DAY THREE [cont.]
After cleaning the blood off his face and arm, Riku returned to his books. Looking back on the section about flowers, he found the subtitles to the picture he found earlier and read them out loud.
"Aerith Gainsborough, posing with fiancée Sephiroth, the flower merchant of Destiny Islands..." He trailed off, confused.
Flowers? One would expect, with all the dark, sinister things happening, that you would get something that makes more sense like Chocobos or something, if you wanted to get all cute and fluffy...
"Sephiroth..." Riku whispered, staring hard into Sephiroth's grinning face in the picture. No last name, no mention at all in the entire book except for this...
Who was he?
~~~
DAY FOUR
[Riku's Dorm]
Having spent all day researching, sending Sora out to gather information and finding out nothing, Riku finally fell into a fitful sleep. Kicking the useless library books off his bed and shutting off his computer, Riku closed his eyes, trying to rest.
It was short lived, however.
"Daddy?"
The whisper reached Riku's ear, taking him out of his sleep. Riku slowly sat up, straining his ears to listen.
"Who's there...?" He called out, a little shaken. The whispers were still present in the air, too faint for Riku to hear. Slowly, he stepped out of the bed and wandered the hall, looking for the source of the voice.
As he got closer to the living room, the whispers got louder. However, they were too mixed up in each other for Riku to make out anything. They got louder and louder, until Riku finally reached the living room.
Peeking out from behind the wall, Riku saw a small figure, black and white, standing out from the colored background. It's back was almost completely covered in long, white hair. In front of the figure was the TV, showing noiseless static on the screen.
"H-Hello?" Riku feebly tried to speak with the figure.
It did not move.
Getting closer, Riku moved in from the side. He stretched out his arm to tap the stranger on the shoulder-
-when it whirled around and grabbed his arm.
Shocked, Riku tried to wrench his arm from its grasp as a burning feeling enveloped his arm. Crying out from the pain, Riku felt something being burned into the helpless limb.
The pain ceased suddenly, and Riku found himself staring at the ceiling in shock, safe in his bed.
Or so he thought. Bringing his arm up into his line of vision, Riku's eyes widened in fear as he saw a burn mark of a hand imprinted in it.
He tore off the covers and ran to the living room again, this time to see an even more frightening scene.
Kairi sat cross-legged in front of the TV. The tape was just about to end, displaying the well. Riku spied a hand coming out from the well before it ended in static.
He just stood there, motionless, mind not exactly comprehending what happened.
The phone rang.
"Riku?" Kairi asked, turning around, somehow knowing he was there.
The phone was still ringing.
"Riku?" Kairi repeated. "What's wrong?? Riku?!"
Riku felt himself nodding faintly.
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I was gonna have Riku spaz out and shake Kairi and scream and stuff, but it seemed too melodramatic. Instead, I have him acting shocked. Either way, I still hate the way I wrote this part. But wa-hey! The good stuff is coming up!
