Between the worlds, there is nothing but darkness. Darkness so heavy that it consumes everything it touches. Darkness so intense that it corrupts every soul it meets.

The most frightening thing about the darkness is that it lives inside you. It's part of who you are… You need it to survive, like water or oxygen. You drink it in every day, knowing that you can't live without it. But there's always the fear that one day, it will escape your control…

I failed. I'm a failure. Aqua showed the Mark of Mastery and I didn't. I will never be a Keyblade Master.

Terra sat in a patch of burning sand, hunched over beneath the midday sun. Dunes spread out in every direction, shimmering in the heat. To the north, in the far distance, a range of ice-capped mountains reared into the sky. In his mind, he replayed the events of the Exam over and over again. Why had he been so weak? Why was Aqua stronger than him? Damn her!

He slammed his fist into the hot sand, frustrated.

He didn't know what world he was in now. Not being a master, he was supposed to stick to the safe worlds Master Eraqus had chosen for him. A thousand times he'd been warned of the unimaginable horrors lurking in worlds unknown. Yet today he'd been so desperate to get away from facing his friends that he'd torn a rift into an alien world and entered it recklessly. Who cared if he died? What did it matter now that he was a failure? And what lurking terrors could be worse than his own shame?

"Poor little boy." The voice was low, sensuous, electrifying.

Terra's head jerked up. A girl stood a little way from him. An instant later, he saw the keyblade in her hand.

He leapt to his feet.

"Who - who are you?" he asked.

She laughed and tossed her head, black curls rippling down the nape of her neck.

"Poor Terra. He has so many questions, but Eraqus just doesn't trust him enough to give him the answers. Sad, lonely little boy."

Fear and anger burned in the pit of Terra's stomach. Whoever this girl was, she knew too much about him.

"How do you know my name?" Terra's keyblade coalesced in his hand in a blaze of light.

"Is that supposed to scare me?" she asked. "I have one too. And unlike you, I understand what I'm holding."

"Tell me who you are!" Terra raised the keyblade and pointed it at her.

She shook her head.

"Not yet."

She moved towards him with slow, self-assured grace. He tensed and prepared to parry an attack. She paused and put her hands on her hips, her head tilting playfully to one side as she looked him up and down.

"Tell you what, Terra. If you can beat me in a battle, I'll tell you anything you want. Deal?"

"No thanks. I only fight two kinds of battle. Against friends and against enemies. And I don't know what you are." He turned and walked away.

"Suit yourself," she called after him. "We'll meet again."

I know we will. Whoever you are, you didn't find me just to play games. Next time we meet, I'll be expecting you. And I'll find out who you are.

At the moment he had no idea who the girl might be. As far as he knew, there were only two current Keyblade Masters. Master Eraqus, Master Xehanort... and now Aqua, of course. He'd almost forgotten her. That made three Masters and two students. There were no other Keybearers he knew of.

Who was that girl? And how did she know his name? It was definitely suspicious. The cautious thing to do would be to report to Master Eraqus, but the thought of facing Eraqus now filled Terra with shame and bitterness. Eraqus had thought Terra too weak to be a Master. Besides, how pathetic would it be to run crying to Eraqus over every little problem? Terra could deal with this himself. He would find out who the girl was, and where the Unversed were coming from, and along the way he would prove that he had the Mark of Mastery.

A faint cry jolted him out of his reverie. Almost before realising it, he found himself running in the direction of the sound, his feet sinking into the soft sand and throwing up clouds of dust with every step. Half a minute later, he crested the top of a tall dune and stared down at the source of the noise.

A young woman in flowing white garb was sprawled on her back, struggling feebly in the sand. She was surrounded by half-a-dozen squat, ugly creatures. They were humanoid, each standing half as tall as a man, with webbed fingers and toes, dark pinkish scaly skin and a crest-like fin atop their heads.

"No!" Terra roared, rushing down the curve of the dune. He was on the first monster almost before it had time to turn. He swung his keyblade hard, hacking into its neck, sending its head flying off in a spray of greenish blood. He powered past the second one, tearing its belly open, its bowels tumbling out onto the hot sand. One grabbed him by the leg, but he drew his keyblade back and plunged it into the creature's heart; as the shaft slid all the way through the creature's chest, its limbs spasmed and flopped jerkily. Terra pulled the keyblade out, ripping out a chunk of green-grey flesh and blood as he did so, spun around and brought the weapon down on another monster's head, smashing its skull open with a sickening crunching noise. The fifth was dispatched with a flurry of lightning-fast strikes. Terra paused, catching his breath as he turned to face the sixth and last.

Before either of them could move, the creature jerked and a grey-feathered steel bolt appeared in its chest. The monster tottered on its legs for a second or two before collapsing to the ground.

Terra turned and saw that the young woman on the sand had raised herself just long enough to aim a bow. Spent by her effort, she had fallen back into a supine position.

Hurrying to her side, Terra knelt beside her and cradled her head in his arms. Her pale skin was very flushed, and burning hot to the touch. Sweat drenched her dark blonde hair and ran in rivulets down her body. Her breathing was fast and laboured, her eyes glazed. Terra had seen these symptoms before, in worlds with hot climates like this one. She was suffering from heatstroke.

Taking his water bottle from his pack, he held it to her lips and let a few drops trickle into her mouth. Her lips pressed together and her tongue darted out. Her head moved from side to side and her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at Terra with unfocussed dark eyes.

"Cecil," she murmured.

Terra shook his head.

"My name is Terra. Don't worry. You're safe now."

"Cecil… please… Cecil…"

Her eyes closed again, her body slumping into a faint.

Terra kneeled for half a minute, planning his next course of action. Ideally he should get her into a cool place and not move her until nightfall, but that wasn't an option out here. If more monsters attacked, he would be too distracted fighting them to keep an eye on the girl. Maybe she would get hurt.

He summoned his keyblade glider and loaded the girl onto it before gently rising into the air. In the sky, his hopes were answered with the sight of a town in the distance. He would take the young woman there and hopefully find someone helpful to look after her, maybe even this "Cecil" she had mentioned.

Before leaving, with some embarrassment, he loosened the woman's clothes and applied water to her skin. His cheeks flushed whenever his fingers brushed against the soft curves of her body, and when he was finished, he removed his hands as quickly as though she had burned him. Normally he wouldn't have touched her at all, but this time he thought that soothing her heatstroke was more urgent than preserving her modesty.

They sped through the air in a north-easterly direction, towards the town he had spied in the distance. Terra watched the lines and curves of the desert scrolling beneath them, enjoying its bleak beauty. There was something about deserts that captivated him, the emptiness and the open space. They gave him a sense of peace. There was danger, though, lurking beneath the sand. He looked over his shoulder at the woman tied behind him.

The creatures that had attacked her belonged to this world. There had been no otherworldly energy around them, and when struck down they had shed flesh and blood, not darkness. So they were natives of this desert. Why had this woman been travelling by herself in such a dangerous place? She had been armed with a bow, but she didn't have any supplies, neither food nor water. And she'd been out in the open at midday when the sun was at its highest. Either she was not used to this terrain, or she was desperate. Why had she come out here, risking her life?

Cecil… please… Cecil…

Who was Cecil? Was she running away from him, or looking for him? If she was looking for him, and risking her life to do so, she must have a good reason. Was he her lover, father, son, brother? Someone she loved? Love could make people do strange things, endangering their own lives for the sake of others. Terra had heard that, though he'd never experienced it himself. He didn't have any strong emotional bonds. Sure, he was friends with Ventus and Terra, but the most important thing in his life was duty. Duty to serve his master, preserve the balance and protect the world order. That was his duty, the one thing in his life that gave him meaning and purpose.

And now he had failed to show the Mark of Mastery. So he had failed in his duty. Where did that leave him, then? He was worthless, of no use.

About half a mile from the town's outskirts, Terra landed and dismissed his glider, not wanting to attract too much attention. He lifted the girl in his arms and walked the rest of the way.

The town was built around an oasis. Solid stone buildings stood in the town centre, while tents of hide and cloth had been pitched around the central region, stretching out in a circle with a radius of several miles. As Terra made his way through the town's narrow lanes, ragged children swarmed around him.

"Where you from?"

"What's wrong with her?"

"Let's see your sword."

"Could you tell me where the nearest inn is?" Terra asked.

"Got any gil?" one of the children shot back.

The word "gil" wasn't familiar to Terra. It was probably some kind of local currency.

"No, I don't have any gil. But this girl is very sick. I need to get her to an inn."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She was in the desert…"

"Eee! Desert fever, desert fever!"

Squealing, the children scattered, vanishing among the twists and turns of the town's pathways as quickly as they'd come.

Terra trudged on through the sandy streets, looking in vain for a friendly face. Glinting eyes watched him from within the cool darkness of tents, but when he turned in their direction, the tent flaps were firmly drawn closed. Beggars and old people with worn, weather-beaten faces glared at him suspiciously from where they sat on the lanes' edges. They, too, were unlikely to help him unless he had gil to pay.

Eventually he found an inn, but the innkeeper took one look at the young woman and demanded that Terra leave at once.

"Get her out of here! She's got desert fever. You want all my guests to leave? No, you can't have any water! Get out! And give it up, boy, that girl will sleep for ever. You're not from around here, so you probably don't know. Not even Sage Tellah can cure desert fever, not without sand pearls!"

Terra slowly walked away from the inn, unsure of what to do. He had nowhere to go and his arms were starting to ache from carrying the woman around. Master Eraqus would tell him to leave her here. He had already saved her from the monsters and brought her to a town. That in itself was probably too much interference in this world's timeline. How many times had Master Eraqus told him? Events were linked together in ways far too complex to understand. Even stepping on an ant in an alien world could alter its future in unimaginable ways.

"Boy." A tent flap opened and a withered old woman stepped out, beckoning to Terra. "You're the one whose friend has desert fever?"

"Yes," Terra replied. "I'm sorry, how do you -"

"Never mind that! Bring her in, bring her in!" The woman beckoned even more urgently. "Get her out of the sun!"

Terra hesitated.

"Aren't you afraid of catching it?" he asked.

"No, of course not! I've had it before and so's the old man! Now are you going to stand there jabbering all day or come in? Do you want her to die, boy?"

That got Terra moving. The interior of the tent was cool, gloomy and sparsely furnished. Obviously the people who lived here were not wealthy. There were a couple of woven mats on the floor, a few roughly hewn tables and chairs and a single small cot, as well as an old man. Terra helped the girl onto the cot. Then the old woman shooed the two men outside so she could undress the girl and bathe her with cool water.

"Got a name?" the old man said, as he and Terra stood out in the heat.

"Terra. Thank you for helping her. I didn't know what to do."

"No need for thanks. It's what any decent person'd do. Kaipo used to be famous for its hospitality. 'Course, these days folks are too scared of strangers. And you can't hardly blame 'em, what with monsters and dark magic and Baron on the move, and goings-on o' that nature."

"This town is called Kaipo?"

"Yup. And you obviously ain't from 'round these parts."

"No. I'm from… I'm from a town very, very far away."

"Not Baron?" The old man's voice grew fierce, and his bushy white eyebrows pinched into a frown.

"No. I don't even know where Baron is."

"Lucky you. Anyhow, I knew you weren't from Baron. You seem like a decent chap. And besides, you don't speak like them. Your accent is different. I've never heard it before. Still, you can't be too careful these days. Some of the things that go on, even in a place like this, in the middle of nowhere… I heard that Prince Edward of Damcyan used to dress up as a common bard and visit Kaipo. Now can you imagine that?" The old man looked at Terra triumphantly.

Terra had no idea who Prince Edward of Damcyan was, but he could tell he was supposed to be impressed.

"Wow," he said. "Could I ask you something? Why is everyone so afraid of sand fever?"

"'Cos if you get it, you fall into a sleep and never wake up, that's why. You just waste away, dreaming until your body starves to death."

"But your wife said that you've both had sand fever before. And you got better."

"We got sand fever a long time ago. In those days, when were young, Damcyan still sold us sand pearls. They were rare and expensive, but you could get your hands on 'em. Sand pearls're the only thing that's good for sand fever. You can't get 'em any more. Damcyan stopped selling."

"Huh." Terra frowned and put a hand to his forehead, fighting a sudden wave of dizziness. "That's weird. I feel -" Another spell of dizziness struck him. Blinking, he realised he had fallen to his knees. He felt sick to his stomach, like he was going to throw up. Gritting his teeth, he tried to stand, but he fell back. Instead of hitting the sandy ground he was expecting, he fell into darkness that swallowed him up…