, and almost screamed when Taelia reached out to take my hand and lift me off of the floor.

"Can you tell us what happened?" she asked gently, sitting me on the now re-assembled couch. Again, I shook my head no, but then paused. I could at least tell them something.

"I-I h-had a n-nightmare," I stuttered. The three sighed and nodded, as if they understood what I meant and were relieved it hadn't been something serious, like a mental breakdown of some sort.

"I'll get you something from the kitchen and be right back," Taelia offered. "Cloud, go back to bed." He nodded, sighing gratefully, and went back to his room. Taelia walked into the kitchen, closing the door behind her, leaving me and Sora alone. I sat on the couch, silent, and he stood a few feet away, shifting his weight from one foot to the other nervously.

"It's just a nightmare, you know. They aren't real," he said, obviously trying to sound reassuring. I nodded slowly, hearing his words but not processing them.

"It doesn't mean they don't scare you."

"I know," he mumbled, "I used to have them all the time when my parents first died. And I cried just like you did." He sat beside me on the couch, and instantly I flinched and moved away, starting to shiver again. "You have to tell yourself that even if you're scared by them, no matter how real they are, you can't let them get to you. Nightmares are the same as dreams--they tell us what we're thinking about most. In the case of nightmares, they tell us what we're most scared of. And you always have to face your fears, am I right?" I nodded, summing up enough courage to look over at him as he spoke to me. "Obviously, you've faced a lot of stress lately, and your mind is probably extremely unsettled by all the anxiety. Just take it in stride and look past it."

But how could I look past the fact that I had just had a nightmare, one that pointed out a fear so real that it could very well come true at any given moment? Was there any way to ignore something so devastatingly true to life? I knew in my heart that I would never kill a person, instinct or otherwise, and that this thought was what had kept me from doing so for eight long years. If I forced myself to hide when I doubted my self control, it would never become stronger. When I was little, I had taught myself, easily, to ignore the blood of any human that crossed my path. Sora's case was increasingly more difficult, but I knew I had to face it nonetheless. And once I did, I'd finally be free.

"Hey, Akyra?" I turned towards Sora as he suddenly spoke again, leaving my own thoughts in an instant. He was a little closer to me now, and as tempted as I was to draw back, I didn't. I could sense his blood in every fiber of my soul, but I took a deep breath so as to keep calm. It's not what you want, I told myself in the exact way I had when I was younger. You want freedom. This is not what you want. And, surprisingly enough, I was able to ignore his smell for a few seconds or so. It wasn't long, but it was something.

"Yes, Sora?" I replied, looking him straight in the eye. He seemed thrown off by my sudden confidence, but smiled.

"I was wondering if you were feeling okay. You got quiet for a second there."

I nodded my thanks, grinning back at him. I was glad I had been able to ignore my instincts briefly; I was finally able to smile without fear of my fangs being noticed. They only appeared when I was hungry, which was hardly ever. And now, they were completely non-existent. "Fine for now."

Taelia walked back in carrying a glass of water and a plate with a few pancakes stacked on it. "It's already six in the morning, and Sora has to go to school today, so I made breakfast," she said happily, handing Sora the plate and handing me the glass of water. "Akyra, yours are coming; I made you chocolate chip. Chocolate's sure to help you feel better; it always helps me." She laughed and turned to walk back into the kitchen. Sora groaned and turned on the TV as he absentmindedly ate his pancakes.

"School...what a joke," he muttered. I couldn't help but laugh quietly, and he rolled his eyes at me. "Oh no, please, I don't want your sympathy," he said sarcastically.

"Fine then, you won't get any," I fired back. The both of us were laughing when Roxas walked in, looking like he had fought with a pack of bears overnight. Sora took one look at his twin and laughed so hard he started choking. Roxas hit him in the back of the head, and Sora jokingly kicked him in the shin as he walked by.

"You might wanna run a comb through that rat's nest, Roxy," he called. Roxas stopped mid-step in front of the kitchen door, turned around, and flipped his brother off.

"Call me Roxy again and you'll get far worse than that," he dared, and disappeared into the kitchen.

It took me a few weeks to become as comfortable around Sora as I had been before the dream. And even then, I became a little more easygoing when I was near him. He made me feel stronger, like the fact that I could resist his blood so well empowered me. A self-confidence type thing. He helped open a door in my life that I thought would have been closed forever. For once, I was opening up to people, talking to them and acting as if there was more to life than hiding from it. I finally felt like my life had more to it than secrets and lies, fear and hatred. It had something new. Something I'd never known before.

My life had hope.