Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Alexandra Salazar's pencil hovered over her work with a sort of stubborn defiance. She could not do it. No more tonight. Too much homework. Too late at night.
It was far more than what she had to do a scarce year ago. A year ago everything was different. She had help with her homework. There weren't any accelerated courses to struggle through. There wasn't the cooped-up house that her parents confined her to.
A year ago, her family was on financial aid. They could barely afford their apartment rent and schooling for their child. A year ago she had an algebra tutor (by the name of Anna) and she had friends to help her with hard problems. Her family was poor, but happy and fulfilled. Her parents were artists; enlightened but not very financially supportive.
Then, all at once, everything changed.
Her parents won the lottery. In a heartbeat, they were billionaires. You would think it would bring happiness. But all it brought for Alex was corruption.
She was moved away from Windy City and transferred to a mansion in Sandstone Heights: the mountains to the west. With the money came social standing and suddenly her parents were somebody, popular and admired celebrities. They brought in the finest teachers for Alex, so she could, one say, be somebody too.
That wasn't how Alex saw it, though. Alex saw the family she loved warp and change into something foul and repulsive. It was slowly shredding her sanity and breaking her heart, bit by bit. The newfound riches cost her her friends, her freedom, and her life. Her parents weren't somebody; they had stopped listening to what made them human. They were just idle puppets with a fortune.
She missed her old home. The ever-growing mounds of calculus made her miss her old friends. Alexandra missed her life.
Glancing slowly at her ticking clock (12:30), she put her homework away and slipped on her sneakers. The green marble floor was too cold without them, and she was just too lazy to dig her slippers out of her closet. She descended the many stairs down into her own front hall.
While pouring a glass of water to drink in the kitchen, the breeze filtered through the window screen over the sink and touched her face. It had been feeling very harsh and cold lately, and she wondered if the people in the city far below were too remarking on the otherworldly chill. Alex didn't know, actually; cooped up in the house no one gave her any source of news. Even the weather channel was blocked.
It reeked of conspiracy, Alex thought. Her parents were purposely keeping her in the dark. But that was fine. She would figure it out eventually. Besides, in some ways she liked the dark.
She approached the stairs again to climb back to her room, hoping that no one saw her slacking off. Unfortunately, hopes rarely come true on wish alone.
"Alexandra Brody Salazar," her mother said suddenly out from around the corner, "what are you doing up this late?"
The girl froze as she left foot creaked the first stair slightly. "Nothing mom," she assured. "Just getting some water before I turn in."
"You have a perfectly good bathroom in your room; please use it next time," her mother said haughtily. "Have you finished your homework?"
"No."
The word was like a slap to the face for the older woman. She drew back in shock at the show of defiance.
"Excuse me?" she questioned with a little acid. "What was that?"
Alex looked back with the look of a soul that was snapping. Tonight was the night. She couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm not done with my homework, mom," she said. "And I won't be any time soon."
Her mother was aghast. "Honey, you know that the work is to help you be someone that the world will accept and love!"
"Mom, going through drills doesn't help you be 'somebody', it helps you earn money. There's a difference."
"Don't you mouth off-"
Alex deftly cut her statement to ribbons. "-and crush your ego?" she shot down. "I've been shut in this house for months now. How are my old friends in Windy City?"
Her mother hesitated.
"You shouldn't worry about them. They aren't-"
"-Anybody. Sure. I see. Now that I'm rich, I can't talk to peons anymore, right?"
"It's not safe for you out there anymore!"
That surprised Alex. What could her mother have meant? "Huh?"
"You shouldn't have to- you don't ever have to leave the heights again! You're somebody!"
Still hiding things, Alex noted.
"Mom, being somebody doesn't mean being rich or living in a fancy gated community…"
The girl walked to her front door and opened it a crack. Her mother was in shock. It was finally happening. Her girl had actually lost herself.
"… It means listening to your heart. And if you won't give me answers, I'll find my own."
The woman could only watch as the door slammed and the engine of a moped flared outside. As the din faded, she knew one thing.
Alexandra Salazar was gone.
It was a black, almost a dark grey, that bore depressively down on them when they exited the swirling door. Dark buildings loomed above them, no light visible anywhere. Tredding the cracked concrete of a disused and abandoned road, they immediately noticed the lack of light, caused by the large glowing Kingdom Hearts not being suspended in the sky. The World-That-Never-Was had changed, darkness prevailing over light in the final battle. Halting at the edge of a precipice, they looked up to see nothing, where something should be.
"Well that settles it." Kitexa said, staring where the Castle-That-Never-Was should be.
"The Organization is no more."
The 'formidable, symbolic, and historical' rocky wall that had separated Sandstone Heights from the rest of the world rarely ever saw challenge. Some parts of it overlooked sheer bluffs, but the wall in of itself was only seven feet tall. Still, no one dared violate it. It was a sacred and hallowed to the residents; physical divide between prince and pauper.
Most of the men standing at the gate were looking for me, Alex thought as she hid her moped in an immaculately manicured bush. No trusting other people. She was going crazy, she told herself; what were odds and risks to her?
She had to get back to Windy City. That was the only objective. One of her friends would take her in, at least until it all blew over. Her parents would get over it all. They may have been snobs lately for her, but they were not heartless.
Yes, she thought. I definitely am going crazy.
One hand over the other, Alex began to climb the 'invincible' wall. Her arms screamed, but there was no other way. Really, she didn't understand how a seven-foot wall could protect an entire army of snobs.
It wasn't even that hard. She didn't even have to look up. It was a short climb, like up a bunk bed. However, not looking ahead was, in the end, ill-advised. Only when she stood on top of the wide wall did she turn her glance to the moonlit land ahead of her.
It was black. The world was shadowed and dismal, even with the over-bright light from the sky pouring down upon it. The fields below caught the cold wind and blew it down to a once-beautiful city. Now all that remained was a sinister, solemn expanse of ruins, tall buildings dark and half-collapsed.
Windy City.
Alex stepped forward as if to try and approach her crushed hopes, only to forget she was standing on top of a wall. By some stroke of luck, she caught a rough stone and hung. The wall dropped below her to an abrupt cliff, a million miles sheer. In the dark, the ground was as good as nonexistent.
She did not have to hang long before the situation plunged deeper into the realms of horror.
With a bit of curiosity, she noticed the shadows around her swell and pool, something corporal rising out of the deep and infesting the wall's face. They scuttled around like enormous ants, jerking in erratic spasms. Their hides were deeper black than any India ink she had ever seen or had even imagined: rendering the night-gray surroundings bright in comparison. In some hellish counterpoint, their eyes were twin wolf-yellow points of piercing feral need.
Not the sort of creatures that were usually friendly.
She screamed as one took a cruel swipe and wrenched her from her precarious handhold, scarlet blossoming in a twisting stream through the air from a brand-new wound. Falling, falling, falling… as the wind whipped through her auburn hair she closed her eyes and accepted that she was going to die. Even though she didn't want to.
Which was why when her chest was torn open and her heart ripped out, she didn't wince at the pain.