Let's get the last chapter straightened out, shall we? Sora finds Nary gravely injured. Nary runs away. Sora stuck in some fucked up world place. Sora dances with lady and gets mind controlled. Sora loses virginity. Are we done yet? Good.

By the way, I don't intend on making that lady person a permanent character, and several people probably think she's a Mary Sue. I think she's one, too. I was planning on making this a plot surprise, but I'm going to tell you now: that lady isn't truly real. She doesn't really exist. I mean, she's everywhere, but... just know she isn't truly all there.

Well, I've wasted enough space. On with the chapter.

Sora

Small drops of rain water slid along skin, leaving a hissing trail in the sheen of sweat that layered the young man's face. It leaked into the crevice of his eyelids until they cracked apart slowly, sparkling azure shining out in a flickering light, shadows swimming in and out of focus as he tried to regain some sense of composure.

Something cold and thick pooled around under him, cushioning his body in it's slimy wetness and oozing through his clothes to touch bare skin. Sora shivered, hands clenching into trembling fists in the soft ground beneath him. Slowly, very slowly, he opened his eyes.

A cold drop plopped into his eyes, making him blink rapidly and move his head. Another drop landed, this time into the mud beneath him and making a wet drip as it hit. Groaning, Sora shuffled backwards until he rested Indian-style on the ground. Looking up, Sora realized that it wasn't rain leaking from the sky. It was a drizzle of water leaking through a moldy plank of wood that made up the ceiling above his head.

The area around him was dark and damp, smelling strongly of salt and copper. It stung his nose, making him wince from the smell. And there was something else in the air... something he couldn't quite place.

There was a distant rumble of thunder in the background, sounding as if it were from miles away. The ground trembled slightly with every strike he heard, a loud booming shattering through heavy skies.

Hands clenching in confusion, the brunet realized that it wasn't mud beneath his fingers. The wad of substance that he brought up from the ground was, upon closer inspection, wet sand.

"Where am I...?" Sora murmured. There was a dull throb behind his ears, and her determinedly ignored it as he struggled to find his bearings and stand up. The pounding grew worse as he finally brought himself into a standing position, but Sora just put in more effort to ignore it. The room seemed to be spinning beneath his feet, so Sora groped in the dark with an outstretched arm, trying to find the wall. When he did, he put his weight against it and, to his luck, it slid from squeaking hinged.

The outside wasn't much brighter, but there was a dull light coming from the sky that Sora took a bit of comfort in. The sun was completely covered by thick clouds of dark browns and purple, looming over him like a dark phantom. His shadow stretched far behind him, illuminating the dark, dark sand into a dark trench.

Azure eyes skimmed over the dark sand, coming to rest on the filthy looking lake on his left. The water seemed to be a disgusting looking brown, red tinting the ripples that flowed continuously form an unknown source. It stretched as far as Sora could see, and ended only at the man's feet. Red shadows trimmed the water's edge like bags under an insomniac's eyes, giving the lake an eerie appearance.

Walking forward, shoes sinking into the wet earth, he looked around. On his right lined up a trail of blackened trees, trunks and leaves unrecognizable and the young king could not think of any trees they remotely resembled. The thin trunks were bent, some snapped and lying fallen, black and twining and thick. The leaves were in a mesh above the wood, looking like sodden tea bags as they lay there still, no rustling coming from them. The whole line of dead forest seemed to be about five feet from the ground, the whole thing a smoldering blanket of a mess that spanned as far as the eye could see .

In a desperate attempt to drag his eyes away from the wreckage, Sora focused, instead, on something else. Up and down the endless abyss of brownish-red sand were black mounds of smoldering ash, black smoke billowing and curling among the cinders and whispering up into the still air. Black stanchions sprouted from each, perfectly smooth and stretching high into the heavens, puncturing though the thick fog that over-loomed the place. Withering black lace spun around the first four or five feet of each, braiding thickly into plaits that spun a feeble web around the ash.

Sora walked up to the closest one. The smell of burnt copper was stronger than ever and gave him a head ache, causing him to wobble instead of walk. Reaching a hand up, Sora stroked the thick black lace with a naked fingertip. It was incredibly smooth and felt like smooth alabaster under his touch. The smoldering ash crunched beneath his weight, gently crackling and sometimes sending up a spark or two then quickly dissipated in the air.

"Dreadful, isn't it?" a voice giggled from behind him.

Sora nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice that quickly dispersed the hollow silence he had grown accustomed to from this desolate place. He whipped around, stumbling a bit as the grainy ash caused him to loose his footing. Straightening himself out, Sora cried, "You! What do you want?"

The raven-haired woman giggled darkly, black eyes burning into his. Her pale skin was the strongest light in this dark Hell, glowing with a demonic aura that seemed to be leaking from her every pour. Her outfit seemed to be made of darkness itself, the fabric stretching from beneath her and spinning in an enticing web around her body, finally slipping over her shoulders and cupping her head in a black satin hood, tufts of black hair sticking out from underneath it.

"Killing off two birds with one stone," she sung happily, practically bouncing on her heels in anticipation in triumph. "Why?"

"Why?" Sora snapped, outraged. "Why am I here? What is this place?"

"What? Don't you know your own home?" she asked, feigning an innocence that no one could believe. But then again, she didn't intend it to fool anyone.

"This isn't my home!" Sora snapped, gesturing wildly around him with deft movements.

"Oh yes, it is," she assured him. "Doesn't it look the least bit familiar?"

"No," Sora retorted stubbornly. But on the inside, deep within the confines of his heart, beastly recognition stirred and coiled around his heart like a snake, sinking it's fangs through Sora's body, cold venom sending sparks of familiarity through his frames and washing him in a frozen bath of ice. She was right. This place... this place...

The woman raised an eyebrow, smirking a bit. "Still don't believe me? How about taking a closer look at what you're standing on."

And Sora did. Determined to prove both his heart and the woman wrong, Sora looked closely at the smoldering ash. Nothing different. Nothing except...

Knees bending, Sora crouched down. His bare knee met hot coal, but the brunet didn't care. He was busy fingering something shiny, something that had caught his eye. He gently scraped aside the ashes until the pads of his fingers met smooth metal. Slowly, his clenched it in his fist and dragged it from the ash and cinders. A metal chain trailed after it, and the points of the object in Sora's hands cut into his palm with their pointy edges. Gulping, Sora hesitantly flipped his hand over and relaxed his fingers, drawing them away.

A wave of nausea and fear barreled into his chest, all breath leaving him, eyes bugging from their socket as all time seemed to stop. His hands were trembling so badly he barely had the strength to keep them up... but he did. And he saw.

In his hands was a silver pendant, gently swerving into what appeared to be a J shape, almost like a dragon. The etchings on it were charred and melted away, but the shape was horribly recognizable.

With a cry of shock and surprise as time finally caught up with his stolen breath, Sora threw the pendant down where it landed with a small puff of black smoke as he scrambled backwards, shaking from head to toe. His leg brushed against the smooth black, solid lace again, but this time, he saw what it really was.

"Bones..." Sora whispered in a hollow voice, heart cracking. His eyes flew from the pendant to the cross of bones that were strung on the pole, ignoring the snickering woman, Sora snapped his wings up from behind him as he took to the air.

He flapped hastily to the next mound of blackened dust and dropped back down to his knees.

More bones.

And laying curled underneath the black bones, partly hidden underneath burnt rags that were undoubtedly the remains of clothes, was a thin rope. And at the end of one, from what Sora could see, was a rounded, polished wooden rod.

"NO!" Sora cried, refusing to believe in what he could see. The smell... he knew it now...

He flew to the next mound. A flattened piece of boiling metal and plastic, a flat puddle of melted substance, the remainders of a blitz ball. A thin strap, what remained of a headband, hung around the victims bony-neck.

"NO!" screamed Sora, louder this time. Tears stung behind his eyelids, and he didn't bother to stop them from trailing through the smoky dust that caked his once-tanned cheeks that were now pale and slightly green. Emotions boiled and frothed inside of him, making a roaring sound in his ears that hissed and grew louder with every beat of his breaking heart.

"No..." His breath hitched and pooled into a broken sob that flowed from his throat in a hollow echo, voice dragged down with so much desperation that it could make the devil cry.

But the woman was far worse than the devil... she was what the devil was made of.

"Such a sad face," she whispered, voice portraying her joy of seeing the king weeping at the ground before his dead friend. "But you didn't look sad at all before..."

"What?" Sora ground out in a sputtering hiss, voice mulled through clenched teeth. His head was turned downwards, eyes shut tightly and hands gripping at the wet sand before him.

"You don't remember?" she gasped, holding her hand daintily before her mouth, covering the fact that she was giggling silently behind her palm. "You don't remember..."

"Remember what?" Sora rasped, still not meeting her gaze. It wasn't like he could... no. Grief was hanging over his shoulders, keeping his head pressed down under it's enormous weight.

"That you killed them."

The weight, for the briefest of moments, lifted itself off of the lithe frame trembling on the ground. Sora felt his whole body so numb with shock. It was boiling... that recognition, that terrible belief that the woman's words were right. It strung him down, curling around his neck and forcing his head upwards to lock gazes with her.

She was smiling coldly at him, eyes devoid of any comforting emotion. She stared blankly at him... and it was like Sora was looking through foggy glass. He wanted to reach up and wipe away the fog, to finally see behind the glass. To finally wee what was happening... through her, through everything, he cold see... but he was trapped down on the floor, unable to move, to be able to finally see. Frustrating roared and made his blood boil, his heart pounding so badly it hurt. His own ragged breathing was so loud he felt he would surely go deaf from it.

"You killed them, Sora," she whispered snidely. "You tied up every one of them and set them aflame..."

"No..." Sora whispered in a pleading tone. "No..."

"And you enjoyed it," she finished with a hiss. "You laughed as they died, you watched as they screamed... Tell me, was it truly music to your ears?"

"NO!" Sora screamed. He lunged upward, arms stretched out before him as tears continued to stream freely down his face in a frantic rush. Forgetting the Keyblade, forgetting his wings, forgetting everything except for his urge to strangle the despicable creature before him until her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

Her hand flew up to meet him, catching him by the throat with a long arm. Her fingers clenched around his scrawny neck, making him choke and gasp for air as his hands grappled at her wrists, desperate to give his lungs the air they so desperately called for.

"Do you know why the sand is wet, Sora?" she hissed. All trace of mirth was erased from her features, face now contorted into one of calm superiority and eagerness to end her task now. "It isn't from the water, Sora... you're standing in their blood. That liquid sinking into your shoes? Sliding along your skin? Flooding the water? That's their blood, Sora. Blood from your friends, your family... every one of them, the ones that you killed."

"You're lying," Sora gasped, voice a hushed whisper from lack of oxygen. "I would never... ever..."

"Oh, but you would," she assured him. "And do you know why, Sora?"

Sora continued to struggle, only half-listening to his words and he kicked at air and tugged at a steel-vise grip.

"It's because you don't know yourself as well as you think you do," she continued, answering the question for him. "It's because that as hard as you try to convince yourself that nothing is wrong, as hard as you try to believe that the power that sleeps inside of you is enough to overcome Fate, you just can't. Because now you're finally beginning to realize you have no control over what happens to you... you can't control Fate..."

Sora's feet had left the floor by now. He felt something hot traveling up his pant leg, searing his skin and making his flesh crawl.

"You can't... but I can..."

Sora noticed, with a growing sense of apprehension, that her voice had changed from it's feminine. She now sounded like a chorus of no more then four people, all talking in an eerie symphony, their combined tones scratching and clawing at his eardrums, drilling a hole into his eardrums. The voice came from everywhere... three deadened trees, the blood ocean, under the sand, echoing from the bones, crumbling through the ash, crawling out from under his skin...

Pain

Sora had never felt so much of it in his life. He wasn't aware that the woman had dropped him to the ground, or that his knees were sinking into the blood of a thousand victims, deaths by his own hand. All he was aware of was the liquid fire that had raced up his leg and how it touched every tip of every feather on his white wings as they spread out behind him, every tip spinning and dancing with a burning fiery light. And then, in lethal sync, each feather on his wings was alight with Hell's breath.

His screams fell upon deaf ears as fire singed every pour and inch of wing, fire creating it's own screams as it whistled in the air, cackling and making sweat pour from the trembling boy's body. Sora continued to scream, desperately flapping his wings. He was unaware that his body had left the ground, or that he was sailing in an unplanned track as he was sent spiraling into the airless sky. Falling with no one to catch him...

His lower body was engulfed in freezing water, the scent of copper so strong it made a bit of bile rise up in his throat. But he had no time to recognize this, as his mouth was open in shapeless hole, his screaming loud and powerful enough to make angels themselves fall from the skies. Wings flapped desperately, futile attempts to rid them of flames. The waist-deep water rippled and churned beneath him, sending up short streams of bloody water.

And finally, as Sora's throat began to tear, four columns of water shot themselves up from below, streaming around the king in a utopia of heavenly mercy, soothing the fragile skin of his useless, charred wings that flew up in the water's current. But the screaming never ceased. It grew louder, louder, until Sora's voice finally gave away. He had nothing left... no voice to scream, no tears to cry...

He felt something sucking at the soles of his feet, and the water blew up faster and faster in its torrential uproar as it spun around and around in a deadly waltz, ripping at his skin and the scorched flesh that was now his wings. He felt their joints straining in the sockets on his shoulder blades, tearing at him with an unbearable agony, clutching and yanking. Sora twisted and squirmed desperate to get away; his voice failed him, ripped from his lungs and twirling in the air with the raging water, his screams a lost sound as it twirled above his head in a soulful moaning.

He twisted his torso, face contorted in pain. The cries in the vortex grew louder as something finally snapped. In a splash of red that splattered the burgundy water, as well as Sora's back and neck, his left wing was torn from its socket and sent tumbling in the escapade of liquid prison behind it. Sora felt as if all blood rushed to that one would and gushed out, streaming and thick in its own ocean of crimson as it leaked into the salty blood beneath them. Every nerve in his body was ripped asunder, pain barreling through him over and over again.

The water twirled faster... faster... nothing but a blur of red screams, black blood... his bright blue eyes dulled in anguish, eyelids drooping over them in a daze. His figure stooped until he rested on his knees, bare skin meeting soggy sediment. The water came down on him in a storm and blur of thunder, striking deep chords within his body and playing him to unconsciousness in its haunted lullaby. Sinking slowly, slowly, to the door. Water enveloped the whole of him, wrapping the man securely in its possessive embrace, and taking him back... back home... his new home...

Come and sing me to sleep

Disney Castle

"So you have a plan, don't you?"

"Sora can't be dead, and you know it!"

"We have to find him!"

"C'mon, let's take the Spectra and just go---!"

"ENOUGH!" King Mickey finally yelled, eyes squinted shut and hands desperately clinging to his ears to stop the flow of babble from drilling a permanent hole in his ear drums, the constant talking and hysterical voices coming from the two young adults who had immediately ran up to him the moment they had left the spare Spectra.

"We're gonna find Sora," King Mickey began when Kairi and Riku fell silent, "but we can't do it when we don't have the first clue where he is!"

"So what?" Riku demanded, gloved fists clenching tightly in his hair out of frustration. He'd been doing this ever since the Spectra Ship had landed on Destiny Islands some few hours ago. It brought the tiniest flicker of hope... the slimmest chance... when Donald and Goofy walked out, unusually somber-faced, and requested that Kairi and Riku come with them.

But now, when Riku's patience was at it's breaking point...

"Just tell me why the fuck you haven't found him yet!" Riku snapped, icy green eyes flashing in the annoyingly-bright sun. "Can't those idiots in your castle find him?"

"No, they can't!" King Mickey retorted angrily, staring up at the silver-haired man challengingly. "They're saying that Sora is gone! In fact, I think that we're the only few people who believe Sora may still be alive!"

"Of course he's alive!" Riku cried. "Sora wouldn't just die like that!"

"But all the signs point to the fact that he is!" King Mickey pointed out. "Didn't Fire and Crystal tell you who they found in the realm?" Riku and Kairi didn't answer. "Well...?"

"They... they told us..." Kairi said softly, auburn hair hanging over her face and shielding it from view. Her voice was kept to a fragile whisper, as if she were afraid the ground would shatter beneath her feet if she spoke too loud. "Nary... Nary..."

"Yes," King Mickey confirmed solemnly. "And if she's dead, and she was with Sora..."

"Then it would only make sense that Sora is dead too," Riku finished for him, rolling his eyes. "Yes, yes, I know! But don't you get it... Nary is four-years-old! And Sora's do anything to protect her... so something must have gotten her, something Sora couldn't beat! And if Sora hasn't gotten to the Realm..."

"Then they have him." Mickey nodded. Sighing, he scratched the back of his head. "Kairi... Riku... there's only two places that Sora could be right now if he hasn't died in the Realm. He could either be stranded on some world, but, in that case, we would have found him... or..."

When Mickey paused, Riku pushed him on. "Or...?"

"Or that black hole we saw him disappear into... really wasn't a black hole."

"Well, what else could it be?" Riku asked, blinking. "We heard that it was an empty space in the stars, led to an unknown place..."

"There are much worse things that that black space could have led to," the mouse said grimly. "I think... it's time I told you. It's time for you to know exactly what you'll be up against, on the chance that Sora is alive."

"And what would that be?" Riku asked, snorting.

Mickey raised an eyebrow. "Everything," he said in a baritone voice. "You're going up against fate itself."

End

That's the end for now. Sorry it's been two months... I guess I sorta lost interest, huh? I'll try to update sooner.

Please review me. And don't bug me to update other stories. That's all! Thank you and have a Merry Christmas.