A/N: This is my first attempt at a fanfic, or even publishing my writing for anyone to read other than me. Feedback is appreciated! Thanks.

She felt above all else the heat bearing down on her as she struggled to pull through to consciousness. All of a sudden she realized she had been plummeting through the air. She only had a few moments to process this before she made solid contact with hot, hot sand. She felt like a meteor smashing into the surface of the earth. The impact of her fall radiated into the ground around her, as though it were shaking the planet to its core. She laid there in the sand feeling the aftershock in the ground beneath her. She felt nothing but a moment of dry heat and sand blowing over her as the darkness won against her in the battle to remain conscious.

She felt herself floating aimlessly through the darkness. Aware that her body was somewhere hot and sandy, probably roasting away. She couldn't bring herself to be concerned, in the darkness of her mind. She didn't think of anything, couldn't really think of anything before she started to feel a weird tug at her consciousness.

The heat of the sun eventually coerced back into consciousness. She carefully rolled onto her back shielding her eyes from the sun with one sore arm.

"What the hell happened..." she mused out loud.

She sat up and tried to take in her surroundings when she felt a deep pounding in her head.

"Ughhhh" she clutched her forehead and waited for the ache to subside before she looked around again. It appeared as though she were in the middle of a desert and on the horizon, very, very distantly she noted two settlements of some sort. One looked smaller, the buildings all low to the ground, the other rather large. The bigger settlement almost looked like it centered around a large garish looking castle. The smaller buildings around the castle all on an angle building up to the castle in the center, creating a spike in the horizon that was aimed straight into the sky.

She tried to lick her dry cracked lips but found her mouth to be too dry. She decided to walk towards the smaller settlement. "I'd rather not go to that freaky looking castle..." she said to herself, voice as dry and brittle as she felt.

As she began walking towards the cities she felt the atmosphere throb around her as her head pounded again. The intensity of it all made her drop to her knees.

"What the hell is happening and where the fuck am I!" She croaked in frustration through the pain.

The throb in the atmosphere happened again but this time she noticed something falling through the sky in the distance. It looked like a person but surrounded in some strange glowing aura. The light falling through the sky pulsed again making her head throb again, but less violently. It actually felt more like a tug now. Like this light was pulling her towards it. She felt like her very consciousness was being pulled at by who-or whatever was falling from the sky.

As the thing in the sky got closer to the ground she gasped as her suspicion, that it was a person, was confirmed. "Oh no…" She whispered in shock at what she was seeing. She began to run forward as she watched the body collide with the ground in a puff of dust.

"Oh shit! Are you okay? Hey kid!"

She kept yelling as she got closer.

Of course he's not okay, you moron, you just watched that thing drop like a rock from Lord knows where, she silently chastised herself as she got closer. As she came upon the body in the sand a small voice in her mind reminded her, "Is this what happened to you?" She couldn't deny what she felt before she passed out not too long ago, the sensation of falling through the sky to meet the ground below.

She wrung her hands nervously and knelt beside the body. She tried to remember anything about treating injuries but found her mind blank. She couldn't remember anything except falling. Inspecting the body she noted two things, it was male, and he was still breathing. She struggled to roll the man's body over, remembering for herself what it was like to wake up with a mouthful of sand.

His appearance was so strange she wasn't sure what to do with the man she had rolled over and cradled in her lap. At first glance she thought he was an old man because he had a full head of stark white hair. But after looking at his features more closely she realized he was in fact fairly young. Probably, in his twenties. She waited a moment before trying to rouse him.

"Hey mister," she said patting the side of his face. She shook him a little.

"Wake up kid!"

His eyes fluttered open and she gasped as her eyes met his deep red ones.

"Who are you calling a kid," he mumbled as he sat up, "You barely look like you've hit puberty."

She resisted the urge to hit the guy as a reward for his sarcasm. Her fingers twitched and she had to remind herself he had just fallen out of the sky. Come to think of it, so had she…but they were miraculously still alive... She stared at nothing in particular, trying to comprehend what was happening. The red-eyed, white haired, sarcastic man cleared his throat loudly and she realized he was looking at her expectantly.

"What?" She snapped.

"It wasn't rhetorical, who are you?"

She wasn't really sure, and she wasn't really sure how to answer. Then she recalled her name, as though the breeze had whispered it in her ear. It was quickly on her tongue and she heard herself say it aloud, "Maka, my name is Maka."

She locked eyes with him as she said it. "Who are you?"

"Soul," he reached a hand out to her and she took it.

The impossibility of the whole situation hit her as she shook hands with the stranger and she began to laugh.

He laughed a little too, looking uncomfortable. "What's so funny?"

"Well, I don't know anything about myself or why I'm here, I only just remembered my name when you asked it. I fell from the sky. Passed out in the middle of this desert, for I don't know how long, woke up to a pounding headache. I felt, before I even saw, you fall from the sky. And now we're shaking hands like this is all totally normal and we just met at a party or something."

He grinned a little and she noticed all his teeth were pointy, combined with the red eyes he looked a little menacing, but she couldn't even care. She was in the middle of the desert with no one but him, if either of them wanted to survive and figure out what happened, they'd likely need each other.

He stopped laughing abruptly like the tragedy of the whole situation struck him for the first time, "What do we even do? I don't remember anything either."

She was glad he said 'we' and she wouldn't be wandering through he desert completely alone.

"I guess we... try to make it to one of those cities over there," she said pointing behind him. "And, not to be bold, but... I think if nothing else we were meant to find each other, or figure this out together... or something. I can't really explain it though ..." she trailed off knowing it was true as she was saying it. She couldn't quite explain why, or how but she knew that they were somehow connected in all this. She did feel a strange connection as he was falling through the sky, and now that they were near each other it only solidified this weird link she felt. This need to keep him near. She blushed at what it may have sounded like but relaxed when she saw that his jaw was set firm and he nodded in response.

"Good..I-i.. It's gonna sound weird but I was kind of conscious as I was falling and... I think... I think I like... was pulled from where ever towards you. It was almost like I was on a tether and someone had yanked me... I felt like I was free falling and then all of a sudden it's like my fall found purpose or a specific trajectory...It's.. weird..sorry..I know it's weird. Never mind I said anything." He got red in the face and wouldn't look at her. She empathized with the guy, knowing how weird it all felt and sounded, she wanted to let him know it was okay, like she wasn't freaked out, by him anyways.

She smiled, "No weirder than free falling through the atmosphere into a desert and living to tell the tale, right?"

He looked up, relief coming off him in waves. He gratefully returned her smile and nodded.