Theme - Metamorphosis. May the transformation stroke readerly egos.

I suggested this theme to the coodinator a couple of weeks before, but I had no idea what to write once the challenge commenced. What followed was a thought that still shocks me.

Title and epigram lyrics belong to Evanescence and their songs, "Silver Rain Fell" and "October", respectively.

The character 'Kurix' belongs to me, as I have not read any other work with this name or idea. If someone else out there has already created this idea, I extend my compliments for your creativity. But as of right now, in my dimension, Kurix is mine.

Dedication: Zanisha, my Evanescence girl

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Constantly ignoring/ The pain consuming me/ But this time, it's cut too deep/ I'll never stray again.

Silver Rain Fell

Riku sighed. The taste of copper was getting old. Fighting was too. He knuckled his chin, smearing the crimson trail. It glistened, hypnotizing. It looked like the ocean when the burnt orange giver of light kissed the horizon in the evening twilight.

His eyes twitched, the familiar sting of tears sweeping across his aqua vision. The memory caressed his thoughts, embracing him one final time.

He waited as long as possible before surrendering to a blink. The glowing light drifted into darkness, swallowed by the shadows of closed eyes.

When the blood splashed hall of Hollow Bastion touched his sight, the aquatic shade dimmed. The Island slipped away; fragments of his childhood following one by one in a game of Follow the Leader.

Falling… Falling into Darkness.

Riku couldn't breathe. Not very well. A heavy weight pressed down on his sternum. Every breath pushed more oxygen from his lungs. He couldn't fill them.

The weight forbade swallowing too. Air and blood intermingled. Hybridizing. They slipped past his tongue, staining his lips cherry red. If he pressed the coloured flesh together, the mixture snaked out the corners of his mouth.

He couldn't stop it. He was slipping away.

Riku looked up, the Bastion hall now unbroken black. No shading or some faint glow; solid black.

He blinked, staining the aqua shade darker.

He was used to the endless abyss of obsidian, drowning in darkness. He didn't mind it the last few times. He still had his friends, memories to keep him company when everything dissolved into a world without light.

His heart would keep him going.

Lips twitch, lifting one bleeding corner to reflect his famous smirk into the invading black. The hole in his chest rimmed his hand just right, the edges resting beneath his fingers and the heel above the wrist. His palm sobbed crimson.

Riku always thought the injury looked painful. His mind didn't like being right. His body wasn't pleased either.

Riku cried for air now, his memories so tinted that he couldn't find emotion enough to plead for their return. His body didn't want to suffocate. It hurt. A lot.

He moaned, a shuddering vibration in his throat. The hole sealed beneath his touch, finally ceasing the blood flow. It was an unsavory feeling; one he didn't care to remember. He wondered if he would remember, pondered where the memory loss would cease.

When his new existence would begin.

Riku lips trembled, a final wave of loss and sadness crashing down upon his body. His palm couldn't find it.

Riku never realized how much comfort he felt in his heartbeat. He felt so empty, so lost. So

Nothing

The aqua shade of his eyes blinked out, maybe in permanence. His body splintered beneath the shadows, preparing to fall and be re-written by twilight.

His final thoughts were indifferent. Without a heart or memories to his name, Riku realized he'd never exist again. His body wouldn't look the same, many details altered without care. No one would know him or bring back who he was. His heart was gone, now a Neoshadow, hunting with bestial hunger for another heart.

Rejected by the Light

Hated by the Darkness

He was comfortable in the masking black trench coat. He wasn't sure why. Nor did he care.

The latter wasn't by choice.

He wandered the rain-soaked streets, falling tears cooling his flesh, caressing his hair. Every so often, the Nobody, Kurix, would rest his palm against his sternum, searching for a non-existent pulse.

The loss bothered him, his abdomen twisting whenever he checked. But the reaction was physical. Nothing special.

He kept walking.

Such was the fate of a Nobody. Damned to the chains of twilight.

Kurix didn't care…