The shadowy portal appeared in the Proof of Existence, and from there, I moved straight to my door and through into my room, where I lolled on the bed with a dozy grin on my face. There was nothing in my mind, but Mr Slater, my new briefcase and the boutique. The briefcase had been stacked on top of the beech wardrobe at the side of my room, keeping the leather away from water. I'd learned my lesson after yesterday.

I couldn't wear the nice stuff. I'd wear that tonight, when I met Mr Slater again… I just couldn't pry my thoughts from him! Since my 'Demyx' persona was born, nobody had ever treated me with as much respect as Mr Slater. Nobody had ever given me a gift, nor seen as much into me as him. He was right. I had a heart. I was just like him – I could feel it.

"DEMYX! GET UP, YOU SLOTH!" The tyranny incarnate named Luxord hammered on my door. Any other job, and your boss wouldn't be able to shout you up for work.

"FINE! I'M UP!" I pulled on the usual garments quickly, and zipping up the coat, returned to the Proof of Existence, where a hoodless Luxord was tapping his foot, irate. When I arrived, he remained calm, but his voice dripped malevolence.

"Where did you go last night?" He scrutinized rudely.

"I don't work at night," I replied, cool as a cucumber, still smiling, despite the immense hate that the sight of the other nobody instilled in me, "so it doesn't matter where I go. Now then: what's the plan for today?" Luxord snorted.

"Vexen wants you to help with his research." I didn't give him the pleasure of seeing the scowl on my face, as we both stepped into the same portal, which took us to Vexen's laboratory.

The room was decorated all in white, like much of the rest of Castle Oblivion. There was no visible entrance or exit, and there was a huge collection of desks littered around the room, with bubbling solutions in test tubes, or computers or complex equipment. From our slight vantage point, at the head of a flight of short steps (they led to the wall where there was once a door, before Vexen had his tantrum about 'privacy') we could see a figure wandering around and checking the experiments meticulously.

Only when Luxord cleared his throat did the figure look at us, and pull his hood back, allowing his long golden hair to flay out over his shoulders. He had a prominent squint with which he gazed at us. Luxord used another portal the moment we were seen, and I hopped down the steps to Vexen with a false grin. He had annoyed me almost as much as Luxord. At least he didn't have as much to lose.

"Demyx," he whined, for that is how he spoke. "Be careful in my lab. I'm not afraid to tell you that you were my last choice for assistants." I scowled. I was doing a lot of that, recently. "Do not touch anything, unless instructed to by myself."

"How long do I have to do this for?"

"Until we're done."

It took a long time. Vexen got to do all the fun stuff, like pouring funny chemicals onto heartless, or playing with their minds by exposing it to other heartless, and seeing if it would remember. I got the grand honour of scribbling results and numbers I didn't understand and couldn't fit a context to, and Vexen pooh-poohed me every time I asked. Whenever he could, Vexen slipped in a comment in reference to my lack of heart, like referring to the irony that we without hearts were not called heartless. My revenge was private. He didn't have a heart. But the same didn't necessarily apply to myself.

The hours passed slowly, almost deliberately so, with naught but the obnoxious venom that was Vexen's personality constantly salting my wounds, and the endless task of scribbling enigmas onto lined paper. My desire for eight o'clock was greater even than that yesterday.

"Vexen, please can you explain at least some of this?" I moaned. I knew the answer was, "No", before Vexen even opened his putrid thin little lips.

At six, he simply couldn't insist I stayed overtime, and I skipped into a portal, back to the Proof, and again, back into my room. I reached up to the briefcase on top of the wardrobe in the circular blue room, and, after a quick wash in the pool (and after drying, obviously) pulled on some of my gift clothes.

They felt expensive. They looked expensive. They smelled expensive. If I'd licked the shirt, it would probably have tasted of caviar. The clothes were perfectly fitted to me, and the coat was a beautiful material, although, at even a slight scrutiny was more of a blazer than the robe I had to wear to work. The gloves and socks came on, and fitted me exactly, and then I laced up the new shoes. In the time in which I'd become a nobody, I'd never had a pair of non-Organization boots, and so I fumbled with the laces for a minute, not used to it, but I got there in the end.

Another portal took me to Traverse Town again. I decided to wait outside for a minute, because being in Vexen's stuffy lab had made me slightly claustrophobic and I wanted the air. As I looked around, I spotted Luxord slicing some shadows to a pulp with a pair of massive playing cards. I tried to vanish again, but he saw me.

"Where are you going, Demyx?"