Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts

Alone

Azure eyes, half lidded, hazy and glazed with insomnia looked beyond the wooden panel shutter windows to the darkened sky and ebony colored sea beyond the horizon. The night was silent, dead by all accounts, offering no sign of waking life. Sora shifted his eyes away from the window, and turned to stare at the ceiling above his head. The dull whine and spin of the fan above him offered little comfort in the humid heat of the night, and he found himself, as usual, in an assortment of clothing that barely offered any sort of modesty. He exhaled slowly, resting a sweat slicked arm across his forehead and sighed lowly.

He had many nights like this. He'd often end up falling asleep at the breaking point of night and morning, where tendrils of daylight would burse out of the dark, seeping in though an open window and warming his already too hot body. When he was still traveling through various worlds with Donald and Goody, he'd often try to recall the warmth of the islands on cold and desolate nights. His memories, he had discovered, had proven faulty.

Memories … that's all anything was anymore, a memory. The Heartless, Nobodies and the Organization …all of them would become memories now that he had returned to the island with Kairi and …Riku.

There had been many nights where Sora felt that the difference between what was reality and those that were his memories were nothing but a fleeting dream. They always seemed to meld and congeal together no matter how hard he tried to separate them. Riku was one of them. As if their return to Destiny Islands hadn't felt like a dream in and out itself, returning with Riku no less was mind shattering. He had thought he lost his best friend forever and was too blind to realize that the older boy had been right behind him the entire time. It was enough to break Sora down when his search was over and the two of them were together once again. Who cared if he didn't look like the same Riku he had left Destiny Islands with on that fateful night, all that mattered was that the two of them were together again.

…But things had changed.

Everything had changed.

From his distance with Kairi, to the hesitance he felt around Riku and then his own daily indifference. The first few days back had taken them all by storm. Tearful reunions were abundant. Sora had relished in the warmth he received from his mother when he walked through the front door, weary and just about dead on his feet. After awhile though, the novelty had worn off and he was left feeling empty and entirely hollow. He refused to believe that this was the end. That he had gone on some great expansive adventure just to come back and settle at the one place that he had sought to escape from in the first place.

It was enough to drive him mad.

Sora sat up in bed, staring out at the window again. His silver crown necklace jingled lightly as he leaned over the ledge underneath his window. The sun was beginning to peak over the horizon. Another night of restless sleep. Sora thought idly as he pulled back from the ledge and fell face first into his lumpy pillow. The darkened sky was shifting into a fiery abysmal shade of red, and the ocean below took on an aureate hue as life awoke once more. He turned away from the rising sun, curling into a fetal position and crammed his pillow over his head.

Another sun rise prompted the return of another endless day.

Begrudgingly, Sora willed himself out of bed with much effort and crossed the span of his bedroom to the door. He entered the hallway and dragged himself over to the bathroom to begin the rituals of the morning. Half an hour later he was dressed and ready to begin another day. Another day exactly like yesterday, or tomorrow would be. A day where he would simply put on a smile and pretend as if nothing was wrong or anything had changed.

That's just how things were now.

Everything had changed.