AN: ok first up, thank you to those who reviewed Ch1. And to 'Shadowed Darkside', to clear things up a little, I'll say that my main character is a guy. You'll find out more this chapter but I figured that you'd need to know at least that much. I'll try to make things a bit clearer this chapter too. Oh yeah to all you others reading this . . . please review! I'd like to know how I'm going and where I can improve. .thanks . . . enjoy!

Chapter 2 Discover

Ahh . . . darkness good . . . so peaceful . . . so--Hey! I drove my face down into the soft cushiony thing I was resting on; for, once again, I could feel the light chasing away the darkness of sleep . . . Curse you evil being that ever thought up such an evil thing as light! . . . Wait a minuet . . . I wasn't on anything cushiony before . . . I snapped my eyes open and quickly sat up to find I was in yet another small room. But this one was much different to the last one I was in. For one; It wasn't burnt to a cinder . . . it was in fact very tidy. The room had more things in it too; there was the bed I was on, a shelf with strange rectangular things on it, and a weird looking, square stool with a long, wide bit sticking up from the back of it. The walls of the room were a light blue colour, matching the blue, textured floor.

How'd I get here? I thought as I swung my legs around so my feet were touching the floor. The floor had a strange, soft feel to it. It was nothing like the harsh cold of the other place . . . it was nice.

Placing that thought aside, I went over to the shelf with the weird rectangles. I slowly took one of the rectangles off the shelf. Turning and flipping it a few times, I saw it could be opened so, with care, I turned the thickest bit of it over, to find there were hundreds of thin bits within it that had some strange markings I half recognized on each one. I stared at the markings for a while, trying to make out what each one meant. Then I realized; hey I can read this . . . sort of . . . what's a koob? I flicked over a few more sheets of the thin stuff and tried to read out loud; using my voice for the first time since . . . I … well ever.

I opened my mouth to speak . . . but all that came was a wheezy groan-like sound. I covered my mouth with my hand in surprise. Ok so I guess I have to practice . . . darn. For the next few hours, or so it felt, I sat on the weird stool with a rectangular page-y thing and practiced speaking . . . badly. Most of the words that came out were whispered mumbles that didn't seem to mean anything. That's because I could hardly understand what I was saying; the words in the thin sheet-y thing were hard to make out.

Once I could say things a little clearer, I tried to make sense of what I read . . . ".sragic kramedart sih fo eno sekoms . . .?" what the #&? None of the words made sense! Maybe it's some kind of weird language . . . hmn.

"Well well," a soft voice said. I shot my head up and looked around the room for whoever the voice belonged to. "-this is a first. I've never seen one of you learn to speak so soon." I turned my attention to an open door which I must have over looked in my inspection of the room. There was a girl at the door, slightly leaning on it. "-but you might want to read the book when it's not upside-down." The girl giggled.

She looked like she was in her late teen years; her long blonde hair was loosely tied back. She was wearing a blue long sleeved shirt which matched her crystal blue eyes perfectly. Her navy pants hung loosely from her hips and cut off just below her knees. She had a smile on her face which would shame a child. I suddenly realized I was staring at her and looked back at the "book" in my hands.

"Book?" I asked, pointing to the thing in my hand. "Yes that's right! It's a book. Lots of stuff can be found in books. There are books telling you about virtually everything!" The girl said while pointing to the shelf holding all the other books. I looked at the one in my hands and asked, "What is this: sragic kramedart sih fo eno sekoms?" indicating to the top few words. The girl just laughed and turned the book around so that the words I just read were at the bottom. "Now try reading it." She said simply.

". . . -smokes one of his trademark cigars . . . . . cigars?" Nope I still don't get it.

"A cigar was something that some silly people used to use as a stress relief in the olden days . . . but that's not important now . . . what I wish to know is what number you are?"

"Huh? . . Number?" I asked, taking my focus off the book.

"Yes what is your number? What number clone are you?"

"Clone?" this girl is crazy . . . a clone? Me?

She sighed. "You're telling me you don't know what that is? Oh boy . . . a clone is-"

"I know what a clone is, sort of," one of the only things I DO know "-but . . . I can't . . . be one . . . no way!" I stood, and placed the book I had on the stool-thing, slowly edging away from the girl at the door in disbelief. I can't be . . . no.

I clenched my eyes shut, trying to block out the thought of being a clone. Still moving backwards, my back came in contact with the wall and I slid down it, till I was in a sitting position, with my arms hugging my legs tightly. "Hey, it's ok calm down" hushed the girl. The feeling of something warm on my shoulder caused me to open my eyes to find that she had sat down beside me in an attempt to- comfort me I guess. . .

"Shh, it's ok. I'm sorry. You don't have to worry about that right now if you're not ready." She said, rubbing my shoulder all the while. "Let's talk about something else . . . um . . . oh I know, how rude of me to not think of this sooner," she scolded to herself.

"-my name is Rebecca Hawkins but every one around here calls me Becc. Do you have a name?" she said hopefully.

"Name? . . . No I guess not." I said, loosening the grip on my knees so I could face her a little. "Strange . . . they usually give names" Becc said, giving her best 'the thinker' pose. "You should actually have a name tag on you . . . now where is it?" she got on her knees and started to waddle her way around me . . . "Rebecca . . . what are you- GAH!"

Cold . . . cold . . . cold hands . . . cold . . . Becc had grabbed my leg and pushed my pant leg up to reveal a silver thing around my ankle . . . odd . . . I never noticed that before. . "Aha! I thought so! Now what does it say . . . M-a-l-i-k . . . Malik?" She slowly dropped my foot; her face went pale and she went quiet. "What is it . . . what's wrong?" I asked as I tried to rub some warmth back into my foot. Colour came back to her face and she smiled gently. "Nothing, it's nothing. . . Malik huh? . . . It's a bit too dark for you I think. Oh well, hey. . . You need a nick name! Yeah that'll work!" she stood up and walked over to the door. I decided that I should follow her, so, using the wall to help me get up, I walked over to her.

"So what's a nick name?" I asked from behind her. She turned around to face me, smiling kindly. "A nick name is usually a shortened version of your own name." she explained. "In my case, it's Becc whereas my real name is Rebecca. But in some cases a nick name is completely different from a person's real name. I think that would be a good idea for you . . . so . . . what to call you . . . oh I know! How 'bout Toru?"

"Toru? Why Toru?"

Becc walked out of the room and gestured for me to follow. "I don't know. It sounds nice and it suits you? . . . It also means Shrine I think." She said as she closed the door behind us. "And that suits me . . . how?" I asked as we started walking down the hall we were suddenly in. "Well. . . It just does . . . ok?"

"Ok what ever you say" So I'm a shrine now. . Hmm . . . What's wrong with Malik I wonder? I like dark . . . oh well.

After a few halls of silence, save for the sound of footsteps, I decided to speak up "So, who are these 'everyone else around here' people that you mentioned earlier?"

"That's why I'm taking you to the main hall . . . to meet the others . . . they- we are part of 'the Resistance', against the M.R.'s or 'Millennium Raiders'. We've been trying for years to stop them from turning others to their side . . . well you'll find out more later. In the mean time . . . here we are!" Becc gestured towards two very large doors to our left.

She walked to the side of the doors to a panel on the wall . . . I swear it wasn't there before . . . it had several buttons on it. She pressed them in what seemed like no particular order and suddenly the doors slid open. "Wow . . ." was all I could manage to say at the impressiveness of what happened. "You'll get used to all of this quickly," said Becc as she walked over to me. "-you'll need to if you're going to join us." At that she went inside the large room. "Join? . . . Hey wait up!" I called as I followed her in.

"What do you mean join?" I asked as I looked at my surroundings. The room was full of hundreds of people, talking away to each other, seemingly oblivious to the fact that two people had just walked in. They were all just eating and talking amongst themselves about god knows what. "Mokeii, our Leader will explain that. . ." Moe-key? "-but for now, let's introduce you to this lot . . . shall we then?" she said as she stepped up on a bench, dragging me up with her. "OK EVERYONE WE HAVE A NEW MEMBER!" Ow, man that girl has a strong voice. . . Member? One or two people turned around to listen to the girl next to me, but most of them just went on eating and talking. "THIS IS MALIK!" Becc continued, and suddenly the room changed from a loud clammer to an eerie silence. Now everyone turned to face the voice . . . no . . . to face ME! All the eyes in the room were just staring and/or frowning at me . . . okay . . . death glare anyone?

The change in atmosphere gave me chills; I could almost see the fiery passion of hatred in their eyes at hearing the sound of my name . . . all together now . . . 3. . . 2 . . . 1 . . . RUN! "BUT FROM NOW ON HE'LL BE CALLED TORU!" exclaimed Becc. At that, the majority of people turned around to continue their lunch and conversations. The room quickly filled up with noise again . . . that was weird. As I followed Becc off the bench and out of the room I overheard some people talking. " . . He really does look like Marik . . ." ". . . even his name . . ." ". . . poor thing, he must be a clone . . ." "Don't say that. For all we know he's a spy for him . . . ………"

I wonder who that Marik guy is . . . could it be the purple shirted man I first saw back there . . . "Don't take it to heart Toru." Rebecca said over her shoulder as we left the room. Becc lead me down a long corridor. "It's not you . . . a lot of people around here you'll find to be very unhappy and even rude a lot of the time . . . many of the people here lost their family to the M.R.'s, either by death or by them being corrupted. They'll get used to you . . . just as you must do the same for them."

I stayed quiet for the rest of the walk through the vast amount of corridors that seemed to lead no where. We eventually stopped at yet another gigantic door with a panel at the side. Becc punched in a few "random" buttons and the door slid open. She wasted no time to lead me inside.

The room was darker than the others, so I could not make out for sure what the room looked like . . . but I knew it was big. . . "Ok Toru, this is where I leave you. Mokeii will explain everything for you. Don't be fooled by his age . . . he is a great and cunning leader, and is more experienced than all of us. Good luck Toru." With that she left me to face this "Mokeii" on my own. I took a few steps forward and almost-immediately the room lit up with a blinding light. EVIL LIGHT! Why me? . . .

AN: bet you didn't think I'd have REBECCA as a main huh? . . MWAHAHAHAHA! So what do you think so far? In the next chapter . . . Malik/Toru will gain an unexpected friend. . . Guess who?