Oh my... I last did this in January.

Well, I've been stupidly busy! I am now studying screenwriting at University for four years. I've been taken from the countryside where you had to drive to get your shopping and where I spent most of my time locked up in my room alone and plonked in the middle of a city where there are shops everywhere and people to see and meet.

My entire world has been turned upside down and, frankly, it's very scary!

It will be worth it! (Fingers crossed)

Thank you to you readers for your insane patience and I hope I can write more often now that I am in an environment that encourages me to keep on writing. Please review and stuff! It means a lot!

There are two moments in your life that nobody ever remembers. Two moments that are extremely important and connects every single human being together.

No one remembers being born.

No one remembers dying.

For years, historians, scientists and the like have stared into the gaping sockets of skulls and asked them what death was like. Did it hurt? Were you scared? What did you think about in your last moments?

Hiro Hamada thought of his family, his friends and, most importantly, his brother. He saw before him a huge whirlwind of memories, memories of the people he loved and of the moments that changed his entire look on life. Two moments in particular stood out from the dense crowd of memories. Two moments that changed his life forever. The first…

Clunk!

Blank. It was over. He was sure he died. His previously busy mind was now filled with a blank and empty void. He could not hear the deafening sound of the flies anymore. Was this what death was like? Bit of a let down. Where where the gates of heaven that people had spoken so much about? Maybe he had to wait a little longer. He was certain he would meet his maker.

Wait, hang on…

The air… It smelled of salt. As if he was on a beach.

He could feel cold jagged stone on his fingertips.

He could feel his legs, the support they gave to the rest of his body.

Maybe death wasn't his destiny today…

Slowly but surely he opened his eyes.

He was relieved to know that his pleading for life somehow worked.

The creature was still standing there. It's charred black hands reaching out towards his face. Its face was nonexistent. It was covered and shielded by an old looking veil that draped heavily over its body.

"Was it something I said?"

Something was off. Something about this place he was in had changed. He tried to concentrate on what it was. Then it hit him.

It was silent.

No flies.

The flies were still there but to his surprise, they had all frozen in midair. He glanced back at the creature. It too had become frozen. Hiro, curious but afraid, reached out to one of the flies and flicked it. It ricocheted off the wall and fell suddenly to the ground. As if it had died ages ago.

He glanced back at the frozen creature.

"Why did you stop?"

Suddenly the castle he was in shook and a loud rumbling noise filled the silence.

"What the hell was that!"

The rumbling grew louder and louder. The louder it got, the more clockwork it sounded. Behind him he saw a glass cage lined with copper. Two giant stone cogs inside, previously dormant, were spinning ferociously. The entire castle sounded like a train on hyperdrive!

Instinctively, he looked out of one of the tiny window slits in the wall to see what was going on. He could not help but stare in awe at the scene that greeted him.

The entire castle was spinning!

Different floors spun in different directions and at different speeds as if the entire castle was one giant, round Rubix Cube made of stone.

Hiro spun around as the stone wall suddenly slid open revealing a passageway. Then, as suddenly as it started, the entire castle stopped moving, the cogs stopped turning and silence filled the air again. For a moment Hiro was stuck to the spot, he could not believe what he just saw. The entire castle had moved in front of his very eyes! What the hell was this place! His mind slowly calmed down and he turned to face the newly revealed passageway. Seeing his opportunity, he bolted through the opening.

The wall had revealed a series of corridors that looked identical, stone and arched with little slits letting small amounts of light seep through. The corridors were extremely dusty as if they'd existed for hundreds of years. This place completely amazed him. Never before had he seen an entire building move like that.

As he wandered through the labyrinth of seemingly endless corridors he began to question if this place was even real, since everything he had seen so far defied logic.

After an age of aimless wandering, he saw a wooden door. He looked behind him to check if the creature was following him. After reassuring himself that the coast was clear, he opened the door.

He found himself in a bedroom. It was very old and very luxurious as if a King had slept there. A four poster bed dominated the room with red duvets and sheets. In front of the bed was a wooden four legged stool with red fabric bolted to the centre with iron nails. An arched, lined window made of glass was the room's only source of light. The golden glow of sunlight seeped through the glass like a spotlight with visible dots of dust floating gracefully in the air. Directly below the window was an empty wooden dresser with a glass vase of bright yellow daylilies. With a room that looked this old, there might have been cobwebs and spiders dotted around the place. There wasn't.

Strange.

As usual the out of place silver TV monitor was stood in the corner of the room. Static. The monster was not coming any time soon.

He sat on and tested the springs of the bed. Very childish of him – but nobody was watching. He could do what he liked. He went up to the vase of daylilies and picked one up and smelled it. He had to stick his nose into the bloom just to catch a whiff of the fragrance. He could not tell what it smelt of. It was one of those indescribable, yet good smells. It smelled too good to have only just gotten here. He left the flowers alone and was about to leave the room when something caught his eye. He turned and faced a rather large unlit fireplace.

His heart sank.

It wasn't the fireplace that caught his eye, it was what was above it. A rather large painting loomed over the fireplace. It looked fresh.

Like somebody had only just painted it.

Staring back at Hiro with a reassuring smile, was a portrait of Tadashi. Tears streaked down Hiro's face as his eyes met his older brother's warm, brown eyes. He was wearing his black baseball cap with a red-and-gold San Fransokyo Ninja lettering on it. Exactly as Hiro had seen him before he made the ultimate sacrifice.

Unwanted flashbacks flooded Hiro's mind; he remembered the explosion that cut his brother's life short. The furious wall of red that had severed their unbreakable bond forever, changing Hiro's world irrevocably. He wanted to break down on the spot as he remembered just how amazing his dead brother truly was. A kind and helpful brother who was always there when he needed him. He wanted to help the world for the better. Hiro vowed to fulfill his brother's wish but he could not do it here, not in this place and certainly not without his friends.

He missed them all terribly.

Unbeknownst to him, the static on the monitor behind him faded and showed the corridor he had just ran down.

"How did you get here then, eh bro?" was all he could say without breaking down in tears. He inspected the painting to take his mind off things. The painting, as well as everything else in this room, was remarkably new. It looked like it had only just been painted. His mind was so transfixed by the painting that he did not register that a fly had flown into the room.

Hiro was now fully visible on the monitor behind him, examining the painting.

His mind slowly registered the faint noise of flies that was slowly getting louder and louder.

"Crap."

His eyes dashed to the door, his worst scenario was realised. The creature had unfrozen and followed him though the labyrinth of stone.

Hiro dashed to the arched wooden door and slammed it shut, ensuring that he locked it. He seriously doubted the creature could break the door open,what with being that slow. The thought relieved him somewhat.

THUD! THUD!

His relief disappeared entirely.

His pursuer was abnormally strong. The door jolted violently as the creature repeatedly slammed its body onto it. It was relentless. It would not stop until it got him.

Hiro panicked. His eyes began to dart around the room, looking for any possible means of escape. None appeared to grew ever more frustrated and nervous, knowing that time was quickly running out.

"Dead end again. I'm making a habit of this!" He thought. "Come on bro don't give up on me now! What do I do?" He pleaded, his eyes staring at the portrait.

Then he remembered.

Look for a new angle.

Before he could, the weak wooden door cascaded to the ground with an almighty crash. Now nothing stood between the creature and a terrified Hiro.

Surely it would get him this time.

"If you want me so bad, then you must have known me for a while right?"

The creature, slowly advancing, said nothing.

Hiro reached for one of the daylilies in the vase and nervously started plucking the petals one by one. They all flew gracefully to the ground as if this deadly confrontation were not happening.

"The picture. On the wall! Surely you have set all this up for me somehow!"

The creature slowly outstretched its arms, the black, burnt hands slithered out from under the veil and were reaching out for him. Hiro quickly moved to another corner of the room to see if the creature could actually see him. Sure enough, it turned to face his direction and continued lurching towards him at an agonisingly slow pace.

"What is this place huh? A trap? A prison? No! Is it a torture chamber? It must be isn't it, if everything so far has been tailored to me!"

Hiro knocked the glass vase from the table. It fell and exploded on impact into tiny shards of glass which scattered all over the floor.

"I don't know what you want from me but I'm never telling you! Never!" He shouted bravely and defiantly. It made no difference however as the creature kept on lurching forward. He reached for the wooden stool to fend it off.

"I told you I wasn't scared of dying. Guess what? I wasn't lying. Advantage: me!"

Hiro suddenly spun around and threw the stool with all his strength at the window. On contact, the window was suddenly obliterated and shards of glass, along with the stool, fell rapidly out of view and down the tower he was in.

"Because you never saw this coming!"

He knew that this was going to be one of the most dangerous and stupid things he had ever done. But in this place, nobody was there to stop him. He really wished there was. But the only other angle he could see was down.

He took a quick breath in and sprinted as fast as he could towards the window. He might have looked brave but on the inside he was screaming. He seriously considered stopping but he had too much momentum. If he didn't do this, the monster would catch him. He threw his arms forward and with all his might, threw his body off the ground and through the window. Before he knew it, the window he had jumped from disappeared and the grey cliff face grew taller and taller. The grey mist he was plummeting rapidly towards waited patiently for him, like a monster ready to swallow him up for breakfast.