Background: It all started with my own challenge to friends, writers and artists alike: I gave them three lines of some poetic thing I'd written a while back and told them to do whatever they wanted with it. So it was only fair that I got an entry in myself. The words? They were simply, "Massacred wreck/ What the heck/ Make 'em Smile". This became a Kingdom Hearts fan fiction completely by accident. I suppose as soon as I wrote the first paragraph, I knew who it had to be written about. I guess Link isn't the only one completely unsafe from my love of mentally torturing heroes. Sorry, doll. It had to be done. At this point many things are open to interpretation, and I'm waiting impatiently for Kingdom Hearts 2... so here comes a little of the aggression. Dammit, Sora. I blame you, too.
Make 'em Smile
Part 1
by Orin Drake
Ugh. More blood in
his mouth. He was so sick of the taste of his own blood. Busted,
broken... as if it didn't hurt enough right then, it would be even worse
in the morning. If there even would be a morning, another sunrise.
Had anyone been there to ask him if he cared to see another morning...
he'd have answered their inquiries with relatively negative responses.
And likely some interesting curses he'd learned along the way.
This time it'd been his
own fault, though. He hadn't been paying enough attention, hadn't
looked in the dark shadows of the evening hard enough and one of those
mechanical whatever-the-hells had gotten him in the face, knocking him
clean off his feet. He carefully tested his jaw for the hundredth
time to make sure it wasn't broken. No, just swollen a bit.
There was a gash in his cheek, but most of the bleeding had stopped.
At least it hadn't gone all the way through... he shuddered with that thought.
Not pleasant in the least.
Ah well; not so bad, either.
He'd gotten some blood in his mouth, alright, but no teeth had been knocked
out. That was a little bit of a victory. Well, that and driving
his Keyblade straight through that damned Heartless, twisting. Oh,
he made certain that the last thing that little bastard saw was the look
of satisfaction on his face as he twisted that blade through it's "chest"...
How times had changed.
He never would have pictured himself doing anything like that, ever.
He was never even one to exterminate the insects that all too often found
their way into the tree house. It just didn't seem appropriate.
Everyone made fun of him for being the one to cup the little bugs between
his hands and put them outside, talking to them the whole time... but it
had been the only thing he felt right about doing.
The major difference being,
the bugs were natural. Heartless... were not. Add to that how
they were constantly trying to kill him over a period of years, and...
well. Times changed. So did things like patience and mercy,
he supposed, running a hand through his disturbingly unkempt hair.
Though he still wouldn't crush a bug if he could help it.
For no reason he could truly
understand, he stopped midway through trying to straighten out the long
rat's nest atop his head and gazed at his palms. They seemed... foreign.
Bigger than they should. Like the years had slipped away from him
in too many ways to fathom. They were calloused and dry, flecks of
torn skin sometimes catching against the fabric of his shirt and making
him realize how far he'd come. That... sucked. It really hurt,
sometimes. He just sat there, right where he'd killed that Heartless
scant moments before, and stared at his hands. The hands that killed...
so many things. If they were ever really alive in the first place.
The hands that were too strong for darkness to grasp... but not strong
enough to keep the things he truly treasured close.
He winced with that thought,
shoving it as far away from his mind as it would go. But the fucker
came back. Memories, reminders, awful pictures of times long since
passed... that he'd never have again. All that shit with the Heartless,
all these years of fighting... Kairi... Riku... Wasn't he ever
going to fucking be in peace?! Maybe he should let them go.
Just let them all die. Screw this hero bullshit! The Keyblade
could pick another master as easily as it had cursed him! Let the
world die, and all the others that were suffering.
But in the end, he knew
better. In the end... he knew he wasn't doing it for his world.
He wasn't doing it for anyone else's world, or the preservation of reality
as they knew it. Not even to keep the darkness away. He was
doing it for himself, deep down in the very hardest to understand part
of his mind. Himself and Kairi and... and Riku. He still believed,
dammit. Like a child holding firmly to the idea that all things could
be good and beautiful, he still clung desperately to the belief that Riku
could be whole again... himself again... Some nights he even prayed
for it, though he no longer believed in any "higher power". There
couldn't be one. Not after what he'd seen and been through.
Fighting, running... it was no way to live. Nothing to call his own.
As for Kairi... he honestly
didn't know where she was. Or if she were even alive. The last
time he'd seen her... it seemed too long ago to properly remember her face.
They were all so young, then... in so many ways... he'd promised he'd come
back, and he had. But... it wasn't under the best of circumstances.
And it had never felt right. Things were never again as easy as they
had been in that place, that time... beyond his ability to imagine any
longer...
Even the friends and allies
he had made along the way had fallen, one by one. Cloud had long
since given in to the darkness. It's not that he didn't fight it--he
did, with his last breath. But in the end... he couldn't hold on.
It was Sephiroth's doing, somehow... but even that psychotic killer wasn't
to blame entirely. They were like two halves of the same magnificent
thing... but neither could have held on. They both must have had
some kind of connection to Aeris; after she was ripped apart by Heartless...
they just didn't seem to have any reason not to destroy themselves, nevermind
one another and the darkness that eventually devoured them both.
And Leon. Cold, hard-headed
Leon. He'd ultimately found himself unable to deal with the increasing
battles, the Heartless that were getting stronger and smarter. He
was strong, and he had tried with all his strength of mind and body...
but when Yuffie was tortured and died right there in front of him... there
was no more Leon. There was no more Squall. He finally cracked,
dropping his gunblade and letting the wave of Heartless eat him alive.
And King Mickey? Fuck
King Mickey. That rat had gotten him into this mess in the
first place... All of those fucking jolly talking animals... they
were gone. That's all he really remembered. Like everyone else
that had fallen by the wayside, they were merely gone One
moment, they'd been there... and the next... Maybe he hadn't cast
his recovery magic quickly enough. Maybe he'd underestimated the
cloaked figures, but... he was at fault, there was no doubt. But
at that point... there had been no more mourning left inside of him.
But now, staring blankly
at his palms... he wanted to scream. He wanted to take out all of
his aggression on some little Heartless piece of shit. He wanted...
what did he want? To curl up with Kairi and watch the sunset, maybe...
and then Riku...
He winced, the gash on his
cheek stinging madly all of a sudden. It took a moment to realize
that it had been because of a tear having escaped down his face.
The realization made his body limp, his already sore back making hard contact
with the ground. He laid there, staring upward with wide, sightless
eyes, in shock... realizing at last that it was just... that easy.
No--no, he couldn't!--but
it was too late. Once one tear had finally stricken him...
It was a flood. A godawful, raging storm, draining every portion
of his mind. He sobbed silently until his body shook, until no more
moisture would come. He wept for the innocence lost, for the island...
for memories he'd abandoned and unwanted ones that weighed him down...
for the possibility that Kairi remembered him... and the possibility that
she had forgotten... for what Riku had been through for his sake and for
his own, to have become at once so soulless and so much more himself than
before... for the worlds that would never be sealed, for the people already
dead and those that would suffer their loss... for gods reduced to ash
and peasants that were not ready for power... for parents he hardly remembered
and would never see again... for things he knew he could never really feel
again...
Where was his life?
Who the hell decided that it was not his own?! Couldn't he give in?
Couldn't he give it all up to that sweet surrender of darkness that followed
him in his every waking moment, haunting his sleep in those few heartbeats
in time where he was able to feign relaxation? Couldn't he drop the
Keyblade in front of the next army of Heartless and beg them to rip him
apart?
He screamed up to the sky,
but his voice did not work. He kept crying out in crashing breaths,
not words but passions, emotions, memories and desires--the things that
made him ache. Things that once made him whole, but now made him
crumble. The things that made him wish he had the fucking balls to
slice his wrists open with that goddamn cursed blade and watch the life
drain from them. His childhood was destroyed--did the rest of his
life have to suffer the same fate?!
Rain. Just a fleck
at first. Then a sprinkle. It wasn't heavy, and it never would
be. There was never enough rain to wash away sins. Hardly enough
to wash away blood... and it served a horrific reminder on his path.
But it was rain... wet, and cool, and somehow darkly soothing.
Finally it was gone.
The tears, the rage, the hate, the helplessness, the madness--it snapped
off like a light switch as the sky wept for him. He was curled into
himself, shaking... gasping for something that would never soothe his lungs
like the carefree days on the island with his two best friends...
The secret place would never again be secret. Now it was only his
true feelings... his heart. Or what was left of it, anyway.
His stomach ached, and for
a moment he held his breath with the understanding that he was on the verge
of releasing some of the acid churning in his gut... but that much passed.
As it must. He had learned along the way that it was better to keep
it down than risk losing precious hydration. At least the rain would
keep his mouth moist if he paused once in a while to stick his tongue out.
Like he used to do when he was a little boy. If those days ever really
existed.
The Heartless had done a
number on him, alright. But they had only reached his body.
In the end, his mind was still his own... and he carefully regained control.
Whatever happened to his former self? That small, scrawny child that
was always smiling despite how fucking awful things were getting?
Perhaps that child was dead. Given over to darkness in exchange for...
whatever it was. It wasn't "life"... but it wasn't without its moments,
he supposed. Granted that he couldn't think of a recent occurrence
that he cared to remember, but... there must be one. There must
be. He could not let the darkness take him.
He was a child no longer...
and sitting up straight, he knew he must eventually come to accept that.
No, maybe he wasn't a "man", yet... but he felt as though he'd lived a
million lifetimes. And none of them were as good as that first one.
So he must have kept fucking up on the reincarnation scale.
At least that gave him a
little chuckle. It would have been enough... if he hadn't caught
sight of... oh, god...
He could only make out the
pale skin from under the hood... a touch of silver hair that was too eerily
familiar to be ignored... but no eyes. He couldn't make out the eyes,
couldn't make certain... But in the wretched depths of his gut, he
knew. He could feel it, sense it, taste it... the figure moved out
of the dark moistness of the night, closer. And still he could not
manage the will to move. He hadn't the strength, all of a sudden.
The figure approached within
feet before it finally stopped; the hood still hiding most of the facial
features. "Keyblade Master..." the voice was... rough. Foreign.
Dark and deep and far away... but so familiar. He almost choked on
that familiarity... and wished to hell that he had. Just to give
him peace. Distance.
No matter. He could
not allow it to grab a hold of him. He'd had enough of that for one
night. Stumbling, he finally got to his feet and held his weapon
in front of him. No answer. He had no response for the sleep-walking
memory in front of him.
The figure's lips parted
ever so slightly, the lower portion of the angled, grown-up face seeming
to struggle for words. When the voice came, it was so... brutally
recognizable... "S--... Sora..."
He cringed, the sudden tension
in his already bruised jaw causing his teeth to ache. Don't speak
that name... please, please don't say that name...
All at once, the voice that
had been there seemed to vanish. Once again, the empty darkness that
managed to take over the shell of a body emerged; its voice, even in a
whisper, was as unpleasant as a screaming harpy's. "Aren't you ready
to surrender yet?"
"Nah." He tried his
best to be reassuring, even if the gesture of smiling brought forth more
blood from his busted lip. He held the Keyblade strong between his
fists and readied himself for a grand battle--
That was not to be.
He'd seen the figure move, dart with unnatural speed toward him, had lifted
the weapon to counter--but he'd never expected that. He'd never...
there hadn't even been the thought that...
The hand on his cheek was
cold as death. But the touch... the familiarity under the alien slither...
That touch was the tainted whisper of so many possibilities... that could
never be. It was not him, not really. It was a shell with very
little memory, and even less heart. With no compassion. And
no real consciousness of the soul that may or may not still belong to the
body.
He saw the eyes. Powers
of heaven and hell help him, he saw the blue eyes--
The cloaked figure used
the Keyblade Master's moment of surrender to render him useless, casting
a bolt of white-hot energy through the blade and up his arms. The
boy cried out, his palms seared and burning, his surprise melting away
instantly into a perfect split between survival instinct and the desire
to die. He fell to the ground, grasping desperately for a spell or
a potion--
Crack! A rib
was most assuredly broken, as was all concentration. Despite his
best efforts to hold it in, there was no way that strangled cry could be
reigned back when another rib was snapped by the boot of the figure looming
above. Through the unwanted tears of agony, he could just make out
a circle of small Neo Heartless around them, their eyes slitted and glowing
brightly. At least they were laughing... right? Yeah.
At least they were enjoying this... smiling, in their own twisted way.
Ready to watch what was to come... Massacred wreck. What the
heck. Make 'em smile.