A/N: I'm on a roll with stories so far aren't I? I barely update and now I've pumped out a few stories and it just keeps coming! 8D I'm pretty excited about this one too since it will let me reach into the dark recesses of my mind and pull out some pretty scary shit. I'm just warning you all, this will definitely not be happy. At all. This is a request fic for sterdnert who wanted this. And I'm guessing there are some people out there who want this too.

What was this feeling?

Compressing, forcing the air out of his lungs, making him claw desperately back to the surface only to be tugged down again by the current.

Drowning.

Drowning in his own fears.

All the while, one voice taunted him, always at the edges, cackling as he relished in his King's defeat. Afraid you'll die King? Die and leave everyone to fend for themselves? That you'll live while everyone you love dies instead, leaving you alone? A tutting sound came from all around him, omnipresent and echoing throughout his mind. You're weak. Can't even protect yourself and here you are thinking you can protect others.

NO!

Jerking forward, his eyes opened and revealed wide, frightened brown orbs that flicked around his room to make sure he was alone. Shouting his defiance had caused him to wake and escape from the endless torture that hollow made him endure when ever his guard slipped. Ever since the war had inched closer and closer, his frazzled nerves and weary body were wound tighter and tight, the thread of his control threatening to snap. The only thing that kept him semi-sane was training, working his body to the point of exhaustion and falling into a sleep so deep, even that demon's whispers couldn't reach him.

Gasping for air, he greedily sucked in the oxygen, filling his lungs and doing so again and again. He was alive. And as long as he breathed, as long as he was able to do something, he would. He wouldn't let his fears overcome him.

Turning toward the window, the faintest shade of pink colored the sky telling those who wished to look that the sun was rising to greet the day.

Ichigo Kurosaki rose with it.

Sliding his clothing onto his slightly thinner frame, he busied himself with getting his things together for school. No one was awake, it was barely dawn after all, so the teen took his backpack down stairs and grabbed an apple on his way out the door. It wasn't odd for him to be up and out of the house hours before school started, the hours he slept seemed to become shorter and shorter.

He could see the concern in his friend's eyes as he smiled and poked fun with the rest of them, but they knew. They knew something was wrong with him and he knew as well.

He was spirally lower and lower into despair.

Not that it showed physically. No cuts adored his wrists or anywhere else on his body that were self inflicted. But mentally, his psyche was being torn to shreds by the thing that lived inside him and there wasn't anything he could do about it.

He thought that life couldn't get any worse.

Oh, how wrong he was.

A/N: Teaser chapter and more of a prologue than anything. It's nearly 3 a.m., 2:45 a.m. to be exact, and frankly I am pooped. XD I just wanted to get this out before the idea to start this fell out of my mind and disintegrated. =D Comments are loved and flames are used to bake me yummy brownies.