What Sora knew of the command dashboard was little help in stopping their descent to the darkness below. Riku was no help at all, having never set foot in a gummi ship before. Kairi was doing her best to help, flipping random switches in an effort to get the malfunctioning ship to work again or at least stop soaring nose-down into a new, unidentified world. The entire cockpit was aglow in red light as the system detected the approaching ocean. The emergency brake had been pulled until it broke off, and still the ship sped towards the unidentified ocean world.

"If we can't brake, we have to get off somehow!" Riku shouted as Highwind's built-in alarms started to go off. Sora nodded and devoted his energy to finding the eject button instead of panicking. They still had a chance. "Hurry up!" Sora slammed the button, hiding among the radio switches and knobs.

The sea came closer and… and…

December 30th, 1958; Pauper's Drop; 22:45;

Central Atrium of the Sinclair Deluxe

Ow, my head…

Sora rubbed where the throbbing was strongest and found his hand covered in a sticky, dark substance.

Blood.

A quick glance around him revealed that he was on a flight of wooden stairs in some kind of entrance hall. Sora wiped his bloody hand on his pants leg and stood up. If he was here, where was Riku? Kairi? This couldn't be right, they were all together when the ship crashed. Speaking of the ship, where was it? He descended the stairs, tripping over a lump on the last step. A quick glance revealed it wasn't a lump that he tripped over. It was a corpse, to his utter horror. He scrambled to his feet and backed away from the corpse, bumping into someone and falling into a deep puddle. The whale-like groan resounded through the building's atrium, a haunting cry from an equally haunting creature. The holes in the golem's diving helmet glowed yellow, lighting up the brunet's face and his now-determined expression. Heartless!

He summoned the Keyblade to his side, and jumped up into a fighting stance. As he raised the otherworldly weapon, prepared to attack, an unseen person called out to him, "Stop!" While his guard was down, the large Heartless knocked him back into the puddle just shy of an abandoned pile of filthy cushions and pillows. Sora sat up, his back sore from the impact, and watched the golem lift a little girl onto the tanks on its back. The ground shook with each step it took out of the building, and the Keyblade wielder had to take a breather, trying to process what was going on.

"You're either stupid or crazy. That Daddy would've pounded you for sure!" A boy with lively brown eyes said, popping into Sora's vision from seemingly nowhere. The voice was that of the person who distracted him and got him knocked back.

"That 'Daddy' is a Heartless, and thanks to you, it already pounded me!" At this the boy laughed, offering the disheveled brunet a hand up.

"That was just a warning," he replied with a leisurely wave of the hand. It seemed to Sora large looming Heartless were common here, but normally the dark beings didn't warn people before taking their hearts and submerging entire worlds in darkness. "They live to protect the Sisters, don't you know that?"

"Daddies? Sisters?" Sora buried his face in his hands, already exasperated. "I just want to know where Riku and Kairi are, so we can go home."

"No way!" The boy poked the newcomer with his pistol and grinned toothily at him. "You're from up topside, aren't you?" It seemed like something he didn't want the rest of the building to know, as he lowered his voice significantly.

"Topside…?" To be honest, he had blamed the puddles and general dampness on a pipe leak, but now that he looked up at the glass dome ceiling, he could see no true sky, only a teal-colored expanse with schools of fish passing by. No way... a city underwater? "Hah… I guess you're right. I am from 'Topside.'" How long had it been since he woke up lost and alone in a strange world? Traverse Town, and that had been years ago. Though, when he woke up in that back alley, he hadn't tripped over a corpse nor nearly become one trying to look for guidance.

"I know just what you need. Come with me." I need a name, Sora thought, following the boy up the other set of stairs, thankfully away from the corpse. They ventured down a long hallway behind the elevator, the wooden floors beneath them creaking loudly with each step and water dripping steadily from the ceiling above. The brunet was tempted to take off his large shoes, if that would make their activities quieter. He had this sense of foreboding, like something was watching them as they proceeded. At the end of the hall, they had to stop as the ceiling collapsed in front of them. A huge brute, barely fit to be called human dropped down through the gaping hole in the wood, and tried to rush them. "Run!"

"I can take him! You go hide!" The look on the young boy's face showed he thought every bone in Sora's body was crazy, but he listened and hid in one of the adjourning rooms. Keyblade in hand, the teen lunged forth, thrusting the weapon into the strange being's flesh, steeling himself as blood burst from the opened wound and coated the silver shaft of his blade a deep red. How could this thing look like a monster, yet bleed like a man? It seemed his hesitation lasted a second too long, as the gorilla man grabbed his shirt and headbutted him in the stomach, winding him. In the struggle to catch his breath, he missed the fist flying towards his head. Guarding with the Keyblade softened the blow, but still, he found himself losing his grip on consciousness.

The sound of gunfire jostled him from his unwilling descent into sleep, and he saw his companion, pistol in hand, firing away at their attacker. He looked terrified, but less so when Sora's fingers reached out and wrapped around the hilt of the Kingdom Key. Why is this so hard…?

Aided and hampered by the bullets being fired around him, he swung at the brute in a berserk way, desiring to end the battle and keep the little boy safe—he couldn't be more than ten years old, and he wouldn't fall because the adult of the two couldn't take a few swings. Metal crashed against flesh, and the brute's swings became sluggish, skin turning darker where bruises were beginning to form. The being's chest—or at least it looked vaguely like a chest—glowed with an all-too-familiar light. A heart… just like any other. He watched it ascend through the hole in the floor, fading as it left the world.

"You always have to search them. It's the only way you'll survive ten seconds here, especially in the Drop." The boy got on his knees and began fishing through the gore, pulling out orbs of munny and a bar of chocolate. All stained with blood and dirt in some way, unfortunately.

"Okay… but what's your name?" This was one time he didn't feel like talking about the fight. Normally he got pretty riled up at these situations, antagonizing the enemy and daring them to send more, but something about this place just made him feel drained. No fire, no spirit, just… void.

"Colton. Or, as you know me, the Welcome Committee."

"I'm Sora."

"Enough introductions, Sora, take these and follow me—closely. We're almost to my place." The items were dropped into Sora's hands, and Colton marched off into another room, which connected to another hallway. Out of all the world's he'd explored, this one seemed the most like a maze. Some people were gathered around a vent on the left. It looked like they were setting up some kind of altar in front of it, but Colton urged him forward before he could observe any further. They kept walking down winding halls, stopping once to go up a ramp. "We're here. My dad isn't… right in the head…" he warned, scratching the back of his head. The door he pushed open had a lopsided label—"212" of some apartment building he had yet to know the name of.

A record player was churning out some weak tune, like nothing he had ever heard before. The woman singing on the vinyl record became background noise as he stepped forth to see a stunning collage of blue butterflies—all made of paper, but still a fascinating array of types and colors. He was just about to touch it, when a man shrieked and swatted his hands away from the piece. "You! Don't touch that! Get out!"

"Dad! He's my friend," Colton explained as his father reached for a steel pipe hiding amongst newspaper clippings, paint, and glue. The man hesitated, and withdrew his hands. "This way," he whispered as the man went back to tending to his collection of paper effigies. Initially Sora thought they'd be going to another room, but they merely went to a corner of the room where they could see both the door and his father clearly. "He won't even pull away from those butterflies long enough to tell you his name. Gideon Wyborn."

This adventure, though it was only just beginning, made him wish he had persuaded Jiminy to stay with him for another adventure instead of going back to be with Pinocchio and Gepetto. Things were getting confusing already, and he didn't even know the name of this place.

END TRANSMISSION