Be here… Be there… No one was anywhere, not for him. Roxas was alone, so alone, even though everyone else had told him otherwise, had calmed his fears and nightmares, insisted they would be there, always.

Liars. Such outrageous lies… they weren't there for him. He had to get through this torture as they probably pranced around, thinking Roxas was taking an unannounced trip, like he sometimes had to do. Except he always called when he arrived wherever he traveled to.

This time, there were no phone calls, no words of comfort to tell his brother and friends where he was. He wasn't even sure if there was a phone here, because it was so dark all the time in the room he was constantly in.

What did insanity feel like? Roxas had a feeling that he might have been slipping in the direction of craziness. His eyes darted around constantly even though the mask prevented him from seeing, his body shook and trembled whenever he heard a sound, no matter how small the sound was. His thoughts turned darker by the hour, hopes of getting out becoming slimmer and slimmer every time those gloved hands roamed his body, forcing him to do the things he wouldn't have ever imagined.

His innocence was almost completely drained. His hope was the only thing that kept his mind whole, but even it beginning to wear at the edges, ready to fall to pieces at any moment.

Tears fell almost every time he woke, every time he fell asleep, every time he was invaded. So many drops were released throughout the day, Roxas was almost surprised he didn't shrivel up and crumble into sand.

Axel seemed concerned, but Roxas was becoming number every day anyway, so it didn't get through to him, his concern. The tears kept rolling down his cheeks, plopping on the floor one after the other, with a dull expression on his face and his eyes trained at the food he no longer wanted to eat.

He could hear Axel's voice, becoming persistent, panicked, telling him he had to live through it, he had to eat, had to survive, that he would be there.

Be there.

Those two words always made Roxas's eyes flick up, and he would start giggling softly. Axel would always have to shake Roxas, to try to bring him back to reality, that horrible reality that he didn't want to live and wanted to get away from so badly.

His laughing would turn to sobs, and he remembered over and over those words that Sora spoke so many times, when Roxas was still alive. Because he couldn't call this living, this imprisonment of his body and mind. The roll of film would play, flashbacks of black and white. Sora, Kairi, Namine, his parents, his room, all the insignificant girls who confessed their love to him. Everything and everyone always flashed in front of his eyes, some scenes repeating, others fleeting but important to the previous Roxas all the same.

Once every two days or so, Axel would ask Roxas permission to bathe him. Roxas never refused; he was too numb to care anymore, and Axel had already seem him undressed, so what did it matter?

He would be taken, still masked, down a hallway to a shower. The mask would be taken off, and he would be seated on a stool, knees together, eyes unseeing as usual, and he would let Axel lather shampoo into his hair and wash it out, and clean the rest of him. The water was lukewarm, not as warm as Roxas was used to, but thankfully not ice cold either. He would close his eyes and let Axel finish up.

Usually, as he was being bathed, Axel would talk a bit to try to make Roxas, obviously so emotionally hurt, less tense.

Time was still hard to discern, it being dark all the time and all, but Roxas knew he had lived through another two days when he heard Axel kneel down beside him and ask, "Hey kid, wanna get cleaned up?"

Roxas nodded a couple of times and listened to the whisper of leather as Axel came closer and made sure the mask was secure, letting in as little light as possible. According to Axel, he did this so if they encountered anyone in the hallways he wouldn't get busted and replaced, and so the bright lights wouldn't harm his retinas.

His eyes flickered and his ears set back as he heard the loud clanking of chains as one by one the weight on his limbs disappeared, leaving an odd sensation of being lighter. He figured it was the work of muscle memory. Finally free, he stood up and stretched his stiff muscles for a minute before Axel retrieved a black and white checkered robe and guided his arms through the sleeves before tying it around his waist. Roxas smiled slightly as he remembered Axel telling him all the trouble he went through to get him one, knowing Roxas was partial to checkered things.

He was still smiling wanly when the red head went behind him and put on handcuffs again and tugged to make sure they were secure. "Stay put. I'll be right back. Gotta get the taser. Just for looks, you know."

Roxas stood still and waited for his friend to come back (he considered Axel one, seeing as his previous ones weren't doing anything to help Roxas's current state) with the offending object.

When he came back, Axel roughly grabbed Roxas's forearm, turned him towards the exit, punched in a code to unlock the door, and led him outside.

Roxas's first thought was that it was bright. It seemed that way, at least, from what he could tell. A little bit of brightness filtered through the sides of the mask and from the mouthpiece. He slowed down, shaking his head a little and closing his eyes. Axel tugged him roughly along the path that Roxas had almost memorized – left, left, right, left, right – and he came to an unexpected stop. The teen became confused as to why they had only turned left twice before stopping. Maybe he was being moved to a different shower?

And then, he heard a voice. It was a man's voice that he had never heard before and was unacquainted with. Roxas tried to imagine a body that would go along with it but didn't come up with anything that matched. He stopped trying to imagine what the person looked like and began listening to the words:

"Hey Axel, that the new kid the higher-ups are talkin' about lately?"

"Yeah, I'm taking him to get him cleaned up. You know, routine, every two days. Nothing new." Axel spoke casually, as though he and the stranger were equals.

"Didn't think he was so short. And a blondie, too. Anyway, I guess I'll let you two go do your thing. Every two days, huh. Mine are always every three days. Guess he got lucky." The man's voice got a little louder, and was close to Roxas's ear, before it faded away behind the boy.

Roxas frowned. Him, lucky? He couldn't think of anything possibly worse than the treatment that he got day after day. He instantly felt sorry for the prisoners the man was talking about. How anyone could live through torture worse than he got without totally breaking?

The teen was snapped out of his thoughts as Axel began to pull him forward again. There were no more stops along the way.

Roxas knew they were nearing the door. They had just taken their last turn and slowed down a bit, knowing if he walked faster, he would run into Axel or the wall. The silence in the halls made every step sound louder, scarier, more pressing. There were little beeping sounds as Axel punched in his code and the door opened.

It was warmer in this room, not stuffy, but with a hint of moisture hanging in the air. Roxas idly wondered who else was bathed in this room. He normally would have been grossed out by the thought of sharing bathing space, but that was before. Before he stopped really caring.

Axel closed the door with a bang and several clicks were audible.

Usually, this was when Axel would take the boy's mask off, but it seemed he was lost in his thoughts, as he started to turn on the lights without removing the offending object.

He heard Axel turn around to face the door and began to reach for the adjustable lights. He always turned it on slowly, putting it up a notch every 20 seconds, before the bright light illuminated the clean room.

The hand paused in its travel to the light and came back with a whoosh of air to land on the back of Roxas's head, where the mask buckled together. He situated his hands in a way that it wouldn't let the boy's hair caught in his hands or the buckle he was undoing. Roxas stood patiently still, waiting for the moment he would be able to properly breathe and his face would be totally exposed to his surrounding environment.

When he felt the weight of the mask fall away, the first thing he did was stretch this neck, rolling his shoulders and neck a little before standing still again. A ticklish feeling of being about to sneeze snuck up on him, and he crinkled his nose, hoping the feeling would fade away. He hated sneezing without something to cover it up with, and since his hands were still tied, he couldn't do anything about it. The feeling went away after a few moments of scrunching his face and making funny expressions while Axel laughed lightly.

Roxas flicked his eyes up to look at Axel, and put on a little pout face that said, Why are you laughing at me? He looked down pointedly at his arms tied behind his back and looked back up, straight into Axel's eyes. They were easy to spot, with their emerald green hue glinting in the darkness, even without much light.

Axel got the message, motioned with his hands to turn around, and pulled the blonde backwards gently, so he didn't fall over his feet. He sat down and started to work on the chains and rope that bound the kid's arms, and managed to free him in what felt like record time. Roxas brought up his hands to his face, but unable to see much in the dark, missed the red marks encircling his wrists and fingers. He wiggled his fingers in an exercise he was familiar with before moving his arms around to get better circulation. He didn't care if he looked stupid, doing exercises in the dark, even if he had issues with looking dumb in his past life. One, it was Axel, and two, he just didn't care about anything.

He flinched as he heard movement behind him before remembering that Axel always turned on the light at this time. He watched Axel walk past him and reach for the light again, this time actually making contact with the switch.

Light filled the room. There was just enough of it to give off a creepy glow, casting tons of shadows over the room. After a bit, it got lighter and lighter until it seemed as if there were many candles in the room, rather than it looking unearthly. There was a mirror level with Roxas's torso. Roxas supposed, basing his knowledge of his prison of the only two rooms he'd been in, that the owner liked looking at themselves. Or maybe the owner liked looking indirectly at the victim's face as they were abused, with every degree of pain written over their face. Or something.

The blonde looked at Axel, trying not to imagine what the other people went through, and instead busied himself with how Axel's hair looked in the varying shades of light. It was interesting. His hair was always beautiful.

Finally, after a couple of minutes, Axel sighed. Roxas looked up questioningly, and Axel rolled his eyes. "I wish they could make all these rooms have automatic light adjusters. It's kind of a pain to do this every time someone walks into a room. If you do it enough times, you know, it gets boring."

Roxas smiled slightly, cleared his throat, and said softly, "I always find it funny how you complain about almost everything."

Axel shrugged, still sliding up the light switch, and gave a crooked smile. "Well hey, at least I got someone to listen to my complaining. It's no fun to complain if no one's listening."

Roxas pointed his gaze towards the pristine floor, and wondered whether or not Axel had any friends here, and how he got here in the first place. After a few moments, he decided to voice his question.

Axel quirked an eyebrow. "Friends? The people here are all heartless bitches. Most of them killed off their families so no one could find out about this place. We have nobody. We are nobody in the outside world. That's how we got our name, you know."

Roxas was confused. "What name? I never heard you mention that you had a name."

Axel hesitated for a second, and said, "Roxas, look down and look closely at the floor. I know you hate kneeling and I know examining the bathroom floor doesn't sound like fun, but the floor's clean."

The boy was becoming more confused, but decided he trusted Axel enough that he wasn't going to become taken advantage of, and kneeled, his eyes a few inches away from the floor.

And that's when he finally noticed: What he had thought were gold patterns were actually intricately-woven words. He read the words aloud. We are Nobody. And now, you are too.

He looked up to see Axel gazing off into space with a sad expression deep in his eyes. He shook himself out of his trance, looked down at Roxas, and said, "Most of us who have come in contact with this place can't be freed. It's impossible to break off." He paused a little while longer, changed his attitude, and said a little more brightly, "We'd better start to work on getting you clean so no one gets suspicious, right? Can't have a reason for them to make it worse for you. You know what to do. You got it memorized, haven't you?"

Roxas nodded and raised himself so he sat on his knees. He relished in the gentle feeling of Axel's hands kneading his hair with shampoo. It smelled like coconut. "Hey, Axel?"

"Hmmmm?"

"How long have I been here?"

Axel's hands paused for a second before answering, "Three weeks, Roxas." Before he realized it, his arms were wrapping around Roxas's torso, pulling him close with his soapy hands. "You're surviving, kid. You can make it. And remember, I'm here for you, okay?" He released the blonde and silently reached for the showerhead, washing the suds out of his hair.

He didn't notice a tear streaking down Roxas's cheek, mingling with the rest of the warm water, and he didn't hear Roxas whisper, "Can I really, Axel?"

A/N: Sadly, some ideas I had from last chapter were forgotten as time went by. I'll have to either remember it or re-think of ideas. Yeah…. any ideas of what I might have been thinking? XD

I'm sorry I couldn't update… Well I probably could but… I didn't feel like writing. Sorry… School is taking my energy right out, so I comfort myself with reading other fanfictions and watching anime and the like. But maybe I'll be motivated again to write more. Who knows? I'm not saying I'll stop; it's just hard to open the document up and start typing.

As usual, I would love to beg for reviews and awesomeness, but that sounds too needy. But that's okay, since everyone's allowed to be selfish, right? …Right….? So please, review, review, review~!