1. Birth

He was brought into existence with no prior warning, reactions slow and stilted as he regarded the world around him with a numb, almost morbid fascination. Colors were so vibrant. What should easily be disregarded as dust, soil, rock; browns mixed into creams with subtle tones of orange, making his eyes sting from light exposure as he blinked slowly.

On his own, he sifted through motions. The steady expansion and compression of his chest as he breathed; in, out. Flexing his fingers, then curling them into a fist. Tensing his shoulders before allowing them to relax. So this was it. This was... living. A living... being.

He wasn't so sure that he liked it.

Cognitive processes aside, he also had to face what he was feeling. They were ugly. Despite the varying words that could be used to adequately describe them; depression, anxiety, self doubt, fear. Just ugly. He threw them all into one word, then he threw that word away.

Ugly scurried out of his shadow, malignant and twitchy. He simply eyed it dispassionately panic and wondered if he could wish it away.

As it turned out, he could. But there was so much ugly and so little him it all overflowed into more twitchy, ugly things that eventually he allowed himself to turn his head away in disgust.

Apparently, that was ugly too.

He felt the Master's arrival before he saw it; he'd left abruptly and now he was back again? A wrinkled old husk of a figure; Master used ugly skills for an ugly method of passage-- he brought IT with him.

He definitely didn't like it. It stood there with blank, lifeless eyes that were trained in his direction but didn't see him. The word ugly was discarded in his mind.

Hate, his mind supplied instead, stomach clenching and chest sickly warm with deep, black, writhing flames. Rage.

"What do you make of Ventus?" It was surely a taunt. The words were barbed under an even, pleasant tone; strength he wouldn't have given any credence to was hidden in Master's frail arms as he held him off from breaking it completely.

So Master took it away; he didn't care. he had hate and rage to toss away in spades, to wish a lack of existence on. To watch melt into puddles of black goo from twitching, ugly forms that always, always came back to him.

"I hate him." His voice cracked for a variety of reasons. Lack of use. A high amount of turbulent emotions. Lack of concentration. "I hate him."

He was... it was the reason they'd ended up like this, after all. It had failed.

He hated all of it.