Chapter 3! Sorry I haven't updated in a billion years, but I've been busy!...Lazing about. Hee. Well, I've got this chapter up, and for those of you who read The Difference Between Craziness and Insanity, keep an eye out for Chapter 5 on that. Anyway, you know the drill.. I don't own Kingdom Hearts or any of its characters, but I do own the idea for this story. Enjoy!----

I walked towards the closest door to me. This place's lights were starting to hurt my eyes. I pushed against it with my gloved hands, and waited for it to open, perhaps to another place hopefully without the annoying neon lights in this one. No go. Why wasn't it opening? Was it locked? Probably. Way to go, sport-o. Guess I only have two other options. I'd rather not go back out into that rain. I pad over to the red door with my over sized shoes and look at it. No knob, not even hinges. Is this even a door? It must have some reason for being here. Peering closer, a thought occurs to me. Why is there a flame on this door? Hmm...maybe..

" Fira!"

Bingo! Good thing for magic. I think I'm getting the hang of it. The door was engulfed for a split second, before opening. It's pitch-black inside, and I can hear the sound of running water. I hesitate. How ominous.....and from past experience, omnious things tend to lead to shaking baby syndrom. Or injury to the head.

But hey, whats the worst that could happen? Ah, famous last words. Damn me with my jinxing thought-process.

I stick my head inside and look around. Its dark, but I'm still a Heartless, at least a little bit, so I can see fine. There's what seems to be a lake or something, with moving stones across it. There's a small island in the middle with a broken down house. Looks suspicious. I walked over the wet turf to the shore and peered into the dark water. Doesn't look like there's any human eating monsters in there. If there were, would they eat me? I bet I don't taste like a human all that much. Well...here goes nothing... I jumped toward the stone step as it came my way. Made it! I landed squarely in the middle of it. Looks like I still have my inhuman athletic skills. I figured about as much. Good thing too, because I don't think I'd like being dunked feet first into a large body of water much more than running through the rain.

SPLASH!!!

Crap. Jinx.

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I ducked underneath the tattered curtain blocking a hole in the side, where the stone bricks had apparently decided to cave in. The front door was boarded up, for some reason so this was the way to get inside, I assume. Sudden I was assaulted by a cloud of dust- or something, which caused me to lose control of my breathing. Weird rumbling noises came out of by mouth as I frantically waved at the stuff. Eventually it settled and I could breath normally. What the heck was that? Humans are so strange. I looked around.

What seemed like about a hundred books were stacked in the cramped, tiny room. In the very center of the place was a table with chairs, and a cracked tea set. The entire place was covered in dust and cobwebs. I stepped inside completely, carefully avoiding the ancient looking books stacked so high. What was this place? I stepped up to the table and inspected it. A few books were on this too, as though someone spent their entire life reading them and drinking tea. That's not entirely impossible, just not very likely.

Picking up one of the books, I turned my head to the side as I opened it, and dust flew everywhere. On the back of the cover was scribbled in handwriting, 'PROPERTY OF MERLIN'....what does this say? " prop earty ....Mere lyn? " Heartless don't read too much. I feel kinda stupid. I recognize some of these human words, but I don't completely understand them. Who was Merlin? Did he own this...house? What happened to him? " book ...off?...of! spellz..?" A book of spells? Interesting...this Merlin was a magician? I scanned through the pages. Demi, Bio, Meteor....there's a bunch of spells I've never heard of. I sat down on one of the rickety blue chairs, with the book in my lap. Sigh. What now? I feel kinda...tired. And cold. Doesn't look like this Merlin has been here for a while, and if he does come back, I guess I can deal with him. I guess I could stay here for a while..tomorrow, I'll look around the rest of this place, and decide my next move. I don't think I'll have to worry about being bothered, I don't sense anything here...I don't think the heartless have figured out the door. Never too keen on out of the way doors that don't have keyholes when your whole existence is dedicated to killing someone to obtain a key... The heartless are still out there...or whatever those things were. I think I'll look up some of these spells, since I'm basically keybladeless and helpless except for a bit of magic. Poor me. I leaned back in the chair and propped my feet up on the table, resting the book open in my lap, at the first page. " Okay, now to learn about this thunder spell..." I had about a decent chunk of pages read by the time the shadows begun to fall on the pages. I looked up. It was getting darker outside, it wasn't like it had ever been light, but now it was just annoying. Heartless eyesight or not, I wasn't going to get too far in a black text book that was already difficult to understand. I sighed and looked around.

There were no lamps in this place, or anything..just a old looking oil lamp on a stack of books across from me. Laying the book flat, pages down on the table as to not lose my place, I crept over to it. It was set on side table looking thing, which had books piled on it. I was about to reach for the lamp when something caught my eye. " The...add....advent...urr..s..adventures? The adventures of Whinie the .....Poo?" The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. But that wasn't what had snagged my attention, no. I wiped off the dust of the cover a little bit more and peered closely. There was a picture of a small, chubby looking yellow....thing, holding hands with a boy, and walking down what seemed to be a road. The boy..had brown spiked hair, and an attire consisting of a red jump suit with yellow shoes, a black and white vest with a hood, and gloves...I recognized at once. The Key Bearer.

I opened up the book to page 1 and scanned it futilely. Sighing , irritated, I grabbed the oil lamp too and hurried over to the table, eager to see what this book was about. The Keyblader! Books about him? How long had it been anyway? This book could answer some questions, too. " Fira! " The room was bathed in the orange red glow and I opened the book to it. I really wasn't all that disappointed. After about an hour of reading, it had said nothing about the Keyblade or fate of the darkness, with the exception of the Key weilder's name, ( which was actually Sora, made sense, considering I was called Anti-Sora.) and ability to travel through different worlds. The main focus in the book however, was about Sora assisting Pooh, a stuffed animal bear, be reunited with his other furry friends of the 100 acre wood, by searching for the pages of this book threw the other worlds. Really interesting actually...but it's not what I had hoped for.

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I woke up sprawled on the table head down, my face resting against page 104, where 'Sora was playing with Tigger and Roo on the seesaw.' I let out a small groan at the dull pain behind my eyes. Had I been hit? I don't remember anything of the sort. I sat up, and got out of the chair- which I was only half way on anyway- and felt all the muscles and joints in my body tense. Automatically, I arched my spine and let out a gush of air through my mouth. After I was done- words cannot begin to describe how confused I was. What was that? I searched my...nevermind. The word 'yawn' automatically came to me. This had been the 5th time I had slept since I had, I'd begun to call it being born, come into the light. Heartless never sleep. But somehow, it felt natural to me- I was just still pretty dumb about the whole thing. I stretched once more and hunched over to get through the caved in wall, pushing aside the tattered material with my gloved hand.

Walking out into the....island...thing...The stale, damp air hits me. Its really nice, too. I haven't left that musty cottage all day...well, Im not sure if its a day....what I mean is, I've fallen asleep 4 times. I can only assume that during my rest its turned from day to night, and then day again. Its always dark here though. I've come to the conclusion: Im becoming human, whether I like it or not. The Hea....The dark is wandering around outside. Those beings, I know aren't heartless. I'm not sure how I know, I mean, there were about a bajillion different heartless ( of course, when I was a heartless I couldnt care less what they looked like), but somehow...I can just feel it. Never the less, its the darkness. They are technically my enemy now. It feels odd..Im not a human completley, but yet I feel no paticular afflination to the light or the darkness.....Im...half and half. I can still feel the darkness in me, and therefor spite towards light, but I can feel this quivering emmotion in my stomach whenever I remember the empty look in those thing's eyes as they stared at me. Fear?

I wonder if I had eyes like that, too...

So I guess the darkness is a threat to me now. .....Im not sure how to feel about that. I guess alittle...betrayed. Laugh and I swear I will pry out your iris with a rusty nail and use them in a recipe for deviled eggs. ...What? I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. All these human things are in my head, and I know I'm not supposed to know them, but I do.

Anyway, I can't stay in here forever. I'll have to go outside sooner or later if I want answers. As to why....I'm....not dead.

So I best defend myself. I've been reading all of Merlin's books. As I read more and more, the words seemed to flow better, until I didn't even stumble over anything at all. Something just seemed to...click. Like I'd done it before, but just hadn't done it in so long I'd gotten rusty..

Since I couldn't summon my dark keyblade, I've been honing my magic skillz. As a heartless, I knew about magic. But really, I could only have the definition of the basic stuff- lightning, stop, gravity, fire, blizzard,....This was because Sora knew them. I was...er....am...whatever, a shadow replica of him, and therefor, I knew all his moves. What I didn't know, was that little key-boy didn't know jack crap about magic. I had learned all sorts of things from this Merlin's books. He must have been a master at magic- I would've liked to meet him, but I'm sure he wouldn't be to happy upon finding I had barged into his..island, and read through all his junk. Some of that stuff had been written by him himself! Those were my favorites, because they were the easiest to understand. I now knew more than just fira...but I had yet to try them out. Which was why I was out here.

I don't remember doing so, but at some point I must have sat down, because I was, my legs folded under me, hair falling in my face as I peered at my reflection in the water. I did this every time I woke up, to make sure I hadn't changed. Not one difference.

My pale face, contrasting greatly with my black hair dangling around it, peered back at me expressionlessly. My yellow eyes seemed like fireflies almost.

I reached up a black clad hand and touched my cheek, just to make sure this was really moi. Even through the leather material, my skin was FER-FREAKING-REEZING! (cold). I jerked it away, gritting my teeth. Why was my skin so cold? Was it this atmosphere? I thought humans were supposed to be warm-blooded.

I had come up with the concept that the reason I hadn't miraculously changed overnight like I did back in the rainy place, was because it was dark in here. I guess, in a way, I didn't want to leave. Two reasons-

1. I was actually liking this place. It was dark, and the water was soothing, even though I hated it, and the whole reading by candle-light was kinda comforting to my whole 'omgwtf whats going on' panic. Plus, I guess the whole learning thing made me feel good. I might be torn between the two existances of human and heartless, but at least I wasn't a dumbass.

2. I really, really don't wanna be human.

The whole word human has always been negative to me, and I guess, all heartless. It means your weak, your prey. Your heart is weak, torn between light and dark, which allows us to manipulate and feed off of you....a weakling. Kind of like me now, huh? ....damn thats depressing.

Oh yeah,

3. What if theres more fat people out there?

I shook my head to get the thought out, and stood up, taking a moment to brush off the damp grass that clung to me. Uck. It was so gross. Why do I hate water so much? Its annoying! As a heartless, I had no such phobia. But then again, as a heartless, I really didn't have much...at..all..

I took about a gazillion years to cross the water- after that little deep dive I took a few days back, I wasn't exactly confident in my ultra jumping skillZ. I guess I had gotten better at it though- because I made every jump. I got to the other side, and my black shoes gooshed in the mud. That wasn't neat. No sir, it wasn't. I couldn't even see the door for some reason- there was just light. It was kinda eerie actually. It was making things more dramatic then they had to be- I was making the transaction from my homey little abandonned cottage dark place into the big scary world of light. Thinking like that kinda got me pissed off. As a heartless, I had no fear of the light; on the contrary, I had the overwhelming urge to destroy it at all costs. But now, even when I'm half a freakin human, I was all timidy bits towards it. And you know what? I got even more annoyed because I was just standing there like an idiot thinking back to when I was a heartless.

Did I want to be a heartless? Did I want to go back to that whole mindless drone of the dark MUST CONSUME ALL HEARTS thing?

Did I want to go back?

Before I had even taken two steps out of the fire emblemed door, I could sense them. And not just two or three like before.....they were everywhere.

The huge, looming creatures of dark popped out of the ground slowly, their attenae wringling, and their blue trimmed muscles popping as they became solid. They stood there, about 50 of them, like some sort of dark army, their souless yellow eyes- perfectly matching my own- staring me down.

Yeah. At that moment, I really didn't want to be a human. But I didn't want to be a heartless either. And don't even -think- I wanted to be one of them. I seemed to forget all my spells. No dark keyblade. Note to self: kill the mother who stole it. That is, if someone did take it. For all I know, it could have just up and decided I wasn't worthy of it anymore. Damn keys and their supiriority complexes.

I didn't have a heart. I was positive. Not that I was sure whether or not these mega ultra powerful new and improved heartless things were after hearts. But none the less, they had decided I was their enemy.

They lunged at me, and my mind reeled. What have I gotten myself into? I knew I shouldn't have left my dark little island thing.

I rolled out of the way just as the heartless slammed into the wall, it turned into a shadowy mess for a moment, then slid down to the ground and became whole again. My mind faltered- there were so many of them, it would be difficult to dodge. My only chance was to narrow down their numbers. So you know what I did? I just started casting spells like crazy, running around. Like some sort of effing lunatic. They just kept chasing me in a group, while I ran in circles. I couldn't help but feel alittle smug, man, were they dumb. That is, until three of them double taked and appeared infront of me. I skid to a stop, preparing to run out of the way, but one of the ones closest to me got a good hit with its fist, and another behind me managed to sneak up and rake its claws across my back.

Pain shot through me, so quickly that my mouth dropped open. I was still new to pain, and I was almost parylzed for a moment. Man, Im a pansy. I threw myself out of the way though, just as the ones infront of me and ones behind me jumped. They crashed into eachother, and became dark puddles. I regained my senses, and got a safe distance. And then, like the ingenious genious I was, I waited for them to take form again, and as soon as they did, I opened my mouth and stuck my hand in the air. Okay, it didn't tell me to do that in the books, but I just felt like it, okay? So shut up.

My gathered energy was a deep purple, and it swirled around me in star like shapes, before seeming to melt into dust and gather at my hand. I would've been tempted to just admire the neato-ness of it, but I restrained myself and focused it into a spell, attempting to 'pull at the strings of the universe' like the book had said. I took a deep breath and said the magic words.

" METEO!"

Although Im sure I shouted it, my voice came out flat and monotonous.

At first, I thought it hadn't worked. It was one of the more complex spells, and I had spent almost an entire day reading about it. I had really only spent a few days learning, and I knew somewhere inside that it would take alot more time to master the spells, but damnit, I was impatient. I felt I had gotten way over my head, and I began to beat myself up inside as they began to start towards me again. Stupid, stupid idiot!

Then, a rumbling sound was heard and several small comets rocketed out of the sky, making holes in the stone colored clouds. Through the holes, I could see the sky was a light bluish purple. Blood like flames, orange and crimson seemed to swirl and flicker off the rocks,then they began to spin, and formed together to form a single meteor, which crashed down into the group of dark creatures before they even had a chance to turn their heads- oh er, whatever you wanna call em. As it made contact, it seemed to explode in a flurry of black and light blue stars, and unless I had gone completley insane, I could hear the faint sound of bells, a ringing sound. It was kinda cheesy, but hey, at least it worked.

I was all ready to do a little victory dance when I was tackled from behind. I stumbled, and fell to one knee, and the....I really need to think up a name for these fellows...took the oppurtunity to flip off my back, and land infront of me. It whirled, its attenae snapping like a whip, and it took a great slash at me with its wretched nails. I raised an hand to block it, and cried out- a horse, monotonous sound again- as it made four bloody gashes in my arm. I felt the same stunning pain again, but I still managed to call out, somehow, as more of them closed in rapidly to take advantage of my predicatment.

" Thundara!" I didn't make a fancy move this time, but I felt a swell of pride enter my head as a brigade of pale yellow electricity surrounded everything in a 10 ft. radius of me. The creatures writhed as they were shocked, and I stood up, stumbling back. I could feel a liquid crawling down my injured arm- which now felt red hot. I didn't look down though. My back was tingling with a lesser pain, but it was annoying none the less. The monsters had regained themselves, but I could see some of them had disapeared. I had killed off about half of them. As the closest one made a mad dash towards me, I stepped out of the way just in time, curving my ankle in a rather uncomfortable position. I meant to say another offensive spell to kill it before it could whirl around and counter, but for some reason I found myself calling out defensive magic. Instinct, I guess? Don't ask me.

" Aerora!"

A swirling mass of ribbon-like wind surrounded me, and as the dark form whirled to counter, as I predicted, its claw cut through it and only grazed me. It was kind of surprising, really, that it didn't hurt all that much, although it was close range. I remembered in the back of my head that the wind spell was supposed to reduce damage. I kind of felt grateful to my numbed brain for using it. However, my back was throbbing horribley from all the movement. But I didn't have time to dwell on that as the monster was raising its hand to take a blow at me again. But I reacted quickly, almost automatically.

"Blizzara!" The shards of ice surrounded the monstrocity, and it forze into a popsicle for a moment, before bursting into peices. Small green and golden orbs appeared in its place, and without thinking I near leaped for them. As I touched them, they disapeared, but I could feel some sort of effect take place on me. I turned to face the rest of the dark things, and could feel my wounds had healed a bit. Now I could focus on the fight instead of my wounds. Pch. Im such a pansy. It made me feel bad.

My oppenents jumped into the air, and began to descent towards me, ready to rip me to shreds, but I held out both my hands,- one of my arms covered with a thin layer of dry blood- threw the small tornado surrounding me and shouted the words for the gravity spell. They dropped from the air like rocks, and more of them burst into the green/gold orbs. I ran through the grounded heartless and managed to collect most of them before they recovered. I felt the pain on my back disapear completley, and my arm ached just a little now. I could still feel a cruncy coating of blood on it though. Note to self- once your done kicking these things' butts- which you so totally are!- wash that crud off.

I caught my breath quickly, and spun on the heel of my shoe. At first I couldn't see anything- my wind barrier had grown thick- but then, to my horror, it fizzled out to a faint smoke and I was face to face with two glowing eyes. The heartless took a swing at me with one of its hands, and caught me on the shoulder. I could feel my vest rip, and this horrible sensation on my skin and its claws...clawed....through me. As it pulled its hand back, I could see it was covered completley with a bright red fluid. My blood. I opened my mouth to either scream, or call out a spell, I'm not sure, but it kneed me in the stomach, and I lost my breath. Pain jolted throughout my abdomen like the spider webs in Merlins house as I lost my balace and fell to the ground. I managed to put out my elbows though, so I didn't hit my head. I squinted up at the dark creature, my vision blurred slightly, as it raised both its arms. It was going to mince me! I started to croak out words for a cure spell, but I had a feeling I would be to late. So I rolled out of the way just as its pointed fingers swiped through the ground. I almost choked as I lay on my damaged shoulder. " ACCCCCCCK!" I heard my voice scream beside me. It wasn't a pretty sound, but I wasn't really caring at the moment.

With my left arm though, I held it out and mumbled out the words of my first spell. " Fira!" The large ball of fire slammed into the thing like a bullet, in its stomach, and it burst into flames. Then it just seemed to disapear in a blob of purple before turning into three or four green orbs. My cure.

I started to get up, but it was pretty hard, because I couldn't move my right arm. The one with the wounded shoulder. If I could just reach those orbs, I would be able to move my arm, perhaps. Because I sure as hell wasn't gonna battle with only one arm at my disposal. Suddenly, a black shadow halted right infront of my face, and low and behold, another tall and looming heartless towered over me. It seemed twice as intimidating because I was lying on the floor like a ragdoll. It pulled an arm back like it was going to punch me, but its fist opened, its nails glittering, razor sharp. No wonder my shoulder hurt so much. Those things have freaking sharp claws! I was beginning to wish I did too, because my mind seemed to want to get back at me for going into this battle so soon, because I couldn't remember a damn spell.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and prepared for some mega pain. How many of these stupid things are there?! Man, was I killing myself inside. I hadn't even been half human for a week yet and I was already dead.

Stupid, Stupid idiot! Someone outta smack you. Mmmyep.

However, the impact never came. I heard a bang-like sound that made my ears ring for a minute, and then I felt the same feeling as the green orbs. I opened my eyes and saw the beast had indeed, turned into the golden and green orbs. Some had hit me too, but my shoulder was still killing me. I rolled over off it, and made a half-hearted...er...I mean....I tried to sit up. I made it, and brought my usable hand to it. When I pulled it away because it hurt too much to touch, my glove was soaked in blood. Then I remembered something: Heartless or not, things do not just randomly die. I turned my head just in time to hear someone gasp.

" Oh my god, look at his shoulder! "

Words cannot describe how confused I was. A woman, a human, in pink with soft brown hair was staring at me with her hands clapped over her mouth. I couldn't help but wonder what the heck her problem was, but at least she wasn't another of those damn dark things that I had just gotten my ass handed to me by. I heard a clicking sound and shifted my gaze to next to her, where a tall man stood. Another human. What the h.....what was this, some sort of lets-gawk-at-the pathetic heartless.....human....WHATEVER I am convention?! Frustration. The man wore many belts and chains, and had deep brown hair also, and a long mahogany scar across his eye. For some reason, the word 'tough' clicked in my head. " So, we leave you alone for just a minute and your getting your butt kicked?" He gave a cold smirk then, and I probably would've tried to electrocute him if I wasn't so damn confused. And then theres the meager fact my arm wasprofusedly bleeding.

Then, another woman elbowed him in the side, a small one I hadn't noticed, with skimpy clothing and deep hazel eyes said, " you call that a reception, Squall?"

He returned her comment with a glare. " Leon."

Then Leon, or whatever, mr.grumpy lumpy turned to the pink girl and whispered: " You know what to do, Aeris." Why were they whispering? Trying to hide stuff from me? Too bad, because heartless can hear really well. Jerks.

As I stared at these humans, the pink one came towards me, and I almost flinched. What were they planning to do to me? Better question: Why are they acting like they know me?! The others walked towards me too, but somehow in a non-threatening way. I noticed the man had a large gun-like weopen with him, and the thought entered my mind that he was the one who had killed the heartless. I thought of asking him, but then, to my surprise, the woman in the pink dress kneeled down and mumbled the words 'cura', and a green mist surrounded my shoulder, dulling the pain. Just a little though. Still, why was she healing me? I opened my mouth to say something, I don't know, a thanks, or maybe just a WTF, when the smaller girl cut whatever I was planning to blurt out off.

" Long time no see, Sora!"

..........Excuse em moi?

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Alright! Finally done. This is my first time EVER writing a fight scene, so I hope it didn't suck too much. I was inspired to continue this story when I saw the commercial for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. I have a cold, so I have plenty of free time to continue writing. So, Merry Chrismahannakwanzikah to all you lovley reveiwers! Once again, sorry for taking so long to update! and what ever has our dear Anti-Sora gotten himself into?

You'll have to reveiw to find out!