Hour XIII

…

"Namine?" I said when I saw her. She was sitting there in the white hallway between the two floors, still drawing, with her head bent over the notepad, as if she was going to melt into the paper.

She looked up and smiled. That is, she smiled in that kind of drawn way that is Namine, and stood. "How was Larxene?"

I leaned against the wall and sank to the floor.

"I thought so," she said, laughing at that. "My drawings told me. They also told me you might be in danger, and the rest of the Organization said it would be okay if I waited for you in between the rooms. That way I can heal you if they damage you, and you don't have to go on if you're still bleeding."

"I definitely thought I was going to be bleeding a minute ago," I reflected. "But I don't understand…how could your…"

She held up the notepad, and showed me what looked like me in a corner, bleeding hands shoved in my pockets and tearful face turned away. "They show me what's going to happen sometimes," she said in explanation, and I balked. "And sometimes it's just something that could happen. I never really know—but I thought I should be here, in case you needed me."

"Y-yeah," I murmured. I was still shaken from Larxene's…well, everything about Larxene, pretty much. After all, even Fuu'd have a hard time matching up to her—although Larxene couldn't beat Fuu's way with words. I pulled out the watch again, where the next few seconds were ticking away. "I'd better keep going. But thanks for sticking by me," I added.

She nodded and stepped aside, revealing the next set of double doors behind her. I drew in my breath and approached them, wondering who I'd run into next, and would they please be nicer than Larxene.

The doors dragged a little on the floor and were difficult to open, and after I got inside, I realized why. There was a small mound of dirt in front of the door, and beyond that, the room was filled with flowers. I blinked. Flowers? Inside? Growing out of the freaking floor?

But since the room was generously lighted, unlike the creepy darkness of Larxene's room, I decided to let that go, and managed to shut the door behind me. "Uh, hello?" I called into the emptiness, looking around for anyone in the somewhat blinding white of the room. "Is anybody here?"

No response. I hated to do it, but I wasn't going to stand around on that little section of dirt all day, and there were flowers everywhere. So I stepped off it, surprised that there was actually about two feet of depth to the field of flowers, and started picking my way through. But there didn't seem to be anyone or anything around, and if there was a door on the other side, I couldn't see it. Still, I started for the opposite wall, intent on finding one.

After a while, though, I started to notice a…weird…a weird kinda smell in the air. Kinda sweet…almost like a bunch of…perfumes that had run together…or…or something. And…and why…I was getting so…foggy… "Uhn…" I murmured, putting a hand to my head and wavering on my feet. I plucked one of the little red flowers with fingers that felt almost numb and frowned at it, turning it over. "Po…poppies…?" was all I could manage before I fell against something delicate and silken, and almost wet. I tried to remember what it was—it seemed important for some reason—but the scent filled my nose and head, and I knew nothing.

…

"Ow…why…" was what I wondered when I sat up in a strange room, filled with what looked like computers of some sort. My head was killing me. "Why do I hurt…?"

"The poppies probably did that to you," someone said from behind me. I spun too quickly, making my head throb even harder, and for a second I saw a man in red, with his face wrapped up—kind of like a mummy's or something. But then he changed, and it was a member of the Organization, his hood still pulled over his face.

"You…you're the next guy, right?" I asked, getting to my feet laboriously. "What do I have to do?"

"You're certainly much more willing to cooperate than Sora," he remarked. "Anyway, I'm Marluxia—you won't remember, but I'm second in command. More or less," he added, frowning. "Xemnas does have his favorites…so I was controlling this place, up until we had the big upset at the Castle That Never Was, where you were stationed with Xemnas and some of the others, and everyone had to move in over here." He looked less than pleased at that, and then shot me a pitying look. "But I suppose none of this is ringing a bell?"

"No. So—" I stopped in the middle of apologizing and glared at him instead.

"Plenty of Sora's spunk, though," he murmured, smirking. "This way."

He lead me up some stairs, and I suddenly realized we were in Twilight Town. "This is the haunted mansion, isn't it?" I asked, looking around in case there were any ghosts lurking about. After all, I could've sworn I saw someone at the window once. Come to think of it, she sort of looked like Namine.

"Yes," he said. "I'll be expecting you at the clocktower." Then he vanished.

I took advantage of the situation, since I was in the forest, and ran to the usual spot, where I knew Hayner, Pence, and Olette would be surprised to see me. Of course, I couldn't stay long—I didn't even know why I was risking it, what with how I could die at any moment, or why Marluxia had taken me out of the castle in the first place—but I didn't think about it just then. "Hey, guys!" I greeted them, coming to a stop just in front of them and breathing hard.

Pence and Olette were on the couch, as usual, and Hayner was reclining on a box, looking slightly uncomfortable. They didn't even look up. "Guys!" I repeated, wondering if they had collectively developed selective hearing or something and why they wouldn't select to hear me. "Hey! It's me! Roxas!" I ran in front of Pence and waved my arms wildly.

It took a few moments, but his eyes slowly came into focus. "Uh, what're you doing?" he asked.

"What're you doing? I've been gone for a couple days!"

Pence blinked, but he shook his head. "Sorry, you must have the wrong guy."

"What?" I could've strangled him. "Pence! No! It's me!"

But Pence had gone back to talking to Olette, like I wasn't even there.

…Was I there? I looked for my hands and found them, felt my hair and vest and legs…yeah, I was there all right. So why was…wait, I thought, staring at the broken mirror above Hayner's head. It was new, for one thing—I couldn't remember seeing it in the usual spot before—but where was my reflection?

My heart was already about as broken as a heart can get, being in two halves, but I felt like it broke a little more when I ran out of the usual spot and headed for the clocktower. I wanted some answers, and I wanted them now. "Marluxia!" I shouted when I got there, having taken a weird shortcut I'd never tried before. "What's happening to me? Why doesn't anybody see me? Why don't they remember?"

He shook his head from where he was standing atop the tower. "A Nobody doesn't exist, Roxas," he said, shrugging. "You can't really expect them to miss you, can you? You were never really there."

"Yes I was!" I insisted. "I had to be! Namine said—"

"She lied to you. She changed your memories. She's done it before, hasn't she?"

I stopped short. I didn't want to believe it, but it was possible—it was completely possible. "There…there has to be some way I can…!"

Marluxia pulled back his hood for the first time, revealing kind of strawberry blond hair, and narrowed his eyes. "You want a heart, Roxas? Take one." He threw one at me, a crystallized one, from what looked like a pile on the tower. "Of course, it might be a bomb, or it might be nothing at all."

At the word bomb, I had dropped the heart, and it obligingly exploded at my feet. I jumped back in alarm, my hands in front of my face. "Wh-what're you trying to do?"

"Whose heart is it you're looking for, Roxas?"

"S…Sora's," I remembered. "Will that…will that make it all come back?"

"It might. But not if you're late, now will it?"

I reached for the watch automatically, but it wasn't in my pocket. I panicked, feeling for it in the other pocket and the ones on my vest, but it wasn't anywhere. "The watch! Where—what'd you do with it?" I half-screamed in terror.

"That brings us to my challenge," he said simply, tossing another heart up into the air and catching it intermittently. "The watch is in one of these hearts. But half of them are empty, and the other half are bombs. So. Be my guest," he said, gesturing to them.

I blinked. "But how am I supposed to—get…up…" I blinked again, because some way or another, I was standing on top of the tower. Marluxia was gone, probably to preen or something, so I picked up another heart and turned it over gingerly in my hands. It looked like it had hinges on the side, so I opened it, only to find nothing inside. "Stupid," I muttered, chucking it over the side, and picked up another one. It rattled a bit when I moved it, and I hesitated, bringing it to my ear. I could hear ticking. "That was easy!" I exclaimed, thoughtlessly looking for the hinges and—

BOOM

"Guah!" I hit the ground, groaning and bleeding a bit. I was hurt, but not bad—the explosion was pretty minor. But now it posed a problem. How was I supposed to tell the watch from a bomb? Well, I guess, I thought, frowning, I'll just have to blow myself up until I find the watch. That seemed like a painful game plan, but at the moment I didn't have any other choice. I didn't know if the watch had a different kind of ticking, since I hadn't listened too closely, and I couldn't afford to potentially blow it up if I threw all the hearts onto the ground or something.

So I picked up the next heart. No rattling or ticking. I figured it was empty, but I checked anyway, and it turned out to be. The next three were empty, so I chucked each over the side of the tower, and then was treated to two bombs, which scratched me up somewhat.

But after those two, I wised up a bit. If it ticked, I threw it just hard enough against the ground to get it to explode. If it didn't explode, I checked it. It might still explode after that, but at least I probably wouldn't damage the watch.

I must've been at it for hours, and at first I didn't worry about it, but as the sun sank towards the horizon and it grew dark, I did. I was wasting time! Sora and I were both inching closer to death with every passing second, but all I could do was throw the empty ones over the side and use the bombs to put scorch marks all over the floor. And the pile…

The pile wasn't getting any smaller! In fact, it seemed like it was actually bigger than when I had started! I glared at it, wondering if maybe Marluxia had been sneaking more hearts into the pile, or if it could possibly be my imagination. I felt like that just couldn't be the case, but…I really didn't want to believe I had even further to go than when I started.

"This is so stupid!" I shouted, kicking the pile suddenly. A few of the hearts detonated, and one of them fell down near my foot and started ticking ominously. I scowled at it. "Fine! Blow me up! I don't care!" I continued, stomping on it and feeling close to tears. I was probably going to die soon enough, anyway—I had, what, two hours left? Not even? I couldn't complete the next ten challenges in that much time!

But the thing wouldn't blow up. Just like me to run into a dud at a time like this. Or…could it be…no. I frowned. "That's impossible. No way could that just happen to be the one that…" But, even so…I picked it up, turning it over and finding hinges on the side. It clicked when I opened it, and I almost cried with relief when I saw the watch inside.

The hands stopped on XII and XIII, and the ticking silenced.

I stared at it, my hands beginning to tremble. "No, no, that…that can't be…" They were going to kill him! I'd be dead too in just a second! "This can't be happening!" I sat down against the small wall that rose up around the walkway, fighting back tears. Taking the watch out, I looked at it, ran my fingers over the chain…

And it changed. It changed, right in front of my eyes…to a slightly different color. At first I didn't think anything of it, of course, but then I did. Because things don't do that…they don't, normally…but why is it so hard to think like that? Things had been doing that for a while, hadn't they? Like when I took that weird shortcut…it wasn't even in Twilight Town…or how Marluxia had vanished, could the Organization do that? I didn't know too much about them, but for some reason I felt like they had to have something else happen, something with some kind of darkness. There were other things…like the guy in red, the pile of hearts… "This is…not right," I realized, standing up as Marluxia appeared in front of me. Already everything was flickering, everything was starting to fade. I looked into his eyes, and suddenly it was clear. "This is a dream."

"Exactly." He put his hands on my shoulders. "It's a dream, Roxas, that you'd better hope you wake from."

My eyes widened and I struggled to get away, but it was already too late—he was pushing me over the edge. Maybe I screamed, or maybe my mouth was just open, it was impossible to tell in the dream, but I toppled and fell towards the ground.

…

I sat straight up, hyperventilating and in a cold sweat. "The—the dream! The hearts! Boom!" I shouted, looking around in a sudden, irrational panic.

"Roxas," came a voice at my side, and I recognized it as Namine's. "Roxas, calm down. It's all right."

"Oh, geez…" I groaned, falling back against what I assumed to be a pillow. It turned out to be the cold, hard floor. "Ow! Wha—what happened? Before I woke up, I mean…"

"You made it through," Namine said simply. "You realized it was dream, and Marluxia didn't have to kill you. Also, you didn't suffer a heart attack during the falling dream," she added with a nod.

"He could've killed me," I realized, frowning. "Lousy bastard…"

"You'll realize that a lot of them are wanting to do that about now. After all, Sora's been a nuisance for them for some time, so they don't really want him around anymore." Namine stood and went back to her chair in the corner of the room, so I clambered awkwardly to my feet, still feeling funny in the head from the poppies. "Anyway, you've got some time before the next one if you want to relax a bit."

"Time!" I said suddenly, smacking my forehead. I pulled the watch out of my pocket, relieved in the first place to find it there, but it had only been about an hour since I had first entered Marluxia's room. Namine was right—I could spare a few moments, and I certainly needed them.

…

A/N: I know, it's very, very late, and I'm sorry. I've just been through a lot these past few weeks, and haven't really had time to update. Hopefully, the next chapter will be up next weekend—hopefully. Oh—and yeah, poppies are real, but I don't know if they can actually knock you out (doubt it), and I didn't bother to check because this is Kingdom frickin' Hearts. Just in case there's a botanist out there or something…

Thanks for the reviews!