Disclaimer: Now this is fun. I don't own Kingdom Hearts or KH II, but here I am, pretending that I do! HA! HA! HA! Just play along.
AN: This is what happens when Writer reads too many KH angst-type fics and then finds an online Latin dictionary. This is purely Riku POV, with a lot of past tense monologing.
AN II: Sorry to all those people who read the first chapter with it's spelling mistakes... I'll be more careful from now on.
Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc
"After it, therefore, because of it."
Chapter one: Praeteritus
How to begin what I am trying to say? It seems unwise to simply plunge into a bundle of thoughts and emotions without warning. One might say, 'Start at the beginning!' if this were a story with chronological order. Ahh… I'm being stupid. What better a place to start than the beginning? What better place to think of than Destiny Island.
Home…well… nothing really happened there. We played our games filled our days with competition and gossip. When games lost their fun, I began to train my body. Swordfights races, wrestling matches, in the end they are just a different kind of game. I wanted to win, and I was pretty immature about it I admit. I am aware that I am still a child. Sora and I stand, side by side, on a debris littered beach staring out into the empty sea. All I want to do right now is splash him with the water that surrounds us.
Side by side…I thought we would always be that way. Back to back, battling the other kinds in a game of war. Sora, me and Kairi sitting on the paupau tree, talking and laughing. Thinking up new things to do. I think… I think I was the one to suggest leaving. I felt I had done everything that there was to do. Boredom had crept upon me like a reoccurring nightmare.
My friends were, of course, ecstatic. We bustled about preparing. I remember watching Sora stumble about collecting mushrooms. I had already finished my tasks for the day and wanted nothing more than to sit in silence and watch him do his. Sora took a while to finish the chores. But that was just who he was. Anything different would have been, unnerving to say the least. We would be ready to set sail the next day. There was a whole new world out there!
If only we had seen it together.
That night we left. Not on purpose, mind you. I must have been the first to hear the storm. Not surprising, since I had been awake and rigid with excitement since ten o' clock when we had gone to 'sleep'. Sitting, staring out at our little boat calmed me a little. I was nearly asleep when I first saw the storm.
Churning, sickly looking rain clouds were hovering near the south end of the island. I could see lightning and hear thunder. When I began to count the seconds between flashes and booms, I realized that it was coming closer at an alarming rate. I rushed outside with the intent of bringing the raft to safety.
I had just begun to drag out the tarp when the storm reached land. A sudden silence fell and after that, what I now know are the shrill little voices of hundreds of heartless. From the angle I was at now, I could not see what was going on. Dropping the tarp in a heap, I then ran up to the paupau tree. There I could see everything.
The cloud, with its blues and its grays' had lowered itself at an angle until the end was touching the ground. The lowest point had turned an inky black color and was spreading paper-thin darkness across the sand. From it rose rat-like creatures with beady yellow eyes and screeching voices. Yep, that was my first impression of the heartless. I watched them, gruesome and fascinating as they were, until I looked down and saw that the darkness had climbed up the hill and was at my feet.
I jumped back when I saw it. It looked like spilled paint but it was menacing as hell, just sitting there. The fact that it was just sitting there made me wonder why it hadn't advanced any further. Well, ya'know what? That was because it had crept up behind me too. When I was standing in the center of a perfect circle is when it leaped forward so fast that I didn't even see it make the first move.
It felt good. It felt like the best, most exiting game I had ever played. I felt like I could fly. Tendrils of black wound their way around my legs but I didn't care. Nothing could anchor me to the ground now. I saw Sora run towards me, and I reached for him. I wanted him to fly with me. Oddly enough, he seemed to have a hard time struggling through the darkness. I saw him stretch out his arm, touch the tip of my fingertip, stumble, and then nothing but the black that had covered my eyes for what felt like the longest time.
Kairi was laying before me, as lifelike as a corpse.
"She has lost her heart," whispered the tall woman with the green skin and the tattered cloak, "But I can help you get it back…"