Chapter 2
Kairi woke up to bright sunlight streaming into her eyes. She looked over at her hand, which was clasping Sora's when she had fallen asleep hours before. Now, Sora was gone. She stood up, stretched, and shook the sand out of her fiery red hair.
"Sora! Are you awake?" Kairi called out to the seashore around her. She was so excited that Sora was okay. After she had spent a good half an hour crying, she had laid down next to Sora on the beach and grabbed his hand. She prayed over and over again that he would wake up, until she faded out of consciousness herself. Then, she woke up to no one. A moment passed, then Riku popped his head out from the door of the Seaside Shack.
"Sorry to get your hopes up," he said, "but Sora's not up. I moved him in here and put him on a kind of makeshift bed. I thought it would be a good idea, because I heard there was gonna be a storm tonight. I don't think Sora'd be very happy if we left him outside during that."
The excited smile plastered across Kairi's face shattered, leaving only a firm line where she was biting her lip. "Oh, okay... Good idea. But couldn't we just take him back to the mainland and put him in his own bed?"
"I thought about that, but I don't think Sora's parents need to know what's happening to him. They've already had two years worth of heartache for him, they don't need more now. Let's just pretend that we're hanging out on the island for the night, like we used to do."
"You're right. Sora's parents have spent too long worrying." Kairi said as she followed Riku into the Seaside Shack. Sora was in the corner of the small room, still sound asleep and not moving at all. She could barely even tell if he was breathing. The makeshift bed Riku had mentioned seemed to be a rope hammock tied to two wooden panels in the wall.
As Kairi walked over to Sora, Riku dragged two wooden barrels over to them and sat down on one. He motioned for Kairi to sit on the other. She did, and then for a few gloomy minutes they both stared down at Sora's face, measuring his breathing out of pure boredom.
After about ten minutes, Kairi reached down and clasped Sora's hand in hers, then Riku's in her other. "I'm scared," she whispered. "What if he never wakes up? What if he becomes like the boy in his dreams? Asleep for eternity?" With each word her voice rose higher, until it became a trembling scream. She buried her face into Riku's shoulder and began to sob uncontrollably.
"Kairi, relax," Riku tried to comfort her. "That's not going to happen. I don't know what's going on, but we're going to figure it out. Sora's not ending up like Ventus, and Ventus isn't ending up like Ventus either, if that makes any sense."
"What?" Kairi confusedly asked, calming herself down and wiping away the last of her tears.
"Sora is going to help Ventus and his friends. He was planning on leaving after spending a few weeks here, with you and me. It's going to be another long trip, so he wanted some time with us. King Mickey thinks that Sora may be able to wake Ventus up. Together, they would be able to find Aqua and Terra."
"How come you or Sora didn't tell me?"
"Sora wanted you to enjoy our time together without worrying about it. He wanted our last memories of each other, for a while, to be happy ones."
"Oh." Kairi was shocked at hearing this. She couldn't believe that Sora was that worried about her happiness. "Now all of his efforts are for nothing."
"Don't think that way. He'll get better, we'll figure out what's going on. He'll wake up and spend his remaining time having fun with us. I promise. If I can't keep my promise to you, I'll take Sora's place in trying to save Ventus and his friends."
"What if you can't help in any way?"
"Then I'll come home. If Sora's still asleep when I come back, we'll take him to Disney Castle, where King Mickey is, and see if he can help him." Riku let go of Kairi's hand and stood up. "You must be hungry by now, I'll go find something for us to eat."
With that said, he turned and left the Shack, leaving Kairi in tears over Sora.
