Oh yes, bask in the glory of another chapter. I predict I should be done here in...meh...maybe...five chapters? If they're long, I can be done in around five. Hm. Ill shoot for it. No guarantees!

I do not own Kingdom Hearts in any way.

PLUM WINGS & A MIDNIGHT DIRGE - THREAT

I was losing light fast, as usual, but I was worried about Demyx even moreso, for I had not heard him try to call to me if he got to the top. But then again, I had not heard any screaming or branch-breaking sounds, so I had reason to believe that he was fine. But I could have tried for as long as I was supposed to live, and it would not have lifted any of my worry. I needed to know that Demyx was alright.

I got my answer a while later. Faintly, I heard an older man talking through what I assumed to be a loudspeaker. It was hard to hear what he was saying, though. The only thing I could make out was "Zexion" and "the process" and "soon." I wasnt feeling too reassured, though. After all, it wasnt Demyx speaking to me. It was some man I didnt know, and I could not have cared less about him. I only wanted Demyx, now. A few moments later, I heard his voice echo off the cliffsides and down to me.

"Zexion!" I looked up at the trees, half trying to see him. It was easier to hear Demyx than it was the other guy, and soon I found myself smiling at his efforts in trying to talk to me. "...I made it out, Ill get you out of there, Zexion!" The feeling I had is inexplainable, it really is. "Im gonna get you out, Zexion! I promise..." Even as generic as it sounds, I felt warm inside, like my heart was smiling with pure happiness. But soon that same happiness turned into mild panic when I heard him screaming.

"I...Zexion! Let me go! Zexion! Zexion! I promise..." I was frantic, stuck in the bottom of the revine with nothing to help him with. He was being taken away from the area, I knew from his screaming. The louspeaker was soon taken, but even without it I was still able to hear his faint cries for me grow quieter and quieter...He was being taken away, and it was right then that I realized how much I wanted him to stay. Even if he only were to stay at the top of the cliff and talk to me every now and again, I just wanted to know that he was there.

And now he wasnt.

His screams were forever plastered in my memory. His calling out for me, screaming my name like it was his last thing in the entire world that he had...I felt like crying. I had to pace back and forth for a long time to calm down, to bring myself back to my senses. But even then, I was incredibly lonely.

The night was no different, I still held that loneliness. The only thing I wished for was sleep, just so I could be away from the knowledge that Demyx was not beside me. Just knowing it made it hard to bear. Time went by slower, making the night longer, and making sleep harder to come to.

I hated every second of being without Demyx.

Before I came to realize it, a full week and a half had passed. And I was still in the revine. I was expecting them to take a while, but I was hoping they would have acted faster. You would think that retrieving a student from the bottom of a cliff would be top priority. Apparently, it wasnt. Although...if I had been the son of a teacher at the school, Im sure I would have been out by the third day after Demyx told them. I swear, the system was in a complete jumble.

Apart from loathing them all for not getting me yet, I kept thinking about the upcoming snow. It was cold, very cold, at nights, and the days were becoming chilled as well. Sunlight was becoming rarer and scarcer by the day. It was clearly winter, and it would be stupid for anyone to think I would be safe from the infamous two-foot minimum snowstorms of Twilight Town. That would surely lock me in, leaving me for dead.

Then again, I had already been preparing myself for mortality. I didnt let Demyx's freedom give me any false hope. I had pre-meditated everything long ago, within our first few days stuck in the revine. I had been prepared for a long time. If they werent going to rescue the living me, they would be recovering the lost corpse of a student they failed to rescue from the hands of death. And if that happened, who knows how it would effect Demyx...

I woke up one morning to a chill in the air, something that was uncommon. After becoming more alert, I got up and looked up at the canopy. The sky was gray, I had little light, and slushy flakes were falling from the sky. My heart skipped a beat.

"Dammit, it's too soon..." I looked around me, my mind coming up with plan after plan to try and keep myself alive. I was going to take whatever measures I could to keep Demyx from any more sorrow, and that was my only reason for wanting to live. If Demyx was not involved, I would have no problems dying off.

I had managed to gather thick branches from the farther areas of the revine, and used those for the adjustments I was making for my new shelter. I kept it in the same place as the old one, which was placed just out of the opening above me, so it would be relatively safe from breaking down due to snow. Instead of having a simple lean-to, I used the bigger branches to widen the sides of the shelter and built up smaller sticks to form thick walls around me. I had to rush, my light was already dim because of the potential snow. But I stuck leaves between the stick-walls in an attempt for insulation, and I replaced the top layer of leaves on my original roof. It was night when I had finished, and the slush had been coming from the sky all day. Thankfully, none of it stuck to the ground like real snow would, instead it just made mud, which I also used on my stick-walls for insulation. I had a safer feeling when I was inside of it, and it gave me a little more warmth at night, as well. For a kid with one arm, I was doing well for myself.

The following morning, however, was a different story.

It had been snowing, really snowing, all night long. The canopy above me was blue and gray, completely blocking all of my sunlight. I stared at it in bewilderment. How was I supposed to survive without sunlight? It was hard to see due to the darkness, not to mention the building cold. The trees were packed down with snow...I could see it. Some of the snow had created a pile in front of the shelter, but that was more than okay, because whatever snow fell meant that I had water. I just hoped that only a small amount would fall at a time, overwise too much of the falling snow could cause a reaction with the rest of the snow surrounding it, thus buring me in the snow, only increasing my chances of death.

The more and more I looked at it, and the more and more I observed for the next two days, I realized how slim my chances were growing. It wasnt long before I had to huddle all day and night inside of the shelter for decent warmth. The only time I left was to bring in leaves for myself to eat, or to take a handful of snow and eat that as a source of water. It grew colder and colder each night, and I could tell from the darkening color of the snow on the canopy that it was only snowing more and more. I had wondered when the snow would melt, and how much the sun hit the trees in the first place. It was clear, now, that my days were numbered.

"Good, God, Demyx, I hope you're alright..." I don't know what time of day it was, so I was counting my days per sleep cycles. I had slept five times since the snow blocked my light and any hope of being rescued, and at the time the only thing I was wishing for was Demyx's sanity. I was worried about him, the most I ever had been, and he was the one who was safest. How ironic. But I could only imagine how he was feeling. His screams were still fresh in my memory...

LET ME GO! He's my best friend! My best friend! Zexion! I promise, Ill get you out, Zexion!

It tore my heart in pieces whenever I remembered. Just, to think about what the look on his face must have been...it was heartbreaking.

"Oh, Demyx..." I wasnt one to talk to myself, but what else was I supposed to do to keep my sanity? No one was around to hear me...I could spill my heart if I wanted to. I sighed, no longer caring. "Demyx, I wish I could have stopped you, you know, from running off like you did all those nights ago. If only I was confident enough to tell you what I was thinking, how I was feeling...maybe I could have stopped you. But, then again, if I did stop you, things may not have gotten any better between us. We could have drifted so far apart that we would be strangers. You could have been dead..." My voice got quiet, and I started thinking about what I had just said. And clear visualizations were coming to mind. Images of Demyx all by himself in the cold. Images of Demyx down here by himself, unable to take it. Images of Demyx starving and shivering, crying, screaming and wishing...all sorts of images. And I was unable to stop them. They all came so fast, before I knew it my head was buried in my arms and I was trying to stop myself from shedding even a single tear. I was breaking. I was breaking into small fragments of myself, fragments so small that maybe I wasnt able to be fixed...

No. My mind lashed back at me. You have to stay strong. Demyx needs you, and you need Demyx. If you give out now, you would be sending more than one person to their grave. I came back to my senses, then. My mind was calm, and the only thing left to do was wait.

"Fine," I said out loud. "I will stay alive and well. I will wait, for the sake of Demyx." I was quiet, then only a few minutes later I found myself talking again. "On the verge of death, here I sit waiting in this icebox, hoping Im going to be able to last all this time...I must be pretty full of myself," Then I reconsidered. "No, that's not it. That isnt why," I said. "You want to hang on so badly because you dont want him to be sad any longer. You want to stay alive so you can see the look on his face when he sees you for the first time, yes." I was half-listening to myself, as well as only half-controlling what I was saying. "I dont want to watch him look down at my corpse from my afterlife. I want him to see me living, and run at me, and embrace me like I had been lost and never before found. I want to stay alive because I love him."