Cold water hits Sora's overheated body leaving him shivering and soaked.
He tries to lift his arms but feels them restrained against a metal bracket bolted down to a cold metal surface.
Trying to look around yet everything is dark. Sora starts to hyperventilate but decides he needs to ground himself and assess the situation before he goes into a full-blown panic.
'What happened last time he was awake? How did it come to this? Who is doing this to me?'
'Something must be shielding my eyes to prevent them from seeing anything. I'm strapped to a chair and I'm wet and cold. The last thing I remember was in the library and I was looking for… I was looking for-'
"Waky waky sora!" Sora's father yells in his ear.
Sora jolts away but only makes it a few centimeters from where he was strapped to.
"Wha- what is going on?" Sora asks hoarsely.
Sora's father chuckles as he caresses Sora's face and snatched him from his chin.
"I don't think I can change sora." He says eerily. "I can never change something I love to do. It's a sick addiction… just like your hero complex. You feel like it's your job to save everyone but really it's not. You became so self-sacrificing that you ended up here. With me!"
Sora shivers from the hot breath of his father's mouth and the scary sudden silence of his father's tone of voice.
"Let me go! Please father! We can try to fix you! Maybe someone will let you be in heaven with mom or something?"
Sora suggests but all he hears is his father's laugh.
"Y-you think that bi- buwahahah! She? Your mom? In heaven? Buwahahahaha!" Sora's father laughs hysterically. "Your mother was a whore sora! When I met her she was sleeping with many guys before I had came along. I was just the lucky gem that got to get her pregnant due to her stupidity and no preparation. Then she got into drugs and that's all that has kept her going to cope from taking care of you. The fucking whore still fucked her way through life long after I had gone."
"N-no! Mum she - she was… mentally disabled! S-she would take her… vitamins every day…? I wha- is- is- that why... I kept seeing her less and less?... Sleeping all day… a…ah?… u-ugehuh!"
Sora throws up on himself from the lighting fast memory of his childhood of hearing the different sounds of men and the sounds of his mother's laughter and moans. He didn't want to hear her sigh as the sound of a syringe fell and rolled under the couch in their living room. Her full eyes. Her face was full of ecstasy. The table is strewn with different colored pills.
The laughter of his mother echoing throughout his head mixing with his father's laugh.
Sora's father lifts the thick black strip of cloth off of Sora's eyes.
Sora struggles to pull in a comfortable amount of air in his lungs. He feels as if he were smaller. As if the room is smaller. His father looming over him like an overwhelming tall tower threatening to topple over him at any moment.
"Ma-mum…. no… d-dad…huff…huff…"
Sora gasps.
Sora's father lifts up the silicone replicated doll of his mother. The facial expression is the same as his memory. Sora vomits again but leans his head to the Side to avoid getting sick all over his front again.
"Sora, sora baby…" Sora's father Coo's as he wipes away the bile off of Sora's face.
"You haven't a gift sora. I'm going to train you to channel your power in a more beneficial way! Look around us. You were almost able to replicate your memories of this scene!" Sora's father smiles.
"N-noh- no more! Please!"
Sora sobs as he retracts his head backwards to release his father's fingers from his face. The scene of his mother and living room melts away into nothing. Fading away like it was nothing there.
"Sora, I'm going to make you into the greatest asset. The greatest weapon of all time! With your power to fabricate your memory into reality, I will have you replicate kingdom hearts for me. Then I'm going to conquer every higher power on their high horse and create a new path for myself! I'll create an army!"
He laughs hysterically.
Sora pants in short gasps. He feels as if there was no air in the room. He could hear his heart beating wildly in his chest as he couldn't draw in half a breath of air.
"H-he…p … huff … can't…. Breath!" Sora gasps. He could see static start to form in his vision and the edges start to blacken.
Sora feels rough hands holding his cheeks and similar eyes looking at him. He struggles to fight his way to breathe. He could hear the figure yelling at him. Telling him to snap out of it.
Riku… he needed Riku.
Riku!
-0-
Several figures felt a sharp jab in their hearts making them uncomfortable as they felt this person was close and in pain.
The feeling as if kicked in the stomach and guts twisted for several hours was not a feeling that was pleasant.
All but one knew who was calling him.
"Sora?!" Riku exclaims.
His dream eater body travels through their link and finds Sora strapped in a wooden chair soaked wet hyperventilating while an old man was looming over him yelling at him to 'get it together!'
Riku gritting his teeth launches himself at the figure and pummels him down to the ground.
"Get away from him! You're making it worse!" Riku yells at the figure.
Riku gets up and kneels in front of sora. He releases the binding on soras wrists and legs. He starts to take off Sora's shoes and socks and places Sora in a supine position on the floor. He rubs Sora's arms and legs to stimulate the blood flow in his body and whispers encouragement in the boy's ears, telling him how to do some breathing exercises.
By the time Riku calms down sora, sora's eyes gleam glassy as tears fall down his cheeks.
Sora mumbles something. Riku pulls up Sora's upper body in his arms and leans his ear closer to Sora's mouth.
"What was that sora?" He says softly.
"I wish… the real Riku… we're here…"
Sora says as he passes out in Rikus' arms.
"Sora? Sora!" Riku yells in alarm as the boy falls limp in his arms.
He places Sora down on the floor and drapes him with his jacket. He notices the dream eater sigil on his jacket and looks at his hands.
"I'm in my dream eater form? Am I in sora's dream? This sure doesn't feel like the time when we had our exams with master yen sid."
Riku looks around at the bizarre place. It seemed like an old wooden shack at first but looking closer the edges of the walls seemed to disappear when he had stared longer. He could see a sandy white terrain with palm trees that looked like the ones they had in destiny islands. Beyond that, it seemed the world broke in pieces in a black vortex to a specific pivot point.
Riku looks at the man who he had pushed off of sora. He was sitting with one knee up and was looking at Riku begrudgingly.
At first glance, he looks like Sora's father. Riku squints his eyes at the figure and notices a dark aura and black smoke whispering around him to reveal a tall figure with a velvet cloak, a skeletal face, and body.
He gasps as the figure looks everything like a fictional grim reaper would.
Riku summons his keyblade and goes into his fighting stance. "Who are you?! What have you done to sora?!" He yells angrily.
"Ah, so you can see my true form. Expected from the one who follows the road to dawn."
The skeletal figure gruff carefully modulated voice says.
The skeletal figure chuckles and rises from the floor. Riku narrows his eyes at the figure and glares at them.
"What have you done with sora?!" Riku yells again.
"Calm down Feisty! I haven't done anything, nothing major yet at least. Just some minor mental anguish here some torture there. Same old, nothing new. right, Riku?"
The end of his sentence catching Riku off guard.
The figure summons heartless to attack Riku. "You see Riku, sora bears truly a great gift! He can make memories and visions into reality. I plan to revive kingdom hearts for my own use. You're too great of a distraction for my Plans. You're useful in another act. So I'm going to politely ask you to leave."
He says rearing the horde of high level heartless.
Riku glares as he gears himself into battle stance. He looks around at his surrounding foes.
"How about you stop being a coward and come face me!" Yells Riku. Gritting his teeth.
"Honestly? I'm too afraid of you! You seem to be a powerful keyblade wielder! I would never put myself in danger."
He walks around the heartless.
"No, I'm a waiter. I wait to sink my claws at the purrfect opportunity. Pun fully intended." He says with a smile on his skeletal face.
"Now, will you leave peacefully or should they tear your body into nothingness?"
He says with a smirk.
"No matter the trails I have to face, never leave a friend behind!" Riku says as he hunches his keyblade higher.
Riku goes into a full sprint heading towards the hoard of heartless and slashing at the first one he gets close to. He uses command after command raising clouds of smoke from the heartless.
The sweat off his brows soaks his face. His shirt is damp and clinging to him like a second skin.
A pot scorpion jabs its Stinger towards Riku. Riku manages to dodge roll away just in time. He flings himself towards the pot scorpion and punches the put with his hands, releasing the tension from his body by releasing his fist at the last second shattering the pot into large pieces.
The pot scorpion releases a screech and scuttles backward away from Riku.
Riku closes his eyes and feels the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Hot, clammy, sweaty… powerful. He runs towards the other large heartless and announces a battle yell as he annihilates the heartless one by one. Smashing them to bits.
"Why so Angry Riku? Afraid you might lose your dear friend again? How you humans are easy to shift Their hearts."
The reaper look-alike takes out a small glass rectangular frame the size of a phone and points it at Riku. The rectangular frame glints as if it had taken a photo of Riku.
Riku grunts and slashes the last of the heartless and speeds towards the grim-reaper-looking figure. He raises the keyblade ready to strike only for them to sidestep Riku's attack.
"Hold still so I can defeat you!" Riku snarls a cold fury in his eyes.
They take a step back from Riku. "Woah, hold your horses! What part of 'im an observer' did you not understand. No matter, I got all the data I needed. As a reward for our hard work, I'll let you spend some quality bro time with sora. Hm? Sound fair?"
He asks, his hand spread within his body as a go-ahead gesture.
Riku narrows his eyes.
"'Data'? 'Let me'?!"
Each word said Rikus eyes darkening two shades of seafoam green. Gritting his teeth.
"I'm taking Sora home!" He lunges at the figure only to find he had disappeared mid-spot and reappear a few feet away.
"Yeesh, give them an inch and they go a mile. Let me let you on a little secret hmm? This is a place beyond your comprehension. You're here because sora wanted you to be here. Your body can't travel to this form as your body would be shredded. It's soras strong will and a miracle that had brought your dream eater body here in one piece. Once you wake up who knows when you'll have this golden opportunity again dear Riku. I recommend for you to stop wasting time and get going to your beloved hero."
He winks and disappears completely alongside the remaining heartless in a blink of an eye.
Riku blinks as he mentally calms himself down pushing away the familiar dark anger within. He huffs and turns around and sprints towards sora. Looking around no longer seeing the enemy he dissipates his keyblade and shakes Sora's shoulder.
"Sora. Sora! Wake up!" Riku frowns deeper as his attempts are futile in waking the boy.
He kneels down and brushes Sora's bangs out of his face. He notices some scars, marks, and the later stages of some deep bruising on his neck, face, and legs. Riku takes out a potion and tips it into Soras mouth and massages his throat encouraging and easing his gag reflex in swallowing the potion.
He coughs and sputters on the potion promptly waking Sora up. The scars and bruises on Sora's body disappear gradually.
"R...iku…?" Sora says hazily.
Riku smiles. "Hey, there sleepy head. How's your head feeling?"
"Otherwise than the deep achy feeling in my bones I feel fine." He says with half-lidded eyes showing how exhausted he was.
Sora sits up and Riku's jacket slides off his frame. He notices the dream eater sigil. He rubs his hands over the sigil, feeling the leather.
"This is… Riku? You're in dream eater form? I- I don't know what's going on…"
Riku slides his dream eater jacket out of soras hands and puts it on. He sits across from sora crisscross.
"Ever since you've suddenly disappeared I've been looking for you Sora." He put his hand over the left of his chest and looks down.
"I felt this immense shock of pain in my chest and I knew that you were hurting. It was as if you were calling for me. Shortly after I had arrived I saw or father…"
Sora gasps as his eyes have a wild scared look in them.
"T-That's right!" He gets up abruptly and paces the ground.
"You have to leave Riku! Before hurts you too!"
Riku grabs Sora's wrist.
"Woah Sora, calm down. I dealt with him... At least for the time being." He trails. "How about you tell me what's happened since… you know." He swishes his hand in the air towards Sora.
Soras eyes and face give away to the panic he was feeling but feeling reassured by his friend and looking around frantically he gives in and sits back down.
"I've been trying to find my way out of here. I ended up here after you know… Anyways. I've been wondering here and met a couple of people who had lost their forms and were in the form of stars instead of their real bodies. I met this thing called a chirithy. He's almost like a fairy godmother but in a cute stuffed animal kind of way.
I find that I'm able to manipulate the surroundings to whatever I can think of around here. It's like this world is literally my canvas."
Riku hums in affirmation that he is listening.
"Then my father comes out of nowhere, saying some nonsense that I don't understand. I think his end goal is for him to achieve kingdom hearts… He thinks it's possible for me to replicate kingdom hearts from my memories…"
Riku nods his head.
"My time is limited here Sora, I don't have much time left but no matter what you can't give up and you cant give in. I'm still looking for a way to bring you back home. Your clever sora, use it to your advantage." Riku says encouragaly.
"Where are you now? How's Kairi and the gang?" He smiles.
'Typical sora, always worrying about others before himself'
Riku closes his eyes and smirks.
"Everyones doing great. We're currently on a mission in Jiufen."
"Jiufen? Never heard of it. Is it fun?" Sora asks with excitement.
"I don't know yet. We're sort of in a compliance and rescue mission. Roxas and Axels smart mouths got them landed as the bathhouse ladies servants alongside Xion who is apparently slowly forgetting her name."
Sora makes a sour face.
"Oh… So not so fun… I wish I could be there to help." Sora frets and bites his nail. "Riku, you got to help them." He looks at Riku determinedly.
Riku smiles and ruffles Sora's hair. "You need to worry about yourself- Sora?"
Sora is nowhere to be found. As a matter of fact, the floor looked warped and he suddenly feels weightless. His dream eater body slams into his physical one.
"Ugh…?" Riku moans. He hears the cries of his comrades.
"Riku?!"
-0-
Hello guys, Thank you for reading my stories, silent readers.
Any feedback is appreciated. :)