The darkness wasn't done with him. Riku would sit on his bed and feel it.
It would lurk in the corner, shadows short yet present, and omniscient. So much fear untold, the eyes of the boy were weak, broken. Such a wasted bright blue, down-turned, palms weak, expression slack. Past midnight and the thick of it would be invisible, and it would strangle him, and he took it, such was his penitence. Little was to be done. His stiff palms itched, on their own accord entirely, for a taste of disagreement, but his mind begged for no action. No matter, for no action would come; his weapon, and even his heart, was doubting its own existence.
Distancing himself, his darkness took a different side. It was a simple, private thing at best. It would advance, but Riku wouldn't see it, wouldn't feel it, his knees protected his heart. An onlooker saw something pathetic.
It would be a battle of a thousand heartless, shadows. But more of an avalanche, opposition freefalling, and he, a single target, head bowed, would be one of them.
The feeling of a black claw, a slipping foot, a grasping mouth, invisible. Shadows cannot be seen by a bright eye. It was late at night, and Riku was tired. He was drained, constantly draining, exhaustion. Tired of always wishing and hoping his forgotten weapon may appear and humor him. His palm, trampled on by the slippery slime of a foot of shadow, was cold.
Many would advance upon him and he'd be taken back by the taste of pure black, the chloroform of asphyxiating blindness, and he would gasp. A sound no one would hear. An onlooker saw something evil.
It would occur, simply, and he would barely move; he fought it inwardly, secretly. A practice of which no one knew, was he sleeping? - but maybe he was dreaming - the lines between reality and nightmare consciously were blurred.
Silence rang heavily, footfalls of negative noise, sucking light and sense away from the room, the darkness wanted what it claimed and lost.
Riku trembled, he fought terribly hard, but they were all so powerful, toppling him, the invisibles would conceal him and hide him from the world, make him their secret.
He would feel a hand.
This part was pure imagination and more nightmare, he was not real but gone. Forever haunted, permanently scarred. A puppet reliving his forceful master, a dry hand puppet. Riku would scream, the pain returning - Humiliation, cooed his master - body stolen. He would not scream outwardly. He might utter a sigh, a quick exhalation, eyes deadening. His arms might tighten around his knees, an accident because then the quick, shifty things would laugh high and silent.
In another dream, there may be form to the light touch on his back, and the fear would strengthen with visible spitting hatred. Riku would be a weak thing backed into the corner with his tempter of souls (shadows lengthening and grasping onto his outstretched arms like a painting of perfection) perpetually shining bright and "coming hither". A repetitive story, a common one, a wasted moth-eaten fairy-tale, told every dark night while shadows dance. Riku was like a dog backed into the corner.
His eyes saw his pale moonlit arms as an onlooker saw Satan in jubilation.
And like the most fleeting of thoughts, it would end abruptly. The evening, that menace, would bade Riku farewell, and the shades of blue would enter the sky. Riku would pause, life at that point was nothing more than a vague flash of color and sound and joy, and he would tremble. A small tremble, to himself, no one would see. Then, as with each night prior, and with every night following, forever, he would turn and he would sleep.