"Ah, another beautiful morning, eh Karen? ... ...Aw, come on, I apologized, didn't I? I couldn't see that one, it was behind us, and you didn't tell me you were trying to blast it! Besides, a bite in you is the same thing as a bite in me." On a lonely stretch of road in Luce's Upper City, a very strange creature was having an argument with itself. It had the vague proportions of a human, with flowing, indistinct arms and legs, a slender torso and what could be called a head, but instead of walking, it was floating a foot or so above the pavement. In addition, its face didn't seem able to make up its mind. For a split second, it could be the face of a man, but then it had feline features, and then reptilian, and then no features at all, on and on and on.

To survivors, it was a monster, no different from the dozens of other grotesque creatures that were always trying to kill them. To the Heartless, who attacked from the darkness of the Blind, it was unusual, didn't quite have a heart, and they never fought with the same fervor as they did when they could smell humans. It was more exploratory, attempting to figure out whether the being had a heart or not, then retreating if it got ugly. To beings like itself, the creature is an outcast, not accepting the rule of their leader, not willing to become a lackey in her schemes, not willing to give up its freedom. And so, alone, beset by most everything it came across, the being floated. It didn't need sustenance, not really, so the only thing it did most days was run. It tried to [i]go[/i] somewhere, anywhere that it could be safe, but never seemed to make it out of the city. It would forget which direction it needed to go, forget where it was in the first place, forget where it had been for the past week.

But that was about to change. This day, some twist of fate would put the creature back into contact with one of the only people that hadn't tried to kill it (though they could barely remember her). And meeting that girl would change its meager existence for good. "I'm not talking to you, Bob. I'm just not. I'm done with you. I hate you more than I've hated anything in our entire life. Well, why don't you just leave, then!? Hmph. I think I will. I'll take half of them, you keep the other half, and we'll never have to talk to each other again. Fine, take them!" A second creature, much more transparent and insubstantial, emerged from its chest, and began to float away. The original seemed to stare after it, the ever-shifting face belying no emotion, as it didn't have time to do anything more than change into something else. After around fifteen minutes, there was a massive sound, as one of the many fissures in the street opened just a bit wider, and weakened an old building's walls enough that they collapsed in a plume of dust and grit.

Immediately following the collapse, there were two nearly-identical and very quiet screams, one from each of the two creatures. If anyone had been there to hear it, the might have picked out the words "Better together" within the screams, and at breakneck speed the strange beings collided back into each other, forming a single body once more. "I'm so sorry, Bob, please forgive me! It's so scary out there when we're alone... So dangerous. It's better together. Better... Together... That's right, don't worry, honey, I'm back. I won't leave you again, I promise." Despite Karen's promise, this was a daily occurrence. They did not remember any of the times it had happened before. They didn't want to. Being alone like that, truly alone, was more than they could handle.

Suddenly, though, the creature heard something it hadn't heard in long time: voices. Other than themselves, friendly voices had been very few and far between, and they weren't about to pass this chance up. "Eyes that aren't," it muttered at last, as two people came into view on the other side of the collapsed building. It seemed only a small section of it had crumbled on this side, but that wasn't where they were looking. A girl, eyes closed, next to a boy, eyes open. "Eyes that aren't," one of them repeated. "What does that [i]mean[/i]? Shouldn't we remember? That voice wasn't hers, it was the boy's... But she... Do we know her? We do. She's the girl with eyes that aren't. I... She didn't try to kill us. We didn't have to run. Oh, it was so long ago, though.... What if she forgot us? What if she tries to kill us? We have to take the chance, Bob. We have to know."

Tentatively, the creature floated forward out of the shadows between the partially collapsed building and the shop the two humans were standing in front of. It attempted to solidify its appearance as much as possible, and moved closer to the ground, so that it would hopefully look more like they were walking, rather than floating. Indistinct tendrils became silvery arms and legs, and a harder outline formed around the creature, though its face would never be able to stop shifting. It stopped a safe distance away from the two, and called out, "Eyes that aren't! We... know you. Do you know us? Please.... Say that you do...."