There are still so many unknown worlds.
The present world.
The world of darkness.
The world of light.
And,
The world in-between.
Where does the true paradise lie, I wonder?
The black waves clashed on the lifeless white shore tirelessly in the dark night. In the skies above, the moon was masked by slate grey storm clouds and only the boldest of stars shone in the sky. Someone had been there only moments before, faded footprints left behind to be washed away by the tide. A corked bottle rolled to the side, a paper sealed within. It was left where he'd seen it.
A red haze flooded the child's senses as the water raced about a half conscious form, and the unknown spun uncontrollably in the water. Red bubbles shimmered past in a crimson blur amongst the churning scarlet that the youth had awoken in. In this endeavor to gain direction, the child choked on the water, eyes slipping closed...
Images raced by. There was a girl smiling at the drowning brunette, and a boy extending his hand. Both were yet unseen by the youth, and yet both were so real in memory they might as well have been there. A sudden impulse came into the mind as it was shutting down. An irrepressible thought that took over everything else. The thought took precedence over all other thought. With a last burst of energy, the brunette reached out to take the hand that couldn't be there.
The waves discarded the child as if on command, leaving the barely alive to cough and choke and gasp and wonder. Those thoughts were so familiar, so foreign. And how had the brunette awoken in the ocean? None of it made any sense as glazed blue eyes roved the new setting.
An empty shore, sand white as the moon itself. Black boulders knifed out of the salt white sand, only dark blurs to the eyes. The night was dark and cool, and the sky rumbled with thunder. Perhaps a storm was coming. And far off, bright lights caught the dazed seventeen-year-old's attention. Buzzing, flickering bright lights. As if picked up by a kind stranger, the brunette rose to stand, gazing still longer at the neon luminescence. Those lights weren't there three years ago, a voice in the youth's mind said matter-of –factly, and there weren't skyscrapers like those ones, either.
Great monoliths of steel and glass stuck up from far off, reaching for the sky, and regardless of how, the youth knew they weren't there not too long ago. In fact, it had been a rather small town. The youth frowned, perturbed, and took a step forward with yellow and black shoes that sunk slightly in the wet sand, hesitating and wanting to continue. Confusion and clarity melded into one. It was all so bewildering , so clear. This place had a name, and the youth had been here before. It was Traverse Town.
...there must be a you other than yourself existing somewhere...
His footsteps were near to silent in the dark night, darker still as the moon hid behind a blanket of silver clouds, leaving only the stars to burn into the black velvet sky and illuminate the midnight. But he could easily see in this darkness, for it came as naturally to him as normal sight might come to others in the day. He was not a normal human being: he had been touched by something most others never had. He was of the Heartless, no matter how he might deny it, even to himself. In the end he knew exactly what he was. It didn't matter, though. His thoughts were on other things as he passed through the cold, aloof city that sprung up from a small world called Traverse Town.
The rain always fell there, at least a little, and it had been so since he left. It had taken two years for him to finally tear out of his self inflicted hell, only to find that what he had sought had vanished without a trace. His reason for continuing to fight had departed from both memory and, it seemed, existence itself. So for a year he waited, and not sign nor sight of what was once lost ever came. Not lost any longer, but gone without a trace.
A puddle splashed beneath his shoes as he wandered the streets alone, no longer looking for anything, because there was nothing to be found that he wanted, nothing he wanted that he could find. So he lived on for whatever invisible reasons he had created for himself, determined to find the last dear thing he could remember knowing. He searched for it, as he vowed to himself that he would till the end of time.
He passed neon lights, all bright, some flickering and guttering like torchlight, toward the inn where he stayed. It had become his new home over the past year, and was perhaps the only refuge he would ever have. Perhaps it had been best that no one recognized him, and better yet that he knew no one there himself. Everything was easier when he had nothing to lose and anything to gain, and he fancied that life of his would continue for some while more before he finally gave up.
He stopped short as Heartless rose around him. Their bodies had become sleeker, more humanoid, and yet steadily more feral over the years. They still had those yellow eyes, but their cobalt veins shuddered with an ethereal light in the darkness. He smiled. They weren't very clever, no matter how much they evolved. A veritable army had risen around him before the drew his weapon: the Oblivion keyblade.
They came at him in droves, seeming all too eager to die. He felled several of them at once in a flurry of cold blue light, to any other a streak of lightning. Too many came too close and the boy leapt in the air, performing a maneuver resembling something out of the Matrix. Just as gracefully, he landed a distance away.
From what the brunette could see, which was all brown and black and grey swirling matter but for the boy, the world was racing about too fast to cease. Gloved hands held to the sides of a throbbing head as the images came again. The boy, the girl, and a voice. The youth wanted it all to stop, fingers twined in spiky brown hair that had grown longer over the years. Those creatures, the boy, and his weapon—which had been joined soon after by another possessing all the same familiarity as the first—made thoughts race in the confused mind, memories rattled in their cages, clamoring for freedom. Unable to do anything else, the brunette watched the hooded stranger, swearing a glimpse of glowing yellow eyes under the hood.
The cloaked boy seemed to know the streets like the hands of a lover, able to run up sheer inclines and weave in and out of alleys, and still the creatures pursued him, their death was all consuming. The acrobatics and racing finally ceased on a stage, all lit up for a performance that was cancelled because of the severity of the weather. Heartless rose from the pavement, an army of glowing amber eyes and pulsing cobalt veins. A virtual sea of shadows ready to kill him.
A word came into the brunette's mind. It was a simple word, perhaps a name. This person was familiar, but at the same time so were the others. Whilst the warrior fought in the blinding sickly colored lights, he was also high above, watching it all like a gargoyle, perched high above in the rain. Two others the brunette had also seen: one racing through the shadows and another standing impossibly on a silver screen. All were different things, and at the same time very much the same. They all had the same appearance, the same aura and the same feel, yet they were different somehow. Each could not be the other: they were separate entities. Each moved with accordance to their own designs, regardless of what the others did, perhaps apathetic.
Despite this, they all had a name. The name came into the brunette's mind, but the youth could not speak, was unable to say it and hear the sound of that old familiarity. Perhaps it was a will not to speak: the youth could say things in spite of a burning throat seared by salt water, but which one would respond? Would all of them hear, would all come and see the stranger that stood helpless in the rain? And what would they do about it? The brunette's head began to throb once again. All of these memories built up like crates, threatening to exceed the capacity of the youth's mind.
By the time all these things had passed, the shadows had died, all slain. Now the ones who were so alike were fighting. A heart fragmented by memories that weren't there before could only look up, blinking against the silvery rain, still unable to see more than blurs and the forms of the hooded ones. They were the only thing the youth could see clearly, it was the only thing that seemed to be of any importance, and perhaps this was why it did not matter when someone came up from behind the half drowned youth.
Vision was poor, but the youth's hearing was far from this impairment. When the footsteps had grown close, the brunette about-faced, facing whatever it was without a weapon and without and notion of how to use one anyway. The shock made the brunette cry out, arms shielding clouded blue eyes.
It was one of the four who were out there, but right in front of the youth, the visual clarity was painful. Being able to see in such close proximity at this point was a mental shock. The youth hadn't made a single sound, but the hooded boy had come anyway. It made the youth's head hurt even more. Even with closed eyes, the mind was burning, and the brown haired youth couldn't understand it. Was there something wrong with this person? Everything nearby had become so cold and dark that it burned. The close proximity made the youth's heart hurt, for the happy familiarity or the stinging pain of other memories the youth was unsure. It was pain, and the youth could barely stand it nor stand on weak legs.
Gloved hands lowered, still guarding, still wary of this new presence. The youth had to make sense of this sight, or weak vision would instead be a blindness. Being blind was not a thing that would help, especially being alone in this horribly familiar place. Impairment like that would only be fatal. The brunette tried to speak, backing away from the source of the pain. But nothing came. The words died even before reaching the brunette's lips. Something else came instead, just a tear that seared as much as the pain in the confused youth's heart. It was one silvery tear, no different from the rain that kept the youth soaked, and the shorter of the two wiped it away, surprised it had been there in the first place. How odd that the brunette's own hand was a blur but the boy was clearly visible.
The other stood there in silence for a very long time.
The youth wanted to run from this. Whatever it was, and the youth was still unclear on that, it made things burn and hurt. Before there had been four, but there was only one now. This single one stood, perhaps unseeing, unable to find the person before him. It was odd, as if this person could not see the brunette, but was aware of that presence. It just as easily could have been that this hooded stranger was looking in some other direction, at something else. There was only one problem with that. This hooded one was blindfolded.
The present world.
The world of darkness.
The world of light.
And,
The world in-between.
Where does the true paradise lie, I wonder?
The black waves clashed on the lifeless white shore tirelessly in the dark night. In the skies above, the moon was masked by slate grey storm clouds and only the boldest of stars shone in the sky. Someone had been there only moments before, faded footprints left behind to be washed away by the tide. A corked bottle rolled to the side, a paper sealed within. It was left where he'd seen it.
A red haze flooded the child's senses as the water raced about a half conscious form, and the unknown spun uncontrollably in the water. Red bubbles shimmered past in a crimson blur amongst the churning scarlet that the youth had awoken in. In this endeavor to gain direction, the child choked on the water, eyes slipping closed...
Images raced by. There was a girl smiling at the drowning brunette, and a boy extending his hand. Both were yet unseen by the youth, and yet both were so real in memory they might as well have been there. A sudden impulse came into the mind as it was shutting down. An irrepressible thought that took over everything else. The thought took precedence over all other thought. With a last burst of energy, the brunette reached out to take the hand that couldn't be there.
The waves discarded the child as if on command, leaving the barely alive to cough and choke and gasp and wonder. Those thoughts were so familiar, so foreign. And how had the brunette awoken in the ocean? None of it made any sense as glazed blue eyes roved the new setting.
An empty shore, sand white as the moon itself. Black boulders knifed out of the salt white sand, only dark blurs to the eyes. The night was dark and cool, and the sky rumbled with thunder. Perhaps a storm was coming. And far off, bright lights caught the dazed seventeen-year-old's attention. Buzzing, flickering bright lights. As if picked up by a kind stranger, the brunette rose to stand, gazing still longer at the neon luminescence. Those lights weren't there three years ago, a voice in the youth's mind said matter-of –factly, and there weren't skyscrapers like those ones, either.
Great monoliths of steel and glass stuck up from far off, reaching for the sky, and regardless of how, the youth knew they weren't there not too long ago. In fact, it had been a rather small town. The youth frowned, perturbed, and took a step forward with yellow and black shoes that sunk slightly in the wet sand, hesitating and wanting to continue. Confusion and clarity melded into one. It was all so bewildering , so clear. This place had a name, and the youth had been here before. It was Traverse Town.
...there must be a you other than yourself existing somewhere...
His footsteps were near to silent in the dark night, darker still as the moon hid behind a blanket of silver clouds, leaving only the stars to burn into the black velvet sky and illuminate the midnight. But he could easily see in this darkness, for it came as naturally to him as normal sight might come to others in the day. He was not a normal human being: he had been touched by something most others never had. He was of the Heartless, no matter how he might deny it, even to himself. In the end he knew exactly what he was. It didn't matter, though. His thoughts were on other things as he passed through the cold, aloof city that sprung up from a small world called Traverse Town.
The rain always fell there, at least a little, and it had been so since he left. It had taken two years for him to finally tear out of his self inflicted hell, only to find that what he had sought had vanished without a trace. His reason for continuing to fight had departed from both memory and, it seemed, existence itself. So for a year he waited, and not sign nor sight of what was once lost ever came. Not lost any longer, but gone without a trace.
A puddle splashed beneath his shoes as he wandered the streets alone, no longer looking for anything, because there was nothing to be found that he wanted, nothing he wanted that he could find. So he lived on for whatever invisible reasons he had created for himself, determined to find the last dear thing he could remember knowing. He searched for it, as he vowed to himself that he would till the end of time.
He passed neon lights, all bright, some flickering and guttering like torchlight, toward the inn where he stayed. It had become his new home over the past year, and was perhaps the only refuge he would ever have. Perhaps it had been best that no one recognized him, and better yet that he knew no one there himself. Everything was easier when he had nothing to lose and anything to gain, and he fancied that life of his would continue for some while more before he finally gave up.
He stopped short as Heartless rose around him. Their bodies had become sleeker, more humanoid, and yet steadily more feral over the years. They still had those yellow eyes, but their cobalt veins shuddered with an ethereal light in the darkness. He smiled. They weren't very clever, no matter how much they evolved. A veritable army had risen around him before the drew his weapon: the Oblivion keyblade.
They came at him in droves, seeming all too eager to die. He felled several of them at once in a flurry of cold blue light, to any other a streak of lightning. Too many came too close and the boy leapt in the air, performing a maneuver resembling something out of the Matrix. Just as gracefully, he landed a distance away.
From what the brunette could see, which was all brown and black and grey swirling matter but for the boy, the world was racing about too fast to cease. Gloved hands held to the sides of a throbbing head as the images came again. The boy, the girl, and a voice. The youth wanted it all to stop, fingers twined in spiky brown hair that had grown longer over the years. Those creatures, the boy, and his weapon—which had been joined soon after by another possessing all the same familiarity as the first—made thoughts race in the confused mind, memories rattled in their cages, clamoring for freedom. Unable to do anything else, the brunette watched the hooded stranger, swearing a glimpse of glowing yellow eyes under the hood.
The cloaked boy seemed to know the streets like the hands of a lover, able to run up sheer inclines and weave in and out of alleys, and still the creatures pursued him, their death was all consuming. The acrobatics and racing finally ceased on a stage, all lit up for a performance that was cancelled because of the severity of the weather. Heartless rose from the pavement, an army of glowing amber eyes and pulsing cobalt veins. A virtual sea of shadows ready to kill him.
A word came into the brunette's mind. It was a simple word, perhaps a name. This person was familiar, but at the same time so were the others. Whilst the warrior fought in the blinding sickly colored lights, he was also high above, watching it all like a gargoyle, perched high above in the rain. Two others the brunette had also seen: one racing through the shadows and another standing impossibly on a silver screen. All were different things, and at the same time very much the same. They all had the same appearance, the same aura and the same feel, yet they were different somehow. Each could not be the other: they were separate entities. Each moved with accordance to their own designs, regardless of what the others did, perhaps apathetic.
Despite this, they all had a name. The name came into the brunette's mind, but the youth could not speak, was unable to say it and hear the sound of that old familiarity. Perhaps it was a will not to speak: the youth could say things in spite of a burning throat seared by salt water, but which one would respond? Would all of them hear, would all come and see the stranger that stood helpless in the rain? And what would they do about it? The brunette's head began to throb once again. All of these memories built up like crates, threatening to exceed the capacity of the youth's mind.
By the time all these things had passed, the shadows had died, all slain. Now the ones who were so alike were fighting. A heart fragmented by memories that weren't there before could only look up, blinking against the silvery rain, still unable to see more than blurs and the forms of the hooded ones. They were the only thing the youth could see clearly, it was the only thing that seemed to be of any importance, and perhaps this was why it did not matter when someone came up from behind the half drowned youth.
Vision was poor, but the youth's hearing was far from this impairment. When the footsteps had grown close, the brunette about-faced, facing whatever it was without a weapon and without and notion of how to use one anyway. The shock made the brunette cry out, arms shielding clouded blue eyes.
It was one of the four who were out there, but right in front of the youth, the visual clarity was painful. Being able to see in such close proximity at this point was a mental shock. The youth hadn't made a single sound, but the hooded boy had come anyway. It made the youth's head hurt even more. Even with closed eyes, the mind was burning, and the brown haired youth couldn't understand it. Was there something wrong with this person? Everything nearby had become so cold and dark that it burned. The close proximity made the youth's heart hurt, for the happy familiarity or the stinging pain of other memories the youth was unsure. It was pain, and the youth could barely stand it nor stand on weak legs.
Gloved hands lowered, still guarding, still wary of this new presence. The youth had to make sense of this sight, or weak vision would instead be a blindness. Being blind was not a thing that would help, especially being alone in this horribly familiar place. Impairment like that would only be fatal. The brunette tried to speak, backing away from the source of the pain. But nothing came. The words died even before reaching the brunette's lips. Something else came instead, just a tear that seared as much as the pain in the confused youth's heart. It was one silvery tear, no different from the rain that kept the youth soaked, and the shorter of the two wiped it away, surprised it had been there in the first place. How odd that the brunette's own hand was a blur but the boy was clearly visible.
The other stood there in silence for a very long time.
The youth wanted to run from this. Whatever it was, and the youth was still unclear on that, it made things burn and hurt. Before there had been four, but there was only one now. This single one stood, perhaps unseeing, unable to find the person before him. It was odd, as if this person could not see the brunette, but was aware of that presence. It just as easily could have been that this hooded stranger was looking in some other direction, at something else. There was only one problem with that. This hooded one was blindfolded.