Notes and such: hooray. We now get to the part of the story where the plot actually starts to move… maybe. By the way on an off note I learned that just because you can start a grease fire doesn't mean you should. (lor)

Ch 10 fear and truth

Sora sat in the kitchen alone; he had been in the apartment since the afternoon and Atticus had refused to let him leave after rushing around and closing all the curtains.

"Please forgive me for all this Sora I'll explain everything later, but for now let's just relax here for awhile. At least until Yuffie gets back but that could be pretty late tonight. Btu I promise we'll give you some proper answers." Sora had no choice but to give interrogating Atticus for the time being. Since that he had spent the rest of the day sulking around the apartment. Finally, bored with TV he had made his way to the kitchen where he now sat. he had first gone in with the hope of finding a snack but his hopes where soon diminished. The only things he could find where a series of clay jars with clothe covers for lids that Atticus has told him not to mess with, and for very good reason. Sora's mind went back to three days ago when Yuffie had knocked one over on to the floor. Instead of just falling and smashing though the jar had exploded into a large black mushroom cloud that had filled the whole apartment. When they cornered Atticus to ask him what it was in the jars he merely said.

"Something not to be played with and that's all you need to know" Defeated in his snack quest, Sora decided he would try the TV again. News boring, game show mildly interesting, soap opera, hell no. with nothing good on Sora just sat there and let his mind wander as he listened to the sound around him, one of which was running water.

" Atticus is in the shower, so I don't even have someone to talk to." What he really wanted about then was to be out fighting some heartless right now. So far aside from the sheer number of them he failed to see how these little bug looking shadow things where a real threat. Then he thought about his friends, what they might be doing, who they might have met.

"maybe there somewhere cool like this place, or better. But what if they're not." Before he could get depressed he pulled his thoughts away from that and tried to focus on the present situation.

"What could be so bad about that blur I saw today that makes it so secret? Why don't they just tell me? For someone so friendly Atticus sure is mysterious. Maybe he just likes to make me worry be not telling me things. Now that I think about it he's barley told me anything about himself aside from what he told me when I got here. I wonder why."

As he spoke to himself like he always did when he was bored his eyes drifted to Atticus's bedroom door. That bed room was the only place in the apartment Sora hadn't seen.

"I really shouldn't, I mean it's not my room." Of course the words where rather empty since sora was already at the door. He turned the brass knob and the door swung open on it hinges slowly till it was half way open. He slipped in and stood there in the door way taking in the atmosphere.

The room was small and simple, with no posters or pictures anywhere. Just a dresser a bed and a window. The only thing that hinted at an occupant was a pile of books thrown on the bed and floor around it in a very unceremonious fashion. Sora walked over and sat down on the bed and grabbed a book holding it up to the moon light so he could see it better. The whole thing was written in a strange loopy writing kind of like Arabic, but arranged like Japanese letters going down, then left to right.

"What the heck is this? Oh well go figure" sora put down the book and laid back on the bed looking up at the ceiling. He was getting impatient and he had the feeling he should be outside with yuffie and Leon. As he began to grow drowsy he felt a small cold chill go over him but ignored it.

And just as he was losing his fight to stay awake as he lay on the soft bed, ha pair of sparkling snake eyes pulled away from the window and vanished.

Meanwhile

The park in the center of town was as quiet as always, as the wind moved silkily through the trees. The night air was warm with a slight breeze to make it a near perfect evening. But the tranquility was only an illusion, deep in the trees a dark and cold air was stifling all the sound around it. And in the middle of this strange despair a man found himself in what had to be his worst nightmare. He had just been walking home from work when he decided to take a short cut through the park.

All had been well until he had the feeling of being followed, but thus far there had been hardly a sound. As he rounded a corner he was quickly startled by a figure, relived to see it was just a man leaning against a lamp post, a man with a heavy leather jacket mirrored glasses, a barrette like the kind wore in the military on his head and a large bottle of a neon blue liquid.

The old man thought to himself as he passed by.

"When I was that young I didn't waste my time loitering and drinking, ah youth is truly wasted on the young." As he walked on though he noticed that the man had gotten off the lamp post and had started walking the same direction as the old man only twenty paces away. The man tried his best to panic. They were just walking the same way that's all. But as he picked up his pace so did the man in the leather jacket. Before long the man heard another set of footsteps behind him, there were two of them now. He gave up all chance of controlling his panic and started running s fast he could go on his legs. But before he got anywhere something looped its self around his ankle causing him to trip. The thing pulled away as he fell and he felt the unmistakable pain of knives across his skin as blood started pouring from his leg.

Barley able to stand he forced himself to look up despite his fear and saw them. The man with the jacket, but this time he had some additions. For one he was carrying a large jug on his back. And second he had a friend, a tall dark friend coated in leather belts with a blank mask on his face. At a closer look he saw what looked like knives in the masked man hands and guessed that's what cut him.

"Well brother claw it looks like we caught us a live one." It was the one with the jug who spoke as he looked at the man with a vicious grin. The other one seemed a little slow to the uptake an took a moment to turn his head this way and that before he returned attention to his cohort.

"Fresh… meat…strong heart…good for the taking" the old man cringed at the sound of his voice as it filled his head. It was like three people trying to talk at once and seeing which could be the loudest without actually getting loud.

"What are you people?" Zul walked over and picked the man up ever so gently and brought him up close to his face. The man had to use every fiber of his being not to be sick, as he came closer to his captures and a hideous aroma filled his senses. A smell he knew all too well, having once served in a war. The smell of a rotting corpse that hadn't been buried yet. It took him a moment but finally he figured out its source. The creature holding up by his shoulders smelled of old death as he was a corpse himself. Zul just kept smiling as he lifted his right hand and without a moment of pause pushed it through the man's chest followed by the hideous crunching of bone as he's hand broke through the ribcage and then pulled out a glowing red light in his hand. He held it to his ear and laughed, then turning back to the horrified man bleeding in front of him put it up to his ear. The man wanted to scream but couldn't, the light was pulsing and as it came by his ear he heard a distinct thump-thump-thump coming from it.

The last thing he saw before the darkness over took him was the sight of the man in the leather jacket taking the light and swallowing it whole as his whole reality dissolves and he knew no more.

"well that was satisfying claw, and look what a fine new little brother we have now." His attention drew to the soldier heartless now kneeling where the man had stood, its eyes blank yellow spheres. As the cold wind departed Zul and Claw watched as the heartless vanished to do what heartless do. Zul then stared down at the blood stained ground.

"Far too messy really, I wish we could do it like the heartless instead of using such filthy physical contact with these people. Ah yes but I digress, we just need to keep feeding for now and soon enough that little problem will be fixed, ha ha ha..AH-HAHAHAHAHHAH!!!!"

End ch 10

Notes: a little short yes but I need to get into the swing of doing them a little faster, I have been lazy lately.