Chapter Two
ANWell, here we are again. If you survived the first chapter, I admire your mental strength. So far to my knowledge, only two brave souls have managed it. I salute you, Risako and XxSwEeTnEsSxX93! And thank you for your lovely reviews. I've also completed Chain of Memories! Unfortunately, I was unable to manipulate this story so that it took place after CoM, so this fic would probably be happening INSTEAD of CoM. You might find several echoes of the game in this story though. Can you spot them?
I was going to take down Chapter one and make a couple of changes before I put it back up again, but I think I'd just confuse the people who've already read it so I'll try to work round my plot errors… /cough/… ONWARD! points to some random thing in the distance
Disclaimer- Heh, I forgot this in chapter one, but I own nothing… No, not even Donald Duck! Here we go now, it's Chapter Two!
Chapter Two
Salty water crashed around his ears as he broke the sea's surface, and he felt the freedom of open air like he'd never felt it before. It took him a second to adjust and realise where he was, and realisation dawned as he watched the mid-afternoon sun sparkle on the tiny, rippling waves of the ocean. He looked up and found himself face-to face with a makeshift wooden ladder attached to a rock ledge. He remembered helping to build it. He remembered everything about this place so well, and yet it seemed impossible that he was here.
"I'm… home?"
He could hardly believe it, didn't dare to believe it… but the ladder was real to the touch… The salt air was the same as ever. It had to be one and the same – it couldn't be any other! This was Destiny Islands… The Special Island, to be exact. He scrambled to the top of the ladder, to the cove at the paopu tree and pushed wet brown hair out of his eyes.
He could hardly take it in. It was like he had a sudden brain freeze. He just stared around in silence, at the gently swaying palm trees, the crude wooden framework built by childish, willing hands, and the seagulls chasing each other in sweeping circles up above him. Still, something wasn't right. It didn't quite seem real to him. How had he done it? How had he gotten home? And where were Donald and Goofy now?
Suddenly a much more important thought pushed its way to the front of his mind. If he was at Destiny Islands, then wouldn't Kairi be here too?
With an unexpected burst of energy, Sora ran into the shack and down the wobbly steps, his first port of call being, of course, the secret place behind the plants. He burst out the lower door, practically knocking it down, and ran to the Cave's entrance. He spotted a something he didn't recognise out at the beach, but he ignored it. This was more important.
"Kairi! Kairi!" he yelled as he reached the single little space that had become a haunt for children who just wanted to be alone for a while… or to scribble on the walls, of course.
But it seemed that today nobody wanted to be alone. The cave was completely empty. There he could see the old drawings on the rock, but he did see a few things that were different. There was a few things written on the far wall that he had never seen before, but it had been scratched away, as though the person who'd written it had though better of it and scored it off. Some things had been disturbed, but all in all, nothing had really changed.
And above all, there was no Kairi.
Well, she must be somewhere… he thought determinedly. When she left, I'm sure it was a part of the islands shore she was standing on when… Wait…
The shore?
He left the secret place as quickly as he had come in and hurried back to daylight. There it was, a figure standing at the shore. But he knew right away, with a guilty disappointment, that it was not Kairi.
It was Riku.
Still, this was some familiarity. Someone he'd truly cared about was home where he should be.
He rushed over to the shore, but Riku didn't seem to notice he was there. Eerily, he stood with his back to Sora, staring at the water that just touched the soles of his shoes - just like he had done twice before; once in a dream, once posessed by Ansem.
He was dressed differently to the way he usually was. Instead of the bright, casual clothes he had worn on the islands, or that weird get-up he'd donned by Ansem's preference, he wore a long black coat, and perfectly plain black combat boots. There was a hood, but it hung neglected around the back of his shoulders. Still, it was far too hot to wear that sort of thing on Destiny Islands.
Sora was a bit scared of calling him. Twice before he had been faced with this very scenario… Thrice when he thought about that night on the cove… Each time, nothing good had come of it.
Still his curiosity, and care for an old friend took over. "Riku!" he called, stepping forward so he was standing a few metres from him.
The pale-haired boy looked up, straight in front of him for a second, before turning round and looking at Sora with a strange look his eyes, somewhere between guilt and sadness.
His confused friend stared at him. "Riku? What's going on? Why're you looking at me like that – Where's Kairi?"
At the mention of Kairi, Riku looked back at the sand in silence for a second, before turning back to the water, his hands behind his back as he stared remotely out to sea once more. Sora could see that he wore black gloves as well. And so the question remained unanswered… Why wasn't Kairi here? If Riku was here, surely Kairi would be too…?
"Riku, talk to me! Tell me where she is… I'm not angry with you. Neither is Kairi. I think."
This was one of those blood-and-stone scenarios. Riku looked round at him, but did not turn the whole way round, and his eyes seemed overly bright in the blinding sun. He shook his head, and held out his right hand.
"Oh, no! Not this time! You think I'm going to-?" Sora started indignantly, standing back a little. "Riku, just… stop being an idiot and tell me what's going on!"
…
"Will you just say something already? Look, this is getting weird… What the heck happened while I was gone – Woa! What-?"
As suddenly as anything else had happened since he arrived home, a shadow descended upon the whole island. Riku looked at the sky and stepped back from Sora, the sea water at knee-height to him now but he didn't appear to notice. Sora followed his gaze, but did not see anything. "What is it…?"
For a second he thought he saw a slight disturbance in the air above them, almost like when one sees something out of the corner of one's eye, only to look again and see nothing. But it was gone as quickly as he'd seen it appear.
Did I just see what he's seeing now…? Or was it just a trick of the light? I'm not used to the water reflecting the light… maybe that was all…
Riku stared at the nothing in the sky for a few sconds more, backing away ever so slightly before his hand fell loosely to his side.
Sora was starting to get scared now. In his heart something told him to do what Riku wanted this time, but he had learned that he wasn't always to be trusted. Riku raised both hands to whatever it was above them, not exactly in a hailing manner… More like he was trying to reach it. He'd given up on Sora's help; he knew he wouldn't get it. He stared desperately into the sky, until a blinding white light flashed around his hands. Sora watched in silence. This just got weirder and weirder.
The light faded, and in its place was a pair of ornate handcuffs. They looked like they maybe have been made of marble or something, but marble would be easy to break in such small chains…
Sora was suddenly aware of an unfamiliar weight at his own wrists. He looked at his hands in alarm to find that he now donned a similar pair of handcuffs. The chains were long enough not to have pulled his hands together when they first attached themselves to him, but as he raised his hands to eye-level the chains shortened until he couldn't draw them apart again.
"Riku!" he yelled in a panic, glaring at the boy with some sense of frustration while he tugged at the seemingly unbreakable chains. "What have you done?"
His former friend didn't seem to hear him. Either that or he was just deliberately ignoring him.
"Riku!"
This time, he paid heed, but didn't seem too troubled by the fact that his friend was freaking out over on the shore. He just watched him and waited for whatever it was Sora wanted to say.
"Please-!" Sora paused, and tried to stop panicking for a second. "Just… Just tell me what's going on! You know, don't you? Why won't you talk to me! What's happening…?"
…
"Tell me now!"
Sora ran into the gentle sea, but Riku backed further away until he was waist-deep in water. Sora stopped and stared at him. "What do you think you're doing? Come back!"
He watched his friend in silence until he noticed a strange movement in the water. The waves started to rise, higher and higher by the second until Sora was soaked right up to his shoulders. He panicked and tried to get back to the island, but he looked back towards the shore to see that it had gone. There was nothing but sea now, all around them… and yet Sora could feel his feet safely on the sand of shallow water below him.
He lifted his hands and stared at his chains in despair. There were two locks, one on the left cuff and one on the right.
What is going on…? How do I get out of these? It's something to do with these… I think if I can get out of them I'll be able to swim properly, and find the shore…
I need a key!
As soon as he thought this, he saw something materialise in front of his raised right hand.
"What-?"
A key. A small, white key, beautiful and delicate – and it looked like it was made for the handcuffs he wore. After staring at it open-mouthed for a minute, he quickly took it out of the air and fitted it into the right keyhole, turning it gently in fear of snapping his way to freedom like a twig.
Nothing happened. He tried it in the left keyhole, but it didn't even fit. It was the wrong key…
"Where's the right key!" he yelled in frustration, his shoes scuffing the sand beneath them. A sandy cloud billowed around his ankles under the water. Was this a dream? Or were the worlds really falling apart once more? "Where is it!"
He looked round as a thought struck him suddenly. Riku had returned his attention to the dark clouds once more, but he looked reproachful and afraid.
"Riku! Look at me, now!"
The other boy obliged surprisingly easily this time.
"Do you have another key there?"
Riku stared at him in confusion for a moment, before holding up another key, this one black but with the same style of craft put into its making.
"Yes! That one! Bring it here! I think we need to switch keys."
…
"I think it's the only way out! What's wrong with you!"
Riku glanced back at the sky, before looking back at Sora. After some hesitation, he nodded and tried to make his way over to Sora.
"That's it!" Sora reached out his hand for his. He looked at Riku carefully, and saw that he looked kind of… translucent? "What…?"
He leaned forward to get a hold of the boy more quickly. Their hands were just inches apart when Sora looked up to see a huge wave casting its shadow over the both of them. Riku saw his friend's expression and turned to look at the giant wave looming over them.
Sora reached out again, but no sooner did he move than the wave came crashing down over the both of them.
Just like before.
Kairi stared dumbly at the wall in front of her. A new picture had appeared there. She'd noticed it immediately: after all, she knew every pattern and carving on these walls by heart… Many of them, after returning home, she realised held pictures of events she now recognised. The picture of the duck, for example. She knew who it was now. A castle that she now recognised as her old home… She hadn't thought twice about why she and the other kids had drawn these things, but now she could sit and retell all that had happened to them since the meteor showers, just using these pictures.
But this new one, she did not recognise at all… Well, that was only partly true. She recognised the person in the drawing as Riku. But nothing else about the picture made sense.
It was scratched out in what appeared to be charcoal, unlike the others, which were all carved from the white residue of crumbled rock. In the drawing, her friend was on his hands and knees, reaching out in front of him to something (or someone) portrayed as simply a black, charcoal haze.
What really made her look twice at this drawing was not the image itself, but that it was so intricate, and yet not that large. That it was outlined in black, not in white.
And that it was not created by the hands of a child.
She made her way closer to the picture to get a better look at it. How did it get there? She thought, shivering. It's likeness to her friend went far beyond the untamed hair that only just touched his collar, or the exact capture of his features on stark stone…
"Kairi!"
Selphie's voice startled her and she looked round quickly. Selphie watched her for a second, before making a sympathetic sound and giving her a hug. "I know it's difficult, Kairi. It's worse for you than it is for the rest of us- you were closer to them. But, you know, they might come back. I mean, if you three were able to leave the islands in the first place…"
Kairi nodded, but her eyes remained fixed on the charcoal picture. Her friend followed her gaze. "But this is really good! Did you just do it there now? You've only been here like five minutes!"
There was a slight pause before Kairi shook her head. "I didn't draw it."
"But like…" Selphie stared at the wall in surprise. "Wakka and Tidus could never draw-"
"What the heck are you two doing in here?" Wakka's voice echoed through the rocky tunnel. He appeared a few seconds later at the cave's entrance, kicking the ball in front of him lazily. "We playin' or not?"
Selphie waved at Wakka as Tidus came skidding into the cave and bumped into him. "Hey guys, did either of you draw that?" She pointed to the new picture, and Wakka shook his head.
"Hey, don't look so freaked, maybe one of the older kids came back to the islands and left it there, ya? Although why the drawing is of Riku of all people is beyond me."
"I know! I bet this is like, a ghost picture!" Tidus suggested kind of tactlessly, oblivious to the horrified expression on the girls' faces. "We're being contacted from the other side!"
There was a brief pause in which everyone glared at the younger boy.
"Whatever," Selphie said irritably, looking to Kairi. "You know, Wakka's probably right. It was probably one of the older kids or something like that."
Kairi nodded. She didn't see how or why that would happen, but it was the only thing logical. But then… Was the story about the Keyholes logical? It was all so depressing… Everything was just going round in circles, she thought as she tried to fight back tears.
Selphie put a hand on Kairi's shoulder. "Don't give up yet, Kairi… It's only been a day or two. There's still hope."
"I know… It's just…" Kairi sighed and looked up to see tears in her friend's eyes too. She gave the younger girl a hug. "You've been so great these last few days… Thank you."
Wakka snorted and looked at his watch. "Okay, is your little moment over?" He asked brightly. "We can finish our game now, ya?"
Selphie giggled. "You idiot! What makes you think we wanna play with you anymore, huh? I bet Tidus doesn't even want-" She turned round to address Tidus, and paused.
"Hey… Where'd Tidus go?"
"Probably went out because he wants to finish da game!"
"Shut up, you… He can't have gone out the tunnel; Wakka was standing between Tidus and the exit… He would've seen him leave."
"She's right, and I didn't see."
Kairi shrugged. "Well Wakka, we all know you're not the most observant-"
"I think I'd wudda noticed, ya!"
"He probably got bored and went out to look for some poor fish to swim after or something. Come on. It's time we left too."
Selphie and Wakka looked at one another as Kairi left the cave in silence, before following her back out into the cheering sunlight.
"Huh?"
"Sora?"
"Goofy?"
"Did you have a bad dream or sumthin'?"
…
"Sora?"
Sora sighed and shook his head, barely visible to Goofy in the darkness. "…I guess… it was a dream…" he said disappointedly. "I dreamt I was home…"
"Wah?"
"Huh?"
"Donald?"
"Is it morning?"
"No, Sora just had a dream, y'know how it is, Donald… He's thinkin' about his home a lot and he thought…"
"Well I don't care! I think we should all go back to sleep, and talk about it when we can actually see each other!"
Goofy frowned, only now becoming vaguely visible to his friends as their eyes accustomed themselves to the night. "What was it about, Sora?" he asked, blinking down at his friend from the islands.
"It was so weird…" the boy replied hesitantly, not really sure if he wanted to talk about it. It all seemed pretty crazy now that he was awake. "I was on the islands, and Riku was there, and there were chains- Yeah… I had my hands chained up, and I needed another key, so I asked Riku and-" He paused as a memory flashed in front of his eyes. "There was a wave! It happened before in a dream I had just before I got the keyblade! It came crashing down on us and I thought I was gonna die…"
"Y'know, you're probably jus' worryin' about everything too much," Goofy told him. "We'll find him and we'll get ya home. Trust me on this one!" he said cheerfully, until he was interrupted by a disgruntled duck.
"But we'll do it tomorrow!" he snapped, and a small rock flew from Donald's general direction and hit Goofy on the back of the head.
"Oof! Okay. We'll talk about it in the mornin', awright Sora?" he said submissively, blinking and rubbing his head.
"I guess so. Maybe we'll all be less cranky after we've slept some more," Sora said with a nod, picking up the rock and throwing it back to Donald and grinning. A loud, angry quack was heard, and there was silence until morning.
Author's Note: Eeeek, that chapter was a wee bit boring (aren't all chapter twos?). And badly-written I'm afraid (my beta-reading sister is unlikely to do any more proofreading for me because her laptop is satan). I'm aware that some of my sentence structure can be confusing. That's what having to read Hard Times at A-Level Literature does to you. Also, bare in mind the title of this fanfic, and remember that a lot of it's supposed to be confusing! XD And I seriously apologise for taking so long to update. I started this chapter directly after finishing the first one believe it or not!
My English and Biology Coursework is done, so that's some of the burden gone, but soon I will have to start studying for exams. So I'm sorry if I'm not a regular updater.
I don't think anyone here is reading 'Their Fathers' Sons', but if you are, a new chapter is on it's way soon. More will be explained in chapter two of that story.
