Nyxie Is A Gamer Nerd: Yep, just when you think everything's gonna be good...plot twist!
A/N: Just when I had gotten used to 4-5 reviews per chapter...you all disappeared haha! That's okay. I did get 3 new followers/favoriters this week...hi guys! Thanks for joining us!
"Where are they? What happened?" I yelled, running over to where the dark corridor had just been.
"I don't know!" Kairi replied frantically. "They were coming in right behind me, then suddenly it just closed! You can open another one, right?"
I was already trying, but for some reason nothing was happening. "I should be able to," I huffed, gritting my teeth and stretching out my hand again. "Why is it not working? I just opened one a few seconds ago!"
Donald, Goofy, and Pluto had already crossed through the second corridor onto the beach, but King Mickey jogged back over toward us. "It's alright, Meli, calm down. Maybe you just need to give yourself a minute."
"No, you don't understand." I could feel panic trying to take over my body. "Something's wrong! I should be able to open a corridor right back to that rooftop that we were just standing on, but it's like it's not even there anymore. I can't find it."
"What does that mean?" Kairi asked nervously.
"I don't know!" I ran my hands shakily through my hair. "I've never had this happen before...never felt anything like it." I let out a frustrated growl, then realized I was forgetting something. "Wait...I can just try to find Riku. Maybe they're somehow somewhere else now, but I should still be able to find him."
"You can do that?" the King queried.
"Yeah, that's how I caught up with everyone else in the castle earlier," I explained quickly, then shut my eyes and opened my hand again. I could imagine Riku standing there, just like usual, but something was off. I couldn't feel him, couldn't focus my energy on him. Like the rooftop, it was almost like he had disappeared from existence.
Heart pounding, I switched hurriedly to Sora. The same thing happened. There was nothing there. They were just...gone.
"No!" I let out all the breath I had been unintentionally holding. My head was aching from concentrating so hard. "I can't...I don't know where they are! They're gone!" I panted. "I can't find them anywhere!"
"It's gotta be Xemnas," King Mickey announced. "Only he could do something like this."
"But I thought he was gone!" Kairi protested, tears brimming in her eyes.
"I thought so, too, but..." The King shook his head. "Sora and Riku can take care of him, I know they can."
I was getting tired of hearing that same speech over and over again. "We've got to help them!" As I resumed my search, I could vaguely hear the King trying to convince me to give up, but I ignored him. I couldn't give up. I couldn't lose him, not again, not when I had just gotten him back.
"You've got to stop," Kairi's teary voice broke through to my consciousness. "They'll find their way back to us, just like they always do."
"No, they won't!" I shouted. "Don't you get it? They're in the Realm of Darkness. The only way to get out of there is to use a dark corridor, and I'm the only one who can make them! I have to find them, or they'll be stuck there forever!"
"Okay," King Mickey acquiesced. "But you'll have to wait and try again later. It's not safe for us to stay here anymore."
"Then go!" I growled. "Get Kairi out of here. But I'm not leaving without Riku!" I closed my eyes again and desperately tried to find some trace of either of my friends. Blood trickled down my lip from my nose, but I ignored that, too. My mind swirled through the darkness, grasping at nothing, flying through all of the worlds I knew and coming away empty. Kairi tugged on my arm a couple of times, then eventually left at the King's behest.
"Dusks!" I heard King Mickey cry, and he tried again to pull me out of my search. But I couldn't stop. No matter how much my head throbbed or my knees wanted to buckle, my heart was screaming out that I had to find Riku and Sora. Something terrible was going to happen to them, and I was the only one who could stop it. Even when I heard the King fighting off Dusks around me, and even when one latched itself onto my leg, and another jumped on my back and began biting my shoulder, I couldn't stop, couldn't leave.
Finally, a strong pair of hands pulled the two Dusks off of me, then literally dragged me kicking and screaming out of the In Between. Goofy didn't let go of me until we were safely on the beach, and that's when it happened. I shattered. Curled up on my side in the sand, I cried harder than I had ever cried before in my life. There were tears for the weeks of captivity, for the pain and the fear and the hopelessness. Tears that I had forced myself to keep inside for the most part, too scared and too proud to let them show. But mostly, I cried for Riku, for what had been, and what we had lost, for the future that I had allowed myself so briefly to dare to hope for, that had now suddenly been snatched out of my hands.
I had no idea how long I was lying there. I barely even noticed when someone cast a Cure spell for the bites and scratches the Dusks had given me. Kairi was sitting right behind me, with her arm thrown across me and her cheek resting on my shoulder, dripping her own tears. Even when I finally began to calm, I still didn't move from that position. I wasn't sure that I could. My body had given up now that it was finally allowed to rest, and there was no strength left in it.
After a few more minutes of silence, just listening to the waves, King Mickey approached us, his shoes crunching softly in the sand. "We should get you two somewhere that you can really rest," he suggested quietly.
Kairi sat up and wiped her face with the back of her hand. "We can go to my house. Only...we'll have to find a way to get to the mainland. We usually bring our boats over, but there won't be any over here now."
"No," I mumbled, trying to make my limbs work so that I could push myself up. "I've got to try again. The Dusks will be gone now. I've got to...try..."
Pulling me up by my elbow, Kairi steadied me with a hand on my back as my head spun. "Meli," she began gently. "You know that I want to find them as much as you do. But...right now, don't you think Riku would want you to take care of yourself?"
I shook my head, unable to form a coherent answer in my mind. "Well, even if you won't put yourself first for once, the rest of us need you right now," the King put in. "We all need rest and some food, too, especially Kairi, and you may be the only one who can get us there."
"I'd really like to see my parents, too, and let them know I'm safe," Kairi added with a slight smile.
It was odd to hear her talk about her parents. I had almost forgotten that she had been adopted and actually had a family here waiting for her. "Okay," I whispered, nodding.
"Alright then," King Mickey smiled. "Do ya think you can manage to open a corridor to the mainland?"
I let my gaze travel over the ocean to where I knew the larger island was situated. "Maybe," I murmured. "I've never been there before, which makes it harder, but maybe if I could just see it well enough..."
Kairi and the King helped my to my feet, and Goofy offered his arm for support so that I could shuffle my way across the little play island to the dock. From there, peering across at the other beach in the distance, I opened another corridor, and we traveled across.
I stumbled out of the corridor and collapsed onto the sand once more, gasping in shuddering breaths. Kairi was kneeling by my side immediately, one hand on my back. "I'm so sorry that we had to ask you to do that. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," I managed. "I just...need a minute." Turning over to sit, I shut my eyes and gulped in the sea air, trying to gather my strength again.
"Ya know, I could just carry you to Kairi's house, if ya wanted," Goofy offered. "It's not like ya weigh hardly nothin', a-hyuck."
"It is a pretty long way," Kairi warned me. "You should probably let him. See, it's that big one all the way up on that hill." She pointed to a two-story brick home that could just be seen in the distance.
"Wow, that's a nice house!" Donald exclaimed.
Kairi shrugged sheepishly. "My dad's the mayor of the Islands."
I shook my head stubbornly. "I'm not making you carry me all that way. I'll manage."
I didn't manage for very long. We were moving so slowly up the path through town, with me leaning heavily on Goofy's arm and having to focus hard on each and every step I took, that we ended up sending Kairi on ahead, so that she could see her parents and let them know there were guests coming. It was not long after that when I apparently passed out and Goofy ended up carrying me, after all.
