• The first greetings to a freshly born sense of sight were two colors: black and white. These shades alone; she saw not even her own form. The hues that found her vision snaked about each other, dancing into whirlpool patterns. The two were side by side, and yet never blended, as paints on an artist’s palette might have. On occasion, one would overcome the other, shrouding it’s surroundings with itself. In blackness’s dominance, nothing more could be seen. No matter what strain she imposed on herself to do so, she landed on not even a glimpse of anything more. She saw not shadows, as those were an effect requiring light’s presence to be. White asserted itself in a startling instant, it’s strong contrast to black making this moment confusion. It was not light... It seemed rather a sort of “white darkness”, as it cloaked this space as heavily as the former tone.

    She drew near feeling other shades; other colors entirely. They were so brilliant, though... Almost was nothing. They stretched inches from her grasp... What was the barrier containing her, hiding her from those precious “colors”? She felt their severely numbed effect, causing her to desire the white over black. Their names she could sense: Care, Sorrow, Love, Hate, Envy, Joy, Worry, Sympathy, Compassion... The list could have pressed onwards. Those words inhabited her thoughts, which in turn labeled each color. Now she detected more. She could identify the white as more powerful and abundant than it’s opposite. In fact, the black seemed such a miniscule portion beside it... Yes, the white was more. Such a thought filled her with a hollow color, one that she nearly found pleasurable. The sensation was so close; the wall concealing it was only as thick as a light coat of frost sprinkled on a windowpane. For a nobody, that was much.

    ----------

    She opened her eyes to vanquish her recollections. She had returned to thoughts of her first instants of “almost-existence”.

    She had, since her first moments of consciousness, carried with her the “almost-feeling” that white meant to her. Strange it should be the one most pronounced to her, as it was the one she knew least of. She wanted so deeply to possess even the tiniest bit of that white emotion, and knew it impossible. She had, if nothing else, come as close to such a feat as a nobody could ever “almost-hope” to.

    Tranquil emptiness encased a place that was nothing. Fragile silence survived a few instant’s time before it was slain by a light sound of tapping. It was the blunt end of an artist’s pencil as it repetitively touched the pastel pink cover of a sketchbook. A pale hand directed the object’s movements in a slowed manner. It belonged to what one might have mistook as a young girl. One attired in short colorless dress and sandals of the same hue. One whose medium-length faded gold locks tumbled around her features as she leaned mournfully over her collection of illustrations. However, if a person were to propose this figure to be human, they would find their guess direly of error.

    While nobodies such as this mirrored humanity, they could do no more than such. Reflections could never reach truth.

    The shell whose appearance resembled a child recognized this, though persistent wishes lined her thoughts. Her eyes seemed clear of ex-pression, having contemplated casting aside such hopeless daydreams. Her vision rose to meet the origin of the mock-melancholic stillness.

    What seemed reminiscent of a closed floral bud crafted of glass loomed before her. It neared the ceiling, it’s height roughly twice that of the nobody who employed it’s use. She eyed not the odd structure, but rather what resided within it. It was the form of a young boy, his upright body slouching into a restful posture. Had they not been veiled by sealed eyelids, his sky-blue optics would have greeted hers. Bits of his spiked brown hair fell in front of his face, obscuring the nobody’s view of it. Sorrow enveloped his lips, though the emotionless creature who watched him understood little of such a sensation.

    His heart stirred within her the clearest “almost-feelings” her “almost-existence” had ever known. He had taken her so close to the white emotion...

    How long had she “lived”, now? Before a recent assignment given to her by the Organization’s eleventh, each instant had seemed identical monotony. She possessed no record of days or even of years. Her age could have been centuries or a week.

    Such an order Marluxia had inflicted upon her... to change this boy and his companions. She had been provided no vividly defined outline of how to modify his heart, however. While the castle’s leader had established outlines of what this boy’s objectives must be turned to, detail had been left to his “mascot”. She had transformed this chore to something in her favor. Having washed away thoughts of someone dear to him, she had become engraved in his mind as a person of such value. Engraved? Perhaps not. The falsities with which she had coated his mind had been thick, though still could be fought away.

    She faced the one she had altered, her thoughts becoming hazy as she stared fixedly at his limp form. Her air soon mimicked his. She found it to be irony indeed that her most difficult task would not have been born of Marluxia’s request. The Graceful Assassin had faded now, liberating her of his callous dealing. Such benevolence the one called “Sora” had granted her. What contradictory treatment she had provided him in exchange. She could not justify acting in a reluctant fashion in restoring his heart.

    Her sight wandered to the collection of sketches she clutched. They had all been blank before she had discovered his existence... She had thought that perhaps inspiration would enter her one day if she awaited it quietly. Such change he had aroused in her. Close-to-inspiration had been hers as she dove into his memories.

    While impossible for a nobody to feel, the faint traces of reminisced hearts they possessed allowed for what seemed emotion. Of course, she had not even what Organization members had: complete memories. While they each remembered vividly their “other’s” heart, she could recall only vague thoughts of whom she had split away from. Even those were only thoughts of that person's heart. She could not picture even the face of the one to whom it belonged. She had remembrance only of the colors she had neared feeling.

    Stashing her pencil behind her right ear, she gently lifted the book’s cover, thumbing gradually through the filled pages and stopping only at a selection of it’s bulk. The first artwork she rested on depicted Sora and herself standing on the shore of a distant island, watching the sun vanish beneath a vermillion horizon. Neither’s face could be seen as they set their vision on far away. She continued through her works, ignoring most, and landing only on pieces that featured her appearance. Such was not vanity, though something greatly contrary. Her gaze found the sketch she treasured most dearly. In it, Sora stood raising a wooden blade to meteors that tore through the stars. He guarded someone: a little girl in a white dress who smiled up at him from where she was seated on the ground. She was not a nobody. She truly cared for the boy who promised her his protection.

    The heartless girl whose fantasy this was eyed the picture. She stretched her thumb to her drawn-self’s face and pressed hard, rubbing out her features until they were a blur of unrecognizable gray. It reminded her of a shadow. Of course, this might have been suiting, as she was a shadow. In so many ways, they personified her reality...

    A shadow was nothing; more a lack of light. It could echo it’s caster’s form, even warp it’s shape to the extent one might call it unique. Yet in the end, it remained nothing... Though they pretended to be there, waltzing about in their owner’s wake and shifting in length and width, they were empty silhouettes. Beyond visuals, they shared nothing with the beings whose presence gave them even that. In the end, they faded with nightfall.

    She flipped to the sketchbook’s final sheet, which remained as the lone bare page. She stole her drawing utensil from her ear, and proceeded to outline the features of a young boy. His eyes were closed, and a desolate sense overtook his face. She embraced the drawing, then suspended it arm’s-length from her body. Withdrawing it to herself once more, she felt her eyes grow wet. Tears soon flowed from her soft cerulean eyes. Tears? They were not hers. They belonged to another, and the nobody knew whom distinctively. It was one whose presence would soon be complete in the heart she had distorted, as she herself dissolved within it. She inclined her head over her ending sketch, one tear landing atop it’s cheek, darkening the point at which it had struck. Almost-inspiration left her hollow being.

    Even this moment wasn’t truly hers.

    On the distant shore a nobody had once seen in another’s memories, two eyes watched the ocean. Each an innocent shade of lavender, a glaze of liquid soon blanketed them in transparency. Drops of sorrow freed themselves of their glossy surfaces, beating the sand. The girl whose existence was genuine didn’t know why she cried. She was naive to the truth of memories becoming lost in her heart. As the tears escaped, fond remembrances of someone dear were buried away... to be found on a different someday.