So-Ri-Kai- 7. Your internal voice is the voice of your soulmate's, rather than your own.
Everyone has a Voice. Grandma says that once there were hundreds of worlds, thousands, as many as stars in the sky, and they were connected once. She says that the Voices are what came after it all fell apart as a way for the world to repay what got taken away. Kairi doesn't know if any of that is true (though if Grandma says it, it must be) but she likes the idea of it. A Voice that's just for her, and maybe—if she's lucky because not everyone is lucky—the Voice will show up as a real person and they'll be happy together forever… or something. It's not really clear how Happily Ever Afters work, just that they're very happy and something everyone wants to get.
Kairi thinks she must be extra lucky because she has two Voices. (Grandma doesn't believe her, but Kairi's sure that there's two of them.) They're both boys' voices and they don't sound any older than she is in her head. One Voice shows up with her quiet thoughts, the ones when she's alone or sometimes when she's sad. It's also the Voice that's in her head when she's mad and Kairi should probably not like it as much as she does when her angry thoughts play in her head with that Voice.
The other one is the complete opposite. It comes out when she's happy and feeling silly and thinking up new ideas. It's the Voice that comes when she plays make-believe and when she does something daring. And yet for all the positives it comes with, it's also the Voice that comes when she's scared.
Kairi always feels a little less scared when her thoughts come with that Voice. It makes things a bit easier since it's such a happy Voice.
When everything starts to fall apart, that Voice in her head is the only one she hears.
I want to go home. I want to go home to Grandma and eat dinner and look at the flowers we picked. I want to go home.
But the Voice can't save her and when she gets swallowed up by darkness, there's nothing but herself, the two Voices silent.
When Kairi wakes, she's half-drowning, in sand and water and feeling barely alive. I want to go home, the Voice in her head, in her heart says, but when she tries to think of home, there's nothing there.
If you're really lucky, someone told her, someday you'll meet your Voice and get a Happily Ever After.
She can't remember who said that. She can't remember anything and that's terrifying and nothing at the same time. But then there's a boy and he holds out his hand and she knows his Voice. It's her quiet Voice. Her angry Voice. And then she meets the boy who's the happy Voice, and she finds out she's a Voice to them too.
Kairi can't remember much and she still doesn't know what makes a Happily Ever After, but the two boys make her pretty happy.