Hey! Here it is, Chapter 8! Enjoy!!

Chapter 8

We all knew something is wrong the moment we break through the World's cloud cover. All of us are squished against the front windshield, our hands and noses pressed on the glass pane. And in unison, every single one of us draws a sharp breath.

What meets our eyes is an endless sprawl of cracked, barren earth. It looks a lot like those pictures I saw on TV and in textbooks—pictures of Mars taken by little Rover robots. Except this scene is a lot less pretty then that.

The ground is so dull of a brown, it's nearly grey—and it's perfectly flat. No indentations, no sloping hillocks or mountain peaks anywhere to be seen—just dry, level planes as far as the eye can see.

"Wh-What happened here?" I gasp, unable to tear my eyes away from the bleak landscape growing nearer and nearer beneath our Gummi Ship.

"Maleficent," Donald replies grimly, and the other two nod in silent assent. No one says a word more—it is too solemn a moment for something like talking. I can't believe my eyes—it's too horrible.

It doesn't take long for us to reach the ground. And when we do, Donald warns us not to go outside right away. Quickly he conjures up a spell and bubbles—filled with oxygen—engulf each one of our heads.

"N-Neat," Sora says, poking the outside of the orb with his finger. It jiggles at his touch.

"There's enough air to last us about half-an-hour, if you're careful," Donald garbles sternly—though his words feel empty, it's obvious that he's too disheartened to be very threatening at the moment.

We all hesitate at the door, no one wanting to do the honors until Goofy finally reaches out and punches the button which sends the doors folding open on either side.

It is strange. I'm sure what to expect as I step out onto the parched, colorless earth—this certainly wasn't in the gameplay, if I remembered correctly. The World looks so forlorn, so dismal. No trees, or plants, or houses, or birds—just flat, wide planes of nothingness that stretch on forever.

After a moment of complete silence, Goofy speaks up at last. "Gawrsh," he sighs. "So this is why it we couldn't find it."

"Why?" I ask, feeling like I have bricks mortared to the walls of my stomach.

"Because all the life in this world is gone," Donald says quietly. "It was drained, then thrown out of orbit—technically, it doesn't even exist anymore. What we're seeing now is its shell—like a corpse."

His words sadden all of us, and the silence lapses on, unbroken as the meaning of what has happened to this place churns deep in our hearts. As I glance over at Sora, I can see from the hanging of his head and the dejected slump of his shoulders that this is injuring him. His hope is gone.

I reach out and put my arm around him.

It's okay, I think, even though I know that it isn't. No way is it okay. What a stupid thing to think at a moment like this.

"Come on," Donald finally says, turning around and heading back towards the ship. "There's nothing left to save here. We might as well go."

Goofy turns to follow, but neither Sora nor I budge. "Come on, you guys," the gangly dog-man says, pausing when he realizes that we aren't coming. "Donald's right. There's no point in staying any longer…"

"Yes, there is."

That voice again. Inside my head. Talking to me. Am I going insane…?

"Please, you must help me.

I've been waiting so long."

How? How can we help?

"Come forwards. A little farther."

I feel tingly with fear and excitement. Fear because I'm headed deep into the unknown…… and I have no idea how excitement got mixed up in there. Whatever.

"Y-You guys, wait for a second, okay?" I call as I begin to run ahead. I can hear them shouting after me to stop, but I know I can't. Someone needs help. But what if it's someone we can't trust? What if they're evil…?

My legs pumping hard, I race across the barren ground; my breathing becoming hard and each intake of air causing a sharp pang in my lungs. I've never been one for running… I get winded easily. Something my mother said once floats randomly through my mind: "You need to prepare for everything when you've got the time—because when your skills are suddenly called for in life, you won't always be afforded the luxury of being forewarned."

Man, I miss mom. I wish I could just see her and dad again… I wish this would all be over and I could just go home.

"S-Stop! Here I am!"

Where? I ask.

"You're right on top of me." The voice sounds exhausted, hardly even relieved to have been rescued. "Literally."

Oops. I stumble back a few steps and stare at the ground, but see nothing special. Just cracks, dry dirt, empty space. What the…?

"You've got to dig first…" the voice instructs.

Feeling like a complete idiot, I fall to my knees and begin to turn up soil like a machine. It's difficult work: the earth is so parched that it makes my fingers turn red, and bleed. But I keep at it. Steadily. And before long, the others arrive to witness my (apparent??) spiral into insanity.

"E-Elise, what on earth are you doing?" Sora pants, hands on his knees, bent over as he catches his breath.

"I'm with the kid. What exactly is going on here?" Donald huffs, the last one to turn up. I can tell from his tone that he's none-to-happy. Well, take a number and get in line, you distorted ball of feathery fluff.

"Uh-yuk," Goofy says quietly, getting down beside me on the ground. "Is it your psychic powers, Elise?"

"Tell him yes."

"Uh… kinda…" I mumble, tossing aside a particularly large chunk of rock. Without another word, Goofy begins to dig as well, and is quickly followed by Sora. Eventually, (albeit rather reluctantly) Donald joins in too.

And so, all together we till the ground, very relieved no one else is around to see. I'm not the only one who feels deranged by this behavior.

After a few minutes pass—long enough for me to begin to feel that we wouldn't find anything, and this had all been some horrible practical joke—Sora's hand hit something small and metallic. We all jumped to unearth it, and within seconds it's free.

"What… is… this?" Sora asks, staring at the thing in his hands with dumbfounded confusement. No one answers, because the thing is, we don't know either. It's just a gold slab, about 12 cm by 8cm, with a small keyhole in the top right-hand corner. And all of a sudden, I understand.

"Your keyblade," I tell him softly. "Use your keyblade."

"But it's too big! The hole's way too small," he protests, looking even more bewildered then before.

"Just try it," Donald advises, siding with me for once. I'm grateful that he's giving me the benefit of the doubt, and would have thanked him, but the situation is moving too fast. As Sora gets to his feet and draws the keyblade from its sheath on his back, I reach out and take the gold slab to hold it steady for him. He aims the blade directly at the hole, and for a moment, nothing happens, and my heart sinks.

Then, with a sudden blazing flash, the slab suddenly explodes from my hands into a sparkly cloud of pinks and whites. As we all stumble backwards in surprise, the cloud begins to swirl, faster and faster, until its spinning like a wound top.

In the tinkling fog, I can see what appear to be stars—thousands of them—winking and twirling in orbit, all gathered together in strange formations and whizzing by so fast I can hardly catch sight of them.

It's the single most fascinating thing I've ever seen.

"G-Gawrsh," Goofy whispers.

"Cool!" Sora cries.

Poor Donald can only splutter, and I'm right there with him.

Before our very eyes, the cloud begins to morph as it spins—like wet clay in a potter's hands—growing first taller, then wider, then shrinking to the size of a grape, now as large as a small car. It's so mesmerizing I can't look away.

After a moment or so, it shrinks and glows brighter, brighter—bright as the sun!—and we're all forced to look away as the intensity of the rays pierce the air for miles in all directions. I throw myself onto the ground and press my face into my arms, trying to escape the scorching luminosity.

And then it ends. I can tell that the light is gone, and slowly—gingerly—I lift my head.

The first thing I see is my friends. They're all, like me, lying on the ground, with their faces buried out of sight. Hesitantly, I can see Sora peek out over his hands to see if it's safe. He sees me, and I give him a shaky smile of—what I hope is—reassurance.

But we're not alone. Immediately, I can sense that. Something has changed here—something's different.

"I've been waiting a long time for you to come here," says a voice from behind me. I recognize it to be the same one that spoke to me earlier. Eyes widening with alarm, I whirl around to see who it could be.

All of my previous doubts and fears are reborn in that very second—what if it's someone bad? What if they want to kill us, and used me to achieve those means? What if I'm the reason we're all killed? Or captured?

Of all the things I was imagining to see as I scrambled to face that voice from my head, what met my eyes next was something I wasn't prepared—in any way—to see. Of all the things to fix my eyes on at that moment, this was the very, very last one I'd ever have expected.

Because what I saw sitting there was in no way human.

--End of Chapter 8

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