~

~

PART TWO: The Empire Falls

 

Yes, things were good. Karen fell asleep one night with a smile, watching the moolight reflect on the glass butterfly, not knowing her life was about to change. For the worst. The very worst.

 

She noticed her chest felt...fluttery when she woke up. She pressed her hand against her chest. She was breathing funny and her chest felt like it was full of cotton. She tried to breathe deeply, and her entire torso flared with pain. She screamed. Brixey was in her room in thirty seconds. "My...chest," wheezed Karen, grasping at her pajama top. Brixey felt sick. "What's wrong?" he asked, kneeling at her bedside. She was crying now, and fell back onto her pillow. "My chest.... it feels..." she gasped, her eyes dull with pain."It feels...too small. My chest feels too small."

 

Brixey's heart dropped as he took his ill daughter into his arms and ran into the hall way."Jordana! Jordana, there's something wrong with Karen," he screamed to his wife. Jordana emerged from the wash room, her hair wet from a recent shower. Her face was terrifed as Brixey blew past her down the stairs, Karen quivering painfully in his arms.

Brixey called their family doctor. He was no help. He instructed them to take Karen to the hospital. Brixey, feeling illogically angry, slammed the telephone down. Jordana appeared in the kitchen. Karen was shaking in a kitchen chair, barely conscious. She resembled a porcelain doll, tiny, fragile pale and limp.

Brixey looked at his wife and said "Stay here with Koji. I'm taking her to the emergency room." "Wouldn't it be better to call an ambulance?" asked Jordana as Brixey crossed the kitchen and gathered Karen once again into his arms. He didn't answer but was gone before Jordana could ask anymore questions.

In the hospital, a doctor questioned Brixey about his daughter's symptoms. "She said something about her chest. She said it was too small. And she was burning with fever." The doctor frowned. "She doesn't have a fever.But as far as her other symptoms, it sounds like it may be cardio related."

He studied Karen's charts. "I'll call in a cardiologist and run some tests. Wait here, please," he said and then he walked out. Brixey was slightly puzzled, as he looked down at his hands. . He'd felt certain his daughter's skin had been hot with a fever. But if the doctor said there wasn't one, he must be right...right?

~

Ansem the Wise asked his apprentices for silence and no disturbances. He paced his study, pondering a thought that had come to him in the night. He sat at his desk and with one hand supporting his face, be began to write his ideas down.

If all worlds had doors... the Keyblade bearer exsisted to lock keyholes... doors could be locked and unlocked with the right key. And if all worlds had doors, and all worlds had keyholes... certainly so did the doors to Light and Dark. Something inside Ansem nagged him. There was something else, something more, teetering on the edge of his mind.

Surely, thought Ansem, honey-yellow eyes widening in ephiphany. Surely the keyholes to the doors to Light and Dark wouldn't be as simple as the others. Doors so important to the nature and well being of the universe would have complex, large locks. The most complex things in the universe were the human mind...

and the human heart.

What if the lock itself was a human, or at least contained inside the heart and mind of a human?

If a human controlled the key, a human could control the lock.

~

The cardiologist met with Brixey and Jordana in the waiting room. Jordana had woken Marny the Nurse as soon as Brixey had left, and she rushed to the hospital to be with her daughter and husband. Unfortunately, she wasn't allowed to see her daughter. She had been hurried along to a waiting room in the cardiology wing.

She'd found Brixey alone, sitting on a sofa. The sofa looked out of placce in a hospital, obviously there for those who would be waiting a while. And so the waited, holding each other, until the cardiologist emerged, looking puzzled, carrying scans of some sort. He handed the papers to Jordana who looked at them and said "We're not cardiologists. What does it mean?"

The cardiologist sat. "It means absolutely nothing," he sighed."According to these, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your daughter. Blood work, urine sample... all the tests came back negative." Brixey and Jordana stared, waiting for another explanation. The cardiologist gave them one, a lame one. "Possibly, she had a nightmare and it caused a panic attack." The Kano parents accepted this diagnosis.

But things didn't get any better. .The hospital released Karen, telling Jordana and Brixey that she just needed rest. And if it got worse, a prescription to control the panic attacks. Karen didn't get any better. She was brought to the doctor several times. Different doctors, same result.

There was nothing wrong with Karen,

~

Ansem the wise awoke at the sound of a knock on the door, surrounded by notes. His youngest apprentice, Ienzo, came through the door quietly. "Your assistance is required in the basement lab, Master Ansem." Ansem looked around at all the notes on his desk. Notes on his new theroy. "I'll be down in a moment, Ienzo. I just need to finish up here."

Ienzo was naturally inquistive, although shy. "Notes on what, Master? Something we should know about?" "No," said Ansem warily."Not yet."

~

After six weeks of sleepless nights and unhelpful doctors, Brixey Kano was fed up. Nothing was working and he knew the awful truth. His daughter was dying. He knew he had one last chance. All options, at least in this world, had been exhausted. He called for Jordana. She came into the kitchen, tired eyed. Brixey poured two mugs of coffee, and offfered one to Jordana. She took it.

"There's not else," she sighed, leaning over the counter. Brixey rested his thin hand on Jordana's shoulder. "There is one thing we haven't tried," he said quietly. "What?" asked Jordana, sounding sad and wary. Brixey told her, and she stiffened under his hand. "No... who knows what a jump like that would do to her health?"

"It's our only hope. I really think he can help us," urged Brixey. Jordana shook her head back and forth several times before Brixey took her face into his hands and kissed her lips softly. "Trust me, love." And Jordana did.

~

As Brixey and Jordana were ushered into Ansem's study, Ansem himself was putting away his notes.