Prologue

You used to tell me stories. Crumbling, tea-stained tales, rushing through seas and parched deserts to grasp my hand and pull me away. They dropped me in empty dreamscapes, and I'd start building. I was too old for this, no longer a child, but my mind was split open. The cracks spread wide and grew wider with your every word. I was filling up, swelling. Set to burst with all those possibilities.

When I closed my eyes, I saw a corridor filled with doors. It vanished into the distance, endless, infinite. I could walk down it for days and never stop. I can still see it now, if I try. It's not as effortless as it once was. Every door led to a different world. The past. The future. A different planet. A different universe.

Things have changed, now. You cannot read these stories to anyone anymore.

My imagination's faded with time. With difficulty, I walk down that old corridor, though the walls are faded and dirty. Crumbling. The wood is rotting, and when I open the door, everything is falling apart. Even the stars are burning out.

It would almost seem like the whispers of our past mean nothing now and are gone with the wind. Waffle Town wasn't tremendously big, but big enough to occupy our weather-worn feet and spasmodic minds while we walked from one side to the other. Never did we have a destination; instead, we had endless conversation, pumpkin spiced tea, and good company. We spoke of things we wouldn't dare admit to ourselves, but there was something about how crisp the words sounded under the fallen leaves. You said some of the most beautiful things I've ever heard, unknowingly handing me the key that would open up my treasure chest heart and spill out all of my gold.

For hours we meandered beneath the beaming street lights who could never tell us to sleep. Time wasn't an issue then, though now every moment seems to slip through my outreached palms like sand through the eye of an hourglass.

The good memories I had with you are starting to fade. Something happened to me. My treasure chest was swept away when winter came and the waters grew cold; I froze inside myself and got lost.

I hear others say Fall and Autumn when referring to the season. Did you know there is a difference between the two?

Fall is the season. Autumn is a friend.

Tonight, a dark shadow overcasts my soul. The weight of its gloom rests heavily on top of my eye lids, slowly shutting my vision. I can't see. I can't feel. The truth is that I have many of these nights, where sorrow fills up my lungs and chokes me to sleep. And I am sentenced to nightmares.

A/N: The beginning. For my purposes, Angela/Akari will be renamed Autumn. Clever, eh? Updates will most likely be bi-weekly. And longer than this. It would tickle to read your thoughts throughout the piece .