Loosing Grip

DMQ: I thought it would be nice to try something with Kenny and Kai. So here is the first chapter of Absence of Fear.

I, Kai Hitwari, tossed and turned in my sleep as I dreamed the unthinkable....

I stand at the edge of a cliff that was created from the dark depths of my dark imagination.

Wait, I have an imagination? Since when?

Why am I here? Hold on... exactly where is here, anyway? Suddenly, the worn edge of the rocky cliff gives way and I'm falling into the darker pits of my mind as the swirling black abyss surrounds me. Not good. But then when does anything good ever happen to me? Memories echo off the closed spaces of my mind as I try to find a stronghold. A hand reaches out of the darkness and grabs me by my wrist; nails bite into my skin like claws as the person tries to hold onto me. I look up only to stare into large dark orbs of brilliant auburn. My radiant lifesaver is the very woman who had given birth to me not twenty years before: my mother, Anzu Sheila Hitwari.

"Ma...Mother!" I try to hold her, to hug her as I would have if I had been a child again.

"I'm here to warn you, Kai. Not all those around you are who they seem, my Little Prince. Be weary." Then she was gone. Gone like a feather on the wind after a bird dies. A simple fading memory of what used to exist for me.

I'm falling again only this time there are voices in my mind, creating memories of better times. Times when I had actual friends to fall back on in my moments of need and they had... me. A rushed feeling fills my head and I'm short on breath. A sudden icy tingling sensation racks my body and I realize that I'm in the middle of the ocean now. I won't give up. I am Kai Hitwari. I am a fighter. I am....my grandfather's 'Perfect Soldier'. I'm disgusted in what I have become and I can't deny it now, I don't know how I ever did. He's dead now, though. He no longer has a hold on me. But his memory does. It always will. Or will it?

Another rush of voices fills my head and it begins to ache. "Kai!" "Let's do this! Are you with us, Kai?" "But...but we're your friends." "Who's side ARE you on?" "Come back, Kai. We need you."

"It's so cold." My voice is strained because of the frigid waters. "Can't get warm. Tyson! Max! Kenny! Rei! Help me. Please... someone help me. Can't do it alone.... Need help... Someone..."

"We can't, Kai." Tyson appears on the water. "You won't let us." Slowly, he turns into Rei.

"The answers are all in here." He taps the heart area. "Look inside yourself and your pain will end."

"Everyone bleeds, Kai. You have to remember that you're not alone." Max fades leaving a smaller shadow behind. The shadow reaches out a hand and pulls me into a field of soft green grass. My eyes focus and I see very plainly the brain of the group- but he's not just that anymore. He's my...crush. - Kenny.

"We're here for you, Kai. We have always been here. We were just waiting for you to come to us."

My dreams are like this nowadays. They started three days ago when my grandfather died of heart failure. They have not ceased to stop their torture.

Dark-Mage-Quisits: How's this for a change of scenery?