The electronic beeping on his alarm clock woke Sora up. He stumbled out of bed and towards his bathroom, and stared at his reflection groggily as he brushed his teeth. He began to remember the dream he had had the night before bit by bit. Sora frowned at how vividly he remembered all of it. With a nervous laugh, he pushed it to the back of his mind as he ran through his morning rituals.

Sora was already running a few minutes behind when he got downstairs, so he opted out of breakfast to save time. As he bent down to put on his shoes, his eyes fell on the basement door. He paused. The idea of going down there to see if there really was a hidden room played around in his head for a bit. Sora shook the thought away. It was silly to think it had been anything more than a bizarre dream.

The sun was still partially hidden by the horizon when Sora began his walk to his bus stop at the end of the road. The weather was the complete opposite of last night. There was not a single cloud in the morning sky. The ground was soft from all the rain, and the budding trees glistened with water droplets illuminated by the sunrise. The beautiful spring weather was forgotten by the tired Sora, and as he arrived at the bus stop he thought about how wonderful it would be in just one month when school finished.

The bus arrived, and Sora settled down in a seat in the back. He closed his eyes and thought about getting some more rest. His mind drifted back to his dream. It was true that there was a door in his basement closed off with a padlock, and the name that had been scribbled on the inside cover of the sketchbook looked like it might have said Riku. But then again, it could have just been his mind filling in the gaps. The dream could have been caused by his loneliness, or as a way for him to some how make the hauntings seem less terrifying. Sora knew full well that the human mind was a bizarre and powerful thing.

Sora nearly forgot to get off the bus once it had rolled into the school parking lot. He pushed through the crowded hallways and to his locker. Kairi was already there waiting for him.

"Good morning," she said with a smile.

"Hrgmm," he replied.

"You look like shit," she laughed.

"Didn't sleep well," he grumbled. He opened his locker and rummaged around for his books, and then realized he had forgotten his calculus homework. He groaned, knowing that his would lower his grade even more. The bell rang, and he began to fumble towards his first class. He was already regretting not eating breakfast.

The rest of the day was not any better. He fell asleep in two of his classes, and had forgotten his lunch. Worse, both Roxas and Kairi were particularly energetic at lunch, making Sora feel even worse. He was grateful to finally be back on the bus home. The dream had completely slipped from his mind.

Sora headed for the kitchen the minute he got through the door. He decided on a sandwich, and ate the entire thing in less than two minutes. Just as he was contemplating going upstairs to take a nap, the sound of music started up. It sounded very much like jazz, and suddenly Sora remembered about the night before. He froze, and stared at the basement door. It seemed to be coming from there. He tensed up, but pushed himself to go down to the basement, albeit very slowly.

The basement door squeaked open, and Sora flicked on the light. Taking a deep breath, he started his descent. The closer he got to the locked door, the louder the music got, until he was right in front of it. His fingers ran over the wall, searching for the loose brick. Once he found it, he pulled it out and retrieved the key. He fumbled with the lock, unable to stop his uncontrollable shaking. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally got the padlock off and the door opened.

Sora's jaw dropped as he looked about the room. It was exactly as he remembered it. He stumbled forward, and saw that there was the Duke Ellington record from last night playing on the turntable, playing away. Tacked up on the walls were the same drawing and photographs, and there was the same clarinet in the same corner.

He remembered that he had read somewhere that it was possible to check if he was really dreaming using a book. He hastily pulled one of the books off the shelf and opened it to a random page. He studied the picture of a man with a crooked trumpet, under which was a caption that read 'Dizzy Gillespie'. Sora shut his eyes tightly and counted to three. He opened them again and looked at the page again. The page had stayed exactly the same. Which meant this was real.

"Oh shit," he whispered to himself. In a panic, he dropped the book and turned around quickly. When he did, he found himself face to face with the same green-eyed, silver-haired boy from the night before with the biggest smile on his face.

"Shocking, isn't it?" Riku said. Sora was at a loss for words. Upon seeing Sora's panic, Riku added, "You know the best way to make this all go away is to try and solve it."

Sora swallowed hard. "Okay," he said with a weak nod, trying not to meet Riku's eyes, "Where do I start?"

"Here. I mean, what better way to start an investigation than to get to know the victim? Think of this as one of those cheesy cop shows you always watch," Riku said with a cheeky smile.

"Alright. So… can you tell me about yourself, then?" Sora said.

Riku laughed. "Um, no. You have to figure that out yourself. I mean, it's me, so anything I tell you would be biased. I can help you, though."

Sora grumbled softly to himself. Riku was doing nothing to win him over. After all, he was really doing him a favor by solving his murder. He decided to start with the bookshelf. "You have a lot of books about music," he commented.

Riku's face instantly lit up. "Yeah. Music was really my thing. I mean, I did a little bit of drawing, but it pretty much paled in comparison."

"There's a lot of jazz…" Sora prompted again.

"Well, yeah. If you want to really appreciate the wonders of any modern music, then you've got to know at least something about jazz. I mean, it pretty much revolutionized everything about music," Riku continued.

"I'm guessing you play clarinet," Sora mumbled.

"Yup."

Sora picked up another book that was particularly large, and read the title aloud, "Gravity's Rainbow."

"Oh, that. I decided I'd give myself a challenge. It's, like, 800 pages or something. I only got an eighth of the way through before… Well…" Riku trailed off sadly.

Sora did not want to upset Riku anymore, so he said nothing, and soon an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. Sora looked around, and noticed that there were no family pictures or awards or anything like that. Then he remembered the box full of photos. He crouched down on the floor and pulled out the box from next to the bookshelf. He gingerly took the lid off, and looked at the massive stack of photos.

He picked up a portion of the stack and began to flip through them. They were mostly portraits of people, with their names scribbled at the bottom of the photo in permanent marker. There were a hand full of people who showed up over and over again, a blonde boy named Demyx, a dark haired girl named Yuffie, a brown haired boy named Leon, and another blonde boy named Cloud.

"These were your friends?" Sora asked, looking up at Riku.

"Yup," Riku said with a nod.

Sora picked up another stack of photos. The photo on top was of a brunette girl with soft eyes and a big kind smile. At the bottom, there was a name carefully written out. Sora's breath hitched as he recognized who it was.

"Aerith…" he choked out, "That's… my mum…"

Riku said nothing, only nodded slowly.

"You knew my mother…" Sora whispered.

"Yes."

"Were you… friends?" Sora asked hoarsely.

"Yes."

The room fell silent once more. Sora was letting it all sink in. His mum and Riku had been friends. Sora slowly went back to rummaging through the box. At the bottom was a photo of a group of people, all with instruments and dressed in tuxedos and dresses.

Riku peered over his shoulder and at the photo. "That was my school's jazz band."

Sora found Riku in the first row with the saxophone players, holding his clarinet. He looked happy, happier than Sora had seen him. His eyes fell on the boy sitting at the piano. His face had been scribbled out.

"Who is this?" Sora asked. Riku said nothing, just stared at the wall. "Riku?" Still, he said nothing, so Sora dropped the topic. He stood up and looked around the room.

"Hey, Riku?"

"Hm?"

Sora took a deep breath, and then asked, "Didn't you see who it was that murdered you?"

"Yes," Riku replied quietly, "but I don't remember. I know it probably doesn't make sense to you that I would forget my death, but I think that the dead aren't obsessed with death the way the living are. I'm actually pretty sure that a lot of people had never heard of me until my murder showed up in the paper. But it's different for me. It's my story, and it's better to think about my life rather than my death. It's not easier, but it's better."

"Oh," Sora replied softly.

"You know," Riku continued, "in New Orleans, they would only mourn someone's death for something like an hour, and then they would have these big parties that would last for days where they would celebrate the person's life. That's what I wish people remember. I don't want all the people I knew in my life to think about my dead body, alone in this house, I want them to remember all the things I did."

Sora looked into his eyes, and saw something that he could not name for a split second before it was gone. "So you don't even remember a few things about what happened that would help me out?"

Riku shook his head sadly. "It used to be all I could think about, but now I can't even remember the last hour of my life."

Sora sighed. "So how am I going to solve this?"

"The library has records of everything. You could probably find some old newspaper articles there," Riku offered.

"Fine," Sora sighed. More work. "Could you at least help me a little bit? I mean, I don't even know your full name, or when it was you were alive."

"Riku Eaton. I would have graduated in 1989. I was just one month away…"

"That's it?" Sora grumbled.

"Afraid so," Riku laughed.

Sora looked at his watch and saw that it was late. The library usually closed before he could get to it after school, so he would have to play hookie the next day.

"You know, I'm doing you a favor, and you're making this a lot harder than it should be," Sora moaned.

Riku laughed. "Yeah, whatever. But in all seriousness, the anniversary is this Monday. It would be nice to have a little closure this time around."

Sora sighed once more, then got up, and closed and locked the door and walked upstairs. He would pick up his investigation tomorrow, but now he was feeling tired and hungry.

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A/N: Blergh, it took me forever to get this up. I was actually on vacation for like a week, so that didn't help.

So it's starting off a little slow. The pace should pick up a lot in the later chapters. I was also a little less organized on this one, but I was kinda in a rush to get it done. The other chapters will be better, I promise.

Adios for now.