disclaimer: don't own any license to kh. no one here does.
A change in the darkness around him woke the sleeping boy. Rather than the peaceful darkness that he had grown used to, it was now a twisted, evil darkness. It surrounded him, threatening to pull him under. He knew he couldn't let that happen, but didn't know how to stop it.
It was at that moment that a light broke through the darkness. He could see. An empty room. His body.
He reached out to touch it...
The boy opened his eyes. The room around him was pure white, with chains of light pulsing down its walls and floor. The walls were decorated with silver emblems like on his chest. He was sitting in a tall white chair. There was nothing else in the room that he could see.
His body ached. He had obviously been in this chair for a long time, and that fact was clear in the way his joints creaked and his muscles cramped. The boy cautiously stretched up, glancing once more around the room. There was a door behind the chair he had been sitting in. The boy inched his way toward the door, careful not to move too fast lest his legs give out. After an attempt to use magic as an alternative to walking, he found he could not.
"Fantastic," the boy huffed. "What's next, losing my Keyblade?"
The idea made his nervous, so he called the blade to his hand. It appeared and he sighed in relief.
He eventually reached the door.
It was an impressive double door, nearly 30 feet tall. It was blue, a single blot in an otherwise colorless room. The frame around the door had wings and was crowned with a heart. More emblems and pulsing chains were on the doors themselves. The door had no handles or knobs that he could find, so he used his Keyblade to unlock the door.
The door opened and the boy was met with a long hallway. Like the room before, the walls and floor were white, but lacking the emblems and chains. Besides the door he had just come through, there was only one other door, at the far end of the hall. There didn't seem to be a real purpose to the room, other than perhaps for stretching one's legs.
"What's up with all the white? It's a pain to look at," grumbled the boy. His muscles were finally warming up, and his legs didn't cramp as much, so the boy strutted more confidently down the hall.
The boy hesitated in front of the door. He finally thought to wonder where he was. It wasn't his home, and it didn't look like any of the worlds he had visited, either. What was this place? Why was he asleep here?
Not being able to determine the answer there, the boy shrugged and continued through the door.
The next room was, as was expected by now, white. He emerged from between two columns, which lined the walls. There were two doors on opposte ends of the room, to his left and right, one slightly raised from the rest of the room. The boy looked back and saw he couldn't find the entrance he had just come through.
"Wow, there's so much white that the doors are blending into the walls. I wonder if the designer got an award for that," the boy smirked. "The Light and Starkness Award."
Picking a direction, the boy left the room behind and entered an identical room.
"You're kidding."
He was on the raised part of the floor, but it was the same room, columns lining the two walls, a second door across from him.
He considered turning around and trying the other door, but decided to stick with it and headed through the far door. Again, an identical room, with the same doors. He was starting to get tired of doors. But he again kept going. He wasn't about to quit now.
After navigating several rooms identical to the first one, he realized he was starting to get hungry. There didn't seem to be any indication that anyone lived here, so he doubted there would be any food around, if it was still good.
He needed to get out of there.
Finally, he came across a staircase leading down. He paused at the top of the steps. He didn't know if he was upstairs or down, or if he could even find the stairs again should he find out. But this was the biggest difference he'd seen in the labyrinth he was trapped in, so it was his best chance. He stepped down.
The rooms after were more straightforward, with simple but distinguishable layouts, so he could tell if he'd been in a room before by the way the walls were formed. He lost count of how many levels he'd gone down, but each floor was relatively the same, until finally - finally - he came across another large door.
It wasn't quite as tall as the blue one, and was the same pale color the other doors in the maze had been, but it was ornately decorated and, again, twice as tall as a normal door. He sincerely hoped it was the way out.
His stomach complained; it had stopped growling around 2 hours ago, so the sound made him jump. He made a promise to himself that if this was the exit, the first thing he would do would be find some food.
Pushing the door open, he was greeted with a black, starless sky. The ground was jagged and bare, in a narrow path that stretched into the dark horizon, the edge of the path dropping off into nothing. Other than that, the world was empty. But he was out.
"At least that's over. I was almost convinced I'd died and was stuck in hell."
"That would have been unfortunate, if true," a voice said from behind him. "Ventus, we've been looking for you."
A tall man wearing a black coat was standing behind him, in front of the castle he had just escaped. His hood was up, so the boy couldn't see his face, but the voice sounded familiar.
The boy laughed. "If you're looking for Ventus, you're gonna be sorely disappointed. That weakling isn't here anymore."
"You're right, that is disappointing. However, tell me. Why are you in his body?"
"His? Ha! It's just as much my body as it is his, if not more." The boy couldn't feel any hostility from the man, but he wondered why he was there at all. "Who are you?"
"Hmm... I am merely a servant of balance." The man is silent for a moment, appearing to think. "Say, how would you like to join—"
The boy cut him off. "No thanks, old man. I tried working for someone once. Not my thing. Go find someone more gullible."
"...Oh? Very well then. I take it you have a means of leaving this world?"
"I'm not some helpless kid, I—" The boy tries to open corridor of darkness, but nothing appeared. Wait, what?
"Hmm? Well, I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll go find someone more 'gullible'. Farewell." The boy couldn't see the man's face, but it sounded like he was trying not to laugh. He opened up his own portal.
The boy clicked his tongue. "Tch, fine. But I'm not giving my life for any stupid cause."
"I wouldn't expect you to."
The boy's stomach whines again as the two enter the darkness and the man chuckles and places his hand on the boy's head.
"We'll be sure to get you something to eat, as well."