Chapter One: The End and the Beginning

"Myde! Come down for dinner! We have guests!" Mom yells up. I set down my papers with a slight huff. I'm in the middle of a composition, and I really want to finish it. Sighing, I quickly pull my long dirty-blonde hair into a ponytail. Personally, I like to leave it down, but Dad insists on pulling it back. Yeah, easy for you to say, Dad, you have short hair. I walk downstairs to see my parents' best friends. I'm not too surprised; they come over every so often.

I put on my best smile, still a bit crooked, to greet them. "Hello, Aunt Light." My aunt turns around with a grin.

"Myde! It's been so long since I've seen you!" Aunt Light says. "You're so tall now, you're just a weed!" She embraces me, which I accept. Aunt Light really is a nice person. She disguised herself as a man and went into the army to fight against the South just a few years ago.

"Well, well. Look at you." Another two of my parents' friends come up.

"Hello, Hope. Hello, Vanille." I greet pleasantly. These two are married and expecting a child to come in a few months.

"Not every day that a great boy turns eighteen." Hope says, ruffling my hair real quick. "You must be proud, Snow."

Dad shrugs. "Serah did the most work. I just slept." Mom laughs at Dad's joke. Aunt Light is Mom's older sister, and from what I've heard, Aunt Light didn't want Mom to marry Dad, but Mom ignored her and did anyways, and then I came into the picture, and, well, Aunt Light adores me.

I just realized that I forgot to mention why they're here. I know, you see. It's my eighteenth birthday today. I'm actually getting ready to go to college, and maybe become a famous composer someday. I've already written a lot of music.

There were only three more people to greet. Fang, Sazh, and his son, Dajh. His son's about six years older than me. He's already graduated and has his eye on a certain woman to marry soon.

"Happy birthday, Myde Villiers!" Dajh says. We're best friends, no matter what others think.

"Thanks, Dajh." I say with a smile. "This is the best birthday ever." It's getting dark, so Mom lights a lantern and sets it on the table, and prepares to get the feast ready.

"I'll be in my room for a minute." I say and leave before anyone can object. Upstairs, in my room, I start to write for a moment. I write for a while, until I hear someone scream. Was that Vanille?

Then, I heard my dad's frantic voice. "Myde! Get downstairs and out the door, now!" Then, I smell the smoke. Someone must've knocked the lantern over and started a blaze. I start to the door, but then I remember. My music! I can't go without it!

I start to collect as many sheets as I can, when I eventually notice the smoke crawling into my room. Frantically, I stuff the sheets under a loose board on the floor. I run to go outside, but I realize how much smoke has accumulated through my frantic rushing time. I start to cough as smoke forces its way into my lungs.

"Myde!" My mother's voice carries through the window. "MYDE!" I'm sure she must see how much smoke is in my room through the window. The window! If I open it, the smoke can clear out, and I can escape. Sure, I might break my leg, but I'll be alive.

I drop to all fours, but the smoke is down here too. It's still pushing into my lungs, and I cough harder, trying to get it out. I crawl faster and faster, trying to reach the window. As I get close enough, I stand up and reach my hand out to open the latch. I do, and the window swings open, but the smoke isn't ready to let me go. Death is trying to claim me from my family and friends.

I try to reach the window and at least breathe in some clean air, but I feel myself growing weaker and weaker, until I collapse, my body still racking with my coughs, shaking and trembling. My throat is closing in, and I feel my eyelids grow heavy. I'm tired. I need to sleep.

My eyelids start to drop. "Myde! Stay awake! I'm coming to get you!" My father's voice is nearby, and I follow his orders. I feel someone pick me up and go to the window and climb down something by it. A ladder, maybe. As I feel Dad touch the ground, Mom runs over.

"Myde! Myde! We need the doctor, Snow! I don't know how long it'll take Sazh!" My mother is frantic.

I'm still coughing, but now I need to comfort her. As my body trembles with the enormous force of the coughs, I manage to choke out, "Mom…my…" Mom kneels down beside me, looking straight into my eyes.

"I'm here, Myde. Just stay awake for me. Stay awake, please." My eyelids are heavier than before, and despite my trying and my parents' begging, I feel them closing.

"Myde! Myde, no! You can't! Stay awake, please!" Dajh. But I need to sleep. I'm exhausted and my body needs rest. I'll feel better when I wake up. Despite all the protests, I close my eyes, and fall asleep. As I do so, I hear a new voice, a voice I've never heard before; a girl's voice.

"Myde, I need you. Please come back." And I close my eyes. It's not like I won't wake up.

"Seirei! Come and help us!" My mother's shout carries across the front yard as I stand there, admiring the view of the house. Our new house.

I turn around. "Coming, Mom!" I call back and go back to the moving van. My father loads a few boxes in my arms, and my mother makes sure I'm stable before sending me off.

My parents, Cloud and Tifa Strife, are pretty attractive. For one thing, they're fairly young. I'm fifteen, they're in their thirties. I was born when my mom was nineteen and my dad was twenty. They met in college and married before they graduated.

Mom has silky, glossy, smooth black hair that falls down just a tad past shoulder length. Her eyes are somewhere between almond shaped and round and are a pretty color of caramel brown with darker specks in them. Her smile is always bright and kind. Her skin's complexion is fairly pale, and she has an aura of excitement and energy about her no matter what, even in the middle of the night.

Dad is quite the opposite of my mother. His hair is a golden blonde color and it is really spiky and virtually gravity-defying. His eyes are a bright electric blue that give off no emotion. Dad's complexion is somewhat pale too, but darker than Mom's. He rarely ever gives off any emotion whatsoever, and when he does, it's usually around us, his family. He is also pretty grouchy if he doesn't have his sleep, but is also extremely protective of us.

I walk, teetering and tottering to make sure that the boxes I carry won't fall over and spill out onto the yard. That would suck. As I think this, someone runs by me, almost making the boxes fall. I looked past the stack and glare.

"Roxas!" My younger brother turns around.

"What?" He asks.

"Don't you realize I'm having a little difficulty maneuvering these boxes? Your running by me doesn't help!"

Roxas rolls his eyes. "Sure, Sis. Whatev." I probably also should mention my little brother, though it's only by ten minutes. Yep. I'm an older twin, which I love to brag about to Roxas. We don't look anything alike, though. I take after Mom, he takes after Dad. It's not hard to see the resemblance. He has the same blonde hair that defies gravity and electric blue eyes of my father. Their skin tone is also about the same shade. Pretty nice boy, my brother is, and the two of us are joined at the hip, but he can get a little annoyed at me, and I him. Come on, we're siblings!

"Roxas! Get some stuff!" Roxas starts grumbling as he walks over to the van. I carry my stack of boxes into the living room, and sort them accordingly. I look at each label. Kitchen, Living Room, Roxas's Room, Bathroom (we have a whole stack for the bathrooms. Don't ask why), Seirei's Room, Master Bedroom, et cetera.

I will not tell you how long it takes to get everything sorted and stacked, but finally it's time to choose our rooms. Roxas instantly takes the one that was most likely the largest beside the master bedroom. I roll my eyes at him, and choose my room. It's a few doors down from Roxas's room, and somewhat smaller that his, but I think it's really nice. The walls are painted like an ocean view and it's pretty inside. Mom and Dad told us that we could repaint the walls in our rooms, but I'm not changing mine. It's perfect already as it is.

We get our bedrooms all ready to sleep in, and get the dining room and kitchen set up as Mom orders pizza. Mmm. Personally, I would rather have Chinese takeout, but pizza's okay. Plus, it makes Roxas happy. We virtually have an empathetic bond. He's happy, I'm happy. I'm happy, he's happy. It's really that simple.

When the pizza comes, we sit down and talk about our house as we eat. It's a really old house; built back just after the Revolutionary War. Man, is it old!

"So, Roxas, Seirei, what do you think of your rooms. Do you want to repaint them?" Dad asks after swallowing a bite of his pizza.

"Heck yeah!" Roxas says as I say, "No thanks." All eyes went to me.

"Why not, dear?" Mom asks.

I shrug. "I like the way it looks right now."

"Yeah. Painted like the ocean. When are you going to get over that obsession?" Roxas asks teasingly. I roll my eyes at him and shake my head.

"As soon as you give up Struggle." I reply.

Roxas's eyes go wide with horror. "Never! I'll never give up Struggle! I'm joining the Struggle club here, so I'm not quitting."

"Then, I guess I'll always love the ocean." I say. Mom is giggling as our small, teasing argument ends, and Dad is observing with a smile playing at his lips. Oh, yes. I'm going to like it here.

After dinner ends, I go up to my room, and suddenly feel as if it's chilly. I walk to the window to close it, but it isn't open. Weird. I shrug and take my pajamas to my bathroom and take a nice, long shower. After I change into my pajamas, light blue pants and top, I walk downstairs, say goodnight to Mom and Dad, and go to Roxas's room.

He's already asleep. Boy, is he cute when he's sleeping. I pull up his mess of wadded sheets to his chin and kiss him on the forehead. "Goodnight, Roxy." I whisper and return to my room, where my warm bed awaits me, welcoming me with open arms. I slide beneath the covers and fall asleep. It is going to be nice here.

(AN: So this is my next story. Don't worry, I'll be doing this, Double It!, and my KHIII story around the same time. Hope you like so far. Please review, and no flames.

Love,

Destiny.)`