Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hearts characters, locations, etc. belong to Square Enix and Disney.
I figured a lot of people are anxious to hear more about 3D, and in a moment of inspiration, I created this sort of version of what could be 3D (though it won't be). C: More on the inspiration later.
As for pairings, Sokai implied, but probably nothing else.
Dream Eater
"Stupid nightmares," Sora grumbled angrily, pouting the same as he had when he was five years old. He crossed his arms with a short huff and flopped down onto a messy pile of blankets, his bed hidden somewhere beneath them. He kicked the blankets back as he flung himself into a lying position with his head resting on his hands.
Nightmares had been plaguing him ever since he had returned home from saving the worlds for a second time. He dreaded sleep every night, staying up until his eyes refused to stay open and his eyelids fell down like clattering shutters. Of course he didn't tell anyone, especially not his friends- it wasn't right for him to worry them with pointless complaints, and he definitely did not want Riku teasing him about such a childish matter.
"Stupid sleep! Why do I even have to sleep? I've got the Keyblade, saved the worlds not once, but twice, defeated both Ansem and the Organization, but I still can't even defeat sleep!" He complained loudly to whoever would listen, and in this case, no one. He rolled over and buried his face into his pillow with a drawn out groan.
"It's not like Kairi and Riku have this problem..." he mumbled unintelligibly."Why me..."
Sleep pulled Sora in with the false promise of sweet dreams. He struggled against it, but it was a war even he knew he couldn't win. Giving in like he had to every night, Sora felt his eyes seal shut and was soon at the mercy of his dreams.
xxx
"Hey!" a voice whispered with sharp urgency. "Get up, you lazy bum!"
"Nngh..." Sora's first instinct was to tell Kairi to leave him alone, but he slowly came to the realization that the voice was in fact male.
"Sora, you've gotta get up," another voice spoke softly, sounding oddly identical to the first, only differentiated by the fact that the first didn't sound like it would be going back on the "lazy bum" comment anytime soon.
"Please, Sora," a third voice pleaded, so similar to Kairi's he vaguely thought it should have been the first he had heard.
"He's not going to get up; let's just haul him somewhere where it's safer," the first sighed despite the urgent air, and Sora felt hands pick him up from under his back and legs. Whoever had picked him up slung him over his back quickly. Sora bounced to the muted padding of tennis shoes and click of heeled boots. The air around him felt strange, wavering between being so heavy he could hardly breathe and so thin he felt lightheaded.
"W-where...? W-what is th-this- place!" Sora's voice bounced and jerked along with him as he was yanked through blurs of alleys and around jutting corners. Bleary eyes tried to adjust themselves to the dark.
"Now he wakes up!" The boy carrying him, though realistically almost dragging him, groaned. He glanced over his shoulder and his eyes- for a moment, Sora thought he was staring into a mirror as he saw them- widened. "Run now, explain later!"
"W-what are w-we r-running f-fr-from?" Sora struggled in the boy's grasp. "Y-you can p-put m-me-"
"Those!" Sora suddenly noticed two others flanking him, and the one to his right pointed behind them as they sprinted away.
Sora managed a brief look at whatever was trailing them. His first instinct cried out Heartless, but as his head was yanked back he registered that whatever the creatures were, they definitely weren't Heartless. The blurry glance he got depicted another, unfamiliar emblem emblazoned on their chests. There were plenty of hues of turquoise and violet flashing about, cold colors.
"N-not... H-Heartless...?" he wondered aloud to himself.
"Hold on tight!" Blue eyes flashed at Sora through the dense darkness. A few feminine battle cries were followed by blinding columns of light ripping through their enemies with searing force. Sora felt the air whoosh through his ears as he was vaulted forward and up past darkened houses and buildings.
He didn't need any daylight to discern the splashes of color that constructed the entire landscape. Perhaps buildings and houses, at least as he knew them, weren't the right terms- domes, spirals, towers, things he could only describe as things intertwined with one another like the hands of two in love, almost alive in their enthusiasm in reaching for the clear sky above. They seemed strewn about like toys from a child's toy box, yet there was almost a certain organization to them as if someone had gone through and carefully arranged the strange concoction with the same child's imagination. He could only pretend to imagine the place thrown into the light of day, if day even happened there.
The three streaked alongside walls, encased in the same bright light that had ripped through the hordes of enemies, flying by countless colors toned down by the shades of night. Sora, ready to take advantage of the apparent moment of relative calm, opened his mouth to release built up questions until they jerked to a halt.
"Whoa-" He was launched a few feet forward until he skidded to a stop at the edge of something, flat on his face. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back.
"Oops... Sorry, Sora." Sora sensed him offer a friendly hand, which he grasped gratefully.
"So-" He pushed himself up with the aid of the gloved hand. "Who exactly are you guys? And where in the worlds are we?"
He had an entire hour's worth of questions he could ask about the past few minutes, but he knew it was much more important to know at least who his rescuers- or maybe kidnappers; were they even "good"? - were.
"First, let's get inside at least. We're sitting ducks out in the open like this." The boy who had offered him his hand and carried him from who knows where to another who knows where glided past Sora. Sora strained his weary mind to connect the dots and figure out which of the three had been doing what during the entire escapade. Shaking his head, he followed them around a corner, the empty sense of a long drop to the ground below hanging in the air at his left. He ducked through a low archway, the bouncing tips of his dark locks brushing the cool stone above.
It was pitch black in what felt like a fairly small den until a low white light flickered on in its center, revealing the three figures settling onto the floor. Despite two being hooded, Sora could still see their eyes and was overwhelmed by all the pairs matching his own. Blinking a few times, he gasped.
"Roxas?" He gaped at the boy clad in what was a mixture of Roxas's clothes and foreign armor. The boy grinned softly but shook his head.
"I'm Ventus. Ven, for short." His voice sounded worn down, as if it was once cheery a long, long time ago. Ven, Ven, Ven... That name was oddly familiar... "That's Roxas."
He pointed to the black coat wearing figure beside him who was now shoving back the hood of his cloak. Blond spikes rose from beneath it.
"Hey, Sora." Roxas nodded curtly before motioning to their other companion, who had also pushed away the hood to reveal ebony tresses. "This is Xion."
"You..." Not only was the familiar, but she looked familiar as well. A pang of guilt wracked his stomach.
"Look a lot like Kairi?" She smiled sadly, looking down a little at the light she cupped between her hands. "I get that a lot."
"No, I was going to say- well- I don't know what I was going to say, actually." He rubbed the back of his head and laughed lightly in embarrassment. "Not that you looked like Kairi, though. But now that you mention it... you do."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Roxas avert his eyes elsewhere.
"Wait, you know Kairi?" Sora blurted out, soon realizing after his outburst that he was a bit on the loud side. Roxas snapped his gaze back to shoot him a death glare, and Sora immediately bit his lip to remind himself to keep quiet.
"So you know Kairi?" he whispered, cautiously hushed this time. He lowered himself down into their small ring.
"No, but I know who she is. She's also 'very special' to you, right?"
Sora blushed profusely, looking like he was going to retort, but the look caved in to admittance. "Yeah, she is..."
"I didn't mean to embarrass you, Sora- though you really haven't got anything to be embarrassed about," she teased and somewhat scolded. "It's just what Riku said. I can still tell, though."
"You know Riku t-"
"I'm sorry Sora, but we can talk about this later, if there even is a later," Roxas interrupted urgently.
"He's right." Ven finally spoke up. "We haven't got much time."
"Time for what, exactly?" Sora's head swiveled towards him, all traces of the previous conversation replaced by his full attention to the unknown problem at hand.
"It's Vanitas, and the data inside you. Not to mention all these Dream Eaters. "
"Could someone explain some of this to me?" Sora pleaded exasperatedly. They exchanged glances briefly before launching into an explanation.
"Vanitas is my darkness." Ven closed his eyes in shame, forcing himself to relive the past. "Pure darkness. He and I were separated years ago. I thought I defeated him, but now he's locked in here, inside you. Just like the rest of us."
"'Locked in here?'"
"We're inside you, Sora. It's the part of your heart that's submerged in sleep, like a dream world, where the three of us reside, since we're all parts of you, in one way or another," Ven calmly explained. "But technically, there're four of us. That's where Vanitas comes in."
"He's trying to corrupt the data so he can get out while we stay, trapped." Xion spoke softly, still watching the wavering light with a far off gaze.
"Wait, data?" Sora was tiring of asking questions, but he rubbed his temples and continued on.
"While you slept, DiZ-" Roxas stopped abruptly with the hint of a frown. "Ansem," he corrected himself, "placed all his research and discoveries on restoring those lost, like the Nobodies and Ven's friends and us, inside you. But ever since Vanitas discovered the data, he's thrown this world into chaos with the Dream Eaters."
"So this Vanitas guy-" The name caused Sora to clench his fingers in inexplicable anger. "He has control over those things called Dream Eaters. And I'm guessing they're the ones causing my nightmares."
"You're probably right. We don't know what happens outside this place, much." Xion began to sigh before interrupting herself abruptly, shaking away the sigh, the light in her hands swaying dangerously with her sudden movement. "Sora, there really isn't much time. We brought you here as a last resort to help us, if you're willing."
"Of course I am! I can't just ignore friends in need." A smile graced his lips. She smiled back gently in thanks before returning to a serious expression.
"That means we've only got one day to-"
A black and blue blur flew into the room, flanked by smaller ones as they ambushed the four. Roxas and Ven reacted quickly and snapped out their Keyblades, while Sora stayed stunned for a moment until the Keyblade naturally came to his hand. Xion was about to pull out hers when a few relatively small Dream Eaters pinned her arms to the cold floor. The leader of the pack snagged her ankles and dragged her screaming and struggling in vain towards the gaping archway.
"No-" Roxas cut through a swarm of Dream Eaters with his dual blades in anguish. A swarm combined their efforts to launch themselves into his stomach so hard blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He was slammed back into a wall, forced to watch her in agony. "Xion!"
"Roxas!" she screamed as she was dragged away helplessly, ebony hair trailing on the floor.
So, about the inspiration. The Door to Dreams (though it seems to be translated as The Door of Dreams, which doesn't sound as good in my opinion and since I'm on my third year of Japanese, I believe it can also be translated as The Door to Dreams) is the theme song from a Japanese kid's movie called Catnapped!. When I was little, I liked Sailor Moon and saw the preview for this movie on a Sailor Moon VHS tape, but I never got to watch it. :C So recently I randomly remembered and after much searching found it, after what's probably ten years. :'D The song and movie are cute, even if a little weird for some people's tastes, but for me it's a bit nostalgic since I wanted to watch it so badly when I was little. The preview and song make it sound like the movie is all about two kids who get sucked into another world as they sleep, which isn't entirely true, but I liked the idea and decided to use it here.
With the recent info on Dream Eaters and the like, I felt like it was just perfect to write something up about dreams and what's gonna happen in 3D. We've gotta hold off just a little longer... ;3;
Cliffhanger yay. c; Your support and reviews are luff.
p.s. If you look up the song, Yume he no tobira, be warned- it WILL get stuck in your head.