His mother had seemed surprised when he showed up with a black haired doppleganger in tow, but agreed she could stay the night without further comment, agreeing to bring her to the mayor the next morning.
They'd headed up to his room. Sora had been embarrassed by the mess, but the girl didn't seem to even notice. She looked thrilled, turning around slowly.
"I can see the whole thing!" she said to herself, sounding pleased by this. "I'm really here!"
She was weird, Sora thought. He flopped backward onto his bed, then jerked upright against at the sound of a thundercrack. Looking out his open window he could see more lightning bolts flashing across the sky, the light reflecting off what looked like a black stormcloud over the island they'd just left.
"Oh no, the raft!" Without a second thought Sora grabbed the windowsill with one hand and vaulted out.
"But you said you weren't leaving yet!"
Sora looked up from the ground to see the girl clambering out the window after him. She jumped to the slanted first story roof, like he had, but unlike him, she didn't then jump to the ground. Instead she wobbled, tried to catch her balance, failed, then fell over the edge.
He lunged, just managing to catch her before she hit the street face-first. The force knocked him backward hard.
"Ow," the girl said thoughtfully. Then, rather than 'Thank you' or 'Sorry' or anything else a sane person would say, "You told me you weren't leaving yet!"
"I'm not! I'm just going to make sure the raft's safe!" He stood up. "I don't have time to argue!"
He started running to the beach where the boats were. The girl ran after him.
"But this isn't supposed to happen yet!" she argued. "Not until the raft's finished!"
"The raft is finished!" he shouted back, feeling more and more frustrated. "But then you showed up so we weren't going to leave!"
At the beach, the boats were gone. After a second of looking about to see if they were anywhere near, Sora plunged into the water and started swimming.
The water had looked calm, but after he swam out a short distance he found himself being swept out. He panicked, but within a minute he found himself nearly at the island with the raft rather than swept out to sea.
He reached the pier. "Riku's boat. And Kairi's!" he gasped. They lived closer than he did. They must have headed down as well before him.
The girl climbed up next to him. Then black monsters started to ooze out of the ground.
He stumbled back, terrified, and the girl at his left shouted, "All right! Finally!" and took off, jumping off the pier to run wildly across the beach.
Sora didn't have time to consider chasing her. The twitching black things were creeping closer. One skittered toward him and he stumbled backwards, falling. His hand landed on the hilt of the wooden sword. He swung at another monster as it jumped and the toy passed through it, like it was made of mist. Then it hit him, horribly solid, with icy claws and teeth digging into his chest. The other two were crouching and leaping now, and he kept swinging and nothing, it was like they were ghosts. They were gathering around him, clawing him, they were going to drag him back down into the dark like his dream, and he ran.
New ones popped up under his feet but when he spun, expecting one about to leap for his back, he saw old ones melting away behind him. And so he turned and ran again as the new bunch twitched and shuddered and jumped for him, all teeth and claws and dead yellow eyes.
This was what the girl had done, he realized. They couldn't hurt him as long as he kept running, they were just slightly too slow pulling themselves from the ground. He felt relieved by this for a few seconds, then realized he couldn't run forever and they were everywhere, radiating cold malevolence. He should try to go back. Tell the adults, they'd know what to do.
But Riku – Kairi – they were still here. Kairi wasn't the best running and Riku...Riku wouldn't run.
Riku – he'd have found Kairi. They'd be together. Sora paused second, looking around. There – on the small island with the paopu fruit tree, he thought he could make someone out through the gloom. One of the monsters struck his leg and he staggered, then recovered and started running.
He ran up the ramp from the beach, jumping onto the shack's roof to reach the landing. There was Riku! He sprinted across the bridge.
Above him, there was something dark swirling in the sky, a small ball of red in the center growing with every second. But Riku was standing there calmly, and alone, facing toward the ocean.
"Where's Kairi? I thought she was with you!"
"The door has opened..."
"What?"
Riku started to turn to him. "The door has opened, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!" Above him, the red pulsed and expanded.
"What are you talking about? We've gotta find Kairi!" Sora yelled, feeling growingly desperate.
"Kairi's coming with us!" he yelled back, then, "Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back. But this may be our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!" he shouted.
He held out his hand.
"Riku..."
Darkness bloomed under his feet, whirling around him and climbing higher and higher. But Riku just stood there calmly with his arm outstretched as the shadows grew around him. Like in the dream.
Sora bolted toward him, only for more darkness to appear on the ground under him. He stopped for a instant, startled, then grabbed, too late, for Riku's hand, the darkness wrapping around and holding him in place. Sora strained, trying to reach, his hand flailing inches away from the Riku's fingers, closing the gap laboriously with each passing second. He could almost touch -
Then the shadows pulled him back into itself, closing over and turning everything to black.
And then the darkness was gone and the air glittered around him, and he found himself holding a huge, ornate metal key. Riku was gone, leaving him standing alone on the small island, and something whispered, "Keyblade."
Another of the shadow things appeared. It spread its claws and jumped for him. Sora swung at it with a kind of fury from panic and confusion, and this time the blow connected. The shadow thing reeled backwards, seeming stunned.
Sora hit it over and over and over again, beating it in a blind frenzy until it dissipated into black insubstantial goo. Then he stopped, panting from exertion and adrenaline.
Kairi...
He had to find her. She hadn't been with Riku. He'd – Riku was gone, he had to find Kairi before she disappeared as well! Before she was swallowed up by darkness.
The darkness. The door was not yet open.
The secret place! What if Kairi had gone there, to escape the monsters?
He sprinted across the bridge again, swinging the key in his hand like a sword. The shadows staggered back, some of them bursting apart under the force of his blows. He saw another figure out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked it was that girl, Kimi-something, and she sounded like she was laughing of all things. He turned away and headed for the secret place.
The shadow monsters seemed even more numerous. Three popped up as he reached the entrance, covered now by a white door (the door is open now) of the secret place. He smashed one aside and dove in.
He was expecting more of them inside, but the narrow path was empty.
Kairi was safe here, then. She must be. He ran to the center chamber.
"Kairi!" he shouted in relief, seeing her standing on the other side of the chamber, in front of the closed door.
She started to turn and Sora realized something was wrong. Their eyes met. "So...ra," she said weakly, reaching toward him as the door behind her exploded open, spewing darkness. Kairi was tossed into the air, flying toward Sora and seeming to fade away even as she reached him. Sora held out his arms to grab her and she passed through him like a ghost. He spun, expecting to see her behind him, but she had vanished. The darkness rolled over him.
Then everything started to vanish.
For a second, the secret place seemed to be collapsing in even as it dissolved. When it cleared, Sora found himself flat on the ground staring over the edge into emptiness.
The island was – gone. He was standing on a patch of beach floating in nothing, watching the sand drain away over the edge. Smaller chunks were visible around it, also disintegrating. The only thing that seemed to remain was the wind, whipping about so powerfully Sora could barely move near the edges. And beyond was...there wasn't anything else Sora could see, just a scattered handful of chunks from the island, the wind, and the blood red hole in the sky above.
And there was a monstrous thing, standing there so huge it covered part of the sky, with a hole in its chest in the shape of a heart. It lumbered toward him, its feet tiny twisted stumps that shouldn't have been able to support it.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and fight Darkside!" shouted the girl.
He realized she was there too, sheltering by the stump of a broken tree. She was the only one left, not Riku or Kairi or his parents or anyone else.
Darkness swirled around the monster's fist. It punched down, hitting Sora hard enough to send agonizing jolts through his body that left him unable to move for an instant. A pool of darkness flowed out where it touched the ground, the same thick smothering stuff that had taken Riku and almost-but-not taken him.
Yellow eyes appeared within it, pulling themselves out of the shadow.
"Come on, fight!" yelled the girl, and panicking, he swung the key, hitting the monster's wrist.
This was horribly familiar somehow, and bits of his dream came rushing back again, strange impossible battles set atop stained glass. He felt cold teeth sink into his side as the giant pulled its hand back, and he hit the smaller thing away frantically. But I didn't pick this, he thought desperately as the shadow monsters reached for him, remembering the feel of the shield in his hand, the safety he'd felt behind it, blocking their attacks and pushing them away. I just wanted to protect my friends. I didn't want this.
He'd reached for the sword first. But he hadn't taken it! He'd thrown it away!
It hadn't mattered. He'd tried to pick right, and the monsters appeared. He beat them and more came, and he beat those only to be swallowed by the darkness he thought he'd been fighting, and he escaped the darkness only to find his shadow held the worst of all.
He'd beaten the shadow only to be engulfed by the darkness a second time, and he woke up and it all happened again, this time taking his friends. He'd tried to pick the shield and he'd lost them anyway.
The redness swirling above had grown huge and swelled further with every pulse. It looked like the end of the world.
The giant monster reached down again. Sora backed away, but it didn't seem to be trying to hit him, and no new darkness appeared. The girl was screaming something, but he couldn't hear her over the wind. The giant monster leaned over. Sora watched as its other arm sank into the ground to the shoulder, until its head was flat against the surface. Then he watched as it pulled back. When its hand was exposed again, it was holding something.
It looked like a swirling ball of light, a bright pinprick at the very center and darkening to shades of deep red almost immediately beyond. As Sora watched, the outer edge darkened further, to purple and then black, the darkness spreading like corruption into the whole of the sphere. The giant monster strained, its other hand holding its wrist, to slowly pull the sphere upward. After a few seconds, the ball began to rise. The monster lifted it to the sky, and it was sucked into the dark red pulsing sphere above.
It seemed to react, glowing brightly and splitting off bits as it was absorbed. Sora watched the smaller balls float downward, now the size of a balloon. They were mostly a translucent red mingled with deep purple, and glowed dimly.
One touched him, and he screamed in pain.
The monster punched the ground again, more of the small shadowy things appearing around its hand. Sora hacked desperately at the wrist as the shadow things clawed him and the balls of tainted light burst against him, nearing collapse. A shield to repel all...But all he had was the metal key in his hand, and all he could do was try to destroy.
The girl as still shouting. It might have been intended as encouragement, although it sounded more like orders. He couldn't hear her over the wind.
It bellowed and reared back. Then it was kneeling on the ground with its chest thrown out and head back, and there was something he hesitated to call light, but a whiteness mingled with the shadowy purple, streaming out of it into the air.
He ran at the monster, jumping up and slashing at the false light over and over again, and finally stabbing it with all his strength.
The thing lurched upright again, the whiteness gone. The wind was intensifying and as he watched the shadowy monster began to rise into the air, no longer touching the sand. Then it was sucked into the growing redness that had swallowed up the sky. Bits of the ground followed, and Sora realized he hadn't won at all. Everything would be pulled in. The ground itself was turning to darkness around him, and the wind pulling harder.
The girl ran forward at the last second and grabbed his hand, and they were pulled into the devouring sky.