Chapter Five: N.E.O.
"I'm almost there…"
And almost there he was. It was around evening when Nick mounted his Flyer and took off towards Hollow Bastion Residence. In that castle, was where Ansem was still rumored to be; but also, in the forests that surround that castle is where the Enigmatic Men are supposed to be as well. So many mysteries in one place—Hollow Bastion sure promised to be interesting.
"Whoa!!!" Nick shouted at the top of his lungs.
He thought he had seen a man right in front of the dirt road ahead of him, so he instantly began to drift left to avoid crashing him. He closed his eyes and couldn't see if he had made contact with the person or not. After the Flyer had made a halfway rotation, he got off of it to see if he had hit the poor man.
"What the…!?"
But he was surprised at what he saw. The man was gone. He searched around by foot, making his way forward to the castle. He called many times but got no reply. So he shrugged it off. He had far more important things to do. He had to find the Enigmatic Men. He continued to walk into the woods and began to jog after he saw it was getting late. Night had almost befallen Hollow Bastion and he didn't want to be caught up in the middle of the woods at night. But after half an hour of searching, he found a cave.
"Ah…finally!" The excited and exhausted Bolsey cried.
He slowly made his way into the cave. He had to watch his head because he was going through a small tunnel. After reaching the end of the tunnel, he found a small cavern. He'd seen bigger caves before, so this was a disappointment. There were chalk paintings all over the place. Most where childish babbling, but there was one specific painting that caught his eye.
"Well what do we have here?"
Nick bent down and touched the painting slightly with his index and middle fingers. He examined the painting. It had two children, a boy and a girl, apparently sharing a star-shaped fruit. He wasn't an expert at botany, but something did tell him that the fruit didn't exist anymore. Then, the strange got stranger.
"What!? Where did this door come from?" The puzzled historian asked himself in shock.
At the end of the cave, there was this strange door. It was wooden and had thin yellow outline around it. Nick approached it and tried to find a doorknob.
"No doorknob huh? Well that's certainly new…"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen-like object. At the tip that faced the door was a red plastic part. He pressed a button at the opposite end and a flashing light appeared for a second at the red plastic part. He has just photographed the door and then did the same with the painting of the boy and the girl.
"I better get going." Nick told himself.
As he headed back to the small tunnel and began to bend his head, he heard a creaking noise coming from behind. He turned around and was perplexed by what he had just seen. The door had opened! Nothing could be seen from within, it was all dark. Pitch black, in fact. But Nick took a big gulp and entered the door which slammed closed behind his back as soon as he was inside.
"Where am I?"
It was completely dark. Nick couldn't even see his own hand. And every word he said echoed about seven times. But then a huge sphere of light appeared amidst the darkness. The sphere had tiny dots with bright colors on it. Nick slowly walked towards it. He gently lifted his hand and was about to touch it before a voice was heard.
"Do not touch it!" The voice ordered.
The sphere began to shrink. It shrank and shrank until it was a small ball of light. In mid-air, a jar popped out of nowhere trapping the light inside it. Then a hand with a black glove on it appeared. It held the jar by the bottom. And then an arm started to grow from the hand. The pitch black place also began to change into some sort of small room. It was made of ancient, crumbling brick walls and had a pattern of torches on the walls illuminating the place. It had only one window, and it was at the end of the room. There was also a long table. With about six wooden chairs all around it. Nick wasn't sure how many there were; he was busy trying to get his jaw back up. At the long end of the table the floating arm continued to hold the jar. A whole body began to grow from the arm and attach to it. Before Nick knew it, a full person was standing in front of him, covering the window. It was a man dressed in full black. The coat had many zippers, and a cloak covered the man's face completely. He also had zipped, black boots and the coat was similar to that of a friar but completely black. The man shadowy man took a few steps forward and put the glass jar with the light sphere still inside it on the table and sat down.
"Who are you, intruder?" The man asked.
It was the exact same voice that ordered Nick not to touch the sphere earlier. Nick struggled to speak but eventually swallowed the notch he had in his throat.
"M-my name is N-N-N-Nick."
"Come forth Nick." The man's deep voice said.
Nick walked towards the cloaked figure.
"Take a seat."
Nick gulped and sat next to the unknown man.
"Do you know what this is, Nick?" The mystery man said, referring to the sphere in the jar.
Nick shook his head. He was too nervous and probably horrified to speak.
"Ah…so you thought you'd just mess with such a fragile thing? Without knowing any of the consequences?"
Nick didn't answer.
"You are a fool, Nick. Just like any other human. I suppose any other human would've done the same. Curiosity is worth dying for I guess. Anyways Nick, you must have questions to ask me. Ask them wisely."
Nick hesitantly looked at the hooded person and began to speak.
"Who are you?" Nick questioned.
"That does not matter."
"What is this place?"
"That does not matter."
"How did I get here?"
"Irrelevant."
"Ugh…" And annoyed Nick mumbled, "Why am I even here?"
Nick got tired of playing games and got up from his seat. He was going to walk away to…somewhere but the unknown person reacted.
"Take a seat!!!!!!!"
He somehow pulled Nick through thin air and forced him to sit back down. Nick was shocked of course.
"How did you…"
"Not important."
"Then what is important damn it!?" An impatient Nick asked furiously.
"What that light is."
"Then what is it?"
"It's the planet's heart. It's sealed so the Heartless cannot get through. If you touched it your whole body would've been deteriorated in a split-second."
There was an utter silence as Nick stopped to think.
"Oh… Well I… I guess I owe you my thanks." He nervously remarked.
"Not so. You would've become one of us. The more of us, the better."
"The more of us? You mean there are more like you?"
"Oh yes, many. Indeed."
"What exactly are you?"
"We are shells. We are shells of those who have been taken their hearts from. The heart becomes a Heartless, the soul becomes a Nobody, and the body becomes a mere shell."
"Well, according to the Ansem theory, aren't shells supposed to be in another dimension?"
"Yes…but we had to come to this dimension. Something greatly dangerous was happening to the worlds. We came here and now we can't go back. So basically, in Ansem's terms we are the Non-Existent-Ones. N.E.O."
Suddenly, as soon as the hooded man finished that last sentence, everything began to disappear. The room, the jar, the sphere, and Nick was back in the cave facing the opened door. Amidst the darkness the figure of the shell could be seen among the shadows. And one phrase echoed throughout the cave.
"We are the Organization."
Then the door finally slammed shut. Nick slowly walked backwards and bent his head. He left through the tunnel without one more word said.