Guess what? I made this one short, to the point, and with a cliffhanger, leaving you BEGGING for more! :D You'll LOVE it. By the way, sorry for taking so long. kept giving me an error message when I went to edit this, hence the long delay. BUT, now it's fixed, and here you go. :]

I do not own Kingdom Hearts in any way, shape, essence, or form...oh, but if I did...

PLUM WINGS & A MIDNIGHT DIRGE - SALVATION pt.1

It was getting unbearably cold, both during the warmer hours and during the times I slept. I still couldnt find any way of telling what time of day it was, hence I was continuing to count my days with sleep cycles.

"Dammit, what is occupying them...?" I was huddled in the shelter, trying to keep myself as warm as possible. The blanket of leaves Demyx and I had shared was now just a sheet of cracking, dry leaves, and the darkness of the revine was too much for me to be able to get too far from the shelter to find more leaves to make a blanket from, so I was stuck with the surrounding, diminishing supply of leaves around me that I needed to save for food purposes.

But, really, what on earth could have been taking them so long? There was a boy trapped in an icebox, with a huge chance of freezing to death, and they havent made any noticeable effort. I was sure that they would take a while, but not this long. I was not expecting them to take two and a half weeks after the snow came, which meant I had been alone in the revine for around three, or three and a half to four weeks after Demyx escaped.

"Maybe they think I have died," I reasoned. "But even then, wouldnt they still try to get to me prior to my death? And have they told mother and father where I am? If so, they would be putting up a fight with the world to get me out, if they had to. I suppose their overprotective tendencies are a good thing, in this case..." I drifted into thought, after that. For...I dont really know how long, really. I would say it was a pretty decent amount of time to just be thinking, daydreaming, spacing out, etcetera. Mostly, though, I was thinking about life before coming to the academy.

Everything was perfect. I had Demyx, we had friends, real friends who loved us, and we had our families. Even though I could have done without their habits and sometimes ignorant ideals, I have to give them credit for moving into the area my home was in, because it brought me to meeting Demyx. Their choice of living as well as Demyx's parents' choice led the two of us together, and that I must thank them for. Without that knucklehead, Demyx...I would not have been able to say where I would have been. Probably not down in the bottom of a revine, but...maybe I would have just remained a secluded "emo" kid with no friends and no life...I cannot say.

"Thank you," I said out loud, to everyone who passed through my mind. But, then my mind took a different turn. I began thinking about what things the academy had done for me.

For one, I met Axel, Roxas, Xaldin, Luxord, and all the others. I would never forget any of them, for all of their completely different minds and personalities, yet being able to fit together like puzzle pieces. I thought about how Xigbar, even though he pulled a few bad stunts, brought Demyx and I closer than we had been before. Really, I felt like I had to thank Xigbar for making me realize just how much Demyx really meant to me.

I felt my splinted arm, which had the same stick that Demyx found, with the same strips of fabric from Demyx's ripped clothes. It hurt like hell, but without the break Demyx would not have seen what his stupid ideas do to people in the worst conditions.

I wondered where he was, what he was doing, how his classes were going, everything. I imagined Demyx in his bed, warm and washed and fed, how safe he was and how he was trying to finish his work to keep up with the stuff he had missed. I heard myself laugh a bit.

Four sleep cycles passed. There was not a second that I was not freezing cold. I was shivering, now, and I had been for a full day and a half. That was not a good sign, not at all, and it was not helping that snow had stopped falling from the canopy, so I was without good water. I had thrown a stone or two up to the tops of the trees, to try and see just what it was up there, snow or ice. I had to throw four times before I had my answer, but it hurt my broken arm like there was no tomorrow, even though I had been throwing with my unbroken arm. When the rock finally hit the top, it bounced right off and hit the ground hard.

"Dammit..." The top was ice. Pure, rock-hard ice. That only meant I was going to be freezing faster.

And as it so happens, that's exactly what was happening. The shivering did not wear off even a small bit. And one night, when I was about to lay down to sleep, I got dizzy. I had been standing, and my knees gave out on me and I dropped, supporting myself with one arm and some balance. My head was spinning, I had no idea what was going through my head or what was happening. I felt like I wasnt even there, like I didnt exist. I laid down, and looked up for a minute. There was a hole in the top of my shelter, and I groaned. I hoisted myself up to see it, but then I figured out that I wasnt in my shelter at all. The trees were all around me, and when I finally saw my shelter ahead of me, I tried to crawl toward it, but with my one arm I couldnt do it, and I didnt have the strength to get on my feet. I was shivering, still, and when I stopped trying to go for the shelter, I huddled up on the ground to keep warm. I was so tired all of the sudden...and so out of strength...I closed my eyes and then opened them again.

"I guess...maybe Ill nap for a little while..." I held myself tighter to be warmer. I felt a small pang in my arm, a small pain in the break. Not caring about it, I closed my eyes and fell asleep as fast as I had in a very long time.