Summary: Kari has been missing for a month, and her disappearance has affected all of the Digidestined to varying degrees. The only one who seems to have a clue as to Kari's whereabouts is T.K., who has been having very intense nightmares since the disappearance. The dreams make T.K. believe that The Dark Ocean has ensnared Kari once again, yet no one believes him. Even T.K. himself doubts the visions, until an enemy from the past arrives and offers to take him to the mysterious Home by the Sea.

Setting: This story takes place when the Digidestined children from Adventure 02 first start college (so they're in their early 20's).

Author's Note: Many of the chapters in this stories will have the titles of Phil Collins and Genesis songs. Those titles will be in quotes (" "). You don't need to listen to the songs to understand what's going on in the story, but it is a fun way to find out a little about my thought process a little. Besides, they're great songs.

Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon or any of the characters. If I did, this story would be an OVA.


Prologue

She walked along the beach barefoot. The only thing she was wearing was a pink dress with a long skirt that flowed in the breeze. She did not know why she was walking along the beach, nor did she know where she was going. She did not even remember how she had gotten there. She kept walking however, for it seemed that there was some place that she had to go to. She did not like being on that beach though. She knew that there was something dangerous about that beach, but she could not remember what. It was as if her mind was in a thick fog.

The sky overhead cast a grey, gloomy twilight over the land. It was impossible to tell if it was day or night, and the only sound that could be heard was that of the waves crashing against the beach. She remembered that this beach was always like that though, grey and lifeless. It was the only thing that she could remember about that beach. It was the only thing that she could remember at all in fact. Even the memory of her own name had escaped her.

As she walked, the smell of the salt air of the almost black ocean became mixed with the smell of dead fish. The odor was so overpowering that she wanted to turn back at that instant. But no matter how hard she tried though, she couldn't. Her legs seemed to be moving of their own accord, and the fog in her mind was too thick for her to put up a good argument.

The fish smell kept getting stronger as she moved forward, and soon she came upon on a small village that looked abandoned even from a distance. She could not tell exactly how much time had passed, but before she knew it she was in the village. The whole place seemed to have been abandoned for years. The paint on all the buildings had peeled away, and there were very few roofs that were completely intact. Most had either completely caved in or just had a few holes in them. Most of the buildings that she passed were two story houses with boarded up windows on the second story. The entire town had a look of complete decay, which was made more prominent by the fishy odor. Yet she couldn't help but feel that there was still life.

It was not as if there was anyone or anything outside with her. From the outside the village was abandoned. Yet she felt as if something watching her, something that terrified her. Not that she could place what it was, but the more time she spent in that village, the more she felt afraid. It was as if the thick fog in her mind was beginning to part. Every now and than she would hear sounds that one might be able to call voices if they didn't sound so inhuman. She could almost remember just what kind of creature made those sounds. Yet there was a part of her that didn't want to remember, a part that wanted to bury that memory for as long as she lived. She was on the brink of a horrible realization about where she was and what lived in that rotting village.

At last her feet had brought her out of that shadowed ghost town and she felt some relief. But it was all too quickly shattered by an even greater horror that stood before her. For now she found herself walking towards a great black reef jutting into the ocean like a knife. In that instant that she saw that horrid reef, the fog in her mind had lifted completely. She remembered who she was, where she was, and just what sort of things lived in that horrible fish-smelling village. The appearance of the reef had brought it all crashing back. At that moment, she wanted to run away as fast as she could, run and leave that terrible ocean. But no matter how hard she tried her body wouldn't obey her. Mindlessly her legs took her onto that blasphemous reef. She could not even scream in protest. It was like she was watching everything unfold on a television screen, yet the sensation of the rough reef terrain under her feet and the smell of that salt air combined with the odor of rotted fish told her that it was all too real.

She had finally stopped walking when she reached the end of the reef. Again, she tried to turn and run, but again her body would not obey her. She was paralyzed, awaiting some great terror to come. That terror was not the things that lived in the village. Those creatures did indeed scare her; for she remembered what they were and what unspeakable things they wanted to do with her. What scared her now however was something that she had little or no previous knowledge of. It was a thing that lurked beneath the waves of that dark grey ocean, a thing that even those accursed creatures both feared and worshipped.

Suddenly, she saw something slowly begin to rise from the waves. It was a thing that was incredibly huge, almost mountainous. As it rose out of the ocean, more of its shape could be seen. The creature was roughly humanoid with an octopus head and a pair of bat-like wings on its back. The general outline of its shape, combined with its red glowing eyes made the creature the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. Again she wanted to run, desperately wanted to leave that horrid place, but her legs stayed where they were as if they were rooted to the ground. She could not even scream for help, not that there was anyone there to help her. She was alone. Finally, the titan creature began to reach out an arm or tentacle for her, and she knew that the end was about to come.

Kari Kamiya woke up screaming in a cold sweat. As she caught her breath, she realized that it was only another nightmare. Though it was perhaps the worst nightmare that she had had all month. It was more or less the same as the previous nightmares, but this time Kari had seen the thing that those undersea Digimon called their god. It was over though, but just as Kari breathed a sigh of relief, she noticed that something was wrong. Her surroundings were different from what they were when she dozed off that afternoon.

When Kari had fallen asleep, she was in her apartment. Now she found herself in a room that was completely unfamiliar to her. The first thing she noticed was the floral patterend wallpaper that was not only faded, but parts of it were hanging off the walls. The bed that Kari was sitting on was a single bed that had sheets that looked liked they had not been changed in years. To its right was a dust-covered nightstand with a single rust covered lamp. All of this told Kari that the room she was in was very old. On the side on Kari's right was an adjoining room that Kari thought (and hoped) was the bathroom.

In the nearby corner across the room that was also on Kari's right was a door that she took to be the door out of the room. Immediately Kari leapt from the bed and ran to the door to try the knob. As she feared though, the knob would not turn. She was trapped. On the other side of the room was a large window, and when Kari glanced out of it as she turned to go back to sit on the bed, she was so horrified by the view that she walked backward until she hit the wall, raising her hand to her mouth to stifle a scream at the same time. The view outside was that of a grey sky over an almost black ocean, its waves hitting the shore of a grey beach. Hesitantly, after regaining some composure, Kari walked to the window to get a closer look. A closer examination only confirmed what she already knew though, Kari was back at the Dark Ocean.


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