Chapter 1:The Beginning

"Pssst! Sora, wake up!"

The high-pitched rasping voice slashed through his dreams, as he fluttered his eyes open to see a couple of familiar faces looking down on him. The owner of the voice, Donald Duck, stood above him, arms folded on top of each other as he cracked a satisfying smile. Next to Donald was a kneeling Goofy, who held his trademark hat on his chest, looking very worried – it was almost as if someone died. Spiky-, fair-haired Cloud Strife and scar-faced Squall Leonhart stood opposite of the Disney Knights, expressing no emotion whatsoever. Sora exchanged looks with everyone. He was confused. What was he doing lying in the ground? Where did the beach go? Where did Kairi go? He tried to get up to get a better look of his surroundings, but he couldn't fully stand. Donald and Goofy immediately held him by the shoulders before completely losing his balance.

"Whoa! Easy there, Sora. You haven't moved in a year you know," Goofy said, sounding worried.

"Where…where am I?" Sora uttered, still confused.

"Don't you remember, buddy?" said Goofy, more concerned than before.

"Sounds like the stupid memory machine didn't work! That dog-gone-" Donald trailed off with a series of muttering.

"Memory machine?" Sora asked. Moments later, it all came back to him. His face glowed with an expression of realization, almost as if a light bulb could appear on the top of his head any moment. "We're in Castle Oblivion!"

"I never doubted you for a second Sora, hi-yuck!" exclaimed Goofy as he finally looked happy.

"Don't forget that I was the one who woke him up after all of you failed to do so," Donald beamed, puffing his chest up a bit.

"Well who could NOT wake up after hearing your scrunching voice? It's worse than an alarm clock for crying out loud!" Goofy laughed.

"Hey, that's not very nice! Take that back you klutz!" Donald retaliated, his voice louder than ever now. As his friends continued bickering, Sora couldn't help but laugh. He tightened the grip of both his arms around their necks, his own way of hugging without them noticing. Indeed, he missed them so much.

"I hate to break up this celebration fest," Squall finally said, silencing everyone. All eyes were on him now as he continued talking, "but we have a very important matter to attend to. Let's make haste."

"But-"

"We'll explain on the way kid," Cloud interrupted the ever-curious Sora, turning his back on the group causing his blood-red cape to flutter in motion. Sora's jaw dropped; he always thought that Cloud was cool, and he secretly wished that he had a cape like that. Cloud glimpsed back at the group before he started walking towards the exit, "we have a long hike ahead of us."

And so, the party-of-five got out of the castle and started their mysterious journey, walking side-by-side towards the setting sun. It took some time for Sora to convince Donald and Goofy that he could walk own his own now. They stopped helping him, yet continued arguing. Sora was too occupied to listen though; he was awe-struck from the sunset's beautiful view. The gray, orange, and violet sky – it reminded him of his strange dreams…he took out an azure-blue keychain from the pocket of his sleeveless jacket and gripped it tightly, and then tucked it away safely before any of his friends would notice. He was very concerned about Riku and Kairi after that recent nightmare. He needed to brush off his thoughts and focus on their current situation. Speaking of which…

"So," the brown-haired lad glanced at Cloud and Squall, "how'd you guys know we were here?"

"We received a message from the king," Cloud replied, and at the moment Goofy and Donald stopped arguing with each other and listened in carefully. "He also told us that Riku was trapped in the Castle too. But we've searched all the floors; it seems that the place's deserted now."

That means that Namine's gone too, Sora thought. The girl who returned back their memories didn't wait for them. A year was too long of a wait though. She probably needed to hide.

"The Riku in Castle Oblivion was a clone," Donald addressed the two swordsmen, "we're not sure, but this organization has been conducting some sort of strange experiments. They could be in-cahoots with the Darkness."

"According to the King's message, the Riku in the castle was the real deal. The King was communicating with him constantly in order to guide him out," Squall said, brushing back his long jet-black hair using his fingers. The mid-afternoon breeze constantly pushed the ends of his hair forward, blocking his eyesight.

"You mean that the real Riku was there too!" Goofy yelled, surprised.

"Yeah," Squall replied, tying his hair up so it won't go loose again. "How else were the cloaked-people able to make a clone without the real one?"

Sora said nothing on the subject. He had always felt that the real Riku was in the castle with him. He wondered though; why did Mickey communicate with only Riku? How about him?

"Just so you know," Cloud announced suddenly, "we've been informed about your situation in Castle Oblivion, so you won't need to boringly recite your adventure to us." Cloud smiled.

Sora let out a sigh of relief; he didn't want to talk about it anyway. Yet more questions came to mind. How did Mickey know about all this?

"It's getting dark," Goofy said, breaking off Sora's train of thought.

"Yeah," said Squall, who suddenly stopped walking. The others realized so and did the same. "We'll camp here," he continued, unwinding two straps from his shoulders and pulling out a backpack. Sora didn't notice it until now; Squall's hair completely hid it from view…or maybe Sora was making up an excuse for himself to cover up his constant thinking and daydreaming.

By nightfall the gang finished setting up camp, which consisted of two tents and a bonfire. Squall handed Sora new clothes matching his recent size, since he had been trapped for a year inside that 'memory machine'. It had just occurred to him that his current garbs actually did feel too tight. My worries are getting in the way of everything – I'm like a grownup for God's sakes, the teenager thought jokingly.

Sora's 'new' clothes were certainly not new in one sense; the style was ironically identical to what he had on now, but the colors were different – yellow baggy Bermudas, a black t-shirt, and a red vest filled with zippers. He went inside the tent to change. Once he was done he came out and noticed that everyone was gathered around the bonfire. Goofy and Donald signaled him with a thumbs-up. He waved and smiled back in reply.

The choices for dinner were either beans or marshmallows. Sora, Donald, and Goofy immediately went with the latter, while Cloud and Squall picked the former. The trio enjoyed holding their marshmallows-on-sticks in front of the fire, but the swordsmen duo looked as lifeless as ever eating off their bowls of beans. Sora tried to open up the subject of where they were heading, but Cloud stated that he would brief them tomorrow. Squall looked really depressed as his azure-blue eyes gazed up above the star-filled sky, his mind elsewhere. Sora recognized that look; he always used to gaze at the stars with Kairi and Riku back in Destiny's Island. Oh how he wished that those days would return soon. For a moment the baby-faced hero thought of cheering him up, but he instantly decided against it. Donald and Goofy, however, had other plans. They immediately went by Squall's side and tried to cheer him up. Even Goofy pulled up Squall's cheeks to force a smile off of his face, but to no avail. Soon enough, they stopped annoying the black-clothed swordsman and went back beside Sora to continue their meals.

In a short while everyone was done eating. Getting ready for bed, they helped each other putting away their bowls and leftovers…except for Goofy, whose duty was putting out the fire. And what a big mistake that was. The lanky Disney Knight tried to put out the fire by stepping on it, but his brown shoe caught on fire. Then, he tried putting out the fire on his shoe using his free foot; but lo and behold his other shoe caught fire. He was running around in circles yelling, but it didn't help his heated situation. It got worse when his trousers were on fire, yet his instincts finally kicked in; he stopped, dropped and rolled until it was finally out. Unfortunately for Goofy, everyone was watching the incident – silence was instantly followed by laughter, and even Squall forced out a chuckle. With an event like that in mind, Sora was sure that everyone will have a good night's sleep dreaming about it.