Chapter 14
Roxas groaned before turning onto his side. He used all of his energy to push open his eyes, finding himself back in his bedroom. He sighed heavily before sitting himself up in his bed. "I'm dreaming… had to be… But which parts… were the dreams?"
'Honestly I wish I could tell you, but even this is extremely confusing to me now.'
"Argh!" Roxas shouted. He hit his head lightly. "Stop it. I'm not… I can't be going crazy."
There was a pause before the voice came back echoing through his mind. 'You're not crazy.'
Roxas bit his lip. The last thing he wanted to do was actually give into his possible insanity. If he was truly going crazy with his dreams and hearing a voice, he really didn't want to give it anymore reason to increase. But honestly he just wasn't too sure anymore what to do, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could ignore it.
"If I am not crazy, then how am I talking to myself?" Roxas asked,
'Cause you're not talking to yourself.'
"Huh?!" Roxas shouted before shaking his head vigorously. "No no. No. I am not doing this. I am not giving into whatever insanity my mind is trying to play on me!"
'But I'm telling you I'm not-'
"Not going to listen anymore!" Roxas said, trying to shut off whatever thoughts were in his mind making this voice talk to him. He just needed to get going and get on with the day. He had to get his mind off all of this or it would only get worse.
The voice didn't say anything else after that. Whether Roxas had really blocked it off or not, he wasn't too sure. He could finally have a moment to be quiet and to himself. But even with that he was left to his thoughts about everything else going on in his life lately. None of this was helpful at all to him without any proper answers.
The day actually seemed to be better than he expected. Things started to feel more normal and nothing seemed to get in his way. Or at least that's what he thought at the start. He was trying to look into the seven wonders of Twilight Town with his friends, and though it seemed odd, he was still happy to go around and look for what was there and if there was any true mystery.
But a lot of it went far too strangely. Each encounter left him with questions, but it seemed that he was the only one that saw the odd things. He just could never prove any of it to his friends and now he started to probably look even crazier than before, which did not help his mindset and thoughts from earlier.
Now he was standing outside the old mansion alongside Pence. It was just another one of the mysteries to the town, but this one he found to be most drawn to. Something about it, with the rumors of a girl in the window seemed to make a connection with him, and just as he was staring at the window everything around him faded away.
"Huh?" Roxas looked around to see he was no longer standing outside with Pence. "How did I get in here?!"
Roxas started to look around and right away he noticed something odd. This room was far from abandoned or old. It was white and pristine instead, and there were little drawings all over the walls.
Slowly and cautiously Roxas began to look around, trying to figure out what the drawings were. While he did that, thoughts started to pick up on the back of his mind. "Now I gotta be going crazy for sure… how can I actually be here?"
'Another good question… I can't even tell what happened.'
"Oh don't you start up again!"
After that a different voice spoke up, different than the one of his own that he had been hearing. "Roxas…"
"Ah! Namine?" Roxas asked, stopping his argument with supposedly himself. He looked around the room, but he didn't see anyone else there. He shook his head, thinking maybe that he was just imagining it and he went back to looking at the drawings.
There was one drawing that really seemed to catch his eye more than others. One that looked like he had been drawn in there, as well as another familiar person. "This is… me? And Axel's here too…"
"You are best friends," Namine replied out of nowhere.
"Very funny" Roxas mumbled causally before he looked around again.
'She isn't wrong though.'
Roxas grumbled to himself, trying to push away the thoughts like before. He cleared his throat while trying to find where Namine could have possibly been talking to him. "But I don't get it. Where are you?"
The room seemed to go white in his eyes and next he found himself sitting at the table that was at the center of the room. At the other end sat Namine, looking very quiet and small. She didn't look phaze at all by what was happening. "Don't you want to know the truth about who you really are?"
"What I want to know is what is going on! Besides I know myself better than anyone of course!"
"Right…"
"Can't you tell me what is going on though? Tell me if I am going crazy or not… or if I am and I am just imagining this then you'll just tell me what I hope to hear…"
Namine remained quiet, her eyes shifting around to the drawings that filled the room. Roxas started to look around as well and he landed on a picture of three people that he knew for a fact were very strangely familiar.
"You know these three, don't you?" Namine asked.
Roxas nodded. Since there was no sign of getting his answers he decided to go along with what Namine was talking about. "Yeah. Sora, Donald, and Goofy. They're from the dreams."
"About a year ago, some things happened, and I had to take apart the memories chained together in Sora's heart. But now... I'm putting them all back exactly the way they were. It's taken me a long time, but pretty soon Sora will be his old self again. The process has been affecting you, too, Roxas."
This caught Roxas off guard. He had not expected such an explanation. "You mean… the dreams?"
Namine nodded her head somely. "Yes... You and Sora are connected. And...in order for Sora to become completely whole again... He needs you."
Roxas now found himself staring at a picture that featured him and Sora. More and more questions slowly started to fill his mind more than before. "Me? What for?"
Namien did her best to give a simple enough explanation, but that still left him so unsure. He tried asking her something about herself but even then there weren't enough answers. Eventually things just seemed to topple out of nowhere with everything. Roxas had tried asked Namine one last time what she knew that he apparently didn't know about himself, but the answer wasn't what he expected.
"You… you were never supposed to exist, Roxas."
It felt like such a heavy weight. He stared at her, almost in shock at what he had heard. "What...? How could you even say such a thing… even if it were true?"
"I'm sorry. I guess some things really are better left unsaid."
'I know it's hard to believe, but she is right, even if it doesn't make sense and sounds harsh. Though honestly I am still trying to wrap my head around it myself.'
Roxas groaned before gripping his head. These were not the thoughts that he wanted to think. He didn't want to even believe Namine in the first place. All of it sounded far too crazy for him and none of it felt right.
Namine tilted her head slightly. "Roxas? Is there something-"
"No, nothing…" Roxas replied quickly before closing his eyes. He let out a sigh and then had the feeling of being shaked.
Upon opening his eyes he was standing outside the mansion again. He turned to see Pence was the one shaking him, looking a little concerned. "Roxas! Roxas!"
"You totally zoned out there. Did you see anything though?"
"I… I'm not sure… I was looking at the window and-"
He stopped himself right there. Things had been going crazy for him lately but none of his friends believed him. No matter what happened they just seemed to pass it off as nothing, so trying to explain this was probably going to go the same.
"I guess I didn't really see anything and just zoned out a bit there."
The remainder of the day went as it usually felt it would, but that night Roxas stared up at his ceiling. He knew he had to sleep soon, but his mind was wide awake. He tossed and turned, thinking over the conversation he had with Namine. No matter which way he thought about it, he couldn't make any sense of it.
'Do you want to try talking again?' the voice came softer this time.
"No I do not. Stop bugging me already."
'But you know I am not just your own voice now, right?'
"If you aren't me then just who are you!"
'Ventus.'
Something in the back of Roxas's mind tugged at that. It sounded like that was the right answer, but he had no idea why he would even be thinking that. "And just what are you doing in my head or whatever it is? What about that huh?"
'That… I don't really have the answer to that. Everything's still hard for me to grasp since I haven't really been awake for a while.'
"Haven't been… What does that mean? You're saying you've always been in my head?"
'Not really in your head… but I don't think I am the best at explaining it… to many things still confusing to even me,' Ventus replied.
"But can you answer this, why do you sound like me?"
There was a moment of silence before Ventus answered. 'I don't know if that would really help the situation. It could just make you more confused… but maybe later?'
Roxas grumbled before flipping to his other side. "Whatever, don't tell me. No one seems to be telling me anything anyways…" Roxas closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep, ignoring any faint sighs that he thought he was hearing from Ventus.
Riku co-author here. Back again with a new chapter. We are sorry for the delay, work and school and life and stuff. But we managed to finally get this done. We shall continue to write as we can but updates may be every other week now along with working on our other co-write.
Either way we thank you for reading!
