Kingdom Hearts
Authors note: This story really doesn't have anything to do with the video game. Although, that is where the idea for the story came from. I wrote the first chapter while at work one day and originally posted it on here then. I reread it today and decided to revamp it. Hope you enjoy and please review.
Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters.
Her house was like any other. Normal. She had a normal multi colored brick house with a normal, average, American family. Her home town was the average American town with neighbors of all ages. Old Missus Jensen was her next door neighbor. She'd been friends with her grandmother for years. She'd spent countless numbers of summer days on Old Missus Jensen's porch sipping lemonade and listening to stories from Missus Jensen was in her prime.
Her house was average for a middle income family like hers. It was brick with a covered porch, brown windows and shrubbery around the steps leading to the porch. Her mother tried to keep the landscaping tasteful by adding a vast array of colorful flowers. The lawn was patched with brown spots from a dry summer. It hadn't rained in weeks.
Nicolette was 18 years old. In fact, today was her 18th birthday. She was seated at the end of a drab and worn out light oak table with her family surrounding her. Her grandmother had baked her cake which was two tiered with lots of sloppy yellow icing and messy blue flowers. On top was shakily scrawled, "Happy Birthday, Nicki".
Being a loner, Nicolette really didn't have many friends. Her best friend was Olivia Maxwell. They had been friends since kindergarten but last year Olivia's father, Norman, had gotten a corporate job in Austin, Texas. It was quite a far distance from Fenelton, Pennsylvania.
Olivia had come to stay with her grandmother for the weekend so she would be able to celebrate Nicolette's birthday. It had been a long flight, almost eight hours, but it had been worth it to see the surprise on her friends face.
Later that evening after the cake had been served and the dishes had been washed Nicolette, Olivia and her other best, well maybe not quite best, friend Alexandria McCandless were laying in Nicolette's bedroom watching her favorite horror flick Scream.
Nicolette's bedroom was your typical average American teenagers bedroom. There were posters of her favorite celebrities including Hanson and the cast of Supernatural hanging on her bedroom wall. She had pictures of her and Olivia from almost every grade hanging in frames in various points throughout the room. She had a queen sized four poster canopy bed with a golden brocade comforted and light blue sheets. Gold lace curtains hung from each of the four posters.
"This movie is so lame," Alexandria exclaimed tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulders and resuming the endless filing of her perfectly manicured nails. Nicolette had met Alexandria in elementary school. The three girls had been friends since. However, Nicolette and Olivia were much closer. As they'd grown older Alexandria had moved into a newer and more popular circle of friends.
The girls had already eat three slices of pizza each and finished off most of the cake. The empty pizza box lay crumpled at their feet. Nicolette was scraping off the left over icing on her plate with her finger. Her grandmother was a great baker.
"It's Nicki's birthday, Lexi, if she wants to watch Scream then we'll watch it," Olivia said giving Nicolette a wink then resuming the painting of her toenails.
"Fine, whatever, I'm just saying this movie is lame. It's so predictable. Every time the phone rings one of the students die," Lexi said arrogantly, her valley girl accent thick.
Nicolette glared at Alexandria annoyed. She stood to put her dirty plate in the sink, since her bedroom was on the main level of the house, when the phone rang. She grabbed the cordless mumbling to herself about the impoliteness of others and walked into the kitchen.
"Hello?"
There was no sound but she could hear a faint buzzing almost like breathing.
"Hello?" she asked again more forcefully agitated thinking it was probably a salesperson or a computerized call.
Still nothing.
"Helllloooo?" she said sarcastically giving the caller one final chance before hanging up the phone. She took the phone from her ear to push end when she heard a voice on the other end of the line. It was muffled.
"Excuse me?"
The voice sounded male. It was scruffy and deep. Their tone sounded irritated and scared.
"You don't have much time. Your brother has been taken. If you don't recover him in three days everything you know and love is going to change."
The line went dead. Nicolette felt a cold sweat break out across her back. It was the single most chilling phone call she'd ever received.
"Hello, hello? What do you mean?" Nicolette laughed nervously thinking it must have been some practical joke as a million scary movie plots ran through her head. She set the phone down uneasily on the blue marble counter beside her. Her hand shook slightly. It was just a joke right? Jack was upstairs playing in his room.
Suddenly, the floor above her shook. It shook hard enough for the fluorescent light fixture to sway. Nicolette yelped in alarm and hurtled up the stairs alerting the other girls. Olivia jumped to her feet at her friends distress. She wasn't sure what the phone call had been about.
"Nicki, what's wrong?" Olivia yelled after her friend. She glanced at Lexi who shrugged before jumping to her feet and bounding up the stairs after Nicolette."Nicki!"
Nicolette's heart was pounding in her ears. She was absolutely terrified. Her parents had gone to the movies so she and her friends could have a slumber party. They had left her little brother, Jackson, in her care. He was only five years old. He'd been in bed for a few hours and she hadn't even bothered to check on him. As she ran towards her brothers bedroom she silently made a promise that if he was alright she'd never be mean to him again.
Jackson's bedroom was at the end of the hall next to her parents room. He had insisted on having his own room when had turned five earlier that year insisting that big boys slept alone.
It seemed like hours before she finally reached his bedroom door. His name was spelled out in blue and green letters on the door with a picture of a spaceship blasting off underneath it. She burst through the door causing it to smash against the wall. She paused for a fraction of a second hoping to hear her brother cry out in surprise.
The room was empty. His bed vacant. The blue comforter with little spaceships on it was heaped in the middle of the bed. The lights were still off casting dark shadows around the room making his toys seem threatening and dangerous.
Her blood ran cold and her heart sunk into her stomach. He wasn't there. She felt a cold breeze blow her hair and turned slowly to see the window was open; the blue silk curtains swaying in the chilly air.
"Jack?" she called out timidly hoping maybe he was playing a game.
"He isn't here," she heard a deep voice say from behind her.
She spun around quickly losing her balance. She tumbled swiftly to the ground landing on her butt. She looked at the man embarrassed.
"Who are you and where is my brother?" she asked trying to sound confident but it was hard to do so when she'd just tumbled ungracefully to the floor.
The man had shoulder length, wavy, blonde hair which framed his perfect oval face and piercing, iridescent blue eyes. The light from the street cast an eerie glow right over his eyes making them stand out in the darkness of the room. He was wearing an expensive black leather jacket with a dark gray ruffled shirt underneath. The gray ruffled shirt had a tie at the neck which he'd neglected to knot together exposing a square inch of his creamy white skin. His jeans were cuffed at the bottom exposing the laces of his black boots. His entire outfit looked like a cross between bad ass biker and 18th century debutant.
He was amazingly handsome but he had an arrogant air about himself. His posture, his demeanor. His looked down his nose at her slightly amused by her clumsiness, an arrogant smirk playing on his lips before his mood changed and his face became grim.
"Your brother has been taken; by who I cannot tell you. I will tell you this, however, you have only 72 hours to find him or this world will be destroyed," he told her bored, sighing and started picking at his hands. He had a slight accent that she couldn't place. His words seemed over pronounced with a slight accent on the vowels.
"What? How do you not know what has happened to him?" she asked astounded trying her best to sound brave and not betray the fact that she was scared out of her mind.
Olivia and Alexandria burst through the door. They both ran to help Nicolette up off the floor. Lexi noticed the man reclining casually against the door frame and yelped. He looked at them both intensely his icy blue eyes boring into theirs. They way he looked at Lexi terrified them. He didn't look at her as a man would look at a woman but as a wolf would look at fresh meat. She swore she saw him lick his lips. He smirked turning his attention back to Nicki.
"I can only point you in the right direction," at this he waved his long fingered hand and a door appeared on the wall.
The three girls gasped in surprise. They stared at the mysterious door in wonder. It was gold in color with symbols carved into the wood. The blonde haired man grinned and pulled himself a little straighter clearly proud of his accomplishment. He reached into his pocket and the three girls tensed. His smiled became even larger, even more dangerous.
He pulled out a small, worn, leather covered satchel. He peered into the small bag briefly and then handed it casually to Nicolette. His became passive and unreadable, his cheeks taught with unspoken tension, brows knit together in unnamed concentration.
"Inside this satchel is what you need to move between the worlds," he replied monotone as if he were reading a text book.
"What worlds?" Olivia interrupted hastily eyeing the man suspiciously.
He shifted his intense stare to her. She shift uneasily from her spot across the room unable to shake her discomfort from his intense stare. He kept staring at her unmoving, statuesque. Around her time seemed to still, she felt like she was physically being drained away. The room seem to grow darker the only light, the only salvation was his so blue eyes which had taken on an eerie glow. She felt the air in the room grow dense, she fought to breath, her lungs burned threatening to collapse.
Suddenly, as if turned by a switch, he looked away, a slight smirk on his handsome features. Olivia felt as if the world around her hand sprung back to life. She took a deep breath filling her lungs with much needed air. She looked away from the man frightened. She looked towards her friends for support but they seem to be blissfully unaware of the past few moments. Her shoulder sagged in defeat as she realized she had imagined the whole atmospheric change. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the unnamed man grin maliciously. The grin seemed to be only for Olivia. The other girls didn't seem to acknowledge it. Olivia was well and truly frightened of the man. She would never speak out against him again.
"To activate the contents of this bag; you simply hold them in your hand and say, 'Protego'!" the man said casually never looking at anyone except Nicolette. He shifted his weight against the door frame seeming to grow tired with each passing second.
Alexandria scoffed taking a step towards the man throwing whipping her long blonde hair in annoyance, "you can't possibly be serious! Who are you? If you don't stop this calling the police!"
The man's face darkened like a cloud before a gathering storm. The veins around his eyes began to protrude through his porcelain skin. His iris became larger and the whites of his eyes became red. His golden blonde hair took on an otherworldly glow whipping around his face by an unseen invisible wind. He snarled revealing two very sharp fangs. The girls screamed.
"I don't have time for this insolence and neither do you, Nicolette," he growled out his accent thicker and more pronounced.
The man straightened himself, turning his head to both sides and was apparently trying to calm himself. He straightened his leather jacket and his eyes returned to normal. He let out an irritated breath, closing his eyes briefly. The girls were huddled together hugging each other in fright. Nicolette was standing in the center with the satchel clutched to her chest. They looked absolutely terrified. The man rolled his eyes.
"Okay, girls, I don't make the rules here. I am just the messenger. You need to listen to me very closely, Nicolette. You need to leave now. There will be a guide waiting for you," he grabbed her hand roughly pulling her towards the door. His boots scraped along the wooden floor. She didn't know boots could make such a profound sound.
"Years of practice, young one," he said arrogantly.
She gasped trying to pull her hand from his. How did he know what she was thinking? He squeezed her hands into an iron grip. She thought her fingers might break. She made a little sound of pain and he eased up. His hands were ice cold. She looked into his eyes and suddenly felt calm. His eyes were beautiful and she felt as if she could see right into his soul. A few pieces of his hair had fallen into his eyes and moved as his eyes blinked. He looked back quickly towards the door then back at their joined hands.
He muttered almost silently, "Protego!"
Nicolette strained to hear the phrase. When she looked up again he was standing across the room by the window, a look of suffering on his delicately masculine features. She was startled. He had moved so fast.
"Good luck," he muttered bitterly before disappearing.
The girls looked around bewildered. They stood silent for a moment taking in everything that had just happened in the last few minutes. Barely ten minutes had passed since the phone call.
"Where did he go?" Lexi asked looking around the room. She check the closet and peered down the hallway. Satisfied that he'd truly gone she went back to her friends. Olivia was standing in the middle of the room clearly shaken. Nicolette was tucking the satchel into her pocket and going to examine the door. The door was free standing in the middle of the room. They could see both sides of it.
The door that had appeared moments ago was now glowing a strange green color. The girls just turned and stared at it. Each desperately wanted to know what was through this door but all too afraid to take the first step.
"I think we should listen to whatever his name was and go through the door," Nicki said inching closer deciding to be brave for her brother.
"No way!" Lexi stated winning glares from the other two girls. "Come on, we don't know who that guys was, although he was devastatingly gorgeous. There is no way I'm going through that door." She finished as she crossed her arms over her chest, pouting.
"My brother is gone, Lexi! Who knows what or who took him. All I know is the only lead I have is that guy and this door. I'm going through it," she shouted as tears welled in her eyes.
"I'll go with you, Nicki," Olivia said stepping towards her best friend and giving her a hug. She was scared to death of that man who'd just been here but Nicolette had been her friend since kindergarten. She'd watched Jack grow up these past five years. She loved him like a little brother.
Lexi scoffed knowing she was outnumbered, "Well, I'm not staying here all by myself!"
"Thanks, Lexi," Nicolette said sarcastically glancing around the room one more time. She hoped she got to Jack before anything happened to him. Who knew where he was right now?
She walked towards the door boldly and opened it slowly.
She was stunned by what she saw on the other side.