Shuffle.

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Track One
“Say This Sooner”
Roxas.

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; All my friends think that I’m gone but I swear, I swear I’m not. ;
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They stood there in a closed-in circle, laughing at a joke he had missed. He had missed a lot of jokes lately. Was it because he no longer found them to be funny? Or was it because he had something else on his mind? Ever since the encounter with the fiery man in the black cloak that looked all too familiar, the only thing he could do was question. Question why recent events had played out the way they did, his strange dreams, his very own existence.

“Hey guys,” he said finally, reaching forward to pat his friend, Hayner, on the shoulder. His hand went right through the boy, as if he were a specter. “What the..?”

And his friends just kept on laughing and talking, but he couldn’t hear them anymore. He could see their lips curl and twist into smiles, but they were inaudible. “Hayner!” he cried out. He tried to touch the boy for a second time, only to be denied once again.

“Pence!?” he called out the other boy’s name. He grabbed for his favorite red jersey, but the same thing happened over and over again. What’s happening?

He at last turned to the girl, a stunning brunette whose petite body quavered from her quiet giggling. Her hand hid her pink lips and her emerald eyes glittered under the early morning sunlight that poured through the rails of the train tracks above them. “Olette…” He spoke. He was scared, terrified more than anything. Please, he begged. Anyone except her.

Please.

He went to take her hand, the one that hung loosely at her side. His own hand only went through hers, leaving him feeling sick. He watched Hayner walk out first with Pence following behind him. And for a mere second, Olette stayed behind, giving him false hope.

“Olette?”

And then she was gone.

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© The Almost
© Square Enix