"The Whitewashed Tomb"


Silence can be the most deafening sound upon your ears. So many voices that I once listened to are nothing more than the empty air, occasionally stirring wind chimes. No one has ever described me as philosophical, and I have never claimed to harbor any intellectual brilliance. Still, I can't help but be bothered. Slowly, we are all fading. There are more fingers on my right hand than there are members remaining in the organization. What was once an adventurous journey into the heart and its facets has turned into a Shakespearean tragedy. We will all die, and our dreams of a Kingdom Hearts will shrivel into dust, just like our own hearts have in the past.

Hearts harbor all emotion, they say. They. Us. I'm still deciding if that's true. I think I felt something once. Now, I don't know if it was only a memory of emotion or if it was sincere.

I felt a hand grip mine. Having expected the boy's reaction, I simply waited for him to say something.

"I don't have a good feeling about this. I don't want to go."

What a child he sounded like. When I didn't respond, he continued.

"I've already fought Roxas, and he beat me once. He'll only win again, and what if this time, I don't get away?"

Yes, I'd already thought of that. It had been accompanied with a strange pang. Funny, I had thought Nobodies didn't get such pangs.

A cold voice cut in, "The Superior commands it." The voice belonged to Saix. "It wouldn't be the first time one of our comrades sacrificed his existence for our cause." With this, he only walked away.

The boy didn't hear. He was still waiting for me to respond. When I finally turned to gaze at him, he looked so distraught. Nobodies can't have emotions; an annoying mantra was being repeated in my head.

With another tug at my hand, he said, "Can I be with you tonight?"

I sighed. "Demyx, you and I both have missions right now. We can't get distracted." I pulled my hand away and left him there. I couldn't explain the expression on his face, but there was no reason for me to try.

That was the last time I saw him, as his words had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And now I wait. The wielder of the Keyblade is soon coming, or so I've been told. Like the good minion I am, I am waiting for him. I have this desire in me to rip apart that boy limb from limb, but my superior gave me the overly restraining order to simply "eliminate." There is no reason behind my animosity toward the boy. I have told myself this countless times.

What began as a need to satiate a single night of frenzied passion had slowly morphed into a continuing fulfillment of physical needs. I always told myself to not get attached. By this time, several organization members had been killed. Demyx was such an inexperienced thing that he was likely to be the next to go. Yet, he was determined for our nights spent together to mean...something.

"I think I love you."

I gave him a look. "Think? That's the only way a Nobody can feel anything, if anything."

He didn't say anything more. I felt impatient. I didn't want to be having such a conversation. Nobodies weren't supposed to express sentimentality or any emotion, and here this boy had tried to confess love? I quickly dressed myself and left him to his own thoughts.

So much has happened since then. I remember each of the meetings that always concluded with us marking another name onto our list of the dead and gone--III, IV, V, VI, VIII, IX, XI, XII, XIII. I play with the idea that maybe it's soon to be my turn. Honestly, I'm not optimistic about my superior's plans of creating a utopia.

And so the Keyblade master arrives at last, proclaiming trite and overly heroic words meant to burn the deepest depths of my heart. As if I had one.

My sarcasm is a sharp as my swords as I bite back the equally appropriate and villainous jargon. The hatred has returned in full to me, and still that pang relentlessly rips at my insides--at what? I have no heart. If it truly is that organ that takes all burdensome emotions upon it, why am I still weighted down?

The battle ensues, and my attacks are graceful as ever with a renewed bloodlust. And yet, I know whom the victor is before the first blow has been given or taken. And I wonder...

Where do people without hearts go once they're dead?


Oh, the angst! sob ...I'll give a cookie to whoever can figure out whose POV this is.