"...functional...?"
"...theory...possible..."
Distant whispers reached your ears. You could almost feel the vibrations, in this place - the light heavy against your skin, not unlike the darkness of the place before, but colder, more real. From darkness to light, and still not a breath of real air to be found. It was almost laughable.
At least something was real here; real voices, real sounds, unintelligible and fleeting though they may have been.
You turned slowly, scanning the are around you, and again as before, there was no variation in the light around you. But it couldn't be real light. If it had been, you'd have gone blind by now. No, there was something definitely -
A soft ripple, from somewhere out there. It swept over your skin, faint but so clear in this lifeless place.
Utter silence, just for a moment - even deeper than before - and then a soft rushing noise, almost like liquid.
The Outside:
The Present
The group of men turned as one to the large glass tube that spanned floor to ceiling against the white wall nearby. The covering was on, slid down and shut over the tube and obscuring its contents, keeping it the same pure white color of all the walls of this place.
The silence was thoughtful, contemplating. There was a faint rustle as one of them, a man with silver hair, amber eyes, and flesh a deep brown raised his head only the tiniest fraction. And yet still it was reason enough for the other three to cease their own calculations and turn to him. "It is time." His voice was slow and deep, but the reaction to it was immediate - the man standing next to the panel rising out of the floor in front of the tube nodded, flipping the safety cover open and pressing a large white button.
The covering around the tube seperated into two parts with an echoing hiss, sliding apart and up to disappear into the ceiling. The tube itself was full of some kind of swirling white substance (gas or liquid, it was hard to tell) which, after a moment, began to slowly drain out.
???
You opened your eyes sharply, unaware that they had been closed. So many things happened at once that your mind couldn't register it all immediately. Air hit your skin - tained with darkness but even more real than what you felt in that strange city. A world met your eyes, which did not process it as anything more than shapes and colors. You eyes were wide but blank, unseeing. The last of the strange substance disappeared out of the bottom of the tube. You stood there for a moment, dazed.
And then you very promptly collapsed into a heap, forced into a curled position by the shape of the glass around you. You opened your mouth and gasped, taking your first real, true full breath. And then another, and another and another. Your mind kicked into gear, sudden and sharp, and you realized just how slowly it had been moving just moments before. All kinds of thoughts assaulted your mind in a huge jumble, as if you'd been saving them all up somehwere. It was like three thoughts happened at once before giving way to the next ones.
The glass tube hissed again, softer this time, as the glass lifted off of the floor and slid slowly up into the top of the tube. More air, this time freezing cold. One thought suddenly blocked out all others, and it was, 'Where am I?'
Your heart sped up, beating wildly as your mind, still sluggish, stuck fast on that one question, repeating it over and over again so that you were only dimly aware of heavy footsteps. Something touched your back, startling you out of your train wreck of thought. You raised your head sharply, seeing what appeared to your now processing mind to be a boot. Black, to be precise. And the thing on your back -
You glanced over your shoulder, seeing a hand - gloved, also black - pressing against your back. You followed the hand to the arm up to the shoulder connected to it to the neck - the first thing not covered in black - to the face, which made you very much want to scream, because you recognized it.
Saix. Number VII. Organization XIII. Kingdom Hearts.
You were in Kingdom Hearts.
Kingdom Hearts Kingdom Hearts Kingdom Hearts KingdomHearts
KingdomHeartsKingdomHeartsKINGDOMHEARTS
KINGDOMHEARTSKINGDOMHEARTS
KINGDOMHEARTSKINGDOMHEARTS-
You fainted.
Well, almost. You managed to cling to conciousness, but barely. Trying to compose yourself, you peeked one of your eyes open and looked up again. Still there. A bit annoyed, but still there.
You sat up, holding your head. Saix stood up, backing a few steps away. You removed your hands from your head and looked up to see who else was there. Your eyes shifted from face to face, ticking off names and expressions.
Xigbar. Amused.
Xaldin. Disinterested.
Saix. Annoyed.
Xemnas. Calculating-
Wait, Xemnas? THE Xemnas? The big baddie of the whole game? Right here? Watching your every move? You gulped.
This was all just... just ridiculous! A dream come true, certainly, but what was going on?! This was insa-
And then you noticed the fact that everything was... considerably better rendered than in most of the game. We're talking, FF7AC, special cutscenes from KH, the whole deal - and better. If you squinted, you could see every little strand of hair, every tiny thread in their clothes. And yet it was so much more beautiful than real life. Just imagining what certain other people would look like...!
Xemnas opened his mouth to speak, the others shuffling a little bit out of the way. "Welcome." The sound itself made your ears feel strange. It was similar to his voice in the game, but a little something else that made it sound even more like... him. That was some voice, to be certain.
You blinked once, then twice. Organization XIII?
You were in Organization XIII?!
Continue.
Please continue to quiz...
...3.
