Silence.

It crept along his body, ceasing his every thought and action. There was no sound, as if the darkness, in turn, had also swallowed all sound from the dead-end world he lingered in. He had always taken it for granted; he could never keep his mouth shut to begin with. But that was before. That was before his whole secure life fell to nothing, and he wound up with 11 other hapless shells of the same fate, who rose together to take a stand.

But for what?

He had asked himself this countless times after another while he was still in the order, but could never choke up and answer... or really give enough of a shit to think of one.

A lone figure sat on a ruined, gargantuan heap of a once majestic, intricate white castle, now ripped and torn away from its splendor. It sat alone, heaped, weeping in front of the moon in the sky, its center gaping and bruised like a mishandled fruit. The forbidden fruit... that's how he treated it. You were never allowed to reach to the tip top of the structure, unless you physically were the superior.

It was off-limits to all 12 other members, unless you were called up for a special gathering, which ended in the superior making a big, voodoo-licious party out of it. It was never his style, so he usually crept away. Everything, in time, also started to creep away... his trust in the order, his standings, his faith, his friends...

"No one would miss me."

"That's not true! ... I would."

The hooded figure leaned back, looking up towards the starless sky. "I still do."

The thought of his blond-haired friend pained him, causing a sinister sensation to crawl about as it pleased through his empty, forbidding soul. He was racked with the idea of getting him back by all means possible, the regret and loneliness soaked into his cloak like the darkness that coated every detail of land around him. He wished so much for his happy memories to become a reality once again.

Happy.

He remembered happiness from his teenage years, the years he longed for so desperately. If he had a heart, he would have felt pain in his heart for the friends he lost, all to a huge mistake.

"'This yours?"

"Uh..."

"You were playing with this junk? What a baby. I've got these: Ta-da! Cool, huh?"

"Yeah? Yours are pretty lame, too."

"I've got a name you know, it's Lea. Got it memorized? What's your name?"

"..."

"Alright ..., time for some one on one."

"Huh? Why do I have to fight you?"

"What? Are you chicken? Come on! Let's do this..."

"Hmph."

"Oh! So your gonna do it."

"Yeah! You'd better not cry!"

His name... Why couldn't he remember his name? The thought of that boy racked his brain so. Desperately he would want to blurt out "Roxas", but the name didn't seem to fit anymore. That name was a lie. "And when he left..."

Everything after that particular moment seemed so vague, like a large piece of what was left of him, left of nothing, was stolen away at that particular moment. He barely remembered fading away in the dark corridors, a friend at his side, watching him slowly drift off.

"Try keeping the stray dogs you meet to a minimum."

"I wanna be a part of a lot of peoples' memories. If I do that, I'll live forever!"

The memories inside of him were the only long shot of life still inside of his opaque cloak. They were, to him, the only reason he continued to linger about.

"Well, you may be a small part of my memories, but you'll never disappear."

The man inhaled deeply, held his breath, and exhaled sharply. Sitting up again, in his usual slouch, he studied his leather gloved hands, as opaque as the rest of him. He flipped them around a few times, studying each side. His body felt hollow, was hollow, yet his memories still shaped the cloak to a t.

He closed his eyes, his mind traveling to a lefty seat high up on a tall clock tower, overlooking a small hamlet and lush, green hills as far as the eye could see. He always arrived there towards the evening, the twilight hues soaking the land as far as the eye could see. The sunset - oh, the sunset! - he smiled in his thoughts as he watched the breathtaking view of the sky's warm, embracing colors.

To his left, a teenage boy, just as lost as he was, handed him a blue ice cream bar. Salty, but sweet. Bittersweet, like their friendship, going back more than a decade. Bittersweet, like his newly found purpose - to regain the friendship that had vanished from his grasp... but at what cost has he already paid? The hooded man took a deep breath inward, and exhaled slowly, embracing this heartfelt memory.

Every day, after his missions, loyalties and severe, exponentially multiplying doubts with the order, he would drop his mask away from his face, sit down and visit this place in hopes of reliving the feelings he would miss so much.

His newly adopted ritual would be to visit the local bars in the dismal, melancholic city, pretending to drink away his whims, regrets, and old memories. Little did his entourage know that the drinks he drank simply vanished upon coming into contact with his cloak. Just like the drinks he had pretended to drink, the city he lingered inside of, in its own way, also began to embark on its final voyage into the void. Was that also his destiny to come to realize?

However, ever since his 'accident', he had to switch rituals, which brought him to the pile of gray and white rubble he once called home. A long time ago, he could walk into his quarters, forget all that stuck to his mind like tiny, impending leeches, and banish everything away in sleep.

They had always asked him why he slept so much of the day, him especially. Hell - if it were up to him, he'd fall asleep and hope to never wake up at this point - if it meant he could dream of normality again. Mediocrity in his old neighborhood. The big town squares, the fountains, little kids running around, moogles stationed at the shops, all of the green...

His soul smiled, recalling his teen-age memories he longed so much for once again. If only he could go back - if only he would've convinced his friend otherwise-

The figure's fists clenched, and violently pounded the rubble on which he sat. "I could have done better-" he cut himself off, choking on his words as if they pained his lungs to spit out, "-I could have prevented this." Gesturing to himself, the air around his hands began to flutter, heat flowing out of his fists. He sat like this for a moment, generating an unnatural amount of heat, but ceased all action, giving up on his temper.

If only we weren't curious...

Arms laid limp by his sides, he fell back onto the rubble, staring once again up towards the broken heart-shaped moon looming above. "This time, there isn't any room for that."

"I'm getting my real buddies back this time."

THUD

Riku, having woken up early, shifted his attention from the coffee held close to his lips to the unexpected blunt noise coming from Laura's guest room. He shrugged it off, and proceeded to take a drink with a smirk on his face.

Yelping in a jolt from her landing spot beside the bed, Laura gained the consciousness she needed to pry herself up from the floor. "I'm up! I'm up," she groaned, and rubbed her behind. Reaching high up above her, towards the ceiling, she stretched her entire body. She sighed in comfort.

"Wasn't that just the bee's knees!" she laughed, and made her way to the window. Despite the raging storm the evening before, the sky was a crystal clear blue, reflecting off of the ocean with such splendor Laura had only seen in the movies. "Geez..." she whispered to herself, "Just like a resort... except I landed here," before turning around to move towards the door. Opening the door, she hardly expected to be pounced on by a sweet smelling new face.

"My gosh, you're awake!" a cheery voice cried out, and its owner quickly let go of an almost blue Laura. "Sorry!" Rubbing her head, she nodded. Yeesh, the death grip on her!

"My name's Kairi! I'm Sora's and Riku's friend." She held a hand out to Laura, who took it. "My name's Laura, nice to meet you!" she replied with a smile. Kairi looked like she didn't know what to say. After a second of silence, Kairi nudged Laura along, and moved along with her."C'mon!" She smiled apologetically once again before running off down the small stairs to a white-tiled floor.

"We were really worried about you, Laura," Sora, mouth half-full with food, called out from what she assumed to be a kitchen across the small set of stairs she sat in front of. "How are you feeling?"

Getting quickly down the stairs, she made her way over. "I'm not dead, so I'm good!" she was answered by a laugh from both Sora and Kairi. "That reply reminds me of someone," Kairi mocked Sora, and he simply stuck his tongue out, "yeah, yeah" and continued to root through a large, white fridge. Laura couldn't help but smile in amusement at Sora's determination in his quest for food, as he dug deeper and deeper in the fridge. "No! Who ate those? I put those there..." he sighed inside the fridge, but continued his search.

"So, Whose house is this?" Laura asked, examining her surroundings. Whoever decorated this place has issues with white...

"Mine." Riku sat at the island stationed at the center of the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hands. "And Sora," he received an "mm" from the fridge, "I hope you know that you're buying me groceries after that... and paying my electricity bill." Suddenly Sora let out a "ack!" of surprise, knocking his head on the inside of the rubbed the top of his head in pain.

"Yikes! Suddenly I don't feel so hungry..." Both Kairi and Laura laughed, and Riku sat there on his stool and smirked. "Listen to you! You sound like your old man already and you're only what, seventeen?" Riku rolled his eyes.

"Eighteen. You think you'd know how old your best friend is!" Sora laughed nervously, but then regained his cheery disposition, closing the fridge door with grapes in his mouth. "Must be a seventeen-year-old thing, I guess." This made Riku laugh a little as he drank his coffee.

Laura smiled as she sat on an empty stool at the other end of the table. Something about where she was at that moment made her finally feel safe, something she never really felt in Manhattan.

"I never realized how beautiful the islands are here... where did you say we were again?" asking where she was made her feel slightly awkward. It's on my need-to-know basis, though! Kairi became interested in the newly brought up conversation, and leaned onto the island beside Laura.

"Destiny Islands, of course! Sora, Riku and I grew up here." Sora nodded, and swallowed his food. While taking a sip of his coffee, Riku nudged over a bowl of fruit towards Laura and Kairi. Laura took a couple of grapes of her own from the juiciest pile of grapes she had ever seen. Kairi followed up to take a small peach out of the bowl.

"Yeah! Home base. Before we go," he began, putting his glass that once contained orange juice into the nearby sink, "we'll take you back to where you fell. It's one of the islands we'd have play on when we were kids." Excited to get a grand tour, she nodded, thoroughly enjoying the fruit she was eating.

"Sure, why not? Maybe grumpy here will cheer up, too." Laura stared him in the eyes playfully, and Riku rolled his eyes once again. Kairi nudged Laura mischievously. "I like her!" Riku rose his eyebrows as he stared down his empty coffee cup.

"Don't mind him, he's impatient in the morning..." Kairi whispered in Sora's ear, while giving him a silly look. Laura chuckled a little bit.

Getting up from the island, Riku walked to the left of the kitchen, and into what Laura assumed to be a front hallway. Sora gulped down another glass of orange juice and looked kind of frantic. "We're leaving already?"

He was answered with a bit of shuffling in the front hall. "Yeah, get your shoes on, we're going!" Laura paused for a second, staring down at the small white nightgown she still wore. Kairi immediately picked up on this, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're going to stop by my house beforehand to get you some clothes, don't worry!"

Laura sighed with relief, but felt guilty. "I don't want to impose! Surely I-" Kairi hushed her. "My treat! Now let's get your shoes," she decided, running off into the front hall with the two others. Laura wore a surprised expression on her face.

These people are giving the shirts off their backs for me - literally! She thought of her friends in Manhattan. My friends rarely acted like this, unless they needed help with something, or I was sick...

"C'mon! I got your shoes right here, let's get going! There's so much for you to see!" Sora exclaimed from the front hall, overly excited as he seemed to usually be. Laura smiled wholeheartedly and ran to them.

Slipping on her orange-yellow circa sneakers, which, of course, did not go at all with the nightgown she wore, she followed her new-found friends out of the door.