It was entirely white. She felt as though she was lying on the ground, but it was impossible to distinguish it from the walls or sky or horizon or anything else. It was merely a place entirely whitewashed, a place of nothingness. All there was in this empty place was Ami and the boy, sitting with his back to her, his arms wrapped around his bent knees.

"Hey!" she called, pushing herself up and running toward him, a distance she seemed to cover remarkably fast. She knelt in front of him, and he lifted his head up, his bright red eyes locking with her blue, and she shivered.

"I don't know what to do," the man whimpered, burying his head in his arms and shaking.

"Here, I'll help you," Ami said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "I'm Ami. What's your name?"

"You're the senshi Mercury," he said, looking at her again, and she quickly removed her hand from his shoulder.

"How…how did you-"

"They're trying to kill me. They're using a demon. And the others, they came for me too."

"Wait, wait," Ami said, quickly overwhelmed by the boy. "Start over. Who is after you?"

"There are two. One with crescent moons on their forehead, and one I don't know."

Ami gasped. "From Nemesis? Do you know if they are from a planet called Nemesis?"

"I…I don't know."

"Why would they be trying to kill you?"

"They are fighting each other. They hate each other, and I have what they need to crush the other."

"What is it?" Ami asked, and the boy shuddered, nearly shutting down completely. "How did you get it?"

The man shook again. "It was locked inside me a few years back. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"And they need you?"

The blond man laughed harshly. "No, I'm worthless. They just want this thing I carry. As soon as they get me, they'll kill me to get it." He paused, red eyes raking over her. "And if they don't get me, they'll come for you. You carry it too."

This time, Ami froze, looking over the man's smirking, cynical face. "Wait…what is it? What do I have? What do they want?"

The boy shuddered and looked sympathetically at the girl who shared his fate. "It is the thing that lays dormant in both of us."

"But what is it?"

The blond's jaw clenched, and his entire being seemed to tighten. "It's the Heart of the Night, a stone of tremendous power that draws from the well of darkness." He spoke softly, but each word landed harsh and loud upon Ami's ears, each passing moment filling her with a growing sense of dread, her eyes wide and her breath frozen in her chest.

"I have no such thing," she gasped, and the young man scoffed.

"You do not need to recognize it's there for it to be there. You can deny it all you like, but the Dark Crystal is in you."

"No, no I…I'm not evil, I can't have it," she cried, tears brimming in her eyes. "All I have ever done is fight for justice; I can't have an object of darkness inside me."

The man sighed, loosening his grasp on his legs. "I can't say anything about what it's going to be like when it awakens, but when it's dormant, it doesn't actively effect your actions."

Ami's kind kicked into high gear, and she began thinking furiously, quickly processing all of this. "Alright, let's assume you're right and I do have the Dark Crystal. All I need to do is ensure that it stays dormant, right?"

"Yeah, uh, I guess. I'm not an expert," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I was sort of thrown into this. I only just started figuring it out."

"Well," she said, sitting on the ground next to him, "we can figure it out together. The senshi will protect you. We won't let anyone kill you."

He sighed, softly smiling. "Thank you."

"You don't need to thank you," the blue haired girl insisted. "What did you say your name was?"

He suddenly became uncomfortable and looked away from her. "It's Serafim."

Ami cocked her head to one side. "Serafim? You're not from around here, are you?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm here on an exchange program for school."

"My best friend's boyfriend spent some time away on an exchange program. Your Japanese is excellent; I wouldn't have guessed that you're not a native speaker."

"Thanks, I've studied very hard." He sighed, looking tremendously sad for a moment. "I got a lot better once the Dark Crystal was put in me."

"Who put it in you?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Everything just went dark, and I heard a voice in a language I didn't understand. After a while, I started having memories of things that never happened to me." He shrugged. "I started piecing things together after that."

"Well," Ami asked, looking around, "do you know where we are now?"

"Can't say I do."

"Ah well," she sighed, looking around her current surroundings. "Could you tell me what you know? Anything at all?"

He thought for a moment and very slowly said, "I heard something about a kingdom on the moon, but I had no idea what they were going on about."

This got the intelligent senshi's attention. "The Moon Kingdom? Is the Moon Kingdom involved? Are they after you?"

"I…I don't know."

"Are they against the people chasing you? What are their motives?"

"I don't know!" Serafim said frantically, quickly overwhelmed by the interrogation. "All I know is that the people chasing me mentioned them. I don't know their motives, or if they're involved at all. I heard them mention something about a war, but that's it, I swear it!"

Ami considered this, thinking intently for a moment before quickly concluding, "We don't know enough to say anything for certain, but it sounds like forces are out to destroy the Moon Kingdom."

"I don't know what any of that means…" He sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't really know much about any of this. I wish I could be of greater help."

Ami smiled. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll figure it all out in time."

They sat in silence, and for a while, Ami felt a deep pit of dread and sorrow in her heart, and she couldn't help but wonder if all of the fears and doubts and loneliness she had ever felt had come from some deep source of darkness within her.