Author's note: Had a hard time coming up with an idea for this chapter…that angers me!

From here on out, most chapters named after song lyrics. This one's from Jacques Cousteau by Swimming With Dolphins. It's my second fave by them! (first being Sunset 1989)

2

Is anyone who they seem to be?

I opened my mouth before my eyes. A word came out but I can't remember what it was. I shook my head and sat up, finally awake. I looked around and saw only the white trees and ground. I groaned and curled into a ball to the best of my abilities. This wasn't a nightmare; this was really happening to me. I was stuck here in this empty world of nothing. There was no escape.

"Are you alright? You look cold," something hit my head gently and I realized it was Grill with her broomstick, "Come on, get up. We have to keep going."

I stood up and glared at her. "Where are we going anyway? You said you had no clue yesterday."

"Huh? Good point," she looked deep in thought for a moment, "We can't just keep walking forever. I suppose going up is the only option."

"You mean flying? Oh god, I don't wanna." I slammed back down onto the ground, hurting myself. At first there was complete silence, then Grill began to walk into the forest.

"Okay," she sighed, "I guess you don't want to get out of here any time soon then. That's too bad. I thought you actually cared about getting home to your girlfriend." she climbed onto her broomstick, which was tucked behind a tree, and began to float up to the sky.

I growled loudly in anger. She turned around and stuck her tongue out at me. "That's childish…" I murmured.

"Just get on the broom. Unless you have some other idea, genius," Grill hovered over and grabbed my head violently, "You probably do, don't you? And it'll be better than anyone else's because that's just how you think! Get a life. Oh wait, we're dead! Then it would just be best for you to shut up!"

A few tears welled up in my eyes. I struggled free and took a few steps away from Grill. "Go away! Why are you trying to hurt me?

She looked shocked for a moment before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I lost myself being angry. Um, just get on." she gestured to the back of the broom and I hopped onto it.

We were silent as the broom flew up into the air. Despite the feelings between us it was actually an enjoyable experience. The wind hitting my face was very refreshing and tasted of strawberries for some reason. I opened my mouth to comment on this but Grill scowled at me. I let out a sigh and looked at the ground, deeply regretting my choice.

"Holy crap! How high are we? Don't lose control or fall! NO!" I squeezed my eyes shut and heard a groan from the witch in front of me.

"You're different than what I've heard. I expected you to be a bit bigger and tough, but you're more like a little kid!" Grill smiled back to me. I wasn't sure how to respond. When Dee told me that it made me feel happy, but I think Grill meant it in a cruel way. Or maybe not. I couldn't tell.

"I expected you to be ugly too, that's what some people said," she continued, "So I guess you've surprised me in a lot of ways. You don't look or act like you're reputation, if I'm allowed to say that."

I peered at her. "What do you mean? Why wouldn't you be allowed to say that?"

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe you like being seen as dangerous or something. I don't wanna offend you or anything!" she laughed as I watched her, annoyed. The laughter stopped, "You're pretty moody though. I can say that."

The silence started again and I studied the sky, not wanting to look down. It was all white, just like the ground. At the speed we were flying we should've been out of this world by now. This puzzled me, so I tried to shove it out of my mind.

"Why aren't you talking? You were pretty animated yesterday." Grill turned to face me on the broomstick. I screamed hysterically.

"You need to steer! LOOK! We're going to fall! FALL!" My eyes shut again. I felt something on my forehead. I looked to see Grill, who was obviously frustrated.

"When we get out of here I'm going to act like I don't know you," she spun back around and grasped the broom handle, "If anyone asks we aren't 'friends' or anything like that, 'kay?"

Again, I wasn't sure what to say. After some time I decided to change the subject. "You said I look good."

"What? No I didn't." she stated flatly. I looked away and sighed. She obviously didn't catch it, "Oh wait, you mean by saying you aren't ugly?"

"Yeah," I nodded and grinned wide, "That was really nice to say."

She shrugged. "Sorry, I didn't mean to compliment you. My mistake." I was about to argue when the sky suddenly changed colour. I gasped at the blue waves moving in a psychedelic pattern around the new sky. I felt extremely dizzy and nearly fell off the broomstick. Luckily Grill caught me before I could.

"Be careful," she warned as I steadied myself on the broom again. I then looked down, which I once again regretted. Ignoring my racing heart, I saw that small huts were scattered on the rainbow coloured hills.

"What's with the houses? And why is everything so colourful? Isn't this supposed to be punishment?" I questioned. Grill turned around to me with a tired expression on her face.

"You don't know anything…of course this is punishment!" she sighed, "The colours confuse people and they get lost. Just like the fourth and fifth level. Anyway, the houses are really torture rooms."

My eyes widened in disbelief. "Really?"

"Of course not! You're so gullible," she giggled and gave me a noogie. I blushed in spite of myself and looked at the little specks (obviously people) on the ground. They were wandering, just like Grill said.

The broom pointed down and we began to fly in that direction. We were so fast that the flight was short and we pretty much bounced off the ground. I stood up and laughed. Grill followed, wiping off herself. She straightened her hat and picked up the broom.

"Sooo, how do we get out of here? Any ideas?" I grinned after saying these sentences.

Grill studied our surroundings intently. I did the same, not seeing anything I hadn't seen from the air. "Huh. I don't know. Since when are you happy, anyway? You've been grumpy for the past hour or so. Or whatever time they go by here."

I opened my mouth to answer but forgot what I was going to say. So instead I just offered her the most endearing expression I could conjure. She rolled her eyes and pulled me along by my hat.

A fire burnt next to the two of us. Apparently night fell in this level, unlike the others. It wasn't just dark either, it was cold as hell. So Grill and I were forced to stop and try to keep ourselves warm. After thinking for some time, we agreed on the fire, which took even longer to make. Once it was done it was still freezing and we (awkwardly) snuggled into each other for warmth. I'm not sure if I was hallucinating, but Grill seemed to enjoy this. I didn't. No, not one bit.

"Can you not hug me like that?" I hissed, "It's kind of uncomfortable."

She pulled away a bit and just sat close to me with no physical contact. Silence engulfed us once again and I growled, attempting to break it. Grill didn't respond so I figured it would be alright to just think. That was what I needed more than anything, some time to think things through.

"I want to know more about you," Grill spoke suddenly, "can you tell me about yourself, Marx?"

"Oh, uh," I laughed nervously, "do you mean basic things? Like my birthday and stuff? If that's it then February tenth, which makes me an Aquarian if you were wondering. Um, my favourite colour is purple and my IQ is 147 I think..?"

She shook her head and placed her hands near the fire as if trying to warm them. "No, I meant about your life. About who you are and why you chose what you wanted to do. To make it easier, why did you want to take over Pop Star?"

I gasped and my face turned red. This was something I didn't want to talk about, especially to a complete stranger. To tell the truth, I didn't know the answer myself. It could've been any number of things. Maybe it was just pure selfishness, which would embarrass me. I bit my lower lip while I tossed this thought around in my mind.

"Aren't you going to answer? I guess not," Grill laid back and closed her eyes, "That's okay if you aren't ready to talk about it. I think I can understand."

The fire cracked loudly. I jumped, startled by the sudden noise. "Why can't we talk about you? You seem like an interesting person." I took a deep breath and smiled. It wasn't a real smile but it could pass as friendly, at least.

"Not really," she sat up again, "I just spend my time with my friends and we're all happy and stuff. Where I come from star stacking is a popular sport and there are competitions. I won a bunch of them and then I came to Pop Star to challenge Kirby, but he beat me. After that, me and my friends were staying in Dreamland to do some sight seeing but I got in an accident and died."

She seemed to be depressed about this. To tell the truth, I didn't think it was that bad. As long as she could escape it didn't really matter. "Your friends must have loved you a lot to follow you to another planet. Were they passionate about this 'Star Stacking' too?"

Grill stood up with a happy expression. "No! No one is as passionate about that as me! I love everything about it! When you've eliminated so many star blocks that you feel like you can't do it anymore…then the one you're competing against starts to beat you! So this determination gathers in your stomach and…" I shut my eyes and stopped listening. What she was saying didn't matter one bit to me. She was getting carried away and off topic.

"Hey, are you even listening?" she poked my cheek, "Did you fall asleep or something?"

"No, I'm not listening. I don't really care what you're talking about. It bores me."

Grill's jaw practically dropped. "How could you say that? I don't think I've met anyone so rude!" she crossed her arms and looked away from me as if I was a pile of dirt, "What are you passionate about, then?"

"Nothing. I have a variety of interests in every subject. I guess you could just call me extremely intellectual." I grinned, feeling like I beat her somehow. She groaned.

"Please get off your high horse. I doubt you're that smart," We were both silent for a long time. It was because of these awkward quiet times you could tell we weren't good friends. What we talked about was only a way to make this bearable. Otherwise this would be horrible, "Why are you always different? It's hard to keep track of your personality. It's like sometimes you're a bit antsy and shy, then you're angry, then sad, and after that really happy and cheerful and now you're just being obnoxious and rude. It makes no sense."

My cheeks flushed with anger. "I guess I'm not allowed to change moods then, am I? I should just stop feeling emotions and express nothing. That's what you want isn't it? I HATE YOU!" I stood up and shouted at her.

"You don't need to be mad at me, I didn't say you needed to stop feeling. Do you have to make everything worse than it really is?" Grill placed her hand on my forehead reassuringly. It was warm and my cold body was shocked by the heat.

"I'm sorry," I murmured as my eyes became wet with tears. I took a deep breath and wondered why I was crying.

She wiped my eyes for me and smiled pleasantly. I punished myself for thinking about how cute she looked. "It's alright. You're lucky I won't hate you for all eternity. Instead, I'm going to talk to you about Star Stacking all night!"

I laughed nervously. "Yeah, yeah, funny! Wait, you weren't kidding, were you?"

"Nope, I wasn't!" she snickered. I leaned back and tried to ignore Grill as she spoke. After wondering what it was I was doing before this conversation, I remembered I was going to have a good think about everything. I yawned, shaking my head. I was too tired to do anything and I found myself falling asleep. I hoped for good dreams, because I needed those now more than anything.

Author's note: End of chapter two! I hoped you liked it, I really struggled. I just got stuck on ideas (as mentioned earlier).

So, I'll start the next chapter soon. This, the levels in the time gap, won't take long (say 5 or 6 chapters). After that…well you'll see.

Arigato for reading! ^^