Young Writers Society

Kate blinked. She leaned the key-looking-ax-thing against the wall and walked up to the girl. "You alright?" she asked. The probably-girl looked shaken, stunned. Life-flashing-before-her-eyes kinda out-of-it.

Kate didn't know if it was just that she was one of those people who couldn't handle anything - which would be very human of her - or if she was having some kind of breakdown. She didn't have time to deal with a breakdown. Tracking down food would be so much better, more useful, anyway.

Lira had lost her home. Baba was frightened of the possibility that the shadow imps would return to Halloween Town while Baba was away, but that was only a possibility. Lira knew for certain that everything was gone. If any of her neighbours, her family escaped, odds were she would never find out.

Spurred to action, Baba stepped out of the box, dropped their key as well, and hugged Lira around the waist.

There was nothing to say.

Lira returned the hug.

She sobbed and sobbed and sobbed into Baba's shoulder. If she had been less grief-stricken and more aware of her surroundings, she would have felt guilty for getting their shirt so wet. But all she could focus on through her blurred vision was her sadness, and the little silver charm at the end of Baba's braid-

Her sob was cut short.

She blinked and stared at the charms, reaching a hand out to touch it. She held up her own charm right beside it - they were identical.

Baba saw the monsters.

Baba had a key.

Baba had a charm just like hers.

Part of her knew she was jumping to conclusions, but she just had to make sense of everything in whatever way she could. And hadn't Levi worn a silver necklace years ago?

"Do you..." She faltered. She sniffled. And then she asked, in the quietest but only voice she could muster, "Do you know Levi?"

Baba froze in Lira's arms, their own still around her, under the weight of their new senses. Lira's warmth, softly cutting into Baba's cold, soaked frame. The squish of human skin. Lira's heartbeat, small but constant, just out of time with Baba's.
Baba had only had a heart for five minutes. For the first time, it skipped a beat.


It was a moment before Baba heard what Lira had said. Levi. -Levi?

Baba gasped. "He was Baba's best friend! ...a long time ago. He disappeared."

"Then Baba saw him... Bba saw him with the shadows. They looked just like him."
Just like that, Baba's tone became sour.

Baba had done their crying, and now that they had, the time had come to address what Levi would mean to them now.

Why did he have to come back? Baba never hated him for leaving, the memories were fine, so why did he have to come back, and attack the town? Not just their town, other worlds as well. He destroyed Lira's island.

If that was how Baba had to see him now, why did he have to come back at all?


"What was he doing?" Baba whispered bitterly.

Lira pulled out of the embrace.

Maybe the shock was responsible, but her mind immediately focused in on their connection. On Levi. After his disappearance, she had tried figuring out what had happened to him. She had spent years trying to figure it out. Now she finally had the chance to. At a more unconscious level, Levi was the one tie she had to her life before what had just happened. If she could somehow reconnect with him, then it wouldn't be as-

No, it would still be bad.

She didn't understand why Baba thought Levi looked like the monsters, but everything else was the same. Levi had been there when her island was destroyed. She had seen him watching from afar. She had tried protecting him. And that was when the key had shown up.

When she actually stood a chance.

"Levi was my best friend, too," she finally said. She held up her bracelet so Baba could see the little silver charm - and see how it was identical to theirs. "I saw him when my island was destroyed. He-He didn't do anything. He just stood there. Why..."

She looked down at the bracelet, then back at Baba. A hopeless, hurt expression flickered across her face. "You...You really think he was responsible for what happened?"

Baba softened, guilty for having made Lira more upset.

"He was with them." Baba accused quietly. "They weren't attacking him. Both you and Baba saw him there, at two different attacks..." Baba trailed off.

"If it ain't his fault, he's still got something to do with it." they said, meeting Lira's eyes again. It hurt to make things worse, when the loss of her home was so fresh.

At the end, Baba was still guilty, but they couldn't tell a lie. Levi had some explaining to do. And if it came to, then... Baba scrunched their eyes, and looked away.

Even now, Baba still didn't want to think about it.

Kate glanced between them. Levi. She knew that- LEVI!

Two options here, she thought, getting angrier by the second, Either the glittervores can cast illusions into other dimensions now - unlikely - or spry-little-Levi had something to do with the little demon things. She smiled, not with joy, not with humor, but with an ironic rage.

"That little prick's gonna become a very generous blood doner the next time I see him," she growled under her breath.

She rolled back her sleeve and showed the others the charm, "You people know Levi?" she said at a regular volume, her voice quavering ever so slightly with barely contained rage. She decided she was hungry, then. Or maybe she just wanted to rip someone's throat out, as disgusting as that was.

Maybe Levi had been right when he said it was important to cover your neck when near a vampire. Kate certainly looked mad, and Lira wouldn't be surprised if she suddenly lunged at either one of their necks.

Maybe Levi had been talking about Kate-

No. She couldn't let herself think that. Levi had chosen to be her friend years ago when no one else wanted to. Even if he was somehow involved in the destruction of her world, she had to trust his choice in friends. And for him to give her that charm - and to give Baba a charm, too - they had to be friends.

"I do," she confirmed. She straightened a little. "Levi and I were best friends. He always came to my island. I-I haven't-hadn't seen him for five years."

She looked over at Baba.

"But he can't be evil," she whispered. The word hadn't been said, but she knew it was being thought. Or, at least, that was where her mind was going. "He's Levi. He-He..."

She faltered.

They knew what he was like.

They knew he was like the sun rising up over a rough sea, providing warmth and comfort from the crashing waves. They knew he was like the papou fruit that Lira had shared with him years ago - sweet and refreshing. But her mind just kept seeing him as a corrupted version of the sea salt ice cream he had given her countless times: sweet and then bitter, instead of bitter and then sweet.

"We need to find Levi," she said. "He has to know what's going on."

"Okay," Kate said, her voice somewhere between a growl and a chirp, "Let's find Levi. I'd love to speak with him about a few things. Do you happen to know where he's wandered off to?" She sounded almost sweet as she spoke, in a bitter, angry kind of way.

Levi and she had had such a wonderful time together back in the day. Sweet, innocent fun, the like of which Kate hadn't enjoyed since. Not that she didn't have the opportunity, just that it didn't appeal to her. No more games of hide and seek or skipping rocks across the pond for Kate.

She knew that she and Levi wouldn't be friends anymore if they met under good circumstances. These circumstances were pretty far from good. She might feel a little bad about draining someone so eternally youthful. For a few minutes.

He left. He was still around today and he left her then. He left her behind to deal with the chaotic, nonsensical, idiotic buzzing of the magical world as a newly-turned vamp without another friend in the world.

On second thought, taking a bit of his blood seemed pretty fair.

Meanwhile, in Twilight Town...



“If you keep sitting here, they're going to find you eventually.”

He looked up.

Like clockwork, he had arrived with popsicles. One had already been licked – the other was presumably for him. But he didn't take one. He hadn't in years, and he knew that. It was a pitiful attempt at an apology, and he didn't even like the taste anymore. The sweetness may have been there, but all he could taste was the salt.

“Not if you don't tell,” he replied.

The man let out a sigh and sat down beside him, feet dangling over the edge of the clock tower. “Wasn't planning on it.”

“Good.”

When he glanced over again, the man was leaning back and staring up at the sky above. “Why do you keep coming here, anyways? It's been, what, four years?”

“One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five days,” he corrected. He joined him in staring up at the sunset. “One thousand, eight hundred and ninety days of you coming up here and trying to convince me to come back, and one thousand, eight hundred and two days of me actually replying.”

“I'm impressed that you still know that,” he said.

“You're the one who told me to get it memorized,” was the blunt reply. “I took your words to heart – or those ones, at least.”

They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity, the ice cream dripping down the sides of gloves and down to the ground countless feet below. And then the intruder to his little oasis finally said something again.

He didn't bother to glance over at him.

"So, how is that little scheme of yours coming along?"

He shot the man a look.

Ice cream dripping, the man raised his hands in surrender. "I'm just asking! I know you have something up your sleeve. You always do."

He raised an eyebrow. "And why would I tell you?"

The ice cream was lowered. "Why do you always come here every single day?"

He looked back at the sunset.

Both of them already knew the answer to that.

He got to his feet.

"It's going as well as it could," he said. "Given my...limitations."

The man got to his feet as well.

"That's what I'd expect from you," the man said.

There was another pause.

Casting the sunset and the town below one last glance, he turned his back to the man. He didn't deserve anything more than what had been said. "You can let Xemnas, or Saix, or whoever sent you running after me this time that I'm biding my time."

"But you're not, are you?"

He gave no answer.

He just disappeared into the darkness.

And the man, staring at the spot where he had once been standing, let out a very, very tired sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"It looks like he can travel wherever he wants. Baba thinks we'll see him when he wants to see us." said Baba.

"But we should talk to him, fir-"

Baba stopped. The hairs on Baba's neck stood at attention.

Something was creeping.

Kate frowned a the little thing, wondering why they had cut off so suddenly. She didn't see any reason for them to do that.

"What's wrong?" Lira asked, glancing nervously between Kate and Baba. She was starting to feel anxious, but she couldn't tell if it was because of Baba cutting off suddenly or because of something else.

And then she saw a little bit of darkness moving out of the corner of her eye.

The feeling got worse.

Especially when she saw one of the shadows appear out of the ground.

She scrambled for the key weapon, lifting it up with shaking hands and holding it out in front of her. If she could just muster the strength to move, she could take care of it.

But then more of them appeared.

Kate huffed a breath of annoyance and tightened her grip on the ax-key-thing. The others were disproportionately concerned with every little thing, it seemed. Then she remembered that they had a few more ways to die than Kate. Even the wooden stake thing was a myth, for her, she just straight up couldn't die unless it happened to be daytime or her attackers had a thing for silver.

Okay, fine, they've got a point. It was still pathetic, though.

It was easier this time. It wasn't Baba's town, but it was somebody's town, and that was enough.

Not even thinking to wait for Lira and Kate, Baba snatched their key from the ground and leapt into a beeline sprint for the nearest shadow.

Gratefully, their friends swarmed around them, popping up through the cracks in the red brick road. Baba fought with pounces and swipes, and more pounces, like a mad squirrel that was accustomed to fighting like a mad squirrel, but had been forced to integrate a sword into its approach.

Baba scrambled in all directions, never looking beyond whatever shadow was in front of their face, and never looked behind them, either. Baba relied only on the Halloweentownian ability of one lurker to feel the presence of another.

This approach had a mixed effectiveness. Baba was making the swarm smaller, but Baba was still in the middle of it, and Kate and Lira would soon have some of their own to deal with. It would make a useful diversion for them, but not for very long.