fandomhighdorms | The Hallways: In the Wee Wee Hours of Thursday Morning.

At least it was happening less often, now, Naminé thought as she dressed in the dark and slipped out into the hallway. She had remembered to grab her sketchpad. Perhaps something would catch her eye.

Wasn't that the boy from her art class? She gave him a quick nod and a fleeting smile before noticing that he looked just as restless as she was.

"Are you all right?"

"Can't sleep," Jamie said with a weak smile. "And I didn't want to disturb the roommate. What about you? Why are you up this early?"

"The same, actually," she admitted. "When we were at the cabins, I'd start a campfire. It seemed to lure out all the insomniacs some nights."

"Ah... the cabins," Jamie said with a somewhat wistful look. "Which one were you in?"

"Abominable Snowman," she laughed. "Which I think we never did get right. And a boy named Sokka decided that made us all Snowmonsters. I must say, the cabin names were ... odd."

Jamie laughed. "Yeah. They were odd last year too. They must have changed the names on them. I was in Stickbug. We were... a unique group. And that totally sounds like Sokka."

"Stickbug?" Naminé smiled. "I think I've heard of them. Quite a reputation to last into the next year. Do you know Sokka, then? He's exuberant but terribly nice."

"He and I have goofed around together several times," Jamie said as he shoved his hands into his jean pockets and started walking down the hallway. "Though I'm always addressed as Dude or something like that. I'm not sure if he knows my real name."

Naminé held her sketchpad behind her, falling into step with him. "You know, he always just calls me 'Snowmonster.' It's entirely possible he doesn't know mine, either. Perhaps he's never learned anyone's name and no one realizes it. We may have uncovered his dark secret."

"His dark secret is that he can't remember people's names?" Jamie asked teasingly. "That's not very dark, is it?"

"It only seems harmless to us, not being afflicted with it," Naminé sighed. "Imagine trying to tell stories without knowing anyone's name. 'Well, when I was speaking to So-and-so - you know, that guy? No, no, the other one. With the hair.' All conversations follow this horrific pattern. That way lies madness, really."

"Suddenly I feel like my problems are insignificant," Jamie chuckled. "Luckily I don't have that disorder but I may pretend to have that sometime just to throw off people."

"A little perspective does wonders," she smiled. "I think that might be an interesting act. Perhaps you should try that in our next Art class. Or suddenly forget the name of all nouns, though that would be harder to pull off."

"Nah. Better not. I start doing that and people will think I'm insane."

Jamie paused at that comment.

"Okay. More insane."

"Is this a carefully cultivated insanity?" Naminé asked, giving him a curious look. "Or the more mundane variety?"

"Cultivated?" Jamie said with a tired grin. "You make it sound like a garden."

"That would be rather something to see, an insane garden," she mused. "There's a forest that almost qualifies. If you walk through certain doorways, you end up in the previous room, except now you're on the ceiling."

Jamie raised an eyebrow at Namine. "Is this a place in town or did you drop some acid before coming into the hallway?"

Naminé laughed. "It's real, but it's not here. I wasn't there, someone else was. I saw it in his memories. It was a whole world gone mad, really; defying the laws of physics was just another setting at the tea-party."

Jamie was quiet for a second or two as they walked along. "That's pretty wild. So are you a psychic of some type?"

"Oh." Naminé shook her head. "No, I'm a N-- ... I've come to hate that term. Really, I'm just someone's echo. The bits left behind after something terrible happened. For her, and a few people connected to her, it means I can see their memories. Change them, rewrite them, dissolve the links entirely."

Jamie's eyebrow got raised up a couple of notches. "You don't seem like an echo to me. And... um. That memory thing doesn't work on everyone right?"

"No, it doesn't," she said with a wry smile, "and I only ever did that once, and I assure you, it won't happen again. And I am an echo. A princess lost her heart and fell into darkness, and I was left behind. Someone told me my life sounded a bit like a fairy-tale. All I know is that she's real and I'm ... well. The jury seems out on that."

Jamie smirked a little at that and attempted to poke Namine in the shoulder. "I don't know. You sure seem real to me. Too bad about the memory thing. I have a few I'd like to get ride of."

"I do seem rather solid to be fictional." Naminé looked at him for a long moment. "I've thought that myself, about memories. But I wonder if it wouldn't eat at you, wondering what you were missing. Memory makes us who were are, even those experiences which are ..."

She made a face. "It gets tempting when it's this late."

"Yeah. I've got experiences with those kind of experiences," Jamie said with a haunted look. "This summer was... full of experiences."

Apparently Jamie repeats words when he's tired.

Naminé nodded. "I know. It ends and then it doesn't, somehow. Your mind doesn't believe you that it's over, I suppose, or you're so used to listening for footsteps that you can't switch that off again."

After a moment, she added, "I've ... never tried, you know. I don't know that I wouldn't be able to, exactly, if I knew what I was looking for. Unlink them and let them sink into your heart, where you could find them again if you needed to." She bit her lip. "I shouldn't say such things. I'm very sorry about your summer. I wish saying that made anything better. I'm not certain it does."

"You'd have to see the memories to do anything, wouldn't you?" Jamie said looking serious. "If that was even a workable idea I wouldn't let you do it. No one needs to see what happened. Besides it wasn't completely horrible. At one point I ended up on am alternat version of-"

He then stopped in his tracks and stared at Namine.

"I'm not likely to be scared off by much," she said quietly. "When I said that I destroyed someone's mind ... I knew it was a horrible, unforgivable thing to do, especially to someone whose heart was close to my own. But I was held somewhere, and told to. I said no. They ... proved far more effective at persuasion than I was at resisting it. It doesn't take very long to break someone, does it?"

Naminé looked up, realizing he had fallen behind, and stared back at him, confused. "Did I say something wrong?"

A small grin crossed Jamie's face as shook his head in amusement. "I knew you were familiar for a reason. I'm sorry I forgot. When I was trying to get back home I found an alternate universe or a future version of the island. It was a retirement home and you lived there. Granted you were like... in your sixties or something but you were there. Drawing of course."

"Me?" Naminé looked at him for a long moment before shaking her head. "I think you're mistaken. That's ... not possible, really. I suppose it was just someone with a similar name."

Jamie took a long look at Naminé and shook his head. "No. It was you. Older but definitely you. Same personality and the name was the same. Also this was a world where I never came back to so therefore we never met in that timeline. She even said that you went to school here."

Naminé's mouth opened, but words didn't seem to be cooperating.

"That ... can't be," she said, finally. "I'm not ... there isn't ... that isn't something that ... can happen. In any world. I'm not ..."

She should apologize for staring, or for making no sense at all, but those words didn't seem to be coming, either.

"It was definitely you," Jamie said. "And you seemed pretty real to me. I'm not sure I understand why. Do you not get old?"

Naminé stood for a long moment, trying to rearrange her mind.

"I'm not going to," she said. "I don't have that much time. A year or two, at best."

Jamie frowned. "Oh. I-"

He let out a long breath. "Look. I have no idea how you or your world works but take it from a guy who's seen more dead people suddenly come back in bizarre and timely ways that one should. There are ways to get back."

"It isn't as dire as that," she said, smiling weakly. "I was someone before, and I'm supposed to be her, again. It's better than ... fading out, I suppose."

Naminé blinked. She supposed? Where did that come from? Odd.

"It's ... you really think that was me? Somewhere old, still drawing, and ... her name wasn't Kairi?"

"Yes. Because Naminé and Kairi sound so much alike," Jamie said "And does Kairi also wear white? Draw a lot of pictures?"

Naminé stood very still, looking at the other wall, before she found herself laughing.

"I'm sorry," she said, covering her mouth. "I'm not certain what's funny. But you really ... saw me. Off in the future and ... growing old here drawing pictues and ... that's utterly impossible and it's also the most wonderful thing I think I've ever heard."

The Hallways: In the Wee Wee Hours of Thursday Morning.

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