[.001]

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

Characters: Naminé

Setting: Twelfth floor

Format: Starting this way, matching responders.

Summary: A new arrival discovers the twelfth floor. This is not exactly good for her world view.

Warnings: Angst, low self-esteem, tl;dr.  In summary; those stairs are blocked by an outwardly calm but internally angsting teenage girl.



Naminé had read the letters, of course. It had seemed prudent, considering that there appeared to be no one around to explain why she had woken up in a bed rather than… well, she hadn’t known what to expect when she went back to Kairi, for all her attempts to be optimistic, but this hadn’t even been on the metaphorical list. At the very least, shouldn’t there have been fewer beds? Sora was the one who always had guests in his heart, after all, not Kairi.


The letters had proved informative, as they were no doubt meant to be, but….


Try though she might, it was just impossible to wrap her head around the idea that the worlds she knew no longer existed. If the Heartless had tried to destroy them and failed, then how could something nameless and faceless succeed? It was an utterly stupid notion, of course, but something in her just couldn’t quite let go of it… until now.


Her feet had prompted her to take the nearest exit, to try to find her way back to something she recognized or make sense of this world. It wasn’t the first time she’d woken up in a strange place, and so she had found herself calm, but understandably apprehensive. It hadn’t ended well, last time. Her search had yielded no fruit up until the point where she stepped down onto the twelfth floor of the tower.


Vertigo and a lurch in her stomach were instant, forcing her to a stop right in the middle of the stairs. Once her mind had managed to convince her body that she wasn’t going to fall, she began to take in her surroundings – and, more specifically, what was going on in them. She ended up feeling sick all over again.


All of those worlds, destroyed as easily as one snuffs out a candle.


Seeing it was much more powerful than hearing it. Watching this destruction, endless and absolute, tore aside her disbelief and replaced it with much, much heavier understanding. Everything that she’d ever worked for, everyone she’d ever known, met, or – impossible for her to admit to herself – cared for was gone.


Her knees went weak, but did not buckle; they, too, seemed to be in shock. Her face was ashen, her arms limp at her sides, her expression still frozen in place. The prickling at her eyes went unnoticed in favor of the tumult in her mind.


She’d been able to handle the idea of herself no longer existing as a separate entity (after all, she would be whole, wouldn’t she?) but the idea that Sora and Roxas, that Riku, that Kairi, Donald, Goofy, the King, everyone else were no longer— she couldn’t even think the word. She was no stranger to death and the threat of it, but still, still--


Why her?


Why her, of all people? Of all Nobodies? What right did she have to be spared? What purpose did she have, beyond finishing the duty to Sora that her failures had put upon her and then going to make Kairi whole? What was Naminé supposed to do? All that time she’d had the answers, or at least answers that she could make herself believe, but now… she was really and truly nothing, without purpose or tie.


Still, she did not break down. She didn’t know how to. She didn’t have the right to. Her body stayed motionless like the shell it was as she tried so hard to figure out whether she wanted to scream, or weep, or laugh, or if she really didn’t want anything at all. In the end, it probably didn’t matter what she did. The only thing that did was that one question, the one that someone else always answered for her.


What now?

Comments

[fifty]

"I guess we could stay up watching, but they don't really say when it's gonna happen. Maybe if we posted a guard every night..."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

The girl paused to consider this, then shrugged lightly. "It might be a good idea." If things were changing so quickly, after all, couldn't they change for the worse just as quickly?

[fifty]

"Maybe I'll ask on the network," America said, thoughtfully. It shouldn't be that hard to organize backup, right? "They get added under the dorms so I guess we could just have someone wait on the dorm stairs."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"If that's the case, then that might be the best way." Although that did make her wonder, "...How many others are there?"

[fifty]

"I've never counted, maybe forty? Sometimes people disappear, though."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

Forty. That seemed like a lot, at least when she tried to imagine what forty different people could possibly look like, or act like. However, there were more alarming things to deal with. "Disappear?"

[fifty]

"Yeah, I don't know what happens to 'em, but they vanish and don't come back," America said, and then realized that maybe this was too much like a ghost story for a little kid. "But hey, maybe they went home!"

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

Judging by the rather horrified face, he was right about that. "Home? But the letters said..."

[fifty]

"Yeah, sure, but the letters were from the people who took us! So wouldn't they want us to not try to escape?"

Of course, America had been home, and he knew the letters were true, but there had to be something, some way of bringing everything back, and he didn't have to tell this girl that.

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"That's true, but..." She shook her head. "All of that destruction looks so real...?" Although even as she said that, she couldn't help it that she was starting to hope that she was wrong, and it was obvious in her voice and expression.

[fifty]

"Maybe it's a hologram, or a movie or something!" America said. "It could all be special effects, there's no way to prove this is what's really happening."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"...Maybe." It was a comforting thought. "It's true that there are some very convincing illusions out there." She'd know because she'd both seen and created them. This was of a scale that she'd never been involved in, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

[fifty]

"C'mon, just go down one floor with me, this place has all sorts of crazy stuff, this could be fake easy."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"--...." She was still a bit wary about that one. Stalling time. "...Why? What's there?"

[fifty]

"It's really cool, there's waterfalls from the ceiling and flowers up there too, and the water runs right off the sides, there's no walls at all."

America made large, wild gestures in an attempt to describe it all.

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"No walls?" That gesturing was kind of reminding her of a few other exuberant people... all of whom may or may not have no longer been 'around'. "Then how does the tower stay up?" Magic, probably, but she was still looking for ways to stall.

[fifty]

"I dunno, there's only the staircase that goes up and down, it's really weird. Oh, and the floor below that, there's an aquarium, a huge one, there are even whales!" America's hands went wide as if one might need to have the size of whales explained to them. "But there's nothing holding the water in, it just stands up on its own!"

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"...That does sound interesting." And very tempting. Well... after all, nobody knew about her, here, or at least that was the way it seemed. It didn't help her resolve that this guy just didn't seem like a particularly tricky fellow.

[fifty]

"The whole place is pretty cool, in a weird way," America said. "There's a maze, and a huge pool like a hundred feet deep, and a library with all sorts of stuff in it! No movies, but lots of comic books."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"All of the floors are like that? Always something new?" Even just those things were unlike anything she'd ever been able to experience before.

[fifty]

"Yeah, each one has different stuff on it. Sometimes they're dangerous, though, so you gotta be careful!"

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"--Dangerous?" Not very encouraging. "Dangerous... how?"

[fifty]

"Well, there's monsters in the forest, and in the aquarium sometimes the fish jump out, and they can be pretty big, and stuff like that."

[lethechained.livejournal.com]

"...." Definitely not encouraging. "What kind of... 'monsters'?"

[fifty]

"At night there are ghost things, but I don't think they can hurt you anymore," America said, rocking back on his heels slightly. "There's these weird, like... Not animals in the forest, though."