Hey, guys! Long time, no see! I'm terribly sorry about that. I've been dealing with lots of stuff in life, among that the loss of internet access and the loss of inspiration.

But I have some good news. I actually have completely finished writing this story while my internet was out! So you can know for sure that this story will be updated all the way through to the end, and in a fairly timely manner. The bad news is that I still don't have regular internet access, so I still will likely be limited to one chapter a week until the internet finally gets turned on at my house. Unless you guys send me lots of reviews and beg me to give you another chapter today, then I might be nice. *snickers* Kidding... well... I probably would take that bribe, but still. It'll probably be once a week most of the time until my internet gets turned on at the house. But hey, at least the story's finished, right? :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians, but I just got a new phone. That has nothing to do with ROTG, but I'm happy I have a new phone, so I thought I'd put that in there.

One thing was for sure: Chaos was sick, twisted, and just downright rude. I did not want to be stuck in my old-fashioned clothes for as long as he chose to keep my old ones, thank you very much. But I wasn't about to strip down to nothing either. There were children about.

It seemed it was just something I was going to have to grin and bear for the time being, though I had a slim hope of the silly old clothes disappearing and being replaced by my current outfit once we left the scene of the visions. But as the visionary landscape gradually faded out of sight and I continued to wear the same clothing he had given me from that last experience, I gave a sigh and resigned myself to my fate. It seemed he wanted me to deal with who I used to be, and not just who I was at the moment.

On we walked, and my eyebrow quirked anxiously as I waited to see the signs of whatever new challenge would crop up, but nothing had at the moment. The landscape was just fading more and more with every step we took, and it wasn't being replaced by anything. This was disconcerting.

I turned to look back in the direction we had come, and I sighed in dismay to see that it was all a black void in that direction. There was less substance if we went backward than if we went forward, even if barely. Chaos obviously didn't want us turning back and getting out of this latest challenge. I rolled my eyes and continued moving along, breathing a word to Brent and Amanda that everything would be fine, though I wasn't sure if I actually felt it.

Before too long, the landscape around us had vanished completely, and there was still not a sight to be seen anywhere. The three of us were trapped in a void of our own, just wandering forward on imagined ground and hoping it would soon be accompanied by real ground. Having one's feet touch down on nothing and yet not falling through is strangely disconcerting.

I thought this situation couldn't get worse, but I should have known better than to make such an assumption. Things can always get worse if you assume you've hit rock bottom. The next time I glanced down at my hand, I gave a little jolt to realize that the tips of my fingers were slightly shorter than normal. I flexed my fingers and tried to inspect the damage done, but I felt no pain. Maybe there really wasn't any damage. Maybe I was just running off with my imagination again.

A few more steps and a cry from Brent over the same phenomenon occurring with his toe, and I knew I wasn't merely imagining things. This was Chaos' newest trick: making us disappear.

"Okay," I said, waving my hands around to try and summon order despite the lack of it everywhere we looked. "Maybe if we just don't move, we'll be able to keep ourselves in one piece. Just stay put."

"But we can't stay here!" Brent angrily kicked at an imaginary rock, but it was surprisingly dissatisfying, especially since there hadn't even been enough friction for his foot to make a scuffing sound. We really were walking in a field of nothingness. "We have to find a way out. I don't know about your weird body, Jack, but Amanda and I… well, we'll die if we stay cooped up in a place like this for too long without food or water."

My face turned solemn, and I nodded. He was absolutely right. But I didn't know what to do. And Amanda was starting to cry, which only further complicated matters by making me not able to think straight. What did I normally do when children were upset? The thoughts weren't coming to me the way I wanted them to.

"Alright," I said, and without missing a beat, just took off running forward once again, ignoring the possible consequences of doing so. "Then the sooner we get out of here, the better, right?"

"Jack, what are you-" Brent attempted to shout after me, but it seemed he gave up and just joined in the chase. His disgruntled but resigned stance on the issue seemed to amuse Amanda too, and she began to giggle even as she gave chase to the both of us. I had no idea what was going to happen or where we were going, but at least we were all together for now. That helped.

Running through the void was easy enough when every part of me was where I knew it should have been, but when I could no longer sense the presence of one of my feet, the simple act of running was suddenly not so simple anymore. I knew my foot had disappeared, but I chose not to look to see this or I could be overwhelmed by fear, so I continued forward in the best way I knew how. Even if it required limping the rest of the way.

However, if limping had been all that Chaos required for this challenge, it would have been a very easy challenge indeed. Before I knew it, my entire leg had disappeared, then one of my arms, then my staff. Bit by bit, the rest of my body gradually dissolved before my eyes as I plugged on to the best of my ability, until finally even my eyes vanished into the same oblivion as everything else and plunged me into total darkness.

One would think this would be what it felt like to be dead, but considering how Chaos had already graciously shown me exactly what that felt like, I could honestly say that this was not the same feeling. Somehow I still clung to life, but I did not cling to form. I had no body, but I didn't know what else I possessed.

"Where are we?" I said, expecting that question not to be heard, and was surprised when it was actually audible to my ears. Well, not really ears, since I didn't have any, but I heard it all the same.

"No idea, bud," said Brent from somewhere nearby. "I can't see anything."

"Neither can I," I said.

I was about to contribute the detail that my body was entirely gone, when Amanda decided to contribute that detail for me. "Jack, I melted."

I sighed, surprised I could still do that too, and directed my attention her way. "You mean that your body disappeared too, huh?"

"Uh huh."

"Mine too," said Brent, "I don't know how on earth we're still talking to each other without vocal chords."

He did bring up a good point, and it would have given me pause to scratch my head if I'd had a head to scratch. This was quite the puzzle. We didn't have bodies, yet we were still alive. And we were all still able to talk, but we had no vocal chords to do so. This was a really random series of events.

Not knowing what else to do, the three of us just sat there in silence in the void we were trapped in, if sitting is possible without a body to sit with. We were stationary, in any case. And I wracked my mind for any input that could possibly help us figure out where we were or how to get out of here, but came up short no matter how many times I tried.

"Jack?" said Amanda all of a sudden. "I'm scared."

That had sounded all too familiar, and I longed to throw my arms around the girl and hold her and stroke her hair until her fears melted away, but there was nothing I could do. It seemed I couldn't even get close to her. Heaven knows I didn't even know how to move in this state. "I know," I said, "but it'll be okay. We'll get out of here soon. I promise."

"And how can you promise that?" said Brent, a nasty tone to his voice. A shiver ran through me that I didn't like, but I brushed it off as nothing more than me not liking harsh confrontations and turned my attention back to him.

"Because I've always gotten us out of things before, haven't I?"

"You haven't gotten us out of this crazy land of Chaos yet," he said. Ouch. That wounded me. Part of me even felt like it had literally wounded me, though I brushed that aside too since it didn't make sense.

"Yeah, well, I'm working on it. Just trust me."

"Why should we trust you?!" Brent's voice suddenly arced through the place we all filled and ricocheted through my being. "We've been following you around for who knows how long and we're no closer to figuring out how to get out of this crazy place than before. And the insanity's just getting worse with each challenge. Why should we trust you, huh? You tell me!"

I could no longer ignore the effect of Brent's words on my being, as I began to shiver at first and then pulsate so strongly that I could barely hear anything he said, though each new harsh word that came at me bounced me in a different direction and left me debilitated where I sat until he stopped speaking. Even once he was done, it took what I assumed to be several minutes for the vibrations to settle down after what had felt like such a harsh attack. I had no idea what that had been, but I hoped it wouldn't happen again.

A distant voice eventually called out. "Jack?" Amanda's.

I could barely find my voice to respond, but as I seemed to only be a voice and nothing more, I managed all the same. "H-Hello?"

A moment passed in silence, and then Brent finally commented again as I mentally winced and hoped he wouldn't shout again. That hadn't been a pleasant experience. "How did you get all the way over there?"

It seemed he was done chewing me out for the moment. Maybe he'd experienced something unexpected too. It wouldn't have surprised me considering how strange this place was, whatever this place was. "I-I don't know," I said. "It happened when you yelled. I just… flew apart, then bounced around until I wound up over here."

Another moment of silence passed. "There's something to bounce off of?" Ah, Brent, always the logical one.

"I don't know," I said, and I would have shrugged if I could have. "I bounced off of something. Though I suppose it felt similar to how we were walking on nothing a bit ago."

"Hmm…" said Brent, and he once again left me in silence while he pondered the great mysteries of the universe. Pity I couldn't just read his thoughts while in this form. It would have made it a lot more interesting to be like this while waiting for someone to actually talk to me. However, he didn't take long to speak up again this time. "If we can hear each other talk, and there's something to bounce off of, why don't we hear our voices echo?"

That was a good question. It was surprising I hadn't thought of that. I was always the obnoxious one who shouted into every frozen ravine I came upon just to hear myself shouting back. It had served to allow me to have the illusion of conversation for those three hundred years of solitude. It had also triggered quite a few avalanches, but still. I now found myself burning with the itch to see if I could create an echo here, and I conjured up the biggest shout of, "ECHO!" I had ever done.

My voice did indeed go and hit the imagined barrier and bounce off of it, but what I hadn't forseen was that I ended up getting dragged along with it, myself bouncing back and forth as I repeatedly shouted, "ECHO, Echo, echo…" each time I and the previous sound crossed paths. I wasn't meaning to say the word again, but I kept saying it anyway. For some reason, I couldn't help but do it.

Finally I slowed to a stop, and not a moment too soon as I felt mildly dizzy from that experience and needed a break before I said anything else. Heck, at this rate, I would be lucky if I ever spoke again.

"How did you do that?" said Brent, suddenly much closer than before. Well, at least I'd managed to bounce back toward the group. I supposed there was always something to be thankful for.

My voice came out shakily, unsure of whether I should even attempt speaking again, but I was too stupid to avoid speaking for long. "I-I-I don't know… I shouted, and then I, uh… I-I seemed to have become the echo myself."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," I said. I really wished I could scratch my head or lick my lips or something. I was so used to being able to convey my uncertainty through body language, but now it had to be done entirely through voice, for voice was all I had. "I made a sound, and then I bounced back and forth and echoed that sound. Or became that sound. O-Or… I don't even know." I wanted to run my fingers through my hair in my agitation, and being unable to placate myself by even doing that caused me to growl in irritation. I rarely do that, but these were unusual times.

Brent spent several minutes, or I assumed it was several minutes, just thinking to himself. I wished he would speak. It was so lonely in this weird place when no one talked, and I didn't want to make myself echo again to feel the illusion of conversation since I would have to go and be the echo myself. Perhaps I could convince Amanda to talk to me? But then, she was terrified. It was probably best to leave her be until Brent and I figured out what was going on.

"We have no bodies," said Brent, "Only voices."

"Yeah," I said waiting to see if he would say anything less obvious.

"You bounced back and forth when you tried to make an echo," he continued.

"Right," I said.

"You actually became the echo yourself?"

"Yeah?" Was he going to come up with anything on his own?

He finally made a sound as if clearing his throat, though I knew he didn't actually have a throat to clear, but still. He apparently could make the sound if he wanted to. "This is really weird," he said at last, "but I suppose anything is possible in this world. Have we… have we turned into sound?"

I would have blinked if I'd been able to. "Come again?"

"We're still having physical reactions to things," he said, "what with you bouncing around from the echo or not being able to stay nearby when I shouted. But they're not the reactions we're accustomed to, since we have no bodies. All we have is sound. I think we might have entered a world composed entirely of sound, and we're nothing but our voices."

What I wanted to do was just stare at him in a silent state of shock for an undetermined amount of time, but considering that I was currently barred from that activity, I resorted to a muffled scream so as to avoid creating any sort of echo. I didn't like this. Not one bit. I couldn't cope with just being a voice for the rest of my existence. Especially with that unpleasant feeling of bouncing off things at the response of anything shouted. I hoped I wouldn't have to go through that anytime again soon.

"H-How are we supposed to get out of here?" I said, feeling my very being start to shiver, which altered my voice to match the shakiness I felt. "We can't even seem to move unless we shout at each other, and we can barely control that. Or I can barely control it." I sighed. "I doubt you'd fare any better though."

I didn't get a response to that, which left me assuming that Brent agreed with me, or at least was afraid to contest my words. For once, there really was no arguing with my logic, and it seemed he knew it.

Though I'd forgotten to take Amanda into account. "What would happen if we made pretty sounds?"

Now that was an interesting idea. I had no idea what would happen then. "I don't know, snowflake. What do you think would happen?"

She must have decided that was an invitation to try it out, because she didn't wait for a go ahead from me or Brent before she started her little experiment, which turned out to be her rendition of "Silent Night". That must have been the prettiest song she knew at her age, and I couldn't find it in my heart to disagree. Besides, my heart had melted already, both the physical one and now the emotional one too at hearing her little voice.

Brent and I silently listened to her sing her way through the first verse, and then she started over again on the same verse. It seemed she didn't know anything more of that song, though that was fine by me. Most people weren't constantly bombarded with everything Christmas every time they were in the northern hemisphere, unlike a certain winter sprite who shall remain nameless.

The vibrations from her voice washed over me, soothing me down to my core. I found myself thinking that even if I did remain stuck here forever, it wouldn't be as bad as I had thought so long as I could hear sounds like this and hear them often. I felt a pull to respond to her little song somehow, and while I resisted at first since I don't particularly care for my singing voice, eventually the call became too much to resist, and I joined my voice with her in song.

It seemed the same predicament had afflicted Brent, as he joined the two of us shortly after. We had nothing better to do than sing, and singing felt strangely better than it ever had before, so we just continued to sing the first verse of "Silent Night" over and over since all three of us knew it without problem. The pulling sensation continued and only grew stronger with each repeated verse, and I could feel the other two voices drawing nearer. At least this was ensuring we wouldn't have to be separated from each other, so long as we sang together, and I found all the tension in my being flowing out of me.

The next thing I was aware of, I felt my being pressing up against some form of resistance, though it didn't feel like an unpleasant sensation, so I just ignored it and continued singing. The pulling sensation continued, even though it seemed we had drawn as close as we could possibly get to each other, but it didn't seem to bother anybody, despite the weirdness. I then felt the resistance start to give as the pulling sensation began to pull me through and into whatever had been trying to keep me out, as well as pulling whatever it was into myself.

Despite how I logically should have been scared right then, I wasn't. It felt good, and the closer I got to the others, the better I felt. It soon clicked in my mind that the pull I was feeling was from the sounds interacting with each other and wanting to merge into one harmonious voice. Since we were nothing but voices ourselves, the logical conclusion to jump to from that realization was that we were all being pulled to merge into each other and become one sound. That realization should have scared me even more. But once again, it didn't.

We all continued singing even as my essence was pulled into Brent and Amanda and became a part of them even as their essences invaded my space and became a part of mine. Our three voices merged together perfectly, creating one pure tone. None of us could tell where one of us stopped and another started, as we had more or less lost our identities for the time being, but we didn't think to care. This just felt right for the time being.

Upon hitting the final note of the verse we had been singing, we collectively held the note and sang it as strongly as we possibly could, somehow just feeling that this was the right thing to do. The world around us began to shake, and I heard the universe cracking as the quake spread its way through the entire void.

Light pierced its way through some of the cracks, and I could miraculously see it as several large chunks of the void fell away only to be replaced by glorious, glorious light shining in from the world outside. We continued to wait patiently as the rest of the world around us continued to crack and chip away bit by bit, and a tickling sensation returned to my being as my body began to reform around me. I took in a breath of fresh air that wafted in from the outside and was elated to find that I could do it.

After several more minutes of watching the sound world chip and fall away, the rest of it just crumpled into dust, leaving us standing there in the midst of a meadow filled with all kinds of flowers and grasses. We took a few minutes just to breathe in relief and gain our bearings before trying to figure out what to do next. Surely Chaos wouldn't pull his next trick on us before we could even ground ourselves. That last experience had been quite trippy.

However, after a few minutes of waiting and realizing what I wasn't noticing as I looked around, I look around me deliberately one more time just to make sure, then placed my hand on my chest as my heart rate sped up in a panic. Chaos had already started the next challenge for us, even before we'd fully left the last one.

The three of us were still merged together into one body.

*snickers* This chapter was fun. Anyway, feel free to tell me what you think. I'm also trying to decide whether to write a sequel or not, but I won't write one unless I have a full plot, so if any of you have any plot ideas, please do suggest. You don't have to know how the story ends to make suggestions. All I need are ideas, and ideas can come from anything. ;)

But yeah, hope you enjoyed that. Reviews would be lovely. See you next time!