Do you regret it?
Chapter one: Ghosts
All this timeI've waited
Hoping
And Praying That you would come back
To me.
Deep violet eyes turned skyward, and a pencil, worn down from use, turned in a slender hand. Kairi sighed, her brows creasing.
"When will you come back..?"
Sora lay on his back; his hands entwined behind his head, Transverse Town's clear night sky staring back at him. All was calm, for months Heartless have just been a distant memory, just as traveling between the worlds was. Ever since the walls went up, Donald, Goofy, and himself had been stranded; they had awakened in the world to find that they had been missing for several months, with no memories of the past almost year. But it had been almost seven weeks since then and he was bored!
Sora sighed, his half lidded eyes growing heavier with sleep; he yawned and slowly drifted off into a dreamless doze.
"Sleep sounds good right about now…" he muttered drifting off into a light doze. He couldn't have been asleep for more than a few hours before he was slowly pulled into consciousness.
"-ora…Sora…"
A pause.
"Sora!"
He jerked awake and looked around, "Wuzzgoinon?"
"Sora! Get down here! It's an emergency!"
He wobbled to his feet and half jumped, half fell off the roof of the Transverse Town Inn, and landed right in front of Donald. Seeing another pair of feet to his left he looked up and found himself looking right a Leon.
"Hello, Sora."
"Huh?" He asked confused, rubbing his eyes to make sure he was actually awake, "How-? I thought you were in Hollow Bastion."
"We were!" A cheerful voice chirped.
Sora turned around and found himself looking at a dark-haired ninja, "Yuffie?" Now fully awake, he realized that Aerith, Cloud, and Cid were there too. "What are you guys doing here?"
"We have good news and bad news," Leon started, "which do you want to hear first?"
Sora face twisted into a confused expression, "Uh, I guess the bad news…"
Leon wasted no time in his answer, "The world walls are down, but the keyholes seem to still be sealed, but it's somehow different then how it looked when it was sealed before."
"What do you mean?"
Yuffie jumped in, "The Keyhole's still there but it's, like, missing the 'hole' part, and Hollow Bastion has become haunted!" She was going a mile a minute, with no sign of stopping, "Every night, you can hear a little girl crying, and I swear I saw her! Her hair was brown, and her eyes were as blue as yours!" She pointed at his eyes to elaborate her description, but poor Sora went cross-eyed as a result.
He pushed her hand away and looked at the others, "Could it have been a heartless?"
"No!" the ninja insisted, "She looked so human! There's no way! She had to be a ghost! And the way she looks at you, she seemed so sad. No heartless could have that kind of emotion."
"Ghosts? And how could a keyhole be missing its 'hole'?" The perplexed boy asked skeptically.
"We know it sounds odd," Aerith's soft voice started, and Sora turned to look at her, "But everything Yuffie and Leon said is true, it seems Hollow Bastion really is haunted by a ghost."
"On top of that, the world itself seems to be slowly dying, Hollow Bastion is turning into a ghost town." Cid muttered.
Sora stared at all of them one by one before crossing his arms and turning his gaze to the sky, and then the ground. Then his gaze wandered to the fountain that was on the wall of the entrance to the second district, the image stared back at him, the same as when he sealed it almost two years ago.
The Keybearer was painfully aware that everyone was looking at him and waiting for him to come to a decision, so he did.
"Search the worlds," he said suddenly, "I'll search the worlds and make sure the other keyholes are okay. Since Hollow Bastion is farther away I'll search there last."
"Hey! Wait a minute!" Donald yelled, " Goofy and I are coming too!"
Sora grinned and nodded, "Of coarse! I wouldn't want it any other way."
"Great!" Cid grinned, "I took the liberty of installing two new navigation gummies to your ship. One is for Dinoland and the other is for World Showcase."
"Dinoland is the closest, so you might want to go there first," Cloud stated.
Sora nodded, "Right, we'll leave as soon as we get some items from Donald's nephews."
"Okay!" Donald and Goofy yelled in unison.
"Alright…"Sora mumble searching through the newly purchased merchandise, "We have Potions, Elixirs, Ethers, and lots of food. Food is good."
He looked up at the residents of Hollow Bastion who came to see them off. Cloud nodded at him, Aerith smiled, Leon gave them a brief 'good luck', Cid patted him on the back and Yuffie came behind him in a bone crushing hug.
"Ack!" He cried out as he started turning a light shade of blue.
"Yuffie let go of him. He can't breathe." Leon stated, shaking his head.
"Oh! Sorry…" She said sheepishly and let him go.
The Keyblade master coughed, trying to get oxygen back into his system, "It's okay..." He grinned. The trio then boarded the ship and Sora drummed his fingers on his armrest as Donald checked over the ship.
'I wonder if we'll find Riku and King Mickey,' Sora mused. He was jerked out of his brooding when the pull of take off hit him at full force. He cursed and hastily strapped his seatbelt on then breathed a long sigh and slumped in his seat.
"Kairi! Kairi! Open up! It's me, Selphie!" Kairi opened the door a crack, and swung it open, letting the brunette inside.
"You're doing it again, " Selphie stated impatiently, tapping her foot in the same manner.
"D-doing what?" Kairi averted her gaze and sat on her bed.
"Acting sad! Depressed! You been like this for almost a year now." She yelled exasperated. Her look softened and she sat next to Kairi on the bed, "Look, I know you miss him, but you have to cheer up! He'll come back. He promised you."
Kairi nodded and stared at her hands in her lap, "Yeah…he did…" She closed her eyes and placed a hand over her heart and smiled slightly then looked at Selphie and stood up, "Come on, let's go find something to do, I'm tired of hanging around here."
Selphie beamed, " That's the spirit!"
Sora stumbled out of the gummi ship, his knees weak and a slight green tinge to his skin.
"That was the worst landing ever…" He moaned.
Donald rolled out of the ship and landed next to Goofy who was slumped against a tree.
"Gawrsh…I think we hit a meteor..." Goofy mumbled as Sora went to empty his stomach behind a bush and Donald turned on his back.
Sora emerged from behind the shrub and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked around as his companions stood up.
"Dinoland…" The Blue eyed boy made a funny face, "Ugh, it smells here."
He sighed and scratched his head, "I guess we should look around."
The time was night on Destiny Islands and there sat Kairi on the beach, alone, and staring up at the sky. She sighed and plucked at the zippers on her pink dress. She leaned back on a palm tree as she continued to stare up at the heavens and a softly sung song drifted through her ears.
"I know that you're hiding things
Using gentle words to shelter me
Your words were like a dream
But dreams could never fool me
Not that easily
"Save your tears 'cause I'll come back."
I could hear that you whispered as you walked through that door
But still I swore
To hide the pain.
When I turned back the pages:
Shouting might have been the answer...
What if I'd cried my eyes out, and begged you not to depart?
But now I'm not afraid
To say what's in my heart
'Cause a thousand words
Call out through the ages
They'll fly to you
Even though I can't see, I know they're reaching you
Suspended on silver wings
And a thousand words
Call out through the ages
They'll cradle you
Turning all of the lonely years to only days
They'll hold you forever
A thousand words..."
The song drifted off and Kairi snapped out of her drowsy haze. She looked around suddenly alert, and called out into the darkness.
"Who's there?" Once again all was silent. Slightly frightened, Kairi got up and started jogging for her boat, not looking back.
But sad hazel eyes stared after her, then faded back into the darkness.
"Can you protect me?"
The children have awakened. A path is set. But this is only the beginning. The start of something bigger. Will the end of your journey be reached?
-
Sora paused in his search, and shook off the brief feeling he had. Then he let out and overdramatic sigh as the group reached the gummi ship, "There is nothing here! Absolutely nothing! Isn't this 'Dinoland'? I don't even see any dinosaurs. Everything is so quiet…"
Donald walked past him, his beak turned into a frown, "That was pointless!"
"Oh, don't worry Donald," Goofy said cheerfully, "We'll find something on the next world."
The magician jumped into the ship and started the engines, "Next stop World Showcase."
Sora shook his head and climbed into the ship after Goofy and closed the hatch.
The rockets roared and they took off.
Dark green eyes stared up at the retreating ship. A tear ran down the tanned cheek and the form disappeared before the tear even hit the ground.
One chapter down, I hope to get the next one up in about a week. R and R!
By the way, I'm open to any and all reviews, tell me if you see a problem and I'll consider changing it.
