Drowning

One shot. Riku-centric. The dark is everywhere, and you can't breathe, and you are willing to do anything to stop it, but you are about to find out that some fates are worse than drowning.

A/N: Okay, so I've basically figured out that for every three chapters of hilarious or heartwarming material I churn out, I am suddenly afflicted with the insane need to write at least one chapter's worth of angst. It's scientific! So, after this, I should be good for another three chapters in my other fanfictions.

Biblical and apocryphal quotes are here because they rock the house.

EDIT: I just finished it, and I just have to say... I've never been this bleak before. I need to cut back on my emo music.

Disclaimer: Riku and any ridiculously un-smart situations he gets himself into are the property of Squeenix and Disney. The biblical/apocryphal quotes are not copyrighted, I'm pretty sure, but they still aren't mine. I'm just the mouthpiece for my muses' amusement.

You are running. You are running down a long dark corridor, your breath is coming in short gasps, and you feet are pounding the floor. But it isn't loud enough to drown out the angry recriminations you mind throws at you, because you have failed. Again. As if you already weren't pathetic enough, now you can add "second best" to your list of defining traits, and the fact burns you with mocking sharpness.

(forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us)

"Why?" you gasp, sparing some of your precious breath to articulate your own bitterness to yourself. "It was mine."

"Know this," comes a voice from father ahead. You pull up short, momentarily startled, and look around warily. At the end of the corridor stands a tall shadowy figure, surrounded by a dark aura so thick that it almost glows. The figure does not move to attack, but merely stands there. Yet you are immediately unnerved by its presence. Something inside you tells you this is wrong, something is not right, get out while you can, but you ignore it. You will not run, you tell yourself, because you are not afraid.

(and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil)

The figure seems to sense this, (you don't know how, but you can just tell) and continues, "A heart that is strong and true shall wield the Keyblade."

How does he know about the Keyblade? the suspicious part of you asks, but you ignore it because your already bruised pride has taken yet another blow. "What? You're saying my heart's weaker than his?" you demand angrily.

The figure is positively dripping blackness, but it isn't as if you don't deal with that every day anyway, so you remind yourself that you can take perfectly good care of yourself. Greasy black undertones coat its voice as it says, "For that instant, it was."

You bitterly sigh to yourself. Of course. Forget about saving Kairi, forget about being anything but a failure, and forget that losing is for people who aren't you, because you've lost now. "However," and you look up at this because the figure's voice has lowered to barely above a whisper, and you're ready to hear anything if it can mean that you aren't doomed to accepting failure in yourself, "you can become stronger.

(do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?)

"You showed no fear in stepping through the door to darkness. It held no terror for you," the figure says, and half of you feels vaguely complimented, and half is still on edge and neither is sure of what to say to this. You're still desperate, and you're still confused, and you still don't know what to do, so you stay in the dimly lit corridor, listening to the assurances of a figure cloaked in darkness whom you don't even know, are sure you've never met, and don't entirely trust. The figure's voice now does drop to a whisper, and you strain to catch the next few words, "Plunge deeper into the darkness, and your heart will grow even stronger."

(do you reject Satan?)

You shake your head, already tired of people telling you about how much stronger you could be using the power of darkness, because to be honest, you've seen time and again the fates of those who overused that power. There's a line between caution and fear, you've told yourself, but now you wonder if you've strayed over that line. Have you been holding back because of caution, or are you really, deep down afraid of the darkness? You know the answer, even if you won't admit it to yourself, and it makes you angry, because fear is weakness, and weakness is unacceptable.

"What should I do?" you ask, because you are not afraid. You are not weak.

(and all his works?)

"It's really quite simple," the figure purrs, its words sliding into your ears like thick black oil that could easily be ignited with the strike of a match. "Open yourself to the darkness. That is all. Let your heart, your being, become darkness itself..."

(and all his empty promises?)

You know where the darkness is. You have been soaked in it for so long that you know where it hides inside you—all the nesting places is has carved out for itself in your soul. You know it as intimately as a lover—you have flirted with the darkness, because you've seen what happens when it gets too close, so you've learned all of its tricks and secrets, and so this means that nothing could possibly go wrong if you go just a little farther than you've gone before.

A touch closer...

A little farther...

...There. But—

(do you reject Satan?)

—something is not right. You feel as if you've taken a wrong turn in a slightly familiar place—you know where you should be, but where you are is not where you've ever been before, and you know it. You know it in the core of your being that something has gone wrong.

—black cobwebs snatch at your face—

—black fingers wrap around your ankles—

—You pull yourself free, and for a second, you open your eyes, and look up—

(father of sin?)

The shadow is right on top of you—has been gliding forward the whole time, and for a moment you are reminded of images of the Reaper, come to claim the souls of the damned—and shock and startlement and, yes, fear shoot through you like bullets. You take a step backward—

—black chains constrict your ribs—

(prince of darkness?)

—to meet wall behind you, and the feeling of being trapped rises in your throat like bile.

Nowhere to go—

Something is wrong—

—but when you open your mouth—

—what is going on?—

—black slimy tentacles force their way down your throat, and you choke—

(and all his empty promises?)

—!oh, god, it's inside you!—

—sputtering gasping choking drowning thick blackness is everywhere and there isn't any air, and you need air—

—it's inside you and it has found where the darkness lurks inside you; it has followed you where you never had dared to go, but it will dare and you led it right to it—

(now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the lord my soul to take)

—it has opened the floodgates, and slick black darkness is everywhere, and you are suffocating and drowning and choking on it—

—you cannot breathe the darkness in, and a detached part of your mind is reminded of a time when you fell out of a boat into the ocean halfway to the mainland, but that was different because after the initial screaming panic, you floated up to the surface, gasping for air, and it was okay, even if you gave your friends a good scare, but here you are not floating back up, you are sinking and clawing at your throat and if you had air you'd be screaming, but you don't and you aren't—

—air, air, I need it, I need to breathe—!I can't breathe!—

—but it's still inside you somewhere, watching you asphyxiate and suffer and drown and die, and it speaks up—

—it knows how to breathe the darkness in, and it says I could breathe for you—

—and you still can't breathe and white spots are dancing in front of your eyes and if it wasn't so black and dark, you know that your vision would be dimming but you can't tell—

(and lead us not into temptation)

—and you know that you are dying—

—but it could breathe for you, if you let it—

—if you let it—

—anything—

—anything?—

—anything, please, anything, just please for the love of god, I'm dying, let me breathe!—

—well, if you insist—

—black oil drips into your lungs—

(but deliver us from evil)

—and seeps into your body—

—you don't need to breathe anymore, and the panic has gone, but in its place is a freezing biting numbness somewhere in your chest, and that isn't right—

—there, that wasn't so bad, was it?—

—what is happening? what have you done to me?—

—it's so easy, once I find a way in—

—black oil is still dripping into your lungs, in and out, and it is seeping into your veins, and your veins are rushing blackness into your arms and legs and fingers and everywhere the black goes, it goes, and the cold numbness is spreading, and with a jolt you realize that you don't need to breathe because you can't—

—it has taken over your lungs and it has taken over your heartbeat and it has taken over your eyes and ears and senses, and you can't do anything because it is being done for you—

(if I should die before I wake)

—it's so easy, once you let me in—

—and screaming blinding panic overcomes you, but no adrenaline is coursing through you to show this because it is there and it won't let it, and your breathing is smooth and fine and easy and not shaking and ragged and gasping like it should be because you want to scream until you bleed inside, but it is in control and not you, so the sheer animal terror has nowhere to go, and it stays where you are, wherever you are and shakes your consciousness like a rag doll, until you can't take it and you can't scream to let it out—

—and it is even hard to think through the panic because it is in your brain, too, where all the neurons and channels and signals are, and it finds you somewhere in there trying to scream but nothing is connected and everything is wrong and the horror has made it hard for you to hold on to rational thoughts—

—I'm in control now, and you are not anything anymore, so why worry?—

—and you can't form a reply because you are being slammed into the back of your skull and you are bleeding on the inside and nothing makes any sense, how can you hurt so much inside when you are so numb?—

(I pray the lord my soul to take)

—thought run down like streaks of wet paint behind your eyes, and bleed into each other, and they smear when you touch them, and everything is pain and cold and numbness and confusion and the what-where-how-when-whys are leaking into the couldn't-can't-stop-no-helps until you aren't sure what is going on, all you know is that the colors are mixing into one long trail of red-black-gray and the dark chokes and the light burns and why is it so cold?—

—and the black chains are tightening, and you are being dragged down to the abyss, and the last thought that you can hold on to is—

(deliver us)

—is—

(from evil)

—

..maybe drowning wasn't such a bad way to go after all.