Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts
A/N: Dream Drop Distance spoilers.
Out Of Breath
We met at dusk.
Neither of us could stay here for very long. He had only come back at the behest of Yen Sid and I was here biding my time for a little while before I decided on what I wanted to do next … had to do next. With the Mark of Mastery exam over, maybe I should have turned my attention back to my home. I could see mom and dad for a bit … spend some time on the islands and see everyone else, too. But that was only what I wanted, a desire I'd harbored for a long time outside of all of this.
That life for me ended when I turned fourteen.
I was pacing the sand as I waited for him to show up. It shouldn't have been as nerve wracking as it was. It wouldn't be the first time we'd pulled through another adventure as we had just done. No matter how harrowing it had been, things were supposed to be okay now. There was no need to worry … there was … everything was fine and I should have been okay with all of this as it now were.
…But I couldn't shake the feeling.
His presence descended upon me as the last tendrils of red were fading away from the sky. His expression was unreadable, an unmentioned fatigue belied him. We sat down on the sand, side by side as we watched the sun fade below the endless ocean before us. I remember a time when we watched these sunsets with a sense of longing. What lied beyond our tiny islands? What in the world was waiting for us beyond these confining shores that always managed to keep us grounded and lock us in? All that time spent building a raft. Our one ticket out … on that fateful night…
He calls my name and I turn to look at him. He has this scrutinizing look on his face as if he knows I'm thinking about something. Getting lost in all the thoughts and memories that have been made and conceived in this short time. What can I say? What can I tell him?
A lie. He knows there's something on my mind when I smile at him and ask him where he's been. I don't want the attention to be focused on me tonight. Most of all, I … I don't want to think about what happened. I don't want to relive the time I spent wandering through that boundless wasteland of never ending memories. I don't want to think about all the bad that's happened. I just want to talk. Talk about things … things that won't make my heart ache anymore than it already does. We have so little time together … I want to make the best of it.
It's different when we're alone. I just wanted to talk to him away from the watchful eye of the King and the others. Everyone has already spent enough time worrying about us … I don't want that to happen anymore.
He mentions something about Kairi. Oh. So that's where he's been all this time. It was only a matter of time, I tell him. Of course she'd be taken in, too. After what happened when the three of us reunited again … it's no wonder that path opened for her as it did.
We grow quiet, only the lapping of melodic waves rushing ashore to break our silence.
What do we do now? What can we say? What can I say. There's so much left unspoken between us.
He tells me that it's all right if I don't know what to say. I look up at him and he's staring out at the darkness that's falling all around us. He doesn't expect me to say anything. He understands how I feel about all of this. He understands it now; he knows what it feels like. To lose me to the darkness as he did was like losing a part of himself. The desperation he felt in trying to get me to wake up, all the while I remained oblivious in the real world. To know that there was a possibility that I would never wake from that never ending sleep. He was driven through hell and back to just pull me out of that dark abyss. It didn't matter if he lost himself in the process. He would embrace … he would embrace … whatever possible … to … to …
I can't breathe.
I want him to stop talking.
I can't listen to this. It's the truth. The God honest awful truth. I can't handle it and it's starting to break me down. Mentally, emotionally. Causing me to physically shake and push my hands over his ears until he becomes a muffled garbled mess. I'm choking on air that I can't get into my lungs and the salt is starting to sting my eyes. I'm curling into myself, a sobbing mess that has become so overwhelmed with the brutal honesty of his words that I can't take it anymore.
His voice stops and I'm being pulled into his lap.
He's helping me reregulate my breathing. In and out. Look at me, focus on my voice.
He doesn't question what just happened. I already know he understands. He knows what it's like to suffer in an eternal darkness that you can't pull yourself out of. To be so far away from the voice of reality, rationality, severing your mental psyche into small, finite pieces that you struggle to piece together. Every breath you take feels like your last as your entire body is struggling to pull itself apart. To try to escape the endless labyrinth of deceit that you can't wake up from. Am I still sleeping? Am I awake?
Finally my vision clears and all I see is sea foam green.