It's the shrieking that awakes him. Haunting, splitting, spectral voices that send ragged shards of glass through his chest.
Curled up on one side and eyes clamped shut tightly, he struggles to take gasping breaths of moist, moldy air.
He clutches at his head with cold and quivering hands. Lying on his side, he prays that the action will muffle the screeching. Prays that his skull won't fracture from the agony of those shrill, pained sounds.
Prayers make no difference here.
Reluctantly cracking his eyes open in search of the source of those wrenching cries, they widen at sight they encounter. Countless gleaming yellow eyes surround him.
So,
he realizes, Heartless can scream, too.
Huzzah for ambiguity!
This is a few months old, and I don't like it as much as I used to. So, I had this up for about a day before deleting it for reasons I really can't remember. Ah, well.