F R A G M E N T S. chapter four: homecoming
The hours rolled around and finally came to a stop on a late Tuesday afternoon, with a shallow-bottomed ferry bumping up against a pier on the Destiny Islands. It had been raining haphazardly earlier on that morning, but the sun had long since come out and boiled away the puddles. The sand and palms glistened now, baking in the heat.
A gangway slid into place between the boat and the creaking dock, and a small cluster of passengers traipsed onshore. One of them stood out - a green-eyed young man, wearing scraps of ragged black leather. These were the islands of his childhood, but not the ones where he had played at swords and climbing. This was the main island, where the town was located, with the school and shops and little houses. This was home.
With his first step onto the island, Riku felt a shifting in his mind.What was once chaotic and whirling wildly out of control, suddenly felt.... secure. Secure, and anchored. Something was now holding the storm of memory safely at bay.
A slight smile quirked his lips, and he understood. The place was utterly unchanged. Stepping onto the sands had felt like stepping back in time - he had leapt back through the ages with a single stride. Here, on this painfully familiar island, his mind settled, and found solace. As far as he was concerned, the harrowing events of the past five years might never have happened.
... But then again, he knew better.
As he made his way down the road to his old neighbourhood, his pace unconsciously quickened. Tight threads of anxiety clenched his heart, but he forced himself back into implacable calm. He had come so far. The tattered remains of the coat reminded him of that, if anything. No need to ruin it now.
Children stopped and stared as he walked by, and he couldn't help a laugh - the first in years. The locals wandered about in shorts and breezy tops. And here was a madman in black raincoat leather... stifling warm in this heat, even though he had removed the sleeves. The outfit was something foreign to the islands, something new and worthy of comment. He watched their astonishment, and winced inwardly. The old Riku had been weak-minded and foolish, but the child had had a point. The islands weren't everything. There was more than this, more to be seen and experienced.
Riku kept walking, rounding a corner, and his heartbeat jumped frantically as he saw the rooftops looming behind the palms. So familiar he ached. So familiar that self-restraint was thrown to the winds, and he found himself running. Sora's house was closer; he would go there first.
The young man sprinted up the dirt road, leaping into a scruffy garden - odd, Sora's mother always took such meticulous care of her garden - and practically flew onto the front porch. He eagerly pressed the doorbell, fingers fumbling in their haste. The bell rang out raggedly from somewhere within, and he waited, pulse racing.
As time dragged on, he impatiently pounded on the screen door, shoving his face against it and straining to look through the gloom.
There was only silence.
He pounded the door again, fist knocking it back in its frame. He waited, and a tendril of fear began to snake its way into him. He finally turned his head, neck rigid, to take in the details he hadn't noticed before.
The garden wasn't just scruffy. It was fully overgrown, weeds flowing out onto the driveway. The paint on the porch was chipping, the planks split and cracked from continuous exposure to rain and sun. The little bench in the corner had fallen over, and no one had pushed it back upright. Riku took deep breaths to calm himself.
Hands clenched, nails digging into his own skin, he leaned over to the door again, peering inside. The kitchen was murky and dim, fridge and counters nothing more than shadows. But sunlight spilled in from a window in the corner, and he could see motes of dust outlined in the light, the dense layer of it on the floor. The dining table was missing.
As knowledge sank in, his throat seized and he bit back a cry. Riku stumbled back, and dropped down on the decaying porch. He sat there, lost and bereft of purpose - a puppet cut from its strings. His mind windmilled, leaving him staring at the abandoned house. The entire thing was dilapidated, nearly falling on its foundations.
He wanted to scream. But aside from the raw pain in his throat, he was silent. It felt like his entire life had been building up to this moment, but it had suddenly been robbed from him. After all this anticipation, his world was rocked to the core. Where's Sora?
After five minutes of distressing anguish, Riku finally climbed back to his feet. He hurdled himself over the broken banister, landing lithely in the grass, and pushed himself onwards. Kairi's house was a little way down the road. He focused on the fact that it was there, focused on the simple act of walking there. Anything else was a struggle in his numb mind.
He strode into Kairi's driveway, and a distant part of him felt a thrill of hope, noticing the little bungalow was the same as ever. The garden was a cascade of colours, arranged in neat clusters, and lights glowed in the windows as the afternoon darkened.
Riku pressed the doorbell, and the bell rang the same cheerful little note he remembered.
But time passed, and no one came to the door. He rang it again and again, but the same: nothing. He roamed around the garden, gazing in through the windows, and saw signs of life. Magazines were scattered on the couch in the livingroom. The calendar was opened to the correct month, and little messages were scribbled in the blocks, but they were too far away for him to read. He worried that someone else might have moved in, but a paopu plushie balanced by the telephone proved otherwise.
If Kairi still lived here, where was she?
He stood in the driveway, mulling it over. Finally, Riku paced to the back of the bungalow, and shoved his way into the bushes, eventually stumbling over a worn path through the foliage. After a few moments hurrying along the shortcut, he emerged back at the beach with a strained smile. He hopped into the sturdy little rowboat tied up there, and pushed off for the smaller island.
Ten minutes later, he pulled up at the miniature dock, and headed down the path along the beach. His heart ached again, seeing the treehouse, the wrecked ship, and the waterfall. The paopu tree earned a second glance, and he almost felt like climbing it again, just to prove he could... but there wasn't any time for nostalgia. He had a certain place in mind.
Other rowboats were moored at the dock, and a handful of children were playing in the distance. They were new faces; he didn't recognize any of them, and felt a twinge of jealousy that they were playing on his island. But then again, the old gang would have grown up by now. They weren't children anymore. How old would Selphie be today...?
Sudden confusion gripped him as he thought it over. How old was he? Riku struggled, making guesses and approximates and pooling the endless months together. He had a general idea of how long he had been locked away, but there were other patches of time that seemed impossible to measure. He should have checked the year when he saw Kairi's calendar.
Resigned, he finally concluded that he must be eighteen. Not like it mattered anymore, anyway.
He quickened his pace again, walking past the waterfall. He ducked past the little door of leaves, pulling it back and diving into the darkness of the tunnel. The ceiling was a lot shorter than he remembered, and Riku hunched over awkwardly, half-crawling.
A minute of scuffling through the dirt, and eventually the tunnel opened up into a little earthen cave, filled with little boulders. His gaze instantly scanned the area, but once again was met with only dismay. The cavern was empty. Kairi was not there.
He looked around dully, and realized that all of the chalk drawings had been erased. And the door in the back...
Anger flared through him. In his few moments of spare time, in lulls between battle, he had stolen opportunities to speak to the King. They had talked about their situation, about the forces that had brought them there, about the broken Ansem. About the worlds. The King had promised that, with the closing and locking of the door, the Heartless flow would be stopped. And along with that, all the worlds the monsters had consumed would return, and the connections between them would be broken. Travel would no longer be possible.
The King promised. He promised the door would be gone.
But now it had come back. It stood there, plain as day, challenging him and defying absolutely everything he had ever done. All their work had unraveled with the Unknowns breaking them free. The worlds were connected again, and travel was possible. After all he had done to protect the islands, to make sure they wouldn't get washed away in the wake of the war with the Heartless... the door was back, and it enraged him.
Riku flew at the door, battering at it, struggling to find a way through, to open it, to force it open and then maybe, maybe, he'd have some answers. If only it would open. If it would open, Sora and Kairi would be there, and they would be waiting, and...
If he returned to the Islands, then they would be there. Had he really believed it would be so simple?
He fell to the floor, head in his hands, despair welling over. He screamed.