I'd like to mention right now that this story will not be focused on humorous aspects as much as One More Chance was - instead, Into The Summer Night will be taking a more serious outlook on the typical 'Sucked-In' genre. The character you are about to meet is a human girl torn away from her home - she will be selfish, she will be spoiled, she will be angsty, she will be stubborn. Yet, she'll grow, she'll meet new people, she'll make not the best decisions, and she'll learn. She will stay human, with one goal in mind.

Into The Summer Night will involve many confusing people with their own hidden agendas; it will have personality 'who-am-I-really?' disorders, talk of different souls and old promises, friends-turned-foes and enemies-turned-allies, and people who have a knack of being possessed.

In short, I hope you'll enjoy... (and no, not all of my author's notes are this long.)

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VIII and everything associated with it does not belong to me…

"So… tell me again why you can't just say what you got me? I promise I'll be good!"

The thirteen-year-old child rolled her eyes and turned away from her younger brother, ignoring the begging look in his bright eyes. Fiddling with the fishing line string connecting her fingers and the maroon Christmas ornament that she held in her hand by the forefinger and thumb, she cast a critical grey eye over the green fir tree towering above her. Sighing when the seven-year-old beside her pouted and poked her torso for attention, she turned her face back to him.

"You'll find out on Christmas morning, midget," she explained patiently, already immune to his puppy-dog eyes as he gazed up at her face with a large frown stretching over his face. Returning to her decorating of the tree, she placed the shining sphere on an over-hanging prickly branch just above her.

"But Kirrrraaa," the boy whined, bringing up his small hands to tug at her one-size-too-large sweater. "I don't want to wait!"

"Too bad," she snapped as gently as she could, her patience wearing thin after an entire morning of non-stop begging. "Now go find mom and dad and tell them to get their asses out here and help me decorate the tree."

The child's eyes widened slightly at the 'bad word' in her sentence before returning to their normal size (which she still considered too big for his face). Shooting her a small glare, he crossed his arms and huffed, already turning on his heels to walk away.

"Meanie," she heard him mutter under his breath, shuffling out of the living room and into the hallway leading to the kitchen. Smiling to herself, Kira Lanning stepped down from the brown standing stool underneath her socked feet and gazed up at the Christmas tree stretching high to the white ceiling.

A hundred reflections stared back at her, smiling in different hues of the colors of the rainbow. Bringing a finger to steady a swaying glass ball in a non-existent breeze, she glanced at the enlarged picture of herself.

Grey eyes, almost green in the shining surface of the emerald matched her own, red curls bouncing in a messy heap around her shoulders. She gave a quick smile to the reflection and let go of the sphere, letting it fall back against the tree.

"Now, I expect the cars to be here at 3 PM sharp, no later and no earlier. They are to load all of the red bags into the green cars and all of the green bags into the red cars…"

Kira turned at the sound of her mother's high-pitched voice as the woman strode into the large living room – more like 'ballroom', she thought – in tall heels, chattering into the cellphone held to her diamond-studded ears.

She mouthed a quick 'morning' to her daughter, stopping to examine the Christmas tree set up before her. Kira hid her sneer behind her hand, away from her mother's prying eyes, displeasure washing over her at the similar red locks that lay down the woman's slim back and the grey eyes that ran over the tree in a fashion so much like her own.

"Busy again, eh, hun?"

Her father came up behind her, an indifferent smile on his youthful looking face, and ruffled her already-messy hair to an unrecognizable bird's nest. Scowling a fragment of an inch at the man's antics, Kira ran a hand through the curls a few desperate times in hopes of settling it down.

It remained a huge mess and she sighed, giving up on her grooming for the moment.

"Don't worry about your mother, love," her father continued obliviously and she bit back her 'I'm not', instead focusing on the top of her tree where the star was supposed to reside. "She's just worrying about the party tonight again – when we get back, we'll help you decorate, you'll see." He gave her what he thought was a reassuring smile, taking off the hand of her shoulder and following her mother out the door.

She could hear the scuffles in the foyer as the couple put on their coats and shoes, followed by the tell-tale bang of the oaken door snapping shut behind them. She sighed, her little brother's little feet padding in his room upstairs, and turned back to her tree.

The sun outside hit the windows, slinking through the drapes and illuminating the thousands of glimmering balls held up by the sprouting branches of the evergreen fir tree. Its shadow danced on the polished floors, mixing with her own as she smiled a bitter-sweet grin at her only companion in the room.

"I think I'm supposed to feel like Cinderella," she murmured to herself, reaching up a hand to fiddle with her bangs. "But then again, things are always the same so I shouldn't be expecting anything else."

Humming a Christmas-y tune to herself to disrupt the almost eerie silence of the ballroom slash living room slash whatever-her-parents-wanted-it-to-be, she took the golden star out of the white-washed box it lay in on the floor, striding over to the steel ladder by the tree slowly, marvelling at the ornament in her hands as she did every year since she could remember.

Gold and silver mixed, sparkling to her (entrancing her) in the sunlight as she hopped up the ladder, careful to keep her balance and steadying the wobbling whenever it happened.

She bit her lip, the star in one hand as she reached up on her tippy-toes since the ladder always seemed to bit too short for her height, fully aware of the dangerous wobbling that started underneath her.

Wobble, wobble, the ladder went.

Wobble, wobble, the girl went.

Sparkle, sparkle, the star went.

Kira strained once more, the sharp edges of the star brushing along the fir branches of the tree. Cursing her parents again for leaving her alone to (her doom) to decorate the tree in an activity that was supposed to be a family one, she bit her tongue and reached the last inch of space between the star and the tree.

Wobble, wobble, the ladder went.

Wobble, wobble, the girl went.

Sparkle, sparkle, the star went.

Just a little more, she thought to herself, willing her hands to stretch farther.

Ca-lunk, the ladder went as it fell to the floor.

Thump, the girl went as she stumbled and hit the wood.

Sparkle, sparkle, the star went as it tumbled from motionless hands and clattered to the shadows.

Darkness met her eyes, embracing her gently in a mother's warm touch, and Kira Lanning (thirteen years old with grey eyes red locks and a smile like the sun) knew no more.

-~o~-

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

For a fleeting moment, she thought she was back in her room with the grandfather clock by the fireplace ticking away every second as the fire burned brightly in the hearth. She would wake up to a smiling sun peeking into her window, a warm plate of bacon and eggs by her bedside, and the precious grandfather clock being the first thing she saw in the morning.

But then she realized that there were too many ticks in the room (tick tick tick tick tick they went and cancelled each other out) and she wasn't on her warm, fluffy bed but on a blank slate the color of obsidian and chilling to the touch.

She glanced up, from where she was sprawled out on the cold floor with one leg tucked beneath her and the other angled out away from her body, and into the royal blue eyes staring back into hers.

The boy cocked his head, his black hair (the same shade as the rest of the strange abyss) and glinting glasses standing out against the background of ticking clocks – coo-coo clocks, grandfather clocks (her own clock!), digital clocks and even broken, wooden clocks – behind him.

"Hello," he said, staring at her from behind the round glasses.

"…Hello," she replied back, feeling as if she had always know him all along (maybe she did? who knew).

"Are you ready to go?" He asked, and she blinked at him.

"Go where?"

Her question hung in the air, and he smiled; a gentle uplifting of his lips that she had seen a lot in her life (in the dark of the night in her dreams underneath the sparkling stars).

"Away," he said simply, and she smiled and nodded at him to show she understood.

"Where to now?" She asked while standing up and when she did, she knew she wasn't herself anymore and maybe she was dead after all because she felt empty and cold.

"…Back home."

He stretched out his hand to her, an invitation to go, and she took the two steps she needed to reach him and grasped it.

"Okay," she whispered, smiling softly at the boy with the black hair and blue eyes and shining glasses who wasn't actually a boy at all. "Until later, then, Eriol."

The clocks stopped working. Her breath caught in her throat. A million screams tore through the air, through the silence of the dead abyss, and then there was nothing.

Blood marred her eyes, mixing with the boy's smile and her own and when she closed them, the world knew no more of a Kira Lanning who was thirteen years old with grey eyes and shining red hair and a smile like the sun.

-~o~-

I'll always be here.

Here? Where's here

This place. Y'know, home.

…We don't have a home.

Then what do you consider this?

It's an empty place with memories.

…

You're my home.

…Really?

I'll come back to you. I—

Don't promise. I know it's not up to you to decide.

…Alright, then. Pinkies swear?

…Pinkie swears.

Oi! Are you coming or not?

Go away–!

Come on, it's time to go!

Stop it! She's mine!

What are you doing!?

H-hey!! What's happening?

Children?

Kira. It's time to wake up.

-~o~-

"Say, do you know what's going on? Isn't she that girl…"

"From Balamb? Yeah. Guess she didn't get as lucky as we did – ow! What was that for!?"

"You idiot! Don't you see the condition she's in? She looks barely alive… Kadowaki had to take out the full arms to get her out of that building…"

"…Sorry."

"Don't apologize. I know you don't mean it."

"H-hey! What do you mean by that!?"

Annoying voices buzzed around in her head like fireflies, only not as pretty or pleasant as them but reminding her more of the bees flying around at the garden of her summer house. Groaning at them to shut up and leave her alone because she was tired, she blinked open one eye and was met with a blurry white ceiling that was steadily moving.

"Hey! Did you see that!? That girl just opened her eyes!"

"Impossible…! After that kind of fall? She should be out for weeks!"

She turned her head towards the couple whispering amongst themselves, to the only conversation she could clearly hear amongst the chatter of the watching students, pausing for a moment in her mind to note the strange, sticky substance that was apparently covering her head as her red locks came into view. For a passing moment she met their eyes, wide in disbelief, fear and fascination, before turning her head back to the still-moving ceiling of the contraption that she knew wasn't a hospital.

"What happened to me?" She muttered, her mind still trying to clear up the fog that covered it. She couldn't remember anything – where was she? Where were her parents? What happened, and where was her tree – the pretty tree with the pretty little star that she clutched in her hands only moments before?

She wanted someone by her side, to reassure and comfort her. Her heart called for an 'Eriol' – but she didn't know any Eriols, did she? …Did she?

She gave one last, weak groan before slipping back into blessed darkness where she could sleep. A shocked figure ran up to her side, barely visible at the edges of her vision, but she was already out of it and back into her dreams.

"Hey… do you think we can get some hotdogs? …OW!!"

"You idiot!"