"So many are still waiting for their new beginning, their birth by sleep. Even me... and even you."

-Ansem the Wise (Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep)


His rebirth was one of darkness and flames.

Fire licked at his skin, rough as a pyroar's tongue. His flesh melted like so much mist under sunlight as it hissed and evaporated off his bones. Even when he was burned down to the marrow, the heat continued beating at him mercilessly. His very soul was consumed by the inferno. At last the conflagration dimmed to embers, then to shadows.

Blind and dumb, he was left only with a phantasmal sense of touch. He felt... empty. A void stretched within and without him, a nothingness that drove him to madness. Silent screams tore from his throat. Voiceless, he howled his rage and despair to no one. He was stuck in purgatory with no release, closer to hell than heaven but nonetheless a torturous limbo.

Someone... Anyone, please...

Mewling pleas echoed from his blasted psyche. In vain he was reaching out as he searched the blankness for some shelter to which he could cling. Crying like a newborn separated from its mother, he was useless even to himself in this state.

Is someone there? Can anyone hear me?

No one answered. Tears fell from his sightless, nonexistent eyes. If he had a body left, he would have curled in on himself. Cold air swept on an arctic gust in the wake of the fire that had consumed him. As if ice were freezing around his spirit to hold him in place, the chilling wind turned him into living stone. He could not move so much as a twitch. Words could scarcely form on his frost-kissed lips.

I'm lost... I'm scared...

Imaginary monsters growled from where they crouched in the murk around him. He could nearly feel the fetid heat of their breath on his neck. The beasts crept in from all sides. Their teeth snapped, their claws clicked on the ground. What the fire had not destroyed they had come to feast upon, scavengers meaning to eat the little of him that was left over. He quivered like a leaf in a gale and screamed for his life.

Someone help me, please!

He did not want to be here. He did not want to be alone. He did not want to die.

HELP ME!

Peace, lost one.

The voice rang out through the darkness. Tremors rattled his clouded senses as the gloom was dispelled by a burst of scarlet light. A keening echo like an eagle's cry echoed all around him, a primal call jarring and alien to his ears. The shadows fled in the wake of the red glow. His sight returned with a vengeance, and he had to squint against the light spearing in his eyes. He thought he saw a large, vaguely avian shape silhouetted against the brightness, but with his blurry vision he could not be very sure.

Warmth suddenly enveloped him like a blanket. He did not realize how cold he was or how badly he was shivering until he was pulled against something large and blessedly solid. There was material like soft leather under his touch, a bitter yet comforting herbal scent rising from it.

Instinctively curling up closer, he welcomed this new presence with a relish. It did not enter to his mind to wonder at this thing that had come to his rescue. After all, it had saved him from the cold nothingness that had almost eaten him up. So awash was he with relief that it did not occur to him to question or be afraid. A heaviness tugged at his very being, pulling him into a state of hazy peace he had not felt since...

Rest. I will guard you whilst you sleep. The shadows shall not touch you so long as I keep them at bay.

The voice, while gentle and low, brooked no argument. He was hardly in a position to resist as it was. Its rumbling vibrations soothed him inexplicably, and he could do no other but obey.

What a pitiable little spirit. So strong and fierce, and yet so twisted and confused. Perhaps the designs of fate will be kind to you in the end. Ah! but you have such a long and difficult path ahead.

The journey will, ultimately, be yours alone to undertake. Do not fret. I shall walk alongside you and lend my strength when and where I can. It is a rare gift that you have been given, lost one. For your sake, I hope that you will make the best of it.

Sleep crept upon him at last. The darkness that washed over him was sweet and healing, so different from that yawning void he had found himself in before.

Yet his slumber was not without its strange, ominous dreams, either.


/A laughing, side-burned man with eyes the color of a summer thunder cloud.../

He could remember nothing from before the fire. Only pain and frustration and defeat... and sad, blue-grey eyes. Those eyes pierced him to his core, disappointed and grieving.

/A city full of brights lights, a tower at the center its crown jewel.../

When he tried to touch the man's shoulder, he was merely shrugged off.

/Their hands bound together... Friendship... Love.../

"My decision is final, Professor. The plans are set in motion; they cannot be stopped now. My offer still stands. There is a place for you in this new world if you will only accept it."

/A fair-headed girl dressed in red, eyes sparking with challenge and beautiful conviction.../

"What kind of world can you possibly build this way? Why must everything and everyone else die to satisfy your manic ambitions? No... A utopia built on a foundation of death and destruction is no better than a dictatorship built on peace. I can't live in a world like that... and I can't love a man who would strive to create one."

/Flames, death, destruction... Everything going up in an earth shattering explosion.../

"... I see now that we have nothing more to offer each other. Farewell then, Professor."

/Silence... Emptiness.../

He knew he was the reason for the hurt in the that gaze, but he did not know why. "Oh, mon cher," the man's tear-choked voice echoed, "where did we go wrong?"


A/N: Well, here goes my first long-term, multi-chaptered fic! I hope to bring a little enjoyment to myself and others with this project. Drop a review or favorite if you have a spare moment, and keep shipping that liontree! :3

-Xen

P.S. The cover art is courtesy of Xous54 on deviantArt. She is a wonderful artist, and you should really give her work a look-see if you have a chance!