A/N: I meant to write this for quite some time now, but since I have more than 75 more ideas (and counting...), I never had the time for it. Hope you'll like it. It's post KH2. Enjoy. ;D
Special thanks: M. L. Ayala, my beta reader.
~ "You act all tough and cool to fool everyone, but you can't fool me. I can look right through you, Riku. You're like an open book... Your eyes can't lie..." ~
It was very dark outside. The sky was pitch-black. Maybe even darker, if that was possible. A cloaked figure in a long, black outfit seemed to be the only person that was walking outside at a fast pace. Some silver bangs escaped the hood, gleaming slightly in the little light that was there.
Riku could hardly see anything, but fortunately for him, there was enough light to light up his path. A gigantic heart-shaped moon, known as Kingdom Hearts, illuminated the world he was in now, The World That Never Was. Except for the neon lights here and there, it was the only source of light. Riku had no idea what those neon lights represented or why they were even there, but it didn't matter, anyway, since he was in a hurry.
When he lifted his head and looked to the huge moon, he could see that more and more hearts were flying toward it, like moths, attracted to a flame. That sight made him realize one thing: there was no time to lose.
He had to find that castle, - if there actually was a castle here - since Sora would probably come too late. As always. Sometimes he really wondered how it was possible that a guy like him came to be the Keyblade's Chosen One.
Riku had even tried to leave enough obvious hints for him on every world, but even with that talking duck and the walking dog as companions, he was slower than a toddler. Even as a young kid, he had managed to frustrate Riku to no end with his antics and slowness. Seriously, patience was the keyword if you had to live with people like him.
But that was probably what friends were for, right? Riku knew that a life without Sora would be unimaginably hard. He had learned that much from the past three years, where he had to do everything all alone.
Wait a second...had it really been three years already? That kind of shocked him. Time was sure flying when you had fun, he thought, sarcastically.
After what seemed to be hours, he saw the huge castle. Great, that would cost another two hours of trying to find Kairi, just in case she wasn't in the dungeon. It was not like he had another choice, though.
Just when he had almost reached the icy blue path that connected the solid ground with the levitating castle, shadows appeared all around him. They started to grow larger and larger, clumping together, until it was huge.
"Hmm...a booby-trap, huh? It doesn't seem that hard," he muttered.
"Are you sure, Riku?" a deep voice boomed.
It seemed to come from every direction. Riku looked all around him, searching for a trace, anything, but there was nobody to see. This thingknew his name? How? What was it?
"Show yourself!" he commanded, but the owner of the hauntingly loud voice didn't listen to him.
"You act all tough and cool to fool everyone, but you can't fool me. I can look right through you, Riku. You're like an open book... Your eyes can't lie..."
Riku came to two conclusions. The voice either had no idea what he was talking about and tried to find a weak spot by being all vague, or he could actually read his mind and knew exactly what to say to get him on his knees.
"Don't tell me you don't feel that burning feeling. It's eating you from the inside, isn't it?" the unknown...thing, for a lack of a better word, started again.
Riku narrowed his eyes.
"What are you talking about?" he demanded, his voice sounding neutral, as always.
"Are you sure you're not still jealous of Sora?"
After he had heard that question, an ice cold feeling took over him.
"I can't blame you, boy. After all, he has everything you don't. The Key, the fame...and the girl. But I'm sure you already noticed all of that."
The voice had crossed a line, and they both knew it.
"Once again, what are you talking about?" he inquired, although he didn't sound as confident as he had at first.
He wasn't the only one who had noticed that, because the creature started to laugh evilly. Riku was about to yell at him to clarify himself, or just shut the hell up, when something rather peculiar happened; his voice started to change. It became high-pitched and more hag-like. It changed into a laugh that went through the bone and had given him countless nightmares in the past (and still did). There was only one person - if you could even call her that, because no human could be this evil - that could laugh this way; Maleficent.
What the devil was going on here?
"You insignificant little fool. Did you really think you could escape from me that easily? Did you think I wouldn't find you? It seems that you're underestimating my powers."
At last, as if a haze had cleared before his eyes, he could see a gigantic dragon. Maleficent's final form. Before Riku could do anything, a muscular and strong dragon claw closed around his neck and started to strangle him. Riku tried to resist it, but it was of no use.
Suddenly, the dragon stopped trying to suffocate him and lifted him off the ground, toward her mouth. She opened her mouth and a dark hole appeared. Riku could practically count how many teeth she had. He could also smell something that just had to be blood, sulfur, and moldy bodies.
A new wave of panic hit him as he realized that she wanted to eat him, alive. Sure, he had been swallowed by a whale once, but this was entirely different. Unlike the whale, this creature was intending to kill him, and hurt him as much as she could while at it. As soon as he was inside the mouth, it became dark again, a suffocating blanket of death and cold. A deafening CRRAACK! was heard soon after that; the sound of his breaking bones.
Right that moment, he felt a sharp pain everywhere. It was as though he was being pricked by a billion needles at the same time, over and over again. A warm liquid spread all over him, but he didn't know if it was the dragon's saliva, or his own blood. And at that moment Riku just knew that he would die...
With a start, he sat upright in bed, his heart beating rapidly against his chest. His long, silver hair was plastered on his skull, wet, thanks to his own sweat. He wasn't surprised to be in his own bedroom, but at the same time, the dream had looked so real, so vivid, that for a moment he had thought that...
To be honest, this wasn't the first time he had had a nightmare about what had happened in the past years, when he hadn't been home. The nightmares came back every night, and every time they seemed to worsen. He shivered involuntarily. Was it just him, or was it really cold in the room all of a sudden?
Riku grabbed his glass of water from the nightstand and drank it all empty in one gulp. Shivering once again, he put the blankets around him and lay down. This would be another sleepless night. He was sure of that. Just great.
The difference with when he was a child was that he couldn't tell anyone about his nightmares anymore. Not his friends, and especially not his mother. The poor woman had enough worries already without his issues.
For instance, she never seemed to leave him alone anymore, but not because she didn't trust him. It was almost as if she was afraid that he would leave again if she didn't look after him, or something. Besides, he wasn't a child anymore. He should know how to take care of himself by now.
But he did miss his mother's hugs. They were always so warm and comforting. It was one of the very few things that made him feel more at ease.
Brooding about the past, the things that were long gone, and things that couldn't be changed anyway was of no use. So he lay down on his stomach and closed his eyes, hoping to fall asleep soon...and this time without the nightmares, please.
A/N: Thanks for reading. I hope you liked it. Was it good? Horrible? So-so? Review and let me know what you think of it. :) Also, this is my 11th entry for Bookaholic711's Project PULL. :)