Author's Note: I don't have much to say about it, besides it being a really short prologue. I'll possibly update. Maybe, maybe not.

Disclaimer: I don't own Square Enix, Disney, or Kingdom Hearts; I never have, and never will. They belong to their respective owners.

Awaken

CH1: Monsters

Sora knew all sorts of monsters; they haunted him in the empty space between awake and asleep. They were the kinds that only appeared on cloudless nights, twisted figures and eyes that unnervingly gleamed bright, even when there was no light to reflect them.

Creatures that haunted corridors that no one would ever dare to investigate, so horribly disfigured in appearance that a single gaze was enough to reduce any brave hero's heart to lead.

At one time, they must have been whole, with souls that knew nothing of pain or regret or defeat. Now they were broken beyond repair, with suspended dreams and lungs that could no longer breathe. They reached up from pools of distorted shadow in mindless hordes, impassioned entities that were programmed to annihilate.

The keyblade wielder had encountered thousands upon thousands in his journey, and experience told him that it was impossible to safely defeat them alone.

For every Heartless destroyed, a dozen more would rise to take its place, and without the assurance of light guiding the way back, one would be eventually cast off into an everlasting oblivion with no escape.

Fortunately for him, salvation came in the form of a girl with sunset hair and violet eyes (not unlike a princess), who coaxed him back from the realm of darkness to become himself once more.

So, when his shadow came to take him back, he was unprepared.

It happened on a cloudless summer evening, two days after his return with Riku.

King Mickey sent the trio (Riku, Kairi, and Sora) a letter that morning via bottle along the sea, but the note carried no negative connotations, though it was written in a messy scrawl, which indicated some sort of rush.

It mentioned how much Donald and Goofy missed Sora (to which the boy began smiling like an idiot at), and gave a brief account of how the problems with Heartless and Nobodies in each of the worlds had been mostly resolved for the moment, and how they'd be alerted as soon as anything troubling came up.

For a signature, it only bore his insignia, but all of them were relieved, with the exception of a frowning Kairi, doubtful of their security from a lifetime of waiting.

''Lighten up, Kairi! We aren't going anywhere this time,'' Sora told her, grinning lopsidedly at her, and she glanced back at him and tentatively nodded.

She believed him.

Afterwards, they all went back to their separate lives, to explain their sudden disappearances and fix the lives that they temporarily left behind.

It had taken a lot of half-truths and whole lies to his mom to convince her that he was really there and not dead in a ditch somewhere.

She was ready to bash his head open with a giant metal spoon, but the better of her senses came to her and instead whacked him on the arm, asking why he never wrote her any letters home.

And that was that.

Lying in his bed after so many years, it was different.

Paper airplanes and action figures littered his bedroom floor, mementos of another time when he was more naive. He had to step over heaps of unfolded laundry, and made a mental note to recruit Riku to help him clean up the mess in the morning.

The brunette was exhausted from his endeavors, and rested his head on his pillow, mind already dreaming of the things he would do tomorrow, like running past the beach and and sun and play and water and –

Hey.

Sora's flickering thoughts suddenly reached a standstill, halted by an unfamiliar voice in the dark. His eyelids fluttered open as he sat up, yawning.

With a drowsy head, it took him a few moments to respond, looking around the room and seeing no one. ''Uh, hello? Who's there?''

There was only silence as the answer, and goose bumps formed along his arms.

Fear struck him, and he would've flipped on the light switch then and there if he didn't already feel a chill sliding down his back, encompassing him in uncertainty.

''H-heh,'' Sora hesitantly laughed, but it came out sounded faintly choked up. ''Okay, Roxas, you can stop now. I know it's you.''

I'm not Roxas.

The boy stiffened on the spot. He must be having a nightmare right now. Yeah, that was it. There was no way that the voice couldn't be Roxas. It sounded a lot like him. Sora hadn't heard from his Nobody since he came back to Destiny Islands, but still.

If it wasn't him that would mean he was hearing things that weren't there, meaning he was going crazy. Sora pinched himself, hard, but all it did was make his eyesight swim in place for a moment. He must have been more exhausted than he thought he was.

''Who are you, then?'' the brunette asked the darkness, feeling his fingertips tingle in the ache of anticipation, and a keyblade shimmer into existence in his right hand.

Anything trying to attack him would get better acquainted with how it worked.

Someone from the dark.

It answered simply to Sora's question, but the boy didn't hear it. His head had begun to throb painfully, the beginnings of a migraine pulling up at the wielder's consciousness, making him muddled and confused.

Sora yelped and let go of the keyblade, which loudly clanked onto the wooden floor (while still emitting a bright glow), n lieu of rubbing at his temples, willing the headache to go away.

However, it only grew, overwhelming any possible thoughts of resistance to this stranger, and he squeezed his eyes shut, mind wholly preoccupied.

He didn't notice a figure materialize into view in front of him, pitch black and infinitely darker than its surroundings. He didn't notice the aura of vengeance it exuded, or that it looked exactly like him, if he had been painted in dark shades with golden coals for eyes.

And, he especially didn't notice that it came closer and closer until its hand was right over the spot where his heart was, inching closer and closer until …

Flick. The sound of the light turning on, flooding the room in artificially fluorescent light, and the creak of a door opened.

Sora's mother stood in the doorway in a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, her hair unruly and her face surprised, as if she had just been jarred awake. ''I heard a noise. It sounded like you fell off the bed again. Is everything alright? ''

Sora looked up from the bed, his hands by his side now, but the left still trembling slightly. He was shaking, but at least the headache had disappeared.

The keyblade disappeared from sight as well, hastily kicked underneath his bed and hidden underneath about a days' worth of clothes. ''I'm fine, mom. I just had a really bad dream.''

His mom gave him a condescending look, wagging her finger like she solved a huge mystery in one fell swoop. ''Well, if you want me to read you a bedtime story, I can always –'' She stopped for a second, staring strangely at his face, as if seeing him for the first time. ''Sora, there's something wrong with your –''

He scowled at her, and then ducked under his covers, pulling them over his head and blocking out whatever came afterwards. He heard a single step approach him, and then silence.

A few minutes later, he peeked out of the corner of the comforter and saw her turn off the lights and retreat, and then sighed in relief.

As much as he was looking forward to listening to fairytales, he had better things to do than indulge himself in childish sentiments. After all, Sora was gone. He was in charge now.

Sora wasn't certain when exactly the exchange with his shadow took place. One minute, he was talking to his mom, the next moment; he felt his existence being pushed down, into the place of someone else.

The keyblade wielder became an observer in that second, and before he could object, drowsiness hit him with wrenching accuracy, his consciousness forced into a nauseating sleep.

And, unlike any slumber he'd experienced before, it was completely devoid of dreams.