"Roxas!"

The pained voice sounded slightly muffled, far away, like it was behind a panel of glass - or underwater, he couldn't tell. He felt like he was floating; he couldn't feel a thing, couldn't open his eyes, couldn't move a limb, nothing, but strangely.. he didn't care. A part of him felt like he should care. He tried to speak, but he couldn't make the words come out of his throat, all he could do was lay there, still, completely confused. The boy expected to hurt, but he could barely feel anything. It felt odd.

Is this what dying felt like?

He felt the sensation of being abruptly lifted upwards, a hand on his neck, frantically trying to find a pulse. Crying, lots of crying. Everything was cold, unbearably cold, but still no pain. He could hear people mumbling, then a pressure on his hand, somebody gripping it, like it was a life or death situation. He wanted to open his eyes and see what was going on, but they were frozen shut despite his struggling.

"Please be okay, please..."

The voice sounded so heartbroken. It pained and confused him as to why.

"You can't leave me..."

He blacked out, could feel himself slipping away, the person gripping his hand began to disappear, the voices fading into silence.

When he regained some sense, everything hurt. He was trapped in agony. Roxas could feel the pain everywhere, like a fire burning his insides, like a thousand bones being broken over and over again. His stomach felt like at any moment it would explode from the pain - he shouldn't be alive from the amount of pills he'd taken, but that was the whole point. He wasn't meant to feel this pain. The last thing he should've known was lying in that bathtub.

Roxas tried to speak, but tubes blocked his nose, his mouth... He could feel needles being prodded into his arms, liquid being forced into his veins.

Dying hurt.

You don't really think about the pain when you do it. Yes, the physical pain is short and sweet but... He wasn't thinking of the pain when he took those pills. All he was thinking was 'this will be over soon.' Pain to end the pain. Ironic, right?

Roxas wasn't thinking about anybody else but himself. Suicide is selfish. That's the painful truth. One which, when a suicidal person carries out their actions, doesn't think about. He didn't think about. The reality is, life fucking sucks and you hurt people whatever you do. He didn't care when he took those pills. He didn't think of who would be hurt. He just wanted to end it.

How do you stop yourself from hurting without hurting other people?

You can't. There's no miracle cure to whatever a person is dealing with, and that's life.

"I think it's safe to disconnect the tubes now. His lungs seem to be functioning on their own now; keep a close eye on him."
"His signs are stable."

"I'm sorry to say that he's slipped into a coma, Ms. Strife. I don't know how long this will last. This was a serious attempt- he's lucky to be alive."
"Is he?..."
"I can't say for sure... I'll give you a few moments with him."

"I finally got Mom to admit she needed help. I know that doesn't excuse what she did, but... it's a step towards her trying to be better, right? I'm staying at Riku's most of the time now... For comfort, y'know? I told him everything; he's angry. I wish you'd wake up. You've always been the one that keeps me safe."

"R-Rox, the doctors said you might be able to hear me. I thought I'd give it a shot... God, how do I put this... Hayner... Hayner found out what happened to you. He went crazy. Mom's dead. I couldn't get away to visit you until now; I'm so sorry. I feel horrible that I'm kind of relieved that she can't hurt us anymore. How did this all spiral out of control like this... Cloud Strife, you know, our uncle? Well, him and his wife, Tifa, have taken guardianship of us. They're really nice. I hope you get to meet them... I miss you. I'm sorry I haven't been able to visit you in a while."

"I haven't seen Hayner in over a month. The police are searching for him...I hope he's okay. I know you two weren't really seeing eye to eye before your... attempt, but he loved you. Loves you. I just feel so bad for him, you know? He'll have to run for the rest of his life or go to jail. All because of our fucking Mom...
I...I bought you some flowers, and hung up some things Namine drew. I'd rather you woke up to something nice than a dreary old hospital room."

"Hey, Roxas. I'm... Tifa. I know you probably don't remember me much, since your Mom moved so far away... I wish I would've known honestly. Maybe all of this would never have happened..."
"Tifa..."
"Cloud, look at him. He might never wake up. And it's all because nobody realized. Nobody helped. It took something like this for anybody to notice. And his own fucking boyfriend shot her before we could get any answers... We had to find out from the fucking psychiatrist what really happened behind closed doors instead."
"I know. I feel sorry for the kid too. My own sister... I still can't believe it."

"So they say you can hear everything in there, right?"

Well, Roxas didn't recognize that voice. It sounded husky and deep, with a sly undertone. He wanted more than anything to retort with a sarcastic comment, but he was confined to sit in silence. Great.

He was starting to regain a little sense, at least; voices weren't swimming in and out of consciousness anymore, and he could form a coherent thought without it making his head hurt. It was starting to get boring with only himself for company. Sure, he had Sora visiting him, but he could only stay for so long.

Now here, in any perfect, movie-person's life, would be where they sprout bullshit like 'I had a lot of time to think' 'whatever i'm going through isn't worth dying for' 'i'm great and happy and full of glee!1!1'

Roxas wanted nothing more than to get out of the stupid coma to mellow by himself. He couldn't keep his mind from thoughts that weren't exactly happy; nothing to distract himself with apart from sleep, and there was only so much of that he could do.

"Not that you can reply to me or anything... I thought you might like some company, y'know? Since I'm such a charitable person and all."

He tried to picture the voice in his mind; a complete stranger was deciding to talk to some kid in a coma. Either he was very bored or Roxas was being hit on by a old pedophile... with his luck, it would be the latter.

"Hey..." the male started, and paused, before continuing, "...Roxas. Bet you don't know why the sun sets red. You see, light is made up of lots of colors. And out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest. Got it memorized?"

'Like I asked... Know it all.'

"The name's Axel... Got it memorized?"

Axel was surprisingly good company; Roxas could never ask why he kept coming to visit him, but he was glad he did. And Axel did visit him quite a lot. Although he really wondered why.. In this state, he was probably the most boring company somebody could get.

He wasn't much better awake, either.

It was a fresh pace from his brother and the odd visit from Tifa and Cloud. He was never awake when anybody else visited; Sora explained they were too grief stricken and probably couldn't handle visiting all the time. Riku would come along with Sora a lot of the time, probably to comfort him.

Even though the conversations were completely one sided, he found himself anxiously counting the ticks on the clock, waiting for Axel to come back with his insane theories and stories. Even if it was him reading the newspaper or spluttering a completely made up tall tale, he made everything seem interesting.

"They say you can tell a lot about a person by their hands..." Axel was currently running his finger over the palm of Roxas' hand, drawing patterns and tracing outlines. It was the most contact he'd had since he got into this coma, and he wanted to cling onto it. Let him know he didn't want Axel to go. "Though I have no clue how to tell." he chuckled, moving along to Roxas' inner arm.

"You have a lot of battle scars, kid... I hope one day I can help heal them all."

Roxas felt him moving his arm back onto the bed and he desperately didn't want him to go; Axel had only just taken his hand away yet he already missed and craved the contact.

"I made a bet with myself that you have beautiful eyes." He heard a deep sigh. "Wake up already so I can prove I'm right."

After a while, voices started to go hazy again. Roxas slept a lot more; a lot of the time when Axel and Sora visited him he'd drift away from their conversations. He was dreaming more vividly than ever before, which led him to begin to love it, despising the times he was awake. When Roxas dreamt, everything was vivid, full of color and life. He dreamt of Axel a lot. He was always a blur though, but his voice was certain. It heavily frustrated him that he couldn't put a face to the voice.

He dreamt of grass underneath his feet, cool air against his face, fresh water against his skin. Everything was bright, impossibly bright. Roxas was alone, but he relished in it. Nobody could harm him in his paradise. Nobody could touch him. He could be alone, to be completely and utterly tranquil. The blonde craved feeling the pleasant sun's rays against his face. He could drift in a endless sea of clear blue water with no worry of drowning; the water flowed over him, enveloping him, healing him, pulling together broken pieces like glue. Nothing bothered him in his dream world. He began to forget things, though he knew he'd be better off forgetting them. He was happy, memories or no memories. Completely content with his own company.

Sadly, his paradise never lasted long. He always woke up, the memories always there.

Roxas began losing his will to get out of the coma. Not that he wanted to be in it forever, he just didn't want to wake up again, being trapped was becoming exhausting. He felt like the world was moving around him, people living and breathing and loving and doing everything a person should, He was stuck, forever being forced to listen to the lives of everyone around him, progressing while he lay still, hating himself more and more. Axel was right, he had his battle scars, but not all of them were visible and they'd probably never heal; he was stupid for thinking such a thing. It made Roxas angry. Axel thought he could fix him. Everyone wanted to fix him. Everyone apart from Mom. At least she saw he wasn't worth it; that's why she used him as her own personal punching bag.

Roxas didn't know how long he'd slept, but he woke up tired, everything feeling hazy, annoyed at the source that had woken him; the annoyance fell when he heard who the noise was coming from, however. He could hear Sora softy sobbing somewhere in the room.

He barely heard Riku come into the room and mutter something before the smell of some greasy food hit his nostrils, and for the first time in a long time he craved food. His stomach growled in response, causing the silver haired teen let out a low chuckle. He halted in the middle, probably noticing his brother.

"Sora? Are you okay?" Riku sounded concerned, obviously being the one that had just bought the food in. Fucking Riku.

Sniffles. "The d-doctor.."

"What did he say?"

"...His levels are dropping. This brain activity is low. He's getting worse, Riku."

Silence. Roxas could hear the pain in Sora's voice. He sounded rough, like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"I don't know what to do."

Axel was tracing outlines on the other boy's hand and arm-it became a routine, something Roxas took great comfort in- and talking about random things, to which he listened intently; not like there was much more he could do, but he enjoyed it regardless.

"Once I really liked this guy and I had a dream-no, before you magically come out of your stupid coma and give me that look- it was a perfectly innocent dream, alright... anyway, in this dream he liked me back, so the next day I went up to him behind the bike sheds in school and kissed him. But, it turned out he didn't like me... Although I cant see why not. I'm hot, charismatic and just overall amazing, great, sexy; what more could you wish for?! You could probably guess what happened next - and don't play dumb, we all know you have a couple of brain cells left in there - he freaked out and we haven't spoken since."

Roxas then smiled- he could feel his mouth twitching, some alien movement that he wasn't fully controlling, but nevertheless he smiled- and could sense that a wider one was mirrored in the body next to his.

The blonde opened his eyes and everything was dark. He couldn't see- his eyes felt like they had weights pulling them down. He had no idea where he was, feeling groggy and everything was hazy. He wanted to go back to sleep.

Roxas tried to sit up, but in doing so he'd done something to make loud noises go off... His head hurt. Seconds later a familiar face pretty much burst through the closed door on the other side of the room, only to stop in his tracks after noticing the figure was awake and sitting up. A doctor stopped in the doorway seconds after Sora, eyeing him with a weird look. He'd always hated doctors.

"R-Rox?" Sora just stared at him, not daring to move a muscle. Roxas attempted to reply but all that came out was a hoarse gasp, making him cough - which sounded more like he was choking and wheezing than anything else. His head felt so heavy... He couldn't piece together why he was here. The fog in his head wouldn't dissipate, making his head hurt even more as he tried to remember.

"Oh my god-you're awake. You're awake!"

Roxas just looked up at him with wide eyes instead of trying to reply, barely seeing him through the darkness. As if the doctor could read his mind, the room filled with light and he groaned at the intensity, laying his head back down on the pillow. Sora pulled up a chair and sat next to him and Roxas could see, now he was closer, how much of a wreck he looked; his hair was tied into a messy ponytail, spikes randomly poking out everywhere. Big circles hung under his eyes and the eyes themselves were red rimmed. His eyes were dull and looked broken-completely the opposite of how the blonde remembered them. It pained him.

"Roxas... You're in the hospital. You... You fell into a coma. You were bought into hospital after your a-attempt... Eighteen months ago. You've been in a coma... for the past year and a half."