Heartless Imperfection
Chapter XVI
They neared the end of the highway, the same place Cloud spotted Sora from a few days before. The moon was out, but the stars weren't showing. The group, one by one, hopped off of the truck and onto the road.
"These are amazing!" Donald was ecstatic.
Cloud heaved himself off of the Shin-Ra motorcycle and looked at the duck. Aerith looked over his shoulder at a packet of papers. They weren't bound, but held together in the corner by a golden ring through a small hole in the upper left hand corner of each page. The pages ruffled as Donald went through them again.
"What is that," Zen asked, stepping forward.
"It's research by a doctor, I can't see his name on the last page, the packet is kind of…" He held it up. The bottom right corner was splotched in a red stain, along with some minor splats across the front page.
"That must have been the man that disappeared," Goofy suggested.
Donald nodded, but Cloud spoke, "We can analyze it at the nearby town. Come on." He began to climb downward on a rope to the dusty plains.
Zen shrugged, and followed, with the rest of the group behind him.
They walked the plains for an hour, and dust had gotten everywhere. Zen wiped the foreign material from his eyes and trudged on. The others were having trouble with it, too.
The group became content when they reached the end of the dust-area and came upon a grassy field that stretched from the beach to the nearby mountains all around Midgar's dust-plain. Zen took one look back on Midgar, and walked on to meet the town of Kalm, which stood before them.
It was a cobblestone town, littered with inhabitants. The stench of food always filled the air, and the group could finally see the stars. Zen looked up, and saw a star blink out of existence. Another star flew across the sky. "Look at that, guys!"
The group saw it, and some looked horrified, though they knew it had happened already. Barriers between worlds fall when stars shoot across the landscape. When that happens, people can travel between worlds without much hassle. When stars disappear, it means a world has disappeared. Occasionally, people from other worlds wind up in a different one, they had escaped the destruction. The world was devoured by the Heartless, but which one was it?
While the females were getting bathed, the men gathered in the Kalm hotel room. "Let me see the papers," Said Cloud.
"No, I'm not finished reading them," Donald reasoned.
The man sighed and crossed his arms.
Zen looked at the ceiling. It was made of tin, and the paint was chipping. Piece by piece, it was slowly flicking to the black tin underneath.
Donald read the parchments closely, "He did a whole study on hearts! This is marvelous!"
Zen sighed and closed his eyes. He then proceeded to slip out of that plain consciousness and into the world of slumber.
"Well, you look different, but I guess it doesn't matter." She stepped up behind him. "Can't you just fall asleep more often?" The red-haired girl hugged Zen from behind. She was warm, and he seemed to catch it like a cold.
"Hey-uh," The boy looked around, she had disappeared. The warmth started to fade. He adjusted his t-shirt and stepped forward, for whatever reason. The sound of his feet against a cold slab of concrete echoed through the imagination.
What a strange dream, He thought to himself.
"This isn't right, you know, you're here for a purpose." A frail old man at a desk, sitting in a large mahogany chair materialized before his eyes. "Just don't lose sight of it, haha."
"What're you talking about?"
"Oh, yes, I remember what I did, now. Well, you don't have to worry about it. At least, not yet. Follow your group. You'll find something interesting about yourself sooner or later. Remember this, haha, and tell them, no heart is perfect." The old man chuckled with a weak throat and waved Zen away. He promptly de-fragmented before Zen's emerald eyes before he could reply.
"Don't worry, I'm here." The girl appeared, again, in the same position she left.
"What's going on here," Zen unlocked himself from her gentle grasp, and turned around. Irritation flowed through him.
"You'll figure it out, hee." She winked and began to walk away.
"Hey, shouldn't we wake him?"
"Nah, let him sleep. He's been through a lot, as we all have."