Lloyd blinked for what
felt like the first time in an hour.
While he thanked Aphrodite that Trixie hadn’t tried to attack him, he
still didn’t find any solace in her bleak stare. He wasn’t getting anywhere, just sitting by
the door like a guard dog; he’d have to take a chance. “Are these accommodations enough for you,
Miss Walters?” he asked. He waved a hand
in front of his face. “My apologies if
my room isn’t quite up to your standards of décor; had I known I’d be playing
the host tonight, I would have furnished it far more suitably.”
“Yer room ain’t the
problem, pal,” said Trixie, glaring at Lloyd from the bed with sheets clenched
tight.
“Oh? Then what is?”
“Ya been starin’ at me
for the past hour. How am I supposed to
get to sleep if I gotta keep an eye on you all night long?”
All right. Let’s talk about Kingdom Hearts 2 some more.
The last level of the
game, The World That Never Was, is…well, fairly interesting in its own
right. KH, for the most part,is
a decidedly low-tech universe. Judging
by the way Sora bashes on the keyboard leading to Tron’s world, he’s never seen
something like it in his life. True,
you’ll see gizmos and machines in places like Traverse Town and Twilight Town,
but considering that Sora heads to ancient Greece, war-torn China, Agrabah,
Neverland, and the friggin’ ocean, you can’t expect him to check his email or
charge his mp3 player.
So in terms of
aesthetics, I kind of like The World That Never Was. It creates this “magic vs. technology”
dichotomy (which I wish was played up and used more effectively in the game,
but I digress), that separates the good guys from the bad guys, and the natural
from the unnatural. Tangentially, I also
like the Nobodies; they’re shifting, boneless creatures that operate on a
higher level than the Heartless, but are so alien in practice and design that
they might as well be brainless. So
generally, KH2 has a lot of good
ideas -- building blocks to use and arrange at the developers’ discretion.
A shame that Squeenix
couldn’t be arsed to do anything with them.
So, let’s go right down the list.
That’s right, it’s time for a countdown showdown. These are 10 Head-Scratching Events in the Final Level of Kingdom Hearts 2.
Before we get started,
I’d like to make a correction and apology.
Posted on
May 24, 2012:
“Kingdom Hearts 2 is not an
awful game by any stretch. It’s just
full of things that make it hover dangerously close to the edge. Roxas and his pain-inducing prologue, the
disorganized Organization XIII, the shift from the east/west hybridization to cookie-cutter anime fare, the
segregated plot, the still-piddling minigames, the absurd gameplay decisions,
the unevenness of Reaction Commands, the mash-happy nature, the handling of the
worlds…there’s a lot to discuss, and I will in due time. But for everything the game does wrong, there
are just a number of things that it does so right.”
In retrospect, that’s
not fair to anime. As you can guess, I
hold anime in high esteem -- it has plenty of amazing elements, its fair share
of faults, and stories ranging from magical to mediocre. To knock something just because it has anime
and manga influences is utterly wrong; I used to rag on the Teen Titans cartoon before it came out because it tried to copy anime,
and yet by series’ end it became one of my favorite shows. To even insinuate that anything with certain
tropes, styles, and mannerisms is automatically
bad because of it is something that I would like to avoid -- hence, my
correction.
What I should have said is this:
“It’s just full of things that make it hover dangerously close to the
edge…the disorganized Organization XIII, the shift from the east/west
hybridization to Advent Children-style
schlock…”
There we go. That about sums things up -- and makes the
final hours of Kingdom Hearts 2 so
genuinely painful.
I fancy myself as a
writer, but it’s not often that I dream about any of my stories, or anything I
could possibly write about. (Unless I
just wrote about my gruesome, humiliating deaths, but that’d get boring after a
while.) But one night, I had a flash of
insight. I could see something that
could propel me to the highest echelon of the literary world.
And then I woke up, and
forgot about it. And when I slept again,
I started dreaming about Street Fighter.
Trixie ripped her hand
from Lloyd’s grasp and clutched it close to her body. “Seriously, are ya some kinda sorcerer or
somethin’?” she demanded, stepping backward as if he’d turned into some horrid
man-spider.
Lloyd shook his head,
and left his hand hovering in the air.
“Last I checked I wasn’t.” He
stroked his chin and turned aside.
“Though it IS possible that, since the accident, I’ve become an esper.”
“Would ya stop sayin’ weird stuff for one
second and explain what’s going on?”
“Right. I suppose I should give you a quick rundown,”
said Lloyd as he shuffled a foot through the water.
“Well, this is just
conjecture for now, but I’m assuming that thanks to my ability I entered your
subconscious and positively affected your innermost thoughts and desires,
thereby allowing you to know real happiness and actively move toward pursuing
your dream, no matter what obstacle you need to surmount.” He sniffled a bit. “Hmmm.
I think there’s still a little sea water in my lungs.”
Mini-post for now; more content coming soon. For the moment, here's something I thought I'd show off.
It's everyone's favorite over-the-top love freak, Lloyd B. Hoigleheimer...made with Paint and PowerPoint! They (by which I mean my brother) say that Photoshop is just a thousand-dollar version of Paint, and given what I can do with Microsoft Office pack-ins and a little more than an hour, I'm inclined to agree.
More of these to follow. I've heard that people don't like reading massive blocks of text on the internet, even if you're writing a web serial. So I thought I'd try making some eye catches to give readers a slight reprieve. I don't know if the text/narrative will allow me to make breaks like this all the time, but for now I'll keep stockpiling these and posting them around. This one'll probably head up the archive page.
So yeah. Pardon my crude art and attempt to prove what a pretty little snowflake I am.
Lloyd slammed his palms
against the desk. “You’re on the run
from the authorities, aren’t you?”
Trixie couldn’t say a
word in objection -- but her body said more than enough. Her reeling posture; her reddened face; her
legs, once so straight and proud, now buckling under her weight; her hands,
held up like those of a prisoner caught in a searchlight.
“Now I can see your
heart,” said Lloyd with a quick nod. “I
was wondering why you were a bit restrained in talking about your heritage;
call it a misconception if you will, but I would have guessed that a southerner
like you would have been eager to describe your hometown. It can only mean that, for one reason or
another, you’re unwilling to go back -- especially due to the consequences you
stand to face. Am I wrong?”
“Y-ya couldn’t be more
wrong!” Trixie yelled. “What, are ya
tryin’ to say I’m some kinda criminal?
Huh? Are ya? ‘Cause I’m not!”
This is going to be a
quick housekeeping announcement, so bear with me.
I’ve been working on I Hraet You for a while now, and I’m
reaching a good tempo on that front. I’ve
got a clear idea of where I want to take the story (hint: it involves Power
Bombs), and I’m steadily moving toward the ending. Granted the stuff I post here on Cross-Up is
more than a little rough around the edges, so it’s likely that eventually I’m
going to have to go through and edit each post.
Hopefully it won’t be anything TOO excessive; I don’t plan on changing
any story details right now, like I have with projects in the past.
The bigger question is
what the release schedule for IHY is
going to be. A part of me wants to take
the safe route and put something out once a week…but the daredevil in me wants
to just post whenever there’s new content.
Also, I want to be able to put out other, possibly better projects very
soon -- a “meatier” product, if you will.
Whether or not that’ll come to fruition depends on what I do with IHY.
So until further
notice, I Hraet You is on a two-chapter-per-week schedule -- one chapter in
the first half of the week, and one chapter in the second half. We’ll see how long that lasts. It all depends on whether I head out of town
next month, or how lazy I get, or what games are out.
Speaking of games, I
finished Kingdom Hearts 2 last night,
and…man oh man, have I got a lot to say about that. So while the…events… are still fresh on my
mind, I think I’m going to do a post pretty soon about the game’s last
world. There is a lot I need to
discuss. A whole lot.
So that’s about where I
stand. If you’re reading IHY of your
own volition (and didn’t just find this site because you were looking for a
picture of one of the Dead or Alive ladies),
then I thank you for it. Readers like
you make the world go round. Because…you
read and stuff…and your page-flipping, uh, makes the world rotate faster.
To say that I have
mixed feelings about the game would be an understatement the size of a
double-decker bus. Keeping in mind that
I was one of the wide-eyed fans getting mega-hyped about its arrival (probably
because I was a part of THE target audience), I have to wonder what state of
mind drove me to get so excited. Was it
because of the flashy attacks? Bashing
enemies with pure style? Going
boosh-boosh-boosh and doing flip-de-loops?
If that’s the case, then anyone who needed evidence for their thesis on “How
Teenagers Are All Idiots”, I’d make for some fine proof.
Kingdom Hearts 2 is not an awful game by any stretch. It’s just full of things that make it hover
dangerously close to the edge. Roxas and
his pain-inducing prologue, the disorganized Organization XIII, the shift from
the east/west hybridization to cookie-cutter anime fare, the segregated plot,
the still-piddling minigames, the absurd gameplay decisions, the unevenness of
Reaction Commands, the mash-happy nature, the handling of the worlds…there’s a
lot to discuss, and I will in due time.
But for everything the game does wrong,
there are just a number of things that it does so right.
The same, of course,
could be said for Kingdom Hearts 1. Frankly, I find it funny that a game could be
so flawed, yet so fantastic at the
same time.
I missed out on the NES
generation of gaming. If you asked me
about World 4-2 of Super Mario Bros.
or the sixth dungeon in The Legend of
Zelda, I’d probably just stare blankly at you for a little while before
letting fly an enlightened “…Guh?” The
NES was just barely before my time, I think -- and that was a problem only
exaggerated one Christmas morning.
I woke up to have a
huge box waiting for me under a tree sitting at the bottom of the
staircase. And after faffing about for a
bit, rocking to and fro in the fetal position with a Joker-sized grin on my
face while I waited for my parents to wake up and we could do that whole
“celebrate Christmas as a family” business, I tore off the wrapping like a
wolverine. And what should I find but a
Sega Genesis, bundled with a copy of Sonic
the Hedgehog 2?
Beat 7: You Know What They Say About What Comes With Great Power,
Right?
Lloyd smiled. It
would seem that I have returned.
He sat in the
director’s chair once more, albeit with a much more confident posture than last
time. He had no reason to worry or fear
this time around; even as the colorless world encased him, he felt as if he’d
entered his own personal command center rather than an altered plane. He slid his glasses up his face with one finger,
his smirk reaching critical levels of smugness; yes, this WAS his command
center, the launching point of his operations.
He would own it. Use it. Have it serve as the foundation to his empire
of breasts.
It’s finally that time. Now,
show yourself once more, Miss Walters!
Appear before me, and feel the power of my heart!
Lloyd held out a hand,
as if to invite Trixie onto the ballroom floor.
Sure enough, his lady of the evening stepped onto the stage, script in
hand. “Miss Walters! It’s a pleasure to see you once more,” he
practically sang. “Now then, I’m looking
forward to a good showing from you.
Let’s get to work, shall we?”
But Trixie merely stood
there, cocking her head like a puppy.
“Uh…sorry, but…have we met?”
And with those words
Lloyd’s smugness levels hit record lows.
Yep. I’ve been following them closely since my
indoctrination via the Sega Genesis. I’m
certainly older (and marginally wiser) than I was back then, so it’s hard to
say whether my admiration of the hobby will last until my final moments on my
death bed. If I am still a gamer, I’d
like to think I’d tell my family to screw off while I tried to unlock the final
bonus stage in Elite Beat Agents…which
would beg the question of why I’d be carrying decades-old technology, but
whatever. I’d be a wizened old man at
46, tranquilly accepting my end and proud to know I beat Sin and Punishment 2, if nothing else.
And in less than a
month, the event that any gamer worth his arcade stick knows about will be upon
us. The Electronic Entertainment Expo,
better known as E3. It’s a moment of
celebration and wide-eyed anticipation for gamers everywhere; developers set up
booths that sprawl as far and wide as the average house. Notables from the industry assemble en masse,
bringing with them no shortage of celebrities.
Technology and games that can potentially change the world are showcased
with reckless abandon, all for the sake of ensuring the loyalty of fans already
hanging off the word of every presentation, and staving off the need for food,
water, blinking, and attention to family members for the sake of experiencing
the action.
E3 is almost upon us
again. And I look forward to it with
equal parts excitement and fear.
Beat 6: Is He a Genius, or an Idiot?
(You Should Bet on the Latter)
Whew. It looks like I finally
made it, Lloyd thought. He pressed
his hands against his knees and took a few deep breaths. I
should definitely start doing more cardio.
Running from women on a regular basis doesn’t provide nearly as much
exercise as I thought it would. As
he regained his breath, he stood upright once more, and stared ahead. Now
then. Let’s see if my guess was correct.
As if he’d refused to
learn from last time -- or just wanted to try his luck against the bleak laws
of causality -- Lloyd stood across the street from High Tide Park. But to his surprise, the coastal world he’d
come to love had changed so quickly. The
boardwalk went beyond just being empty; yellow tape stretched from one end of
its entrance to another, and orange-striped barricades stood sentry just a foot
before it. Construction workers and
suited men alike rambled on before it, pointing at the now-motionless rides
within. A trio of heavy machines, dirt-caked
and big-wheeled, looked primed to tear through anything in their way, like the
toys of some titanic toddler. As Lloyd
looked inward, he spotted the wreckage at the broken edge of the park -- warped
metal and snapped planks, melding into a mess of salt-splashed petals. On the plus side, the beach on the park’s
left had more visitors than it had in months; onlookers gathered and pointed at
the mess, taking pictures all the while.
“Wh-what on
earth?” Lloyd -- in spite of just
returning from the hospital -- stomped across the street, and glared furiously
at the first construction worker within slapping distance. “Now see here, sir! What’s the meaning of closing down a fine
establishment such as this?”
The construction worker
-- with a half-foot and at least eighty pounds on Lloyd -- turned towards
him. “Park’s comin’ down,” he answered,
shifting his hard hat a bit. “Cryin’
shame, but it can’t be helped.”
My big brother's something of an artist (or "arteest" if you prefer). He majored in graphic design, but he's been branching out recently; he's made a couple of nice songs that you can download here for free.
Suggestive imagery aside, go nab 'em. It'll make him happier than the time he found out about a Kolache Festival in the depths of Texas. Seriously, he loves those things; don't put a box of them in front of him if you don't want him to eat himself sick.
...Huh. I guess a love of meat in between bread runs in the family.
I finished Kingdom Hearts 1 a few days ago with
something very near a smile on my face.
I acknowledge that it’s
not the greatest game ever. It has its
fair number of faults, in its story and especially in its gameplay (which I’ll
get to soon, as part of the retrospective).
Its worlds can inspire either wonder or an overwhelming desire to find
the nearest steel wall to bash your head against. But for what it’s worth, KH1 has aged surprisingly well -- much better than I would have
expected. So when I saw that final
scene, with Sora, Donald and Goofy chasing after Pluto down a sunny road with
smiles on their faces, I thought to myself, Yeah. Yeah, this is all right.
KH1 has its flaws. But it’s
the ability of a good game -- no, a good story -- to leave you eager to praise
it in spite of its faults. It’s
something along the lines of its net worth; add the positives and negatives
together, and if you come out positive in the end, you’ve made a profit in
enjoyment. And overall, KH1 made a huge profit in my book.
So yeah. I was feeling pretty good about the
game. But at the same time, there was a
great sense of dread knotting up in my stomach.
I knew that I had to be fair and impartial. I knew that if I gave one game a chance, I’d
have to do the same for another.
And so, not five
minutes after finishing KH1, I reset
the PS2, took out the disk, and slid the next trial into the tray.
Kingdom Hearts 2, I thought, swallowing hard. How bad could it be?
“So where are we on the
whole steak thing?” Patton asked.
“’Cause I’m all for it, if we’re voting on it.”
JP shook his head and
continued staring out the van’s window.
“It takes both me and Lloyd to get through just half of one of your
steaks,” he said, watching as the sunset-soaked stores of Mason Street whizzed
by. “It’s wasted effort -- and wasted
money. All the food ends up going in
your belly.”
“It’s not a waste if
someone gets to eat,” Patton argued.
“Besides, how will you and your brother grow up big and strong if you
don’t get some meat in your systems?
Don’t tell me you’re going to count on --” He snorted out a laugh. “Artichokes.”
A blog hop, huh? That’s the first I’ve heard of it, but I’ll
give it a shot. Now then, let’s see…if
my guess is right, then all I have to do is…yep, that should work.
*rotates neck*
*steps away from wall, takes
hands out of pockets, and raises a fist*
This ability to self-promote,
allowing a no-name writer and his reputation to keep on spreading… I’m positive. This idea has acquired abilities of TV Tropes…with
the help of CHIHUAHUA ZEROOOOOOOOOOOOO!
*bursts into a storm of lightning*
This blog of mine glows
with an awesome POWER! Its burning code
tells me to entertain you! Take
this! My words, my gags, and all of my pageviews! SHINING CROSS-UP POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST!
GO!
GO! GOOOOOOOO!
*stabs the internet in
the eye, causing terminal combustion*
I popped out of my room this
past Tuesday morning to tell my mom that I was going with my brother to see a
movie. “Oh?” she asked, stepping into
the laundry room. “What movie?”
“The Avengers,” I answered.
Just saying it made me want to smile.
She turned to look at
me. “The
Avengers?” she asked, almost teasingly so.
“Don’t you want to see that movie Think
like a Man? Why don’t you go see
that instead?”
Now, let me be
perfectly frank here. I hold my parents in
extremely high esteem; I never went through those “rebellious teenage years”
because my parents were unduly good to me.
My mom took good care of me and my brother (the former being a
broccoli-haired nutcase, and the latter being a slacker making a nine in
Algebra II). My dad worked long, hard
hours at his job -- even if it meant going on extended trips -- just so we
could have a stable, comfortable household.
I’d sooner rob a bank than speak ill of them.
And yet, when my mom
suggested that I go see a movie besides The
Avengers, I almost laughed in her
face.
I knew instinctively
that The Avengers wasn’t a
movie. It was to be an event -- from its
May 4th release until its inevitable bowing out of theaters, it was
a holiday. A celebration that brought
together movie goers, comic fans, nerds, critics both armchair and
professional, and people just plain hungry for a good story. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t miss
it. Just as I didn’t want to get locked
out of the loop by passing on The Hunger
Games, so too did I want nothing more than to be a part of the superhero
festival.
But there’s a key
difference between The Hunger Games
and The Avengers. Namely, in that The Avengers surpassed even my earlier definition. It has surpassed being just a mere event.
The Avengers is The Avengers
-- a production that, with its merits alone, has created a fantastic niche for
itself. It is pure enjoyment
personified.
The sun slid past
Porbeagle’s horizon, and made its daily trek into the sky. As light swept over the coastal town, its
denizens began their morning routine.
Birds -- seagulls among them -- chirped and cawed, and started their
search for morning meals. The shadows
that once ruled the town’s short buildings sank into the cracks, allowing each
weathered brick to take in the rays and the heat. Cars started heading out for work, going from
the tops of sloped hills to the stores at the bottom; at least half of them
broke off and headed for the ports, or the docks, or wherever they’d left their
boats. If they could see the sparkling
sea, then they had no reason to avoid a good day’s work.
Porbeagle’s regular,
everyday activity -- all of it, in tempo with the waves splashing against its
coast -- had grown into a part of the town.
A natural alarm clock, of sorts; in spite of its small size (or maybe because
of it), the launching of its fleet and the motion of its people lent the town
its character. Plenty of people woke up
with a smile thanks to the sea-heavy symphony.
But not Lloyd. Not today, at least. He woke up because apparently, someone had
decided to clamp his hands in a vise.
I would be finishing it
up right about now if I hadn’t quit early to watch How I Met Your Mother -- which, to my surprise, wouldn’t even be on
this week in exchange for everything else on CBS Mondays. Blast.
Such a miserable fate…but oh well.
Here I am, writing a bit on that whole retrospective thing. Kinda weird, since I know by the time I finish
this segment I WILL have re-finished the game (and it probably won’t be
primetime Monday anymore), but that’s how it goes.
I’m on the last level
-- the last savepoint before facing off with the baddie with a darkness fetish,
Ansem. Once I walk through it, I’ll be
facing off with him and all the power at his command. Will I survive the Expert playthrough? Will Donald and Goofy use up all my items? Will my X button survive another round of
boss-bashing?
In order, probably,
definitely, and only if I forget how to properly apply pressure to my
controller. Anyway, let’s get on with
the retrospective. Ready, set, dive.
And by probably I mean WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE YOU FOOL GO SEE IT DO IT NOW DO IT FAST GO SEE IT AND DRAG EVERY FAMILY MEMBER YOU CAN TO SEE IT AND GO SEE IT TWICE.
Ahem.
It's a pretty good movie, is what I'm getting at here. As I did with The Hunger Games, I'll post a write-up over the next couple of days (same applies for Part 2 of my Kingdom Hearts retrospective). But until those are ready, I'll offer a little preamble as to why The Avengers is so amazing.
What element might that be? Care to take this one, gents?
Once more, he’d ended
up in some new territory. Maybe he’d hit
his head harder than he thought; last he checked, he wore a hospital gown, not
his regular clothes. And last he checked
the world had other colors besides black and white.
He clutched his head. He never knew he’d see the world in black and
white so literally; not a single shade of gray stood before him. It looked as if everything around him had
been outlined on blank paper. And more
to the point, those black lines wobbled like the goo of a lava lamp.
So where was he
exactly? He couldn’t say he’d ever been
to a place made of lines, but he could at least make out the area’s purpose. He sat in a director’s chair behind a long
desk; a stage lay several feet before him, with colorless curtains hanging on
its left and right. Wires trailed from
Lloyd’s side of the room onto and past the stage, allowing each light to --
theoretically -- shine on. Tall studio
lamps stood behind him, balancing on needle-thin tripods; dozens of spotlights
hung from the rails above, as well. A
white screen had been propped up in the stage’s center, and far behind it Lloyd
spotted a few props -- chairs and cameras, planks and paint cans, even the
occasional boulder and tree.
Lloyd stroked his chin,
more amused than afraid. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this
stage was going to be used for an audition.
But that would be silly. He
pressed a hand against the table, hoping that he could push right through to
its underside. Rats. For a second, I thought I
was a ghost.
I’ve been seeing a lot
of these “10 Things You Didn’t Know About X” recently, and -- as is the usual
standard -- I figured I’d give it a shot when the movement is at the fringes of
relevance, and people have geared up to take the next societal plunge. It’s probably the reason why my cell phone is
always two generations behind everyone else’s…but I digress.
Let’s not waste any
time with these pleasantries, shall we?
Much like most of you, I’m on a tight schedule; I’m due for a hot dog
luncheon at five. Although,
incidentally…
As you may know, Birth by Sleep left me hollow and miserable. The perceived taint of the
original’s whimsy and charm. The waning
influence and importance of the Disney universes in favor of the typical Squeenix
fare -- angst and convolution.
Everything related to Terra. I’m
still holding out on Aqua’s story being the best of the three, but I’m
seriously worried; I’m afraid that my hopes will be dashed mere minutes into
the first video.
I’m willing to accept
that KH3D (sorry, but I’m never
calling it Dream Drop Distance) might
be the game that restores my faith, but I have a niggling voice that says that
those days are over. I had my fun with Kingdom Hearts, but the franchise as I
knew it has changed. Whether or not
Tetsuya Nomura and his cohorts had a plan for the series to transform into its
current, monstrous incarnation or not doesn’t matter; Kingdom Hearts was destined to change independent of whatever
preferences or opinions fans might have had.
In the eyes of some, it’s a change for the better -- a chance to see
Disney worlds go into the realm of over-the-top action, and go up against
villains that aren’t quite so colorful and cartoony. To others, it’s just a slide into mediocrity,
taking gamers to places they’ve already seen before rather than dwell in the
flawed, yet still-satisfying world created at the franchise’s outset.
The adult in me is
willing to nod and accept that, and learn to appreciate the series’ changes as
they come as well as latch onto the games that suit me.
The child in me,
however, says “Fuck your Roxas! Gimme
some KH1!” So I popped my copy of the game into my PS2,
started a playthrough, and let it rip.
(The following is a piece written by my good buddy -- and fellow writing heroine -- Cadi Jamison. I'd wager that one of us is going to make the world a better place soon...and since she's got a head-start, I'd argue you should put your money on her.
Read on and enjoy. It's different in tone from the stuff I usually put on Cross-Up, but I wouldn't post it if I didn't think it needed to be read.)
=====
It
was one of those places that she didn't expect to find herself in, but one of
those days that she hardly thought that mattered. Because when they went around
the circle introducing themselves in the warmth of that tiny little house, she
noticed, they seemed eager to hear her speak, too. Even if she was a little bit
faded. It was almost like, in the low light, she could pass for a person. So.
She passed. Clutched her invisible necklace and smiled and, instead of saying
who she was said, "Well I think that today was beautiful because the stars
came out last night."
And
it was enough. And, then. He got there. And froze time for everyone but her.
Him. Them.
"You,"
he said. His voice sounded like chills on the back of her neck.
She
didn't move at first. But she did speak -- with her eyes.
"I
know who you are," she said. But didn't tell him.
"Well,
I know who you are," he said. But didn't tell her she was a ghost.
Which is to say, it STILL hurts like hell. But at the very least, I’m alive…no thanks to
that Ferris wheel. I never would have
guessed that you, of all park rides, would betray me. But maybe that was all a part of your plan --
to cast suspicion on your friend, the teacup ride, only to attack when I least
expected it.
With that golden theory
out of the way, Lloyd looked around. It
didn’t do much good; miles of darkness stretched out before him, no matter
which direction he looked in. Come to
think of it, he couldn’t even feel his neck twisting, or his eyes
swerving. Curious, he tried holding his
hands before his face -- but nothing appeared.
Were they even there? Or had his
brain been jettisoned into the void? No,
that couldn’t be it; he couldn’t imagine the mess he’d make if his gray matter
hovered about.
_KHI.png)
