Mmmhmm. I started writing angst and this is what happened. Mmmmhmmm. I don't really have much else to say. This was much shorter than I would have liked, but I couldn't think of anything else to add on so I wrapped it up. I feel like it's almost open ended... oh well.

Disclaimer: I don't own KH.

They were dead. Both of them. His two closest friends.

Gone forever.

Two sets of blue eyes forever closed... Two sets of eyes that would no longer see—could no longer see.

Two laughs he would never hear again, two smiles he would never see again...

Riku looked down at his calloused hands, horrified with himself. How could this have happened? What did he do wrong?

The teen almost collapsed into a heap of sobs when he looked up, his mind already burning the image into his brain, already gathering new material to haunt him with. This play-island he had practically grown up on with his friends, burned to ashes with dark flames. Smoke turned the sky permanently dark. The sand was stained red with splotches of blood – that of his own and his friends. The bodies of his two best friends, the only ones who still believed and cared about him even after all he had done, laid prone on the ground, motionless, lifeless.

And it was his fault.

Riku's fists slammed against the singed ground. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he cursed himself over and over again, cursed himself for letting this happen, cursing himself for being so weak.

He was always weak, wasn't he?

He had given in to the darkness again... All that time he had spent trying to overcome it was worthless. All that time he spent alone... All that time he spent wandering in the dark... All that time he could have spent with his friends—should have spent with his friends. Wasted. Worthless.

Despite everything he had done, all the things he had sacrificed, the triumph he thought he had over the darkness was false. Riku had failed to realize this... and it cost him his two closest friends.

Now he was truly alone.

Riku could distantly hear their cries—the desperate cries of Sora and Kairi as they tried to bring him to his senses... yet they failed.

They failed... and he took their lives.

"They were insolent fools," Ansem's voice rang out in the silence, his tone mocking.

"Shut up!" Riku yelled, his fists clenching even tighter against the packed sand.

"They knew the power of the darkness... yet they still thought they could win. Idiots." Ansem snickered, his tone flat. "They never stood a chance."

"I said, shut up!" Riku yelled again, shaking his head and sweeping his hand over his face in a futile attempt to clear it of tears. "You didn't know them! You didn't know how strong they were..." Riku heard his voice cracking and he stopped himself, not wanting to give Ansem the satisfaction of knowing how broken he truly was.

"Strong, you say... obviously not strong enough. With all this supposed 'strength' they had, they still held nothing over the darkness." Ansem sighed, his voice sounding almost piteous. "You were too strong for them—the darkness was too strong for them. Though I didn't expect them to put up so little of a fight..."

Riku cringed, not daring to look up at his pale, motionless friends. "They... they didn't put up a fight because it was me... It's because of me..."

Ansem continued on as if the boy hadn't said anything, "This strength... You turned to the darkness for this kind of strength, did you not? The power to eliminate anything in your path..."

The silver-haired teen shook his head furiously, forcing out through clenched teeth, "No... I wanted strength to protect the things that matter! I wanted strength to protect my friends! But..." he paused, finally looking back up at the two bodies laying on the ground in front of him. Slowly, he took their hands, holding them both in his own. "...I failed." His body shook with the sobs he was trying to contain. "I failed... I took their lives... All I did was make myself a weapon against them." He closed his eyes, squeezing both of his friends' lifeless hands. "I'm sorry." He paused, squeezing their hands even tighter. "I couldn't protect you guys."

Now more than ever, Riku wished that his friends would hop up and comfort him, bring him back from his own darkness... This darkness he thought he had a grip on. The darkness he thought he had overcome had overcome him and taken his friends away from him... They were gone forever... and it was all his fault.

Riku let out one last sob before he choked out, opening his eyes and staring into his friends' pale faces, "I'm sorry. I'm... so sorry."

I feel like Ansem is OOC... Oh well... So, angst. How about that.

Review...~