Day passes day, ever the same, and all I can do to keep my sanity is stare at the sketch book before me.  Unseeing, uncaring.  The pages, like the walls, blank.  No hope of color staining them.  I open my book, shut it, walk around my room.  No inspiration strikes.  

It’s not a matter of materials.  A new packet of colored pencils lie beside my chair, the only source of vibrancy in this muted world.  Everything else here is pale-even me.  My stringy blonde hair.  Nearly transparent skin.  Dull eyes.

There was a time not too long ago when I could fill reams of paper easily.  A masterpiece could rise up with a simple stroke of a pencil.  My subjects hardly varied.  In fact, I had to replace a few of the colors much quicker than the rest.  A golden brown, which perfectly matched the shade of spiky hair.  Deep blue, the same color of a pair of soulful eyes.

But no more.  My inspiration has left.  And, with it-with YOU-, my love of drawing.  I try.  But, like my heart, it is long gone.  And in the place is a fierce longing.

They say Nobodies don’t feel.  I believe otherwise.

‘Thoughts of you keep running through my head
Images I just want to forget.
I look in the mirror and put on a happy face.
But nobody sees it, and I don’t believe it.’

Axel comes in sometimes.  He’d never admit it, but he misses you.  He looks at me, but his mouth never opens.  His stormy emerald eyes say it all.  I know that if he could, Axel would go get you.  But we’ve been told not to interfere.

You look happy, or at least you have the few times I have ventured to see you.  It is a false happiness, but what you don’t know can’t hurt.  You have your friends.  Merely clever copies of strangers you will never know, but they are there just the same.  Two boys.  A girl.  I feel a vague jealousy when I see her.  I keep reminding myself that she isn’t there, but…there you have it.  I cannot dismiss the shadows of feelings I have.  You have your petty adventures.  You enjoy the local ice cream.

I wonder:  If I had gone with you, would we be enjoying the false paradise together?

‘I bought into every word you said
I never thought it’s something I’d regret.
I look at you now and wonder who I see
I’m lost in the frenzy and it’s never ending.’

Do you remember the first time you found me?

Of course you don’t.

You looked me and my drawings over-I soon learned you had a curious nature-and began to question everything about me.  I gave little information-my life held no meaning, I did not know of my origin-and you sympathized.  Though we hardly new each other, your revealed yourself to me.  Your shallow semblances of fear and dreams.  How you had come into the Organization.  Your best friend (I was a close second, you once confided much later).

I listened to you that first day.  And the next.  And the next.  And whenever you graced me with your presence.  You were my life preserver.  I clung to you so I wouldn’t drown in my sea of loneliness and despair.

Maybe you should have held on to me instead.

‘The way we used to talk all night
I still get butterflies
When I go there again.
Oh I see the way you used to smile
If only for a while
But only if I pretend.’

Who can say if the change was gradual or sudden?  I may consider myself something of an artist, but sometimes I fail to capture little details.  All I know is that a far-off look took up residency in your normally cheerful gaze.  Your sentences drifted.  Your visits were less and less frequent.

When I realized something was wrong, it was too late.  Your last visit was almost out of obligation.

“I’m leaving,” you said.

I stared up from my newest drawing.

“Where?”  

Your face fell, but you look away stubbornly.  I secretly admired that about you.  You didn’t care what anyone said or whatever was in the way, you would get around anything.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out what they’re hiding from me.”

“Oh…”

You looked at me.  “You want to go too?”

If I had had a heart at that moment, I would have agreed instantly.  But the coward in me edged away.  Here I wasn’t necessarily needed, definitely not loved, but I knew what to expect.  It was a constant.

“I can’t…” my mind raced for an excuse, my eyes looking at anything but yours.  “They’ll…get mad.”

Stung,  you sighed and your body slumped in disappointment.  But the moment was quickly over, you raising your hood over your eyes.

I did the best I could trying to stop you.

“They’ll go after you.  You’ll be punished.  Killed…”

The dry chuckle that escaped seemed to come from an entirely different person.

“I’ll take my chances.  There’s nothing good here, anyway.”

And you portalled out.  Of this world.  My life.

There’s nothing good here, so you said.

What about me?

‘If I could draw the world I want to see
I know just how I’d picture it to be
I’d stand here alone and know that it all was real.
You say you don’t need it
I know you don’t mean it
And I don’t believe it.’

I would like to think that I have changed since you left.  For the better.  At least as much as one like myself can.

I was angry at you at first.  It stemmed from my deep hurt (which is still here, by the way).  I found most of my old drawings of you and shredded them apart.  Axel saw me.  When he nearly sympathized he looked the most human I have ever seen him.

You inspired me to become just a bit braver.  I would like to think I was ultimately good when Sora swept through here.  I don’t miss any of the members he destroyed.  I do wish you had gotten to see him, though.  I know you would have liked it.

I could leave, I suppose, but I still refuse to leave my little white room.  The Organization has no further use for me.  Axel is my only visitor, sometimes stopping by to make sure I don’t starve.  I don’t know why he cares.  Does he know something about you and me that I don’t?

Diz has a way to contact me.  He wants my help for something he won’t say.  I put him off.  Such an alliance would cause change.  Take me away from our memories.  It could, even worse, put me closer to you.

‘Oh I’m where I wanna be
Don’t you wake me from this dream.’

I know I’ll give in soon.  I put my sketch book neatly beside the pencil box.  I touch the nearly transparent door that will lead me out of my room.  Into the unknown.

You are my weak point.  Did you know that?

I tell myself that bringing up the past is useless.-especially since I am the only one who remembers it.  Still…I have a silly wish that maybe one day you will snap out of it, break out of the bonds of that digital world, and come back for me.  I know that Nobodies are not worthy of wishes.  Our luck ran out long ago…But that won’t stop me from whispering it to myself from time to time.

If you came for me, this time I would take your hand.  Wherever we went would be fine.  You live out your real adventures and I’ll draw them.  Our past, present, and future intertwined seamlessly.

They say Nobodies cannot feel.

I believe otherwise.

I love you, Roxas.

‘When I go there again…
Oh I see the way you used to smile
If only for a while….
The way we used to talk all night
I still get butterflies
When I go there again
Oh I see the way you used to smile
If only for a while
But only if I pretend.’

‘…Only when I pretend’