The sun is going down in front of us, deploying his flaming tints coat in the clear sky. The wind begins to get colder, but the stones we're sitting on broadcast a sweet warm, contributing to the solemn aspect of this scene. Perched on the bell tower, as we usually do, I glance at the young man sat by my side. Disheveled, his sapphire gaze is lost in the void, beyond the horizon.
"Roxas", I begin in a shaky voice.
He doesn't turn towards me, lost in his thoughts, and I remember the first day when I arrived, I, Xion, fourteenth member of Organization XIII. In spite of all my efforts and my will, we can't say I'm much useful. As a matter of fact, I even feel like I'm a nuisance…
"Roxas… Thank you, thanks for all… Thank you for protecting me from Heartlesses, otherwise I would already have died… Thank you for being my friend, Roxas…"
My voice is tinted of a deep sadness I'm trying to hide, vainly. I get up and take a step back to lean against the wall, bathed in the sunlight. On the wall, behind me, there is no noticeable shadow.
Roxas finally turns.
"I knew I'd find ya here !"
The voice which has just resonated isn't his. I turn towards the origin of the noise and smile. Axel, like us wearing the eternal coat distinctive of the Organization, arrives smiling, his red hair of the same color as the twilight sky.
"What are you doing here all alone?" he twits.
A first hit in my heart. It hurts. A first tear on my cheek.
In his hand, he holds two ice creams, the ones of sea salt. "It salty… but sweet too!". This sentence resonates in my head, it snatches me a slight smile and nevertheless tears are still flowing.
"I was waiting you! You take a long time to bring the ice creams back", the smaller guy ribs.
"You say that while you're always late?" Axel makes him notice, raising an eyebrow in a serious air.
He sits down in the same time and Roxas laughs loudly at the face he is displaying, soon joined by his friend.
In my corner, I observe them, setback, an hand on my heart as if I was preventing it to run far away.
"That's strange, I feel like something is missing", Roxas sighs looking around him.
His eyes rest on me without seeing me, he seems anxious. Axel turns round, disturbed too by an unexplainable feeling, but he quickly comes to term with it.
I look at my hand and the spectacle let me breathless. It is as if I was made of a multitude of golden glitters which are slowly getting away in the wind. I panic, and streams of tears are flowing on my cheeks.
"Axel, Roxas!"
But once again, they don't hear me, don't see me.
"Am I already dead?"
"What am I doing here?"
"Axel, Roxas!"
"Why?..."
A light breeze takes off the hook which was covering my head up, brushing my black hair. An umpteenth tear flow along my face and I look at my two careless, carefree friends.
"Axel… Roxas… Thank you for all. Enjoy your life wholly!"
Eyes bathed of tears, I force myself to smile. And I smile. While my whole body is disappearing, bathed of this strange golden light, I smile to my friends, the ones who have so counted for me and who already don't remember my existence.
Erased. The fourteenth gears of a machine which no longer need me.
My last tear fall on the floor, and my last words resonate to my ears. I feel peaceful, I smile, I cry. Then nothing.
"Farewell…"
"Did you hear that?!" Axel almost yells, suddenly turning round.
He glances at a spot on the floor, like a drop even though the sky is empty of clouds.
Roxas looks at it without understanding, he also felt something.
"Roxas… Why are you crying?..."
Axel doesn't understand, neither Roxas does. He puts an hand on his face and feels the contact of the tears he has poured in torrents.
"I dunno!"
He doesn't manage to relax, to fill the void which has just made into him, as if something was missing.
Axel focuses on him, then he glances to horizon. A few golden glitters float in front of him, then while he winks his eyes, nothing. A weird feeling pervades him and he gets up to put on a bold front.
Strange.
"It's as if something was missing", Roxas repeats biting his lip, "but I don't manage to know what…"
Axel puts his hood back and moves to the shadow. "You come?". He adds nothing, being content with walking, head down. Indeed, something is missing…
Roxas turns round one last time and without even realizing, he enunciates a sentence which himself doesn't grasp the meaning, as if the words were going out by themselves.
"Thank you, Xion. Farewell."