Welcome to Gaia! ::

'She' was floating, 'she' could feel that. The silence embracing 'her' was not bad at all. There were no other girls around, still it was a moment of peace without the need to fight. 'Nemi' felt as if she was finally free. 'The witch' didn't lost 'her' memories from the start, 'she' was imparted those fragments, of others being lost in the darkness. Just like how colorless water can be dyed with other fluid. 'She' might be the left-over of someone, but 'she' couldn't tell anymore....

It's cozy within the Insanity, there was no rejection or repulse, just acceptance. 'Nemi' was embraced by the fog and reminisced what was within 'herself'. Broken memories, complicated feels and a temporary core. Yes. The soul gem given to 'her' was a temporary host of the insanity that formed the 'Nemi'. In other words, it was also a cage that jailed 'her' from going home. That why 'she' felt all the way unnerving, not because of the amnesia, but simply because 'she' was dragged away from the mass of Insanity.

'She' was a collective of others, but still some of the memories dominated and outbid-ed. The one about the candy witch was one. 'Nemi' once thought the witch was 'she' in the past. Now, 'she' knew it might be, might be not. 'She' didn't have a name to begin with, 'Nemi' was someone else. Anyway, the memory fragments of the candy witch inside 'her' resonated withe each other, giving 'her' those sparks and sorrows.

More scenes flashed by within 'her' mind, happy and sad, warm and cold. 'Nemi' could see the witch was born as a noble, talented and outstanding. From the broken pieces, it would be told that her job was to protect the kingdom and serve the royal family. That Nemi was gifted, in the view that she had the power to summon candy rain and acquired a rare candy eater in the ritual. She was strong but aloof, and got only one dearest friend. Unfortunately, she was betrayed and suffered from great pain as if an angina pectoris. She let herself fallen to the darkness, swallowed by Insanity........That's what 'Nemi' could conclude. The 'Nemi' standing there was based on the image of her, a candy witch. However, because of the "impuries" in 'her', their personalities were totally different.

When 'Nemi' was overwhelmed with all of the yearning, she recalled the promise, finally.

<< Even an nothing like you could have a wish. What's your wish? >>

'She' might be incomplete in nature, but as Insanity as a whole, 'she' was completed. 'She' was always yearning.....for something.

"Nemi wishes for....." 'She' found herself separated from the Insanity. "Nemi- wants to-" 'Nemi' bit on her lips, the wish was on the edge of 'her' lips yet she couldn't speak it out. Sleeping deeply within the fog was comfortable, but the desire to get another thing was much stronger. 'She' was in a dilemma: to forget about everything and enjoy a deep lovely sleep or something else? "Nemi......wishes for a chance......A chance to have her own memories and being a complete entity.....meet other girls again. Nemi wants to have a name of her own! Nemi wants to be no longer empty and hollow!" 'The witch' would have reached out her hands to gesture how eager she was. "Nemi wants to taste all the candies and delicious cookies! Nemi wants to be someone! N-not a nobody....." Wishes were spoken out without thinking even stumbling, they just liked a tsunami pushing all the things out of her mouth.

"I wants to be a different person." 'She' paused and then said with a cool tone. "I will do anything you want if you can grant me the wish." The voice was of dignity. "Ne-Nemi can promise you too!..." The same voice said, but of a softer tone.

<< Close your eyes and don'y forget your Promise. >>

When 'Nemi' opend her eyes again, 'she' saw the wish granting creature, the one that 'she' called Fluffy. Within her grasp was the green soul gem, which caged the 'true' her. 'She' was someone, a happy amnesiac candy witch called Nemi.

The dream was short, but meaningful. 'She' experienced to be a complete entity and knew some girls, Keiko, Ally, Ade....and some more. Yes. It was just a good dream given by the creature. 'She' was always Insanity, always......."I guess I fulfilled my promise......?

It's time to return Home, the comfortable cozy Home of darkness.

Holding the soul gem growing feeble shimmery green lights, 'Nemi' curled up on the group and found a good pose to sleep. As the fog embraced 'her', the green glows were dimmer and dimmer, until everything was in darkness again.

No more Nemi. No more somebody.

Just Insanity.

The warm-cold voice of Home called to her, wrapping her in an embrace of fog. Taika was falling apart in her last instants, bit the faces of her newly-made friends were still there behind her eyes even if she couldn't see them.

And as it happened, her memories finally returned, in small pieces, but there.

Once upon a time, Home wasn't fog. Home was a real family, a mother and a father and older siblings. Home was being the baby, until another little baby came, all tiny hands and feet and precious.

"I'll always keep you safe," Taika remembered promising, and her baby sister giggled and grabbed her fingers.

She had loved that child, that she knew. Someone precious and sweet and innocent she could adore. She couldn't remember names, couldn't really remember faces - just big blue eyes and pale blonde hair, and her mother whispering "She's so like you, Taika sweetie, and the bigger she gets the more she is."

Her sister had grown and grown, and had gotten more adventurous. She loved to wander around, and Taika had been designated her keeper. She took that role very seriously, and she always made sure to keep that little girl under close watch.

Except for the one time she didn't.

They were playing in a park on the edge of the woods. She turned away for just a moment - a moment to wave to another friend - and then she heard her sister screaming.

"Taika, help me, please!"

She turned back, but whatever had taken her was already gone, vanished into the forest. She ran in, screaming her sister's name, trying to find her, to catch her, but she was gone.

Taika felt her heart sink. She had failed. Of course she had - and now she was being punished for it, or....was punished the right word...no, she supposed.

Her family was so sad, so disappointed - they swore they didn't blame her, but she knew they did. And then there were more rumors of children disappearing into the same woods.

And that was when the cat-thing had come to her.



"I wish for the power to save them all...I promise to protect them, they need me."



That was her wish. To rescue her sister, and the other children. And she had. As best as she could.

That knowledge welcomed her as she finally went home.

It was not really a blink, since there was nothing there to do the blinking. No eyelids, no eyes, no real body. Just a gently dissolving and unravelling ball of emotions. It was peaceful. Already the screams of battle were forgotten, the voices of the people she ... it? had barely known. Of course, it didn't matter if they had been lifelong friends, everything was leaving now. The conscious floated happily, welcoming the release from the unpleasant emotions that had riddled its now-gone body. There were ones though, new ones, well, old but forgotten during it's brief sojourn as Esme. Memories of who it really was.



Life as a domestic minipet wasn't bad. She had a loving owner, all the attention she craved, and she had been, for as much as she had been aware of 'being anything', happy. She had fetched and rolled over and slept beside her owner at night. And life had been good.

Nothing lasts though, and eventually one day her owner and the other halloweener who had lived in the same house, the one she thought of as her 'semi-boss', had a big yelling fight. After that, the fights went on for longer and longer, and she had cowered under chairs until the noise had stopped. Curled up with her owner, she had been unable to understand where the tears came from, or the strange mood swings, the stalking up and down the room. She felt vaguely uneasy every time they picked her up and held her tight, tighter than usual.

Soon, semi-boss stopped showing up in the house anymore, the furniture slowly loosing their smell. It happened the day after her boss threw a chair at them, during another fight. That night, as she lay on the bed, she remembered her owner standing in front of the mirror, examining the patch of grey skin on their arm. After, she writhed uncomfortably as she lay, held tight in her owners arms. Eventually she had managed to wriggle out, only to be seized again and held even more firmly.

Life began to spiral after that, as her owner stopped leaving the house, letting dirt and refuse build up. She would be chased from room to room with a broom, only to be held in a vicelike grip after for hours on end, terrified and panicky, listening in incomprehension to the frantic words and the tears that burst forth from her owner. If only she could understand what was going on, if only she could find a way to make things go back to the way they had been before. Although she barely noticed it as an afterthought, the grey patches on her owner's skin were very large now.

Soon after, she woke up one morning to her owner throwing things at her, screaming. Fleeing madly, she ended up managing to eventually hide herself away. Whenever she revealed herself after that, she was met with the same thing, as though her owner didn't even recognize her anymore. Hungry, scared, and utterly confused, she retreated into the dark corners of the house, scavenging food where she could, though there wasn't much left. Although she didn't realize it, she was slowly starving to death. All she knew was she was getting weaker and weaker, her stomach hurt all the time, and she was trapped with no way out. The thing that moved around the house certainly wasn't her owner anymore, it didn't even smell like her. The one thought that still clung in her mind was the confusion and wish to be able to change things, to put them back to the way they were. To be able to see her owner back and safe and happy.

A few days later, she died, quietly, hiding underneath her owner's bed.

Even now, as a mix of minipet and halloweener thoughts and intelligence floated together in it's consciousness, it wasn't sure why it had been selected. Of course, it really didn't matter now that it was home, nothing really mattered, but still, it was curious how the simple wishes of a minipet had been considered strong enough for it to be approached. It had been told that it could make a wish, and it would be granted. Unable to speak the thoughts had tumbled out instead, crude, basic, from the soul of a frightened animal.

Be with owner. With owner, reunite. Happy again with owner.

And now, by a roundabout way, it was. It was certainly one with the halloweener that it had considered to be the closest thing to a god, back when it was a minipet. And it was, all things considered, happy. Happy to be home.

Instead of seeing complete darkness or the pinkish hue of her eyelids when she closed them, Connie saw gray. Endless gray. She found she no longer had her dress or her shark or legs or arms or a face, but it didn't matter. She had her wish, didn't she? The insanity that used to be a girl would have held her breath, if she'd had any lungs. Instead, she thought really, really hard, focusing what remained of her rapidly depleting core until she found something to latch onto. The something. Her wish.

She remembered a voice in the grayness. It had cut through the pained moans of Home and the dim recollections of everyone else who had once been a part of her. Its promise had made her want to be more than she was. She had pulled herself together then. She had agreed to help in exchange for the one thing she wanted most in the whole world.

A trampoline.

It seemed to her that positively everybody in the mist had one... maybe... she couldn't be sure, but the harder she pushed and the more solid she grew, the more obvious it became that she did not. Or did she? She could feel the rush of air, the weightlessness, the glee as she landed and bounced and did it all again. She saw a familiar flash of yellow hair and looked down at the ground. At Konnie. She waved as she kept bouncing, watching as the other girl went inside to make sandwiches. She tried to laugh, but she couldn't. She wasn't real and it was almost time to go.

Connie tried to feel that feeling one last time. There. She was falling. It was so beautiful, so bright and clear. This time when she landed, she didn't bounce.

Darkness coiled around her, pulled her broken body into an embrace, drew heavy hands over her eyes. Through the gaps between its long fingers, she saw something brighter: red fragments danced in the air, like miniature shards of fire. Each shiny facet reflected an image when she captured them with her gaze: brief flashes of faces from long ago and places that might have been Home. She reached for them, not with hands, but with her entire being, only conscious of the faint twinges of desire rising tentatively in her core. That nameless want grew and grew until the darkness shuddered, sighed, and released her. Shadowy tendrils faded away, and with new eyes she beheld uncountable red shards, so luminous and so varied that it hurt just to look at them. The only salient thought that remained was this:

She had been whole, once.

Maybe it had been more than once; there were several faces, none she recognized as being hers. But there was a name -- she only managed to catch one, and yet it felt right in her grasp, somehow: Tanith Mynett. Yes, that must be her name. Hers, and hers alone.

For some reason, having the name mattered, and it mattered more that it belonged only to her. She clung to it greedily and reached again for the red shards. More. More. She needed more.

She caught glimpses of more faces: a woman, deep red hair like the shards themselves; a caricature of a cat, always smiling; several mouths in a line, the rest of their faces obscured by shadows and armor; a girl, eyes like gold, and for some reason it hurt most to look at her, so she hurriedly thrust that shard away. Instead, she took hold of a place, a long plateau above the heads of those faceless soldiers. An ancient ache roiled in the pit of her soul. She had been a part of something great, important, worthy of legacy... She had wanted... so badly...

Another shard fell into her grasp, light emanating and undulating from it in unsteady waves. She touched it, at first feeling warmth, and then pain.

"Are you hurt?"

A voice. Calm, friendly, smiling without the need to move its mouth. Awash with pain, icy cold flooding her veins and spilling out through her wounds, she clung to that kindness.

"I can help you. It's a simple thing to give you the strength you need. Anything is possible, if you make a contract with me!"

The pain changed into a different ache, much like the desire that had spurred her forward. She... remembered... the voice had asked her what she wanted. It said...

"What is your wish?"

"I wish to fight."

It was as if a switch had been flipped: the hazy filter over her eyes snapped off to give way to an iron hunger. She wanted to fight. She wanted to battle, to protect... protect a nameless thing she couldn't be sure truly existed, a purpose she had at some point, once important and now lost and forgotten. But she remembered. She wanted to fight. All that was left to her was to destroy and consume.

The shards before her glittered like thousands of tiny flames, and she devoured them all, feeling emptier with each one that shattered beneath her teeth. Around her, the darkness lurched to embrace her into stillness once again, but she thrashed against it, hungry and so very, very empty.

It wasn't enough. She needed more.

As she had died, shattered, broken upon the floor, everything had faded to black. Wait no, not black...that was wrong. It was more of a murky grey, and it was becoming lighter by the second. A color that was familiar, and somehow comforting in it's own way. A color she had grown accustomed to, one that she hadn't known she had missed until it was there again, surrounding her, encompassing her.

Tarnishing her.

Though essentially it was her, or rather, she was a part of it. The insanity, that's what she was, and where she belonged. The woman hadn't been lying after all. Macy had been false, in a body that had not belonged to her, because she had no body at all. That realization came with it the searing bitterness of disappointment, combined with an aching feeling that resonated throughout what was left of her, the partial, incomplete, yet still cherished memories of a scareling named Macy.

The memories whipped by, brief glimpses that brought a just the tiniest bit of color and light to such a dim and dismal place. There were faces, smiling, laughing. Pats on the head, compliments, warmth, happiness, a sense of belonging.

The laughter turned to something more scornful, the faces that appeared no longer smiling, but jeering, smirking. They were not the same faces as before, not even remotely similar. These were other children, scarelings like she had once been. Boils and ghouls.

"I-I-I..Wh-why wo-wo-won't y-you...p-p-puh-please j-just.."

Words, her own words, stuttered, incomprehensible to most. She knew what she wanted to say, but she could never quite get it out. Not in times like this, not when those faces leered down at her, their cruelty an almost tangible thing. She never gotten angry with them, only felt hurt. Hurt so badly, her chest aching and feeling like it was being crushed beneath the heel of a boot. Hurt so that she no longer felt that she could breathe, or that breathing was even important anymore.

Tears. She remembered the hot wash of tears that wet her cheeks, but there were never enough tears to wash away the ache that continued to gnaw away inside of her. The new doubt, the loss of hope as her life became forever dimmer, the light washing out, flickering. Going out.

Grey. So much grey. Her world was a haven of grey and memories like these. Ones that she loved, and ones that she hated.

"Just accept me. I just want to be accepted. That is my only wish now."

The words came easily, in that calm grey. It was what she wanted, what she yearned for above all else. Something so simple, something so completely innocent. Just acceptance, that was all.

She shouldn't have needed to change. They were the ones that needed to change. Not her. No longer her.

And then suddenly, as she gave voice to her wish, the lights brightened once more. There was no more grey. In it's place was something vibrant, something strong. It was a place where she got exactly what she had asked for.

Acceptance.

It was a place where it was all torn away from her again, far too soon, far too brutally.

But home was where she belonged, and home was where she was bound to return. Home...the word brought with it the faces once more. The smiles, the laughter, the sheer joy. Home, grey, a wish, color, a dream, and then back again to the start. Her core was too tainted to return. She was something broken that could not be fixed.

But maybe her wish could still be fulfilled.

Maybe, somewhere in that grey, the others still lurked. Her new friends, her wishes, those who had accepted her.

Together they would all go home. Together they would dwell in the fog.

Together they might find color again.