A\N: This chapter is honestly more for character back story rather than story progression. For those who have stuck around the first couple of chapters, thank you. I know it's slow right now, but bear with it.

Chapter inspired by "Paint It Black - Epic Trailer Version" by Hidden Citizens, Rånya and "Can't Help Falling In Love - DARK" by Tommee Profitt, Brooke

Here's a crude, and I mean crude, layout of the Academy campus I made on Pixlr. Just replace the periods with / and get rid of the spaces, for anyone who wants a visual.

https:..ibb . co .Srf2RFW

Ventus Lindblum

Nightmare walker. Male. Age 19.

Roxas Lindblum

Dream walker. Male. Age 19.

"I'm gonna rub his face in the dirt and stand on his lifeless body in victory. Just watch me."

Sora was still fuming from the altercation in the infirmary, fists raised in the air, and his crazed ideas of grandeur worrying the twins sitting behind him on the hill. Roxas was tempted to kick him down the hill into the glittering pond below just to get him to be quiet, but he only sighed and tilted his head back. His eyes watched the mist of the waterfall, oblivious to his brother beginning to wrestle the brunette into a sitting position to relax and enjoy the end of the evening.

"So, why did you guys even end up here?" asked Sora as finally pushed Ventus off of him, fixing his jacket. He took his seat on the other side of Roxas, falling onto his back and staring up at the overcast sky. Silence answered the vampire, causing him to glance at the two curiously.

"Do you really want to know?" asked Roxas. Ventus regarded him with steely blue eyes, the comfortable openness he had just been displaying gone without a trace. Sora hesitated, wondering if he maybe pushed a boundary by asking. He had no right to ask such a personal question when he hadn't even opened up about his own reasons.

"It's probably best you know, honestly. We may be human in almost every way, but we're dangerous all the same," said Ventus. His eyes were now looking down at his hands. "We're a risk, just like anybody else here. One wrong situation, one wrong decision, and we could hurt a lot of people."

Only their father knew what they were capable of. He had the powers to walk within people's dreams and nightmares. He kept it hidden, having the power to corral his abilities. And in doing so, led a rather normal life within the masses of the humans. He had fallen in love with a woman in a small town, her beauty being average with her long blond hair and hazel eyes. But her heart was what had sealed his fate to a life so simple.

And so the twins were born, Ventus being a mere five minutes older than Roxas. Their father wasn't aware that they shared his powers. Memories were made; the twins learning their first words, their first steps, their first pain. The smell of butterscotch as they baked cookies in the early morning to the scattered bubbles and damp floor of their nightly bath. Through the highs and lows, their parents were there to make sure they knew they were loved. He scarcely used his abilities. Only using them on the boys when they were having a difficult time sleeping, he would soothe their nightmares and replace them with the warmth of their family.

It was when they first hit puberty that their father realized that they had inherited his powers. He had confront them after they had both appeared in his dreams, made them promise to keep it a secret. From then on, their father would take them on more fishing trips, utilizing the time to attempt to help them understand their powers and how to properly use them. More importantly, to keep themselves from using it at all. The future looked bright, with minimal incidents.

However, shortly after they had turned fourteen, their power started becoming unstable. They would find themselves in different dreams or nightmares. Roxas would avoid confrontation with the dreamer, afraid it would cause them to wonder why he was appearing in their dreams. Ventus, however, had a sense of heroic pride that would push him to try and help the dreamers from their nightmares. Very few times he succeeded, the nightmare abruptly ending before he could reach them.

They both kept it from their father, both feeling too prideful and believing they could use their father's teaching to help themselves control it better. Yet as the time passed on, their mother grew more suspicious. She constantly saw the boys in her dreams. She was used to the ones of them as babies, even toddlers. But she was seeing them in dreams she knew they were never a part of.

Ventus was the first one to notice her behaviors changing. She stopped humming as she cooked or cleaned, her smiles became less frequent. He could have sworn that he kept seeing her staring at Roxas and himself. Thoughts of her being sick clouded his mind as he confront their father, explaining the differences in her behaviors. He assured Ventus she was fine, that she was feeling under the weather and would bounce back with time. He didn't believe him. And he was going to prove it.

Ventus approached Roxas, telling him of his plan. One of them was guaranteed entrance into her dreams, whether it was a dream or a nightmare. One of them had to figure out what was happening with their mother. The younger brother had agreed nervously even though every thought screamed at him that it was wrong.

That night, they both made a promise.

As with their powers, only being able to gain access respectively, they could use the very same to take that essence of the dream or nightmare and reverse it or amplify it. If something were to happen and they needed a way out, they were to do just that and allow the other inside to help them leave.

Ventus was the one who had reached inside of their mother's dreamscape. A nightmare. He found himself within a dark forest with trees bare of their leaves. A stream stretched along his left side, but it was darkened. Following it, he noted a worn down house ahead of him and realization struck him. This was their home. The little homely building buried in a small forest on the outskirts of town. Ventus took off down the pathway as a sense of dread filled his chest.

As he arrived at the door, he opened it slowly. A small lullaby reached his ears, carrying a soft melodic hum that was familiar to him. His eyes rested on a form crouched in the middle of the bare room. A woman, with matted blond hair and ragged clothes. Ventus quietly stepped forward into the room, careful of where he placed his feet as he made his way closer.

"Mom...?" he whispered as he got closer.

At the sound of his voice, the humming stopped and her body ceased to move. He watched as her hands started twitching and moving. Another step closer. Her voice reached his ears, quiet whispers muttering words he couldn't make out. Another step.

"He lied to me. Used me. All of them. They need to disappear," he heard her murmur. "I need to end them. They don't belong here."

He stopped only a few steps away at hearing her words, the erratic beat of his heart filling the quiet room. End them? Who had used her? He swallowed hard, finding it difficult to breath as he closed the gap between him and his mother. Something, or someone, had been bothering her to the point where she was contemplating murder and Ventus was going to find out. He was going to help her, to remind her that she was surrounded by love. Just as she had done while she raised the two boys. That was all he had to do. To reverse the nightmare and end it, to reassure her that they were there and waiting to help her. All she had to do was tell them.

But every noble notion that had built inside of Ventus crumbled as he saw beyond her shoulder. There were no faces to the bodies in front of her, but he didn't need them to know who it was. It was them. Roxas, their father and Ventus. Gaping, bloody holes and gashes adorned them in such a way it made the boy sick to his stomach. His mother reached out a hand as he watched in horror, taking one hand from Roxas and one from his own body and placing the hands together, as if they had died holding hands.

"This is just a dream. But you, Ventus. You are real, right here. Right now," said his mother, her voice cracking just enough to disrupt the melodic sound it usually carried. Ventus finally realized this wasn't their mother anymore. Whatever had plagued her mind, whatever made her believe that this was the answer, it had changed her and the beautiful heart his father always had talked about.

"I knew it would be you first. You are the more sensible one. Your father being blinded by love and your brother too busy wanting to fit in and find friends. I thought I was going crazy when I kept seeing you two appear in my dreams. Of course, what mother doesn't dream of her children? But there were times where I know I didn't make you up." His mother stood, turning sharply to face him with smile on her face. She looked herself, aside from the matted hair, bloody hands and the wild look in her eyes. "When I talked to your father about it, he brushed it off with some excuse. Over worked or lack of sleep. Then he would disappear with you two to go fishing or to go to town. It was like clockwork."

Ventus took a step away from her. He wanted to look around for something, anything, to help defend himself, but he was too afraid to look away from her or the knife she held.

"Please don't do this. Mom, we love you. We've done nothing to hurt you, or anyone else, for that matter! Put the knife down, please."

But he wasn't reaching her. Her smile grew as a giggle came from her throat. It was only a second, but he saw her shift her feet and knew she was lost to whatever darkness had consumed her beliefs. She caught him by the shoulder as he tried to turn and run from her, holding him with a tight grip as she raised the knife to strike him down. Ventus began clawing at her arm and wrist in an attempt to loosen her grip. At a final attempt to disrupt her attack, he launched his hand out her to chest.

Ventus felt his power bubble and manifest within his own chest, spreading through him as he stared into his mother's eyes. He thought of Roxas, of the promise they made. He needed to cause the nightmare to recede, to let him in. As he thought of it, the room began to melt into a light gray around them, the darkness of the nightmare receding and being drawn into himself. His mother had paused, eyes wide and disbelieving at the sight. Feeling her hand slacken on his shoulder, Ventus pulled out of her grip as he continued to hold his hand toward her body. He barely felt the warm feeling of a dream starting, of Roxas making his way to him, but it was getting stronger.

"You aren't supposed to exist. You're all monsters," she hissed as she turned her attention back to Ventus. "I will end you!"

At the same time as he felt Roxas' presence launch toward him, he felt his powers take a different form as their mother posed her intentions once again. The fear, agony and hurt from discovering the truth twisted inside of him, constructing the darkness of the nightmare to come rushing back even stronger. Tears had sprung into his eyes as he kept looking at his mother, hoping for a single glimmer of warmth he remembered from his childhood.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I can't let you do that," he whispered as a black sludge erupted from his palm. It engulfed the fair haired woman before it spiraled into her chest, into the deepest chasms of her heart, leaving her stricken.

"After that, Roxas pulled me out. When we told our dad what happened, he ended up putting us in here." Ventus had his hands clenched into fists in his lap as he recounted every agonizing feeling from his memories. As much as it hurt, it felt a little enlightening to share their story with someone other than his father and brother. Not even the Headmaster knew what had happened, only that they were dangerous without guidance. He felt Roxas place a hand on his shoulder, an instant comfort to remember he wasn't alone in this.

Sora, on the other hand, felt an intense sense of despair within him. He began wondering if everyone had such a back story to them that caused their arrival at the Academy. Were they all killers? Did they have any hope of overcoming their struggles? He wanted to believe they did, but there was that seed of doubt planted in the back of his mind.

"We've been here for four years. We haven't really talked to our dad since then. But we assume she's still in a coma. We don't know whether she's still inside or was torn apart by her own nightmare." Roxas' quiet voice paused as he stood up and headed toward a small cooler he had brought with them. He reached in and pulled out three white packages, shed them of their wrapper and resumed his seat between his brother and Sora. Passing one to the other two, he held up the cool blue ice cream in the air. "I still don't blame him, though. Especially now. If he hadn't done what he did, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't have met. I think this is the start of a great friendship, don't you guys agree?"

"Huh?" Sora looked at Roxas, Ventus, then the ice cream he held in his hands. As foreign as the thought of friends had been, he was sure that it was definitely something he could enjoy. Living such a lonely and secluded life, he wasn't sure if it was ever something he honestly wanted to have.

"A promise, then. We'll have each other's backs, no matter what. No matter the cost," piped Ventus, reaching his ice cream in the air toward his brother's own.

"All for one and one for all," said Sora, mimicking the older brother.