Is This Really Who We Are?
Summary: 3 seniors in high school struggle with who they seem to be and who they really are. Kairi Pureheart wants to prove she's not perfect, the title that comes with being popular. Sora McKey wants to prove he isn't the jerk everyone thinks he is. Riku Fallentrue wants to prove he isn't the lost cause that he has been labeled as. Can these three show everyone their true selves and find real, genuine, sincere happiness?
Disclaimer: Come on. Think hard. Do I really own Kingdom Hearts?
Confessions of an Abandoned Teenager: A Lost Cause?:
Loner. Insensitive. Hardcore. Three of the most common words used to describe me. There are others like outsider, hermit, unemotional, detached, tough, but those three words are used the most. But what if I tell you I'm nothing like that.
When I walk down the halls of Destiny High, my Hell, I hear them all whisper about me. They say I'm hopeless. They say I've murdered someone. They say I'm a criminal in hiding. They say so many things about me. There are so many more rumors regarding me. I know what the teachers think about me. They believe I'm a lost cause. They believe I've fallen too far to be saved. I'm a rebel without a cause. I'm a nobody, who will never be worth anything in this world. That is what they say but I am none of these things. I'm just alone.
I never knew what it felt like to belong. I've never had a place I could call home. My mom died when I was three. My father took out all of his pain on me. I still have many of the scars and I can still feel the pain of all the bruises. He finally had enough and abandoned me and my sister Emily when I was nine. Emily was the only one who ever cared about me, helped me up when I had fallen, saved me from myself, from what I almost became and now have become. But like all tragedy stories if a tragedy is what you can call my life, Emily died, kidnapped, raped and murdered, when I was 11, six long years ago. It's my fault she died. She was only ten and she died because I was too weak to save her. She had saved me so many times because she was pure, but I, Riku Fallentrue was weak and scarred. I was flawed and tainted with the burden of an abandoned teenager. A burden I carried for both Emily and myself for so many years.
Ever since the day Emily was murdered I've been alone. I never had any friends and I still don't. I talk to about a total of ten people a day and the conversation usually consists of: 'Get the Hell out of my way!' and 'Whatever'. I've gone to school pretending everything is all right, that I'm fine and I'm just some stupid kid who's to lazy to care. Who doesn't give a shit about anything in this world. That's my mask.
I act like the rich kids that everyone in my school is, because I live in the rich part of Destiny Islands, yet I live on the streets. I could, if I really wanted go to a orphanage but then I would probably end up at some foster home with some snobby rich kids that get everything they want and parents who don't give a shit about me. So instead I live life on the streets and pretend I actually have something people called a family and live in a real home and not the streets, which has been my home for the past eight years. When the school gives me papers for my parents to sign I never turn them back in. When teachers ask for conference because I'm failing all my classes I don't do anything. What could I do? Should I say, well my mom died when I was three, I was left on the streets when I was nine and now I live on the streets by myself stealing and working two jobs just to get by? I'd just end up in a foster home. No one ever knows about my life outside of school. It is even more of Hell then high school if that is even possible.
I never was good around people, so now I have no friends. I seem distant, but that's only because I'm always alone. When you're always by yourself, you forget how to show emotion. You build up walls to hide behind, because all your feelings slowly start tearing you into little pieces. I've been abandoned, deserted, left out in the pouring rain. I've been left unaccompanied in this cold and cruel world. I'm stuck in my own living Hell and I don't think I'll ever escape. I am alone and even if I'm walking to my next class at school I'm still alone because there is never anyone there to worry about me, to care about me. I am truly unloved.
So what's life like being poor and living on the streets? How does a nine-year-old earn enough money to get food and clothes for his sister and himself? You steal. There was no other way for me to get money but to steal. I would only take from the rich though. They could afford to lose a couple of dollars. People may call me a thief but there is one big difference between a thief and me. A thief steals to steal. To get more money, for the joy of it. I, on the other hand steal to survive. For me it's all right to take what I need to get by, to live.
Now, though I rarely steal. Only when I'm real tight for cash. I work two jobs instead. My first one from 5:30 AM to 7:30 AM is to work at the 24 Hour Drug Store by my 'house'. My second job is from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM at Summer Fruit, a vintage store with some pretty cheap clothing. Even with the two jobs I have barely enough to get by. I always had barley enough to get by.
Stealing never was enough to afford new clothing and food for Emily and me. We both had the clothes we were left with, yet they didn't quite fit us any more. We were all skin and bones. We were deadly thin but we never could get enough money to buy more food. But then Emily died. That left me with some more food, yet like always it never was enough. I grew and had to buy more clothes. These clothes quickly became dirty and worn. They were so thin they couldn't keep the bitter iciness of the island's winter storms from touching my skin. The money from the two jobs helped me buy more clothes and food but I also had to pay for the bus that gets me to and from school and work everyday. Plus there's the cost of doing laundry and buying all the other crap you need to survive.
So now I live in an old, abandoned warehouse. The roof leaks when it rains, the walls don't keep out the heat or the cold. It's cramped and it smells like mildew yet it is better than nothing. It is my home because I have learned to make something with the crap God gives me. People may think I'm ungrateful but at least I appreciate what I'm given and make something out of it instead of always asking for more!
Why you ask? Why did all this bad happen to me? Why do some have so much and I have so little? Why you ask? Because it is my curse. My hope is starting to dissolve. My faith is starting to wear thin. I can no longer be optimistic because everything around me keeps dying. My world is falling. The light is failing. It is so close to fading. I'm so close to taking my last breath. Suicidal? You would be to if you lived like me. All I need is a little help. Then I would be all right. But no one is willing to help me. Why? Because I'm hopeless. At least that's what they think. But that's not what I am.
So tell me:
Am I really a lost cause?