Gone to Waste

[FoxFireAlchemist]

Gone to Waste [Hold All My Calls]

Chapter 1

Within the tower hub housed by the Symphony of Sorcery World, a couple of voices could be heard arguing. The voices were coming from the highest floor in the tower. Within the rounded room- just in front of a large, rectangular table- an older female and a younger male squabbled relentlessly over which color of sheet music they should dive into with reckless abandon. The third member of the group, yet another female who looked to be around the same age as the male, stood on the opposite side of the room, in front of the door they had entered it through. She was looking at the ceiling absentmindedly, barely aware of the arguement going on between her two friends, who were siblings. She was used to their little "episodes" at this point, infrequent as they were.

Noticing the other girl's absent staring, the oldest female -Laciann Allard- paused. "...Neona, you can go check out the rest of the tower if you want. It might take us a bit longer to *figure this out*."

"Well," the younger male -Cassius Allard- spat stubbornly, "if you'd just admit that we absolutely did use the blue sheet music last time, we wouldn't have to *figure ANYTHING out*!

Neona chuckled a soundless chuckle as she watched her friends tussle verbally on the opposite side of the room. They honestly didn't get like this often, especially not during Neona's barely-predictable visits to the Sleeping World. Even so, Neona wasn't too eager to be stepping in between them; not at this point in the arguement. She had learned it was best to just let them burn out their own fuses and give them a chance to recollect themselves.

Neona was a frail mute with wavy blonde hair which she normally wore tied up in two ponytails, but here in the Sleeping Worlds she wore a mildly messy bun. The rest of her outfit was different in the Sleeping Worlds as well; here she wore a white long-sleeved shirt with a very wide collar that draped around her shoulders, a skirt made of four peices of muli-colored (mainly yellow, white, and light blue) fabric attached together at the waist, a long, brown corset with a sweetheart neckline, medium-length brown gloves with no pinkie fingers or ring fingers, a brown-and-white turtleneck jacket (cropped with no sleeves and perpetually unzipped), white OTK stockings, heeled footwear, and a piece of white fabric that she wore around the base of her neck that gave the appearance of a wearing a hood. Neona herself very much preferred her normal outfit: a hooded yellow and white dress with long, loose sleeves, a brown cropped corset, white tights that cut off just below the knee, brown heeled boots that came up just over her knee, and short brown gloves with no thumbs, pointer fingers, or middle fingers. She found the outfit switch to be unnecessary and rather inconvenient, but she wasn't aware of any possible way to avoid going through it during her travels between the Sleeping Worlds and the Not-Sleeping Worlds.

Speaking of avoiding things, Neona was starting to feel like it was a good time for her to take Laciann's advice and slip out of the tense "discussion" for a while. She could tell it wasn't going to be ending soon, and the tower really was begging to be surveyed.

Neona spun gracefully on her heel to face the door behind her. She gently placed her hands on the thick hunk of wood and eased it open with minimal creaking, taking a peak down the spiral staircase. The white stone wall and stairs seemed normal enough at first glance, although something on the floor just beyond the door caught Neona's attention and troubled her. There sat a little speck of color that hadn't been there before; she had just walked past that spot and she was sure she hadn't seen any color around, even as tiny as this.

Cautiously, Neona approached the bright drip of color and knelt beside it. She stuck her bare pinkie out and hesitated, then touched it to the bright blue spot on the ground. The tip of her finger came back up colored bright blue.

Paint? Neona sniffed the substance and her suspicions were confirmed. There was now paint on the ground where there hadn't been before; wet paint at that. The sound of her bickering friends faded into the white noise of the eerily still tower as Neona directed her gaze back to the staircase. She quickly began to notice more colorful splotches and smears of paint of varying sizes that certainly hadn't been there when she had peaked out the door just moments ago. In fact, there was a spot on the wall just down the stairs that seemed to have words written on it. In fact... they were words. Three little words with one ominous demand: "Come here, Neona."

Being careful not to step in any wet paint, Neona descended to where the words were painted in a deep purple hue. She was pensive about doing so; her stomach was doing flips in her abdomen and her head was anxiously repeating the thoughts "Something's not right; what's going on?" over and over. Nothing appeared out-of-the ordinary about the message, yet at the same time it was very out-of the ordinary in itself. Who had written this message, and why? Where was all this paint coming from?

A series of violent, wet-sounding smacking noises started coming from the wall, just to the Neona's right, making her heart skip a few beats and her skin turn paler than King Mickey's royal sheets (though it was quite the feat for her to get much paler than she already is.) She whirled around as quickly as she could to discover a new purple message on the wall: "TURN AROUND"

Neona was getting scared now. She could see paint of all different colors leaking out of the cracks between the stones now. Tiny streams of paint were trickling down the stairs, slowly washing it bright color. Paint leaked from the frames of existing paintings and portraits on the walls. Cassius and Laciann's once faint bickering was completely non-existent now, as if they had just up and disappeared. Light from the room they had once been in no longer shone faintly from the gap between the floor and the door as it once had. Neona wanted to call for them, but couldn't. She turned away from the wall and started to climb the stairs in order to search for them, but she was interrupted by more loud smacking. Neona turned back to the wall.

The word "NOW" had appeared under the message telling her to "TURN AROUND". Neona felt her spine crawl as her heart's pace steadily picked up speed. Feeling she had no choice, Neona did as the message told her and very carefully peered over the edge of the staircase, which lacked a guardrail.

All the walls were a mess. Many different shades and hues of paint were thrown everywhere and onto everything. Some of it seemed to be taking the form of creatures with sharp stares. The most intricate image of all, however, had appeared right there on stone of the entire lower floor. A huge mural depicting a strange world with a large castle had eaten up the floor. It felt all-consuming for some reason; Neona could even feel a strange tugging on her heart that seemed to be originating from it. Like hell this had been there when she and the Allards entered the place.

Neona was starting to feel dizzy. She stumbled the rest of the way down the stairs on a whim; feeling unsafe on the uneven surface of the stairs. Though her vision grew blurry, she caught a glimpse of a signature near the corner of the large mural closest to her. It was in a whimsical, free-flowing scrawl that had without a doubt originated from the hand of a certain Yen Sid.

"Yen Sid?"
"Yen Sid did this?"
"How? When?"

A sharp shove from behind tore the mentally weakened Neona from her thoughts with no warning. Her legs went out from under her and she was sent toppling forward. Time seemed to slow down as she fell through the air, her heart hammering away in her throat all the while.

And then, a light.

As if reacting to Neona's feelings of terror, a bright keyhole manifested just in front of her; over the center of the mural. She knew exactly what it was. She had seen all kinda of keyholes such as this one. She knew what to do. Neona's right hand instinctively clenched into a fist, summoning Lunar Crucifixition -her keyblade. The glowing lunar-themed blade made of sliver, white gold, and yellow gold caught the light of the keyhole in such a way that made the blade emit even more breathtaking light. Neona could feel ominous presences closing in on her as her other hand grabbed the blade's hilt, sending her mind ever further into full-panic mode.

Before she could stop and think about what kind of world she could possibly be unlocking, Neona aimed her keyblade at the keyhole. She was desperate for escape. The blade and the hole fell into alignment and a chain of light shot out from the blade to the hole, connecting the two. The keyhole expanded into a portal of pure light, and the last thing Neona would remember was being dragged into the portal before everything went white.

~~~