A Little Later On
by Lady Eldaelen
He fell forward and hit the stairs, nose colliding with a corner. It might have been painful if his midsection hadn't already demanded his nerves' full attention. Limbs numb, breathing labored, he allowed his eyes to close.
Around him the world fell apart.
First there was darkness.
Pain. Numbness and deadened senses. Fear. An endless fall. Hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to be. The feeling of water, of enveloping warmth. Rising into an abyss. Rushing onward. Falling up.
Before he knew her, she called him back from the edge.
Her voice was so sweet, so achingly light and unaffected. Familiar.
First there was darkness. And then there was humming.
"Oh! He's waking up!"
He blinked carefully, cracking one lid open just enough to make out a blurry face hovering not far above his own. He had no recollection of his past then, not yet. But the heart-faced pixie with hair the color of aged merlot filled a void his broken mind was already trying to reconcile.
"Don't worry, mister, you're safe here."
Beyond the girl, another ghost from another life. Another not-quite-reminder from another part of himself that he didn't know was missing. It remained rooted by the open door, peering out often but sneaking curious glances at him.
"It's starting again," the ghost warned, brushing a heavy curtain of silver away from his eyes as the ambient light dimmed and threw shadows across the room.
"Do you see him yet?"
"No, but he'll be fine. We'll all be fine. We've been through worse."
A lost brother. A fallen friend. A family he never asked for. The world he'd stumbled upon had no place for him.
They introduced themselves as Kairi and Riku and Sora. Their home was Destiny Island. One week ago, the sky started falling. One week ago, they found him.
"Must have been quite a place you were from," Riku murmured the first day he could walk to the door and join him. Together they looked out at the beach as debris rained down across the sand. Some pieces bounced on impact, some dug into the ground and released small puffs of grit in their wake. Some floated featherlight and continued to drift even after they finally touched down. All left a shimmering trail as they cut through the air and glinted like jewels when the sun forced its rays through the heavy cloud cover.
Between the falling bits of sky or planet or asteroid or moon or whatever they claimed it to be darted a lanky figure. Sora, the third, the one who had mostly kept to himself and out of sight. His arms were full of what he had gathered along the beach and waded into the surf to collect. He ran towards them and dropped the whole lot just outside the door. His eyes crinkled shut as he broke into a wide grin, "That's the last of it. We should have enough to get to Traverse Town at the least."
"Do you think this is what the king meant in his letter?" Kairi asked, completing the circle as she joined them.
"I don't know. Maybe. There's only one way we're going to find out."
Riku plucked a bright green cube from the top of the pile of accumulated oddities and tossed it between his palms as he turned towards him. "It'll make things easier now, you waking up. We don't have to worry about leaving you behind or if you'd even fit in the ship."
"What makes you think I'm going anywhere? I'm not entirely convinced I'm not dead."
"Oh, you're alive, all right." Kairi assured him with a smile. "And you'll go because you know you don't belong here."
"You need to find your own path home. But even if you wanted to, we won't let you stay here," Riku added.
"Why is that?"
"Because when we found you," Sora piped up, speaking directly to him for the first time, "you had this in your hand."
He nodded to Riku, who untied the bundle he'd been carrying across his back and let the wrappings fall away. A sword handle, a shaft, and at the tip, four wedges arranged in the distinct pattern of -
"A Keyblade." The description slipped off his tongue with ease and his eyes widened in surprise. He'd never seen such a thing before, but somehow he knew that's what it was. The ghosts from this new life exchanged a troubled glance and when they turned back towards him, he wondered what exactly it was that they saw in him. He wondered what exactly he expected to see in himself.
Sora stepped forward, "Your name. Can you remember it now?"
He took the Keyblade in hand, his Keyblade, studied its lines and balance. His eyes stared back at him in the reflection of the blade's teeth. One light, one dark.
"Spike. I'm Spike."
Author Notes: One of these days I will actually play through KH2 and BBS and learn the rest of the story line... but playing through game chronologies backwards is also fun. : )
020112 - ff.n