Prologue: A Strange Dream
"Sora! Dinner's ready! Come on down!" Called the voice of a young woman; Sora's mother.
"It's happening again." A boy's thoughts, Sora's thoughts.
"Sora?" The woman called again.
"What's going on?" Sora's thoughts heard once more. He was in his house, and in front of him, between he and his mother, was a being similar to a Heartless. It wasn't a Heartless though, Heartless are instinctive creatures. This…thing seemed to be scheming something, so it was almost like a Nobody as well. "Wait, so it's different this time!" Again, Sora's thoughts.
The thing was somewhat like a Heartless in appearance, yet at the same time it was its own variety of creature. It had no hair; the top of its head was completely rounded, and it looked powerful based on its bulging muscles. In fact, it looked like the shadow of a body sculptor. In any case, Sora knew from the way it was making advances on his mother that it needed to be stopped. "Hey ugly! Get away from her!" Sora yelled. The creature heard him, surprisingly, and turned to face him before bellowing with rage. It was obvious then that it understood his words. He ran through the living room, expecting it to follow like it did.
"Sora! What are you doing?" His mother asked in an alarmed tone.
"I'll lead it away from the house! You find some place to hide! It's probably not the only one!" Sora called back before muttering, "At least, if the past is any indication."
"Sora, no! Come back! I'm your mother, I'm supposed to protect you!" His mother retorted. After a few moments of silence, she sighed and said under her breath, "Oh well, it seems he's grown up quite a bit since I last saw him."
"He has, hasn't he?" A deep, gloomy voice asked.
"Who? W-who's there?" Sora's mother asked as she turned around. As if in reply, a figure, somewhat similar to the one following Sora, yet meager in comparison, seeped silently up through the floor behind the woman. A scream followed shortly, presumably from the woman, and meanwhile Sora had just led the muscular creature outside. He was about to jump into the small boat that he used to get to the island where he and Riku hung out when he was attacked from behind by the muscular creature, who used something frighteningly similar to Riku's Dark Firaga attack. Sora was able to pick himself up quickly, but when he tried to counterattack with the Keyblade he was met with the shocking sight of his mother, obviously being controlled by another of the creatures. He wasn't sure if it was a possessor-type creature or a puppeteer, but he was sure that he couldn't fight his mother. When his resolve faltered, the Keyblade vanished from his hand, to his great shock. He was then attacked by the muscular being, who used another Dark Firaga. Knocked off his feet, he struggled to get up as he muttered,
"Not good." Suddenly he heard a sharp, rhythmic ringing, and he couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
***End dream sequence***
Sora groaned in his sleep as his alarm clock went off. After almost five minutes of constant ringing, Sora pressed the snooze button and groaned again before jolting into a sitting position. "Wait, what happened?" He asked himself. As he thought, he remembered the strange beings like human shadows, and how one had ensnared and enslaved his mother. Then he remembered. "Mother?" He called, worried about the woman after his experience with the creatures. Sure enough, his mother walked into the room, looking quite well.
"Yes Sora?" She asked, looking alarmed that her boy seemed so uneasy. Sora groaned before asking in a hurried tone,
"Mother, what happened to the shadow creatures? I thought-"
"Shadow creatures? Boy, you've got some imagination all of a sudden! Did you have a bad dream or something?" Sora's mother asked. Sora tipped his head in confusion, asking,
"A dream?"
"Come on Sora, I have breakfast on the table." His mother said before leaving the room. Sora sat on the edge of the bed for a few moments before recalling that it was, indeed, a dream. Still, it had seemed real, he even thought he had felt the pain of being hit with that Dark Firaga. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts before heading downstairs to eat. He soon pushed almost all thoughts of the dream out of his mind, but he couldn't help feeling concerned enough to think about it, even if it was minimally. He was rightfully concerned; as he ate his morning meal a portal of darkness opened to accept the muscular, bald shadow creature into its depths, then closed around it.
