Fear of flying

Sora, Roxas, Riku, Kaity and I started to make our way down the dirt path. As we made our way down the path, Sora glanced back to look at Kairi as she stood in the door way with a content expression, but a sad look in her eyes. Namine shared the same look. Watching him look back at her, not knowing when or if he was coming back... it hurts the heart. I saw Roxas copy Sora, but instead looking back to Namine. Kaity and I saw this and exchanged a sympathetic look before continuing on. The five of us walked toward the beach silently. The silence wasn't one of those comfortable silences either. No, it was one of those stupid tense/sad silences. Like the silences that people get before they go off to war... Hm, maybe we are going off to war? Who knows?

When we got to the beach we all headed over to some boats tied up to a dock. After much arguing, we all piled into two of the wooden contraptions. It was a five minute trip from the main land to the island. It wasn't a bad trip, but silent. When all five of us were on the soft sandy beach we started to head toward the small island connected to this island by a wide wooden bridge.

"Um...," Kaity said confused, "Where/What are we doing?"

Roxas glanced over his shoulder to Kaity and I (who were lagging behind) and said "Getting a ride."

Kaity and I glanced at each other confused. What ride could they be getting? Keeping our questions to ourselves, we continued following them to the small island. I looked out over the sea, watching the waves roll against the sand and slide back into the light waters. A child-like grin spread over my lips and I veered away from the group to go walk through the small waves. I slowly walked along the shore line, twirling and jumping over the waves. Looking out over the sparkling water, I thought about how I always used to do this when I was a kid. But… there's this weird feeling I have that I had done this more times then I remember. Hearing laughter from the shore, I looked up to see Kaity and Roxas watching me as they walked. I smiled and blushed, turning back to the water. How embarrassing to be caught acting childish. Even though I've been told that most of what I do and how I act is based off a child's curiosity. I looked down through the water and saw something glimmer in the sun.

"Huh?" I bent over and pulled it out of the water. It was just a plain cream colored shell with blue and purple tinted edges. It was really pretty. I twirled it over in my palm before pocketing it. Looking up, I saw the rest of the gang up on the wooden bridge that led to the smaller island off the shore.

"Hey!" I called running toward the shack that led up to the bridge. "Wait for me!" I ran up the dark stairs and out the door into the sun once again.

"Slow poke!" Kaity called over her shoulder.

"I'll show you who the slow poke is!" I yelled playfully. I barreled toward Kaity at full speed. I heard her let out a startled yelp as she started to run across the bridge.

I pushed past Roxas and Riku who were blocking my path. When I was in range of Kaity, I dove to the ground and grabbed her ankle, making her trip and fall on her face in the sand. I let go of her ankle, stood and laughed. Then suddenly I was back on the ground with my face in the sand. Huffing, I rolled over and kicked at Kaity in the back (not hard, but with enough force to push her several feet away from me). I watched her roll away, but she didn't stop rolling. Instead, she kept tumbling before disappearing from view.

"Kaity?" I said confused as I pushed myself up onto my elbows. Then that was when I noticed how close to the edge of the small island we were. Splashing and death threats with my name laced into them were coming from over the edge of the island.

Oh, crap.

I crawled over to the edge and peered down at Kaity as she glared upwards. "Oh my god! Kaity, I am SO sorry!" Horror was clearly written all over my face.

Murder was written all over hers.

I quickly slinked away from the edge of the island and ran back to hide behind Roxas and Riku (who, of course, we laughing at my misfortune). Then my 'death' came up the ladder that was on the side of the island. Kaity stood there, dripping wet and glaring daggers at me (well, at Riku and Roxas, actually since I was behind them) as she started to advance forward.

I stood on my tip-toes and glanced over Roxas' shoulder. God, I'm going to die. I am so going to die.

"Roxas, don't you have some kind of air magic or something?" I said panicking.

"Uh, Yeah. How did you know that?"

I ignored the latter question."Can you use it to dry her off? Please!"

He laughed. "Like that's going to stop her; But sure."

Roxas took out one of his keyblades and pointed it at Kaity and mumbled some wind spell. And then suddenly Kaity was back off her feet again flying through the air. She landed dangerously close to the edge of the island, but not over it. She stood up and examined herself while brushing sand off her dry clothes.

I sighed in relief. At least I wasn't going to die now.

Kaity looked up at me still with a murderous intent in her eyes. I swallowed hard. Yeah, I take that back.

Kaity and I chased each other around, replaying the recent events that I did to her, but vice versa. I broke the surface water sputtering. I glared up at Kaity as she stood above me triumphant. After climbing up the ladder, Roxas kindly dried me off. Riku looked on us with a slowly growing irritation.

"Are you both done fooling around now?" He huffed.

"Yup." Kaity answered happy now that she had her revenge. I just glared at her.

"Alright then." Riku stuck his hand into one of his pockets and pulled out a colorful key ring. On the key ring was a one of those button things that you use to lock your car. He pushed one of the buttons on the thing and then there was...silence. Wow.

That did a lot, I scoffed in my thoughts.

Then suddenly there was a huge gust of wind and sand started to fly and swirl everywhere. I shielded my eyes and looked up to see what was causing the wind. Above us was the Gummi ship. I went all deer-in-the-headlights as it landed in front of us. It was huge! We were all backed up to the edges of the island so that it didn't crush us when it landed. Once it was gently rested on the sand, a bridge lowered from the ship to the ground. A dust cloud sprung up from the impact of it touching the sand and sprayed us with more gravel. Kaity and I exchanged nervous looks as the guys boarded the ship. Deciding to swallow our fear, we both boarded a moment later.

We followed the guys through the labyrinth of the gears and engines of the lower part of the ship up to the deck. The ship looked exactly as it had in the second game. Three chairs set before a curved control panel with blinking buttons and flashing lights. A large, clear, glass dome stretched above us. Against the back wall, extra passenger chairs were set there. A door stood in the center of the back wall with a sign above it that read: "Other important rooms and sleeping quarters."

...hilarious.

I pulled my attention away from the control deck and focused on the guys as they sat in their seats and prepped the ship for takeoff. Riku sat in the center chair, while Sora sat on his right and Roxas on his left.

"Alright." Riku said as he flipped some switches and pushed some buttons. "Everyone grab a seat and buckle in." Taking "everyone" to be us, Kaity and I sat down in two of the four extra seats in the back and did what he said. "Once we are up and out of the atmosphere, you can move around all you want."

"How long will it take us to get to Disney Castle?" Kaity asked from beside me.

"About six hours." Riku answered.

"Six hours!" I exclaimed in disbelief.

"Well," Riku said in annoyance as he messed with a few more controls, "It normally would have only taken about twenty minutes, but someone had to go and break the warp drive."

Sora looked over to Riku with an exasperated look. "I said I was sorry, Riku. Seriously, it's not my fault an asteroid knocked it out."

I laughed to myself at the look on Riku's face as he looked back at Sora. It was just too darn funny when they argued.

"Actually, Sora," Roxas butt in, "If you hadn't of taken the Gummi ship out for a joy ride with Kairi, then the asteroid would have never hit the warp drive."

Kaity and I snickered as Sora groaned and continued to start up the ship.

"Alright, everyone," Riku said finally. "Hold on tight."

The sounds of engines revving up and starting buzzed from beneath our feet. The gears from below spun and the ship started to slowly lift itself from the ground. I watched as we lifted into the sky slowly and felt the paralyzing fear start to creep in. Oh, crap... Um, did I ever mention that I'm terrified of flying? Yeah, well, now you know.

I tried to shrink into my seat and squeezed my eyes shut as tight as could as we gained speed, rising higher into the sky. My stomach was doing flips and my brain was screaming. I was really close to totally spazzing out. Oh why, oh why did I ever get involved in this? What had I been thinking? Trying to find my happy place, I focused on steadying my breathing.

"Hey, Sam, are you alright?" Someone said worried. It sounded like Roxas, but I couldn't tell. All I could hear was my heart pounding through my head. I didn't even bother to try and respond in fear of throwing up my guts. "You're as white as a sheet."

"She'll be fine." Kaity said while trying her best to comfort me. "She just momentarily forgot that she's terrified of flying."

"She looks kind of green." Riku pointed out with concern in his voice.

"Breath deep, Sam. We'll be out of the atmosphere soon." Kaity said reassuring me.

Following her advice, I sucked in a few deep breaths of air. The feeling of lifting and moving through the air eased up as we moved out of the world. I rejoiced to the heavens when all feelings of motion sickness and outside gravity disappeared. Riku announced that we could get up and move around. I felt Kaity unbuckle and move to stand in front of me.

I slowly eased my eyes open and took a deep breath. I looked around, groaned, and unbuckled so that I could stand up and try to walk off the turning in my stomach. I hate flying.

Once Kaity saw that I was okay and wasn't going to have a fit, she picked up the pack of food that Kairi had packed for us and inquired about a kitchen or something. Sora told her that there was a kitchen in the back with the sleeping quarters. She took the food and left the deck. I stayed behind and woozily walked over to see what exactly the guys were doing.

I walked up to Roxas' chair and leaned against it for support. I watched and questioned them about the controls and the ship as the busied themselves with making sure the ship flew smoothly through the colorful, vast, light colored space ahead of us. It was better for me to focus on anything but the fact that we were moving through the realm weightless. I listened to them as they cycled through a list of controls. After some time, I pretty much knew how to start-up, land, and operate the ship. It was quite interesting, actually.

After a while, my eyes started to sting again from tiredness and my muscles started to ache. My eyelids were drooping over my eyes, but I forced them to remain open. I yawned and leaned my head on the side of Roxas' chair.

"Hey, Sam," Roxas said from beside me, "Do you want to go lie down? You look about dead on your feet. There's some beds in the back."

"Sure," I mumbled not even bothering to argue. I needed to rest anyways.

I pushed myself off of the chair and shuffled toward the open doorway. As I was walking my eyes started to drift shut. It was getting hard to keep them open. When they slipped shut, I used every ounce of strength to pry them back open...

...just in time to see the wall.

SMACK!

My forehead connected with the hard, metallic wall and sent me stumbling backwards and onto my butt.

"Ow..." I groaned squeezing my eyes shut tight. I pressed the palms of my hands to my eyes. A prickling pain slid across my forehead and through my head. Laughter echoed around the room from the three seats behind me. I sat up and turned to glare at the three guys.

"Shut up!" I growled at them. I stood up unsteadily from the ground and continued on my way to the wonderfully comfy beds.

After walking down the hall and looking through every door I passed, I came upon a doorway on the right and pushed it open to see four beds with neatly made white sheets and blue blankets. Well, except one bed wasn't so neat. I looked over to Kaity as she slept on the small cot. I yawned again and stumbled over to the closest available bed. Kicking off my shoes and jacket, I climbed into the small cot and slipped under the covers.

I was unconscious before my head hit the pillow.