"Aqua...put an end to me." Immediately, I saw Ventus and Terra in front of me, and I reached out for them. Before I could, they both had their eyes changed to yellow and start to attack me.

"No, give my friends their hearts back!" I shouted. Then, while preparing to attack, dark arms suddenly held onto my legs and pulled me down. I reached out my hand, hoping that I could feel either of them again. At last, neither Ventus or Terra touched it.

"Why...couldn't you save me?" Tanith appeared, bloodied. One of her eyes were even missing and her broken. "You damn bitch, I told you everything, trusted you, and you couldn't even help me!"

"What are you talking about?" Her bones in the neck made cracking sounds, and then her head touched her shoulder, resting on it.

"You don't remember? Are you seriously that inconsiderate?" questioned Tanith. Then, for a second, her injured eye came back. It was yellow. Her head fell off her shoulder and moved around near her back.

"Oh God...no."

I woke up panting. A part of me seriously expected me to wake up in my room back in the Land of Departure which was immature of me. Tanith was watching me, and that actually made me go to sleep. I have not slept for, what I can only guess, years before that. "Are you okay?" The girl sounded so sincere yet worried.

"Only a nightmare," I replied. "I almost forget how having a nightmare felt like." The images still haunted me. I told myself that they were fake, so I tried to stop dwelling on it.

"It's not the nicest feeling in the world. Well, just look at the bright side, you didn't experience a night terror or sleep paralysis. Plus, no heartless actually attacked us, so they might be busy doing something else."

"Busy doing something else? I think I would be more anxious about the other thing if I was you."

"Yeah, but we seriously have to get moving now. Who knows, we might even find more snow ahead." Like always, the girl grabbed my hand tightly. She helped me up, and then we resumed our journey.

"So, you seriously didn't sleep for years on end? Aqua, that's bad for you. Come on, you're still technically a teenager."

"I'm pretty sure I'm in my twenties now. Or, heck, even my thirties. So much of my life has been wasting exploring this wasteland, yet I can still find the hope to continue," I said. "I was only nineteen when I landed in here."

"That means I'm older than you by at least two years then. Or I'm doing the math completely wrong. Well, you came down here with that body, so you still have a body of a teenager." I was so used to being the oldest one, so this was so alien to me. Terra was seventeen while Ventus was only fifthteen.

"Yeah…"

"That means you never even had alcohol before, or your world's rules are different." She smiled. "I can't deny that I used to be an alcoholic."

"Alcohol?" I heard the word before, but I had no idea what it meant. Whenever I asked Master Eraqus, he would just respond by saying that it's something you should not drink.

"Wait, you don't even know what it is? Are you like a goody two shoes or something?"

"No...maybe," I responded to Tanith.

"At least you didn't try to steal some of it like Lea did all the time. Of course, I never let him have any of it, so he just stole some from my kitchen while I was sleeping. I grounded him big time. He had a huge hangover in the morning, and I can tell you from experience that having a hangover is hell." Tanith started to laugh again. It was high-pitched, yet it was not to the point of annoyance.

"None of the three of us did anything like that. Okay, once Ventus tried to steal strawberries and a piece of cake, but I stopped him."

"See, you are a goody two shoes." She punched my arm slightly. "Hey, there's nothing wrong with that. You see, that just shows that your light shines bright sometimes."

"I guess you're right about that." I then put my hand on her head, for I was taller than her. My hand played around with her red hair. It reminded me of Ventus and how I did it all the time with him. He might have not liked it, but I continued anyways.

"Wait, what's that over there?" Tanith asked. I could not see anything, but Tanith's expression looked genuine enough to tell me that she was not lying. "It's a person in a black coat."

"Really? Maybe it was that guy I talked to earlier."

"The guy that told you about Sora?"

"Yeah, that one." I began to run, so Tanith did as well. She was faster than me though. That girl was as quick as Ventus was.

"Silly, you don't even know where he is." When Tanith approached a thing that looked like a tree, she climbed onto one of branches. I shortly followed her movements. The image of Tanith having only one eye popped back into my mind, but I forcefully pushed it out. It had to be a fake. My subconscious mind must have been messing with me, playing around with my fears.

"What is this thing anyways?"

"It must be a darkened version of a tree or something," the redhead answered. "I'm not a darkness expert though." We approached the top, and Tanith turned right. She stopped when heartless covered her way and ran towards me.

"They just don't know when to stop," I sighed, summoning Master Keeper. At a safe distance, I shot deep freeze at them, freezing them. The move only killed a couple of shadows, but about three darkballs were left after the attack. I charged at one of them, hitting it a couple times. One of the others tried to attack me from behind, but I casted reflect to protect myself. Using my double jump, I end up higher than all of them and afflicted them with stopga.

"That's cool."

"Power of magic. Never underestimate a mage who knows what they are doing." I backed up to where Tanith was at. With her in my range, I protected the girl with reflect. Then I used Mega Flare on my enemies, burning the darkness to a pulp.

"I expect that fighting years on end in this place will make you powerful."

"Yes, it certainly does." The reflect was off, and both of us continued to walk across one of the tree's branches. Surprisingly, the figure in the black coat sat down on this tree branch, probably resting.

"Hello, sir," greeted Tanith who was once again eager.

"It's you." The voice was different from the man I meet before. I figured that this was another person, but I had no idea why they were wearing the same thing. He was clearly saying those words to Tanith though.

"What's your name?" I asked. "Mine's Aqua." Whoever this was, I really wanted to know. I only saw somebody wear this twice. Once from the man that told me about Sora while the other was that mysterious figure who attacked me.

"Saix."

"Saix...I never heard of that name before," commented my companion. Quickly, Saix made a portal and jumped into it. We tried to catch him, but neither of us made it in time.

"Was that a way out of here?" I wondered. Tanith nodded.

"When I got that information, I also learned about these portals, the corridors of darkness I think they're called. They would probably corrupt us though." Both of us sighed, defeated. At that point, we did not care about the hazards of ways to get out of there.

"Maybe we can find another one somewhere, somehow." That renewed my hope again, but it also crushed it at the same time. "Maybe being corrupted is just a myth."

"Don't worry-" All the sudden, I felt faint. Before I fell, Tanith caught my head. "Aqua, are you alright? Aqua!"

The next thing I knew was that I was in another dream. I was sitting on a high up throne in a room completely void of color except for white. Men in black coats surrounded me, but one had his face revealed. It was Xehanort.

Suddenly, I woke up again, confused. "What in the worlds was that?"

"Aqua, thank God you're okay!" Tanith hugged me, and it made me feel a little awkward. She was squeezing the life out of me again.

"That was surely weird." I got up again with no problem. When I did, I realized the tree we were on was in the distance. "Wait, did you carry me here?"

"I might not have the abilities you have, but that doesn't mean I'm completely helpless." Tanith smiled once again. "Never underestimate a normal person."