“Come on, Merydia!” The voice belonged to a young merman, only eighteen, with white blonde hair and a glittering blue-green fishtail. The mermaid he was talking to came speeding in to the cave so fast that she was only a gold and pale purple blur. Dyme, the merman, laughed as he pulled a rock over the center of the cave so the two lovers could be alone.

“Can you believe our wedding is so soon?” Merydia sighed happily, laying down on a rock and examining the pearl ring Dyme had given her— her engagement ring.

“Two weeks,” said Dyme, laying down next to her and caressing her tail with the ends of his fins. “Not soon enough.”

The mermaid giggled slightly and moved her tail away from his tickling touch. “As long as we have each other.” Merydia smiled and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Dyme turned his head so that she kissed his lips instead, and before long, the two of them had found their way up off the rock, tight in each others’ embrace, with their tails wrapped so tightly that they had become one, half pale purple, half bright turquoise.

A strange noise coming from the opening in the top of the grotto broke the passionate kiss. Dyme’s arms tightened protectively around Merydia as a swarm of jellyfish accompanied by otherworldy green creatures armed with spears invaded their privacy. The things sped towards them in a circle, moving so close that Merydia’s long golden hair was whipping them in the current. That’s when Dyme realized that the creatures were dangerous, probably deadly.

“Merydia, swim!” Dyme ordered, swimming for the opening at the top of their grotto as fast as he could.

“Dyme!” Merydia cried out. Dyme whirled back down and saw that a group of the green things had her by the fins. Dyme grabbed a strange wooden stringed object he had found on the sea floor one day that vaguely resembled a sitar and slammed one of the creatures that was holding Merydia captive over the head. It fell to the ocean floor for a moment before returning to hold Merydia again. This time, though, it reared its spear back and plunged it into her chest. The water turned scarlet with Merydia’s blood, and she fell to the bottom of the sea.

“MERYDIA!!!” Dyme screamed, darting down to his beloved’s body as fast as his fins could carry him and cradling her in his arms. “No... no way.... Merydia…. ” The light was fading fast from her beautiful violet eyes “I’m so sorry, Merydia, I could have stopped them, I should have—“

“There was… nothing you could have done, Dyme.” Her voice was weak, barely more than a whisper. “They were… after us… one of us would have died… no matter what….”

“You’re not going to die,” Dyme told her desperately, wishing rather than believing it to be true. He pressed a hand to the wound that had been left by the spear in a failing attempt to stop the blood. “You’re going to be fine, we’re going to get married and—“

Merydia laughed weakly, and lifted a shaking hand to move Dyme’s. “It’s no use, darling… I’ve lost… too much … blood….” He felt her shudder, and her eyes closed. With the last of her strength, she breathed, “I love you, Dyme… goodbye.” Then she went limp and died in Dyme’s arms.
“Merydia?!” Dyme cried. “No! No….” He kissed her already pale, cold lips, his tears bubbling up and floating all around him. To him, the creatures had disappeared, and everything was gone except him and his grief over the death of the mermaid he loved more than the ocean itself.

The creatures, however, were still there, circling around the heartbroken Dyme without his notice. They knocked the young merman, helpless and lost in his anguished sobs, to the floor... and he knew no more.

***

A young man leaned against the side of a small rowboat, spiky crimson hair blowing in the sea breeze. “Of all the worlds to send me to, and all the people to send me with, it had to be the fish world with YOU!”

The young man’s partner, a much older man with long blue hair and an X-shaped scar on his forehead, rolled his yellow eyes and continued to row, saying in a tone completely devoid of emotion. “The Superior has ordered it, number eight. It is your first mission, and the new Nobody that has just been created is from Atlantica. The ‘fish world,’ as you call it.”

“First of all, my name’s not number eight. It’s Axel,” snapped the younger one. “A-X-E-L. Got it memorized? Second of all, I’m not the only member of the Organization. There are six others, all of which can stand you.”

“You’re just going to have to put up with me,” the elder said calmly. “Silence, and keep looking.”

Axel stared into the black waves until he noticed the figure of an unconcious boy with dirty blonde hair, about the same age as he was. “Saïx!”

Saïx turned his head and took notice of the unconcious new Nobody. “Bring him onboard.”

Axel stared at him in disbelief. “You want me to go in the water to get the kid?” When Saïx nodded, Axel protested. “I don’t do well in water— I control fire! Got it memor— AAH!” He fell into the water, thanks to a moon beam sent down by Saïx. Shaking water from his formerly spiky hair, Axel glared at Saïx, then swam to the boy. One thin, but surprisingly strong, arm wrapped around the boy, and the other tore through the water, taking the pair of them back to the rowboat.

“That didn’t kill you, did it?” Saïx said, a flicker of disappointment lighting up his eyes, but not showing in his voice, as Axel climbed back aboard.

“Shut up,” Axel snapped. Then he turned his attention to the newly formed Nobody. “He doesn’t look so good— look, there’s blood all over him.” He kept the examination going as he pulled black pants over the boy’s bare legs. “Man, this one put up a really good fight. But how did he get so far into the water from that beach over there?”

“Who knows?” said Saïx. “Come.” He opened a dark portal back to their home world and rowed through to deliver the new Nobody to the Superior.

***

Dyme woke up in a bedroom made completely of some kind of smooth white rock, and immediately screamed bloody murder. “HUMANS!” he shrieked, pointing at the nearest one, who had long purplish hair obscuring most of his face. “Let me go, let me back to the ocean, I have to get back—“

“Dude, relax,” said a human with striped black and white hair, a scar on his right cheek, and a patch over his left eye. “We’re not gonna hurt one of our own.”

“One of your own?! What do you mean?! I’m a merman, I can’t—“

A human only a year older than Dyme himself with spiky bloodred hair shook his head. “There’s something you might wanna see.” He pulled down the sheets covering Dyme’s fins, and Dyme gasped.

The fishtail was gone. In its place were two clumsy looking, black clad human legs.

“NO!” Dyme wailed. “NO WAAAYYYY!!!!” He collapsed against the pillows, sobbing, salt water running unfamiliarly down his face, and whole body shaking with anguish. He had legs. He was human. He could never go back to Atlantica, his beautiful home. His entire life, Merydia, the ocean, his tail… everything had been lost to him.

Finally, after the humans had watched him break down for who knew how long, one with long silver hair and glowing orange eyes spoke, very slowly. “You are now Number Nine in the Organization.”

“The what?”

“We are the Organization— a group of Nobodies who will stop at nothing to become whole, and to truly, finally exist!” The man grinned insanely, and Dyme felt a twinge of fear and confusion.

The redhead rolled his emerald eyes. “What he means is, you’ve lost your heart, and we’re gonna help you get it back. Got it memorized?” He tapped his head and walked over towards the bed where Dyme lay, stunned at this revelation. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll even turn back into a fish.”

Dyme glared. “I’m not a fish, I’m a merman. ‘Got it memorized?’ And what do you mean I’ve lost my heart?”

A human with blue hair and pointed ears spoke up, his voice a low monotone. “Were you attacked by anything unnatural during your final moments in Atlantica?”

“Yeah…” Dyme struggled to remember. “There were weird jellyfish sort of things… and green frog-human things with spears… the ones who… killed Merydia… my fiancée….” He felt a horrible, aching emptiness inside him when he said her name.

“Heartless,” the blue haired man said, nodding. “And judging by the murder, a brutal attack. They killed your lover, and stole away your heart. However, as the Superior said, there is hope.”

“Kingdom Hearts!” boomed the silver haired man with the glowing eyes. “The place where all hearts are eventually returned to! Once we harness its power, our hearts will return to us, and we will finally be—“

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll finally be whole, complete beings instead of Nobodies, we all heard you the first time,” said the redhead impatiently. “You got a name, kid?”

“My name… is… Demyx.”