"This is not happening."
Pictures, memories of laughing with her, running with her, the fights they'd had and shared. Reaching out for her, grabbing her hand only to have her pulled away as destiny moved him away from the path that she would walk, he'd lost her before and now he'd just gotten her back.
"It, it can't be happening. It can't!"
He remembered, he remembered the day she gave him her lucky charm before he left again. How she put it in his hand, her dark red hair covering bright blue eyes as she looked bravely up at him.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
He remembered more than pictures and scenes. He remembered textures, feelings, the way his breath would catch in his throat when she looked at him. He remembered the way she smelled, like suntan lotion and salt water. And the day she fell off the pier from sunstroke and fell into the water, he remembered giving her CPR, her lips tasted like star fruit. How could he ever have forgotten?
"Sora? You have a choice."
He felt his heart constrict. But, he wouldn't remember her. Not the girl who had helped and hindered him through this castle. The girl with blond hair and blue eyes as big as….
"Do I have to, to choose?"
He closed his eyes. It didn't matter. He had promised. He had promised to never forget, to come back, to never change. So many things he had promised that he didn't think he could keep any of them anymore. But, the memories newly remembered, newly forgotten, spun through his head. The sound of her laugh. The warmth of her hand. He opened his eyes and saw the sadness in the blue eyes across from him. She knew who he had chosen.
"Make me like I was."