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Kingdom Hearts-Adventures at Castle Chocobo

Floor 25-Ghost in the Grave

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"And now I can't remember a thing." Cedeile finished explaining. Jack Skellington, who was standing in front of her, nodded in wonder. Cedeile was sitting on an empty table pushed against the wall of the lab, swinging her legs like a little child.

"That seems like quite a problem indeed, Cedeile." Jack replied. "So, you're looking for Sora because some guy named Leon told you that Sora could help you remember?"

"Pretty much." She sighed. "I wish I could figure out what happened to me. Then it might be easier to get all my memories back."

"It certainly would." Jack agreed. "Well, at least you've come to the right place-Dr. Finkelstien is a world famous scientist!" He gestured to the other person in the room-a small little figure in a wheeled chair. "So doctor, do you think you can help Cedeile?" He asked. The scientist thought for a moment.

"Her memories died!" he said. Cedeile nearly fell off the table.

"What!"

"If her memories died? Wouldn't she have died with them?" Jack asked.

"Not necessarily." Dr. Finkelstien replied. "Perhaps, while she was doing something, her memories just died, which caused her to pass out and then she woke up, not remembering a thing!"

"That doesn't make any sense!" Cedeile yelled. "Why would my memories just die?"

"Has something traumatic ever happened to you?" he asked. Cedeile hopped off the table and onto her feet, and then thought for a moment.

"Not that I can remember. Well…" She thought back to Kageki's death, but tried to shake it from her mind. "Recently, yes, but I can't remember anything from my past before I got to this cas-place."

"Well, if you are to find your memories, then you'll have to go looking in a grave!" Jack said. "Maybe they're buried out in the graveyard!"

"Can't hurt to at least look." Cedeile replied hesitantly. She really didn't believe that her memories just died.

"I'll work on something to bring the memories back to life. If I can make a potion to reveal true memories, then this will be easy." Dr. Finkelstien said.

"Cedeile, I'll help you look for that grave." Jack offered.

"Sure. Thanks." She responded. The two headed out for the graveyard, leaving the famous scientist to his work.

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"You have to be kidding me."

Cedeile and Jack arrived at the entrance to the graveyard-that happened to stretch out for what seemed like miles. Cedeile looked out at it, exasperated.

"We better get looking if we want to find your memories!" Jack said. Cedeile sighed and joined him, looking amongst the tombstones for a clue as to what they were looking for exactly.

"Hey Jack, how do you find a grave of memories, anyway?"

"I'm not sure. I suppose it'll have a stone reading 'Cedeile's Memories' or something like that." She walked along the headstones listlessly, glancing at the moon hanging in the sky. She thought she heard something, but wasn't quite sure. Then, she stopped and looked down. She was standing in front of a grave with a blank marker. She couldn't tear herself away-something was drawing her to it.

"Cedeile, put the flowers on the coffin, sweetie." A motherly voice said. A small Cedeile clutched onto a wreath of blue flowers. Many people, much bigger than her, stood around a box lying on the beach sands. She gripped the flowers tighter, causing several blue petals to fall to the ground.

Cedeile's eyes widened. What was that a memory of? What was the box she was standing in front of? Who were all those people? She shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts.

"Cedeile? Are you okay?" Jack's distant voice reached her and she came back to reality. She turned and saw him right beside her.

"Yes, I'm all right. I just remembered something, that's all." She replied.

"What did you remember?"

"I'm not sure. Something from when I was really little. I can't really tell what it is." Jack placed a bony hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Cedeile! We'll find the grave of your memories, soon!" She looked up at him and smiled.

"Yeah. Let's just keep looking." She said. The two split up and looked all over the graveyard, inspecting each grave.

A little while later, Jack was excitedly calling her name and waving his hands in the air.

"I found it, Cedeile! Look right over here!" He called. She ran over to where he was and slid to a stop.

"What is it?" She asked. She looked at the headstone.

"See? It has you name on it! But since you're living out here, this must be your memories!" She inspected the stone-it, indeed, had her name on it.

"Well, this is slightly creepy." Cedeile remarked. "Now what?"

"Why don't you dig them up? Here, I'll help!" He told her. The two began to move the dirt away from the grave in order to gain access to what was within. The dirt was light, and the coffin not buried too deep. They soon hit the wooden box. Cedeile looked at it unsurely, and then back at Jack.

"Honestly, I'm afraid of what I might find." She said.

"That's okay. There's nothing wrong with being afraid of something new."

"Okay then." She knelt down on the ground beside it and pried her fingers under the lid. It took great effort to force the coffin open, and she slowly pushed the lid up until she was able to throw it completely open. She cautiously dared to look, and was startled to see what was insider.

Her perfect mirror image rested peacefully inside, every detail exactly like herself. It was as if she was someone else looking at this poor, dead girl. Cedeile hadn't noticed it herself before now, but her arms and legs on the doppelganger in the coffin had several, slightly faded scars all over-like she had seen many great battles. She looked at her own arms and found the exact same scars. They were faint, like they had been from a battle long ago.

"How could this be?" Cedeile murmured to herself. Jack was completely speechless. "Is this form the me that has my memories?"

"We'll have to find out, I guess. Let's go back to Dr. Finkelstien's lab to find out." Jack told her at last. She pulled the other her out of the coffin and slung one of her arms over her shoulder. It was rather awkward, but there was no other way she could think of. They began to walk out of the graveyard when an army of heartless ambushed them.

"Damn it!" Cedeile hissed as she placed her doppelganger down next to her and whipped out the heartblade. Jack readied himself for battle as well.

"Get ready Cedeile!" he called. She charged at a group of Search ghosts that were trying to surround her. She assaulted one with three consecutive strikes, and it went down fairly easily. She turned behind her to find them trying to drag her memories away.

"Not so fast!" She yelled, dashing towards them. "Holy Purification!" The attack sent one flying back to the ground. Jack was there, and the stray heartless landed just in time to be on the receiving end of his thundara attack. Cedeile jumped at the other two and kicked the one away while slashing the heartblade through the other one. She stood by the limp form of her memories, ready to defend it against anything. One of the search ghosts came flying at her, so she swung the heartblade out like a sword. The heartless hit the strand of light left behind and fell back. She finished it off with ease. Another one came at her and she repeated the cycle. When it fell, two came from behind. She swung around the meet them. "Holy Purification!" she yelled. The two Search Ghosts disappeared in the purifying light.

"Thundara!" Jack called out, sending a hail of lightning at the gargoyles and wight knights. They screamed as they were electrocuted, and disappeared.

With all the heartless defeated, they made their way back to the lab.

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They were ambushed no more than three times before they got back to Dr. Finkelstien's lab. The scientist scolded them a bit for taking so long, but then they showed him what they found.

"Ah. Very interesting indeed!" he said as they laid the doppelganger on the examining table.

"We found her in a grave that had my name on it." Cedeile explained. "Tell me-are these my memories?" The doctor looked between her and the body on the table and thought for a moment.

"Well, Dr. Finkelstien? Are they really Cedeile's memories?" Jack asked with impatience.

"No. They are not your memories, Cedeile." He replied after a long silence. "Look here! The one difference between these two…" He pointed to the doppelganger's neck, and then to Cedeile's. "Can you see it? Cedeile has a crown shaped necklace around her neck. This one," -He pointed to the still body-" does not. Tell me, where did you get that necklace?"

"Um…" Cedeile thought, touching the metal chain with her fingers, "I can't remember."

"This body here is someone else's memories of you." He told her. "But as you know, this person buried the memory of you deep within their heart, which is why you found this in the graveyard. If these were your memories, then this body and you would be exactly alike, but they are not. That's because this is somebody's impression of you, not your own."

"Someone forgot me?" she asked sadly.

"But we dug up the memories!" Jack interjected. "Does that mean that whoever forgot Cedeile will remember her?"

"It could very well mean that!" Dr. Finkelstien added. "If you could find that person, then maybe they could help you remember."

"Another person to find?" she whined at him. "I still have to find Sora, the keyblade master!"

"I know Sora!" Jack exclaimed.

"Really?"

"Yes! He came through here not too long ago. Funny-he mentioned something about forgetting someone. Anyway, you can probably still catch up to him, if you hurry."

"Then I should get moving! Thanks so much for all your help!" She darted out of the lab as fast as she could run, and the door swung shut behind her.

"I hope she remembers, doctor." Jack said.

"You and me both." Dr. Finkelstien responded. "Wait a minute! Look! The memories are disappearing!" They both watched as the body on the table slowly faded away until it completely vanished.

"I guess whoever forgot remembered her." Jack said. "Well that's good."

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"Oh my god!" Sora suddenly exclaimed. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"What is it, Sora?" Donald asked.

"Er, are you okay?" Goofy asked hesitantly.

"I just remembered I forgot Cedeile!" he shouted.

"Um…who are you talking about?" Donald asked.

"You can't tell me that you guys don't remember Cedeile! She's my best friend from the island, and she's the heartblade master too! And Ryu and Aru were with her-and we felt her in this castle! I really did forget her!"

"I have no idea who you're talking about!" Donald said, annoyed. "Now come on! You want to save Namine, don't you?"

"Of course." Sora answered. "And Cedeile would want to know Namine was alright, too. When we meet up with her, I'll have to tell her all about Namine. I wonder if she forgot about her too."

"You're crazy Sora. You said there was only one girl with you on the island." Donald replied as they started walking again.

"That's because this castle made me forget."

"Maybe Cedeile is like Namine-she was a memory buried deep within Sora's heart!" Goofy proposed.

"No! I know that Cedeile was with us. Don't you guys remember when the two keyblades hit her? Then Ryu, Aru, and us went to End of the World, and Aru started to get sick? Then, we fought Ansem together! And Hikari Tagami appeared and explained what had been going on? And Ansem took all the fragments Ryu had and brought Silvia back! And we brought Cedeile back from the darkness, too!" Sora told them all.

"I think you make this stuff up." Donald replied.

"It's true!" Sora insisted. "You didn't like Aru cause she was better at magic than you. And because of Hikari Tagami's aura."

"Yeah right, Sora. Someone better at magic than me?"

"Could be true, a-yuk!" Goofy added.

"No way!" Donald angrily shouted.

"You guys have to remember. I can't believe I forgot about someone so important to me…" Sora frowned and looked sad. "Especially since I was so worried about her."

"What was her name again?" Goofy asked.

"I thought I told you already! It was…was…" He stopped walking and crossed his arms in thought. "Damn! I forgot again! Stupid Castle Oblivion." He shrugged his shoulders and continued on, slowly forgetting everything that had just come back to him. In his mind, there was only Namine and Riku-his two friends from the island.

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6H: End of this chapter!

Anaretsu: …okay.

6H: See you all in chapter 26!