A weak, bluish-white sun sat low in the black sky, behind tenebrous arches that resembled the bones of some ancient behemoth that loomed over a shallow sea the color of dark mercury. There was the faint sound of waves as lighter water washed against the dusky sand.
There was a blue glow against the side of one obsidian rock. It changed to black and a dark, cloaked figure, his face covered by the hood, stepped out through the glow, its center warping as he did so to the same color as the distant sun for an instant before disappearing.
"You have arrived," said another, larger cloaked figure resting against another rock, turning his head to face the newcomer as the strange sea rippled in front of him. The newcomer walked over to the larger figure. "I've been to see him..." The newcomer stopped walking. "He looks a lot like you."
Who are you?
After a pause, the larger figure replied, "I'm what's left. Or...maybe I'm all there ever was." He turned back to gaze out to the sea.
I meant your name.
"My name is of no importance," the larger figure said dismissively. He turned to the newcomer again. "What about you? Do you remember your true name?"
My true name...is...
888
"Sora?"
Blue sky. The sun shining high above.
A brown haired boy waking, blue eyes.
Bright light.
A beach, shining, blue water stretching to the horizon.
A girl. He's startled. She laughs. Can't see...
"Give me a break Kai-"
Another boy running. "Giving up already?"
The first boy running.
The girl running?
All of them, sitting on a tree with the sun too low beyond them, sky dark. Shadows everywhere.
"If there are other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one?"
Because
Two faces scratched white on stone, in darkness. A star.
Another dream...?
"This world has been connected."
The boy. Scared?
"Who's there?"
Something in the shadows, terrible and familiar and unrecognizable.
"Tied to the darkness."
The girl standing, boy sitting. "Sora, don't ever change." Sun impossibly huge and low in the sky.
"The door has opened..." The second boy standing there dark and hard to see, holding out one hand like beckoning.
To the first boy?
"What?"
Who is reaching out and...
"You understand nothing."
An enormous black thing in the blackness, with glowing yellow eyes.
An open door, the girl, blackness...
"So..ra..."
Falling in darkness.
A flash of white.
888
"Another dream about him...?" a boy said quietly to himself, sitting up, his deep blue eyes pensive in the light. He was wearing a long t-shirt, white with a black collar and sleeves, as well as black shorts.
One wall of the boy's room was made of irregularly shaped and sized shelves that look like they were carved into the terracotta colored material. Most were filled with books, either stacked on their sides or standing up in a row. One of the larger sections had various cardboard boxes stacked inside at odd angles due to the rounded shape of the shelf, and a few smaller colored boxes could be seen among the other shelves. A moon and star motif could be seen around the room. A picture of the crescent moon in the night sky was tacked to one side of the door, a note stuck underneath it, and a line of wooden hangers with stars carved into the rounded ends on the other side. A bag hung from one of them, and a discarded belt dangled from another. And there was a small chair with a star backing and twin crescent-moon armrest next to a table, behind which was a dresser and an end-table with a plant and small alarm clock sitting on top.
The boy had been lying flat on the bed, covers kicked to the foot of the mattress. Now he turned toward the window and kneeled on his bed, reaching out to grab the handles of the huge double window that took up most of the wall next to his bed and pushed it open as the morning ring of the bell resounded through the air. He stared out over the scene before him. The sun lay low in the sky as always, behind the raised train track that ringed the town. As he watched, a small train traveled across the section he could see between the buildings. It looked a bit odd, but he couldn't be sure with the distance and lighting. Wispy golden orange clouds drifted across the pinkish purple sky.
The boy yawned. He changed into his normal clothes, a black t-shirt covered by a white zippered pullover with a red collar and black-trimmed sleeves and multiple pockets, and long pants with a black waist and white legs.
He glanced over at the swirling fishes around a light blue globe at the head of his bed, then to the flashing star atop the rounded three-tiered miniature tower next to the table. It was made of black metal with a different neon pattern on each section - the first the star, the second a double row like tiny windows, the third a large oval with a small triangle at the top and bottom. His friends had bought it for him as a present, and it was his favorite thing in the room. It reminded him of something, though he couldn't remember what, like the half-forgotten memory of a scattered dream.
He glanced at the clock and then hurried out. They'd be meeting at the usual spot, and he didn't want to be late.