Chapter 4
New Places

It was several weeks after the first shadow attack. My life was flipped upside-down. Not only were the Heartless around, but they were of stronger varieties as well. I'm talking the Orcus and Dustflier kind of bad. The United States Armed Forces were trying their best to repel them, but only experimental energy rifles could harm them.

Me? I was knee-deep in the horde, with only Mike at my back. Apparently, his machete could harm the Heartless as well as my bow could, but we were being overrun. We fled our town of Walden, all the way to New York City. Which was deserted. Literally nobody was there, since everyone was scared of the creatures that ripped your heart out for food. We spent our time walking around the deserted shops, scrounging for food and keeping our hideaway at Broadway Theater brightly lit. It was hard, but there wasn't as many Heartless here than in other areas.

We had split up to cover ground that day. I hacked my way through the hundreds of shadows that constantly covered the ground; as I said, this was a place with fewer of them when compared to other places. I noticed I was at Times Square, a once central part of NYC, now barren and desolate. Feeling nostalgic, I walked inside the Toys 'R' Us there, gladly finding out the ice cream machine inside still worked. I stuffed the bottle of chocolate syrup in my bag; it was considered a delicacy now. That, along with freeze-dried fruits, a bag of BBQ potato chips, beef jerky, and three packages of double-A batteries to power the flashlight at my waist, was all I had on me. For good measure, I also took three books from the Barnes & Noble a couple blocks down the street; my favorites, to remind me of the life I once dreamed of having. The Hunger Games, Eragon, and The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales were the three books that inspired my now-ancient dream of writing. But who cares about fantasy stories during the end of the world? Apparently I do.

I Rendezvous with Mike at our hideaway, the elevated levels of Broadway the only place the Heartless couldn't get to. Until today. It was Three in the afternoon, according to my watch. It was three when the giant black fist crashed through the wall and knocked Mike out of the nosebleed seats and fell, crashing, onto the stage below. The fist belonged to a Darkside, similar to the being I fought in that crazy test so long ago. They were nothing to me now; I simply kept shooting its face, expecting it to vaporize like the others that I fought. It did not.

I too fell onto the stage, just in time to help Mike up from unconsciousness. The world started to break away. Literally. Soon, all that was left was the stage we stood on, floating in a dark void. The Darkside floated just beyond the platform. It spoke, and I recognized the voice with fear. Key-wielder. Your world is no more. It is useless to fight; give in to the dark. I shouted back to the voice from my Dream, "No way! I will fight to the end!"

So be it. The Darkside flung its arm out at me, and I couldn't dodge it in time. I was sent flying off of the world, Mike barely grabbing my bag to make sure we ended up in the same place. However, he soon lost his grip, and we were sent flying off into space. I soon lost all sense of myself to the void.

(Time transition: three days later…)

I awoke on the ground in the middle of a small alley. It was sunset, wherever I was. The buildings around me seemed to be made of a tan-ish stone. On the wall across from me was a poster advertising a "Struggle" tournament. I quickly got up, and explored where I was. I roamed the vast network of alleys, until I heard voices.

"I'm telling you, Hayner, that Kairi girl was looking for Sora!" a female voice said.

"Olette, calm down. Pence, you don't believe her, do you?" a male voice, presumably 'Hayner,' said.

"What was that? I was too bust eating this melon stick…"

The source of the voices was a red curtain in the middle of a very small alley. I pushed it aside, hoping to meet these people, and ask them where I was. The three teens all immediately turned to face me, with dumbstruck looks in their eyes. Yeah, this wasn't going to end well…

(A/N: and then there were four. Mwahahahahah! *Cough* I got to stop doing that… please R&R, and be sure to check out my other stories! ("Origins" comes before "Knight of the Gods," for those who don't like to read descriptions.))