Awaken
Disclaimer: The crappy excuse for a fanfiction you see below? All mine. The characters? Not mine at all. The game, Kingdom Hearts? I own a copy, but the game is not mine. Please; if you are the type of person who doesn't like yaoi/shounen-ai, and the thought of two boys kissing disgusts you, do not flame me over it. If you think that the idea sucks, go ahead, by all means, flame away. Forgive the terrible formatting; FFN has decided that a part of grammar (tabs) in writing is gone for Goddess-knows-what reason, and it just looks terrible to me. This fic is meant to start right after the end of Kingdom Hearts, but before the sequel (despite me having NO clue what's happening in it). THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, and you will have had to played the game through to really understand it. End the disclaimer, start the fic.
Chapter 1: Sounds
It was dark. Dark, and frigid. There were only tiny pinprick of lights around him and his cloaked companion. The light glowing from the Heartless' eyes was just enough to let him see his companion, blankly staring at him from about five feet away. All that held the little beasts off was a shield the cloaked man had set up, creating a clean space about one hundred square feet, but around the shielded walls, infinite amounts of the creatures pressed against the wall. There was no way to leave, nobody could enter, and the past week had been spent in near silence, as the Heartless rustled around them. He had no intention of talking to this man. He jumped slightly, as the cloaked man reached into his cloak, pulled out something, and tossed it towards him.
"The hell is this?" Riku picked it up.
"A journal." The other answered. "We're gonna be in here for a while, you might as well have somethin' to do." Riku blinked at King Mickey's astonishing gift.
"Did you know this was going to happen, or something?" Riku asked quietly. His voice was grated and raspy from not speaking in several days.
"Well, I keep stuff like that around. I figured I'd use it if I got imprisoned, but, seeing as I've got to hold these creatures off until one of us figures out a way out, I think you'll be using it more than me."
"I'd help, if you'd just give me something to-"
"And I'd trust you with a weapon? You almost killed Sora. How do I know how much of Ansem is left in you?" Mickey rose an eyebrow. Riku stared at his feet.
There was a minute of silence. "... You're acting like I had a choice. I had to save Kairi." Riku finally growled, turning away from Mickey angrily.
More silence. Riku was really getting sick of it. He'd been locked up for only a week, yet he'd heard more quiet here than in his entire lifetime. He closed his eyes, and breathed meditatively for what seemed an eon. Slowly, he conjured sounds in his head to fill the void left by the quiet. He heard laughter from his memories. Laughter, and on his closed eyelids, the beautiful beaches of his home, figures running, almost dancing, in his head. Someone was laughing, they were so happy... "Sora?"
"It's not Kairi you were lookin' for, is it?" Riku jumped, his eyes snapping open, going from his bright, sweet, succulent memories back to the dank and emptiness his world was, at the sudden reply.
"Pardon?"
"Kairi, sure, you were lookin' for her... but that wasn't your big thing, was it? Sora didn't follow ya on the way out. Sora went his own way. You hated him for it, I bet. So angry, angry that he let you go... " Mickey's voice changed in Riku's head, morphing to sound like Sora.
"... you were just looking for me. You wanted to see me, had to see me, you were desperate to prove you were right. Who was right in the end, Riku?" From the dark cloak, glowed Sora's eyes for a second, clear, shimmering, and blue like the sky, before fading back to look like the dying black embers that were Mickey's eyes.
"... The one of us on the other side of the big, glass door." Riku sighed. "But Sora, you know I would have done anything to have had your choice, your opportunity... I held the key, and it felt so good.... it was still warm from your hands... your hands..." Riku shuddered, getting a flash in his head of Sora in stance in front of him, holding the wooden sword like an Excalibur, grinning eager for the rush of battle.
"Uhm, Riki, who are you talkin' to?" Sora's voice, which was just Riku's fantasy combined with Mickey in the dark.
"RIKU! Sora, has it been that long? I'm Riku! RIKU, your best friend!" Riku cried, jumping towards Mickey.
"Geez, okay, okay, Riku, sorry!" Mickey fell back, shocked by Riku's outburst. Riku stared at his hallucination of Sora, and saw him, crouched on the ground, prone, one hand supporting his body, the other defending himself with one hand. Riku gaped, thinking he'd knocked Sora down, just like he had before. Riku felt fire in the pit of him, taking in the memory. Sora's body... slender, childish, so perfect. He was lithe, cut, even girlish. Riku's heart emanated a strange warmth each time he thought of Sora. He noticed something different in Sora's eyes; the way an unnatural light hit them from nowhere.
"I'm... I'm sorry, Sora." Riku reached for Sora's hand, to pull him to his feet. He fell over; Sora wasn't there. Riku knew, somewhere inside, Sora wasn't there, and he would never be there, but the strange light compelled him to go on. "Sora, Sora! Please!" Sora was walking away. Riku jumped to his feet, running after Sora, and right into where the Heartless waited to swallow him up. Sora started running, looking back at Riku, still smiling. Riku heard the sounds of Sora laughing again. He smirked to himself; he could run faster than Sora, he knew it. He upped the ante, as the tiny demons swarmed his feet, swallowing the path behind him. Mickey finally noticed that Riku was running after his hallucination, and began to hop over the Heartless towards him.
"Riku, what the heck're you doing?! Come back! They'll eat ya alive!" Mickey tripped over his robes, and silently regretted wearing them for a moment, before continuing to run. "You're gonna lose your heart, and that's all you've got left!" He tripped again, flung off the Heartless that immediately pounced onto him, and stopped. "Your heart is all you've got.... and that memory of your friend." Riku could no longer hear Mickey. Those sounds had long faded, replaced by only the sounds of Sora and him br. He had to keep running after Sora. Sora was all he had left. The Heartless kept covering his footsteps, and he wouldn't stop. There was no more darkness, no more light. All there was in Riku's eyes was Sora running away.
Finally, the inevitable occurred, and the Heartless began to absorb Riku into their masses of emptiness, pulling him down like into quicksand. Riku got desperate, reaching towards Sora, finally grabbing his hand. To his surprise, it was warm. Sora looked down at him, as he sunk entirely under. Riku noticed Sora smile.
"Step one." Sora whispered. He knelt close to where Riku had sunk in, and pushed down on Riku's head, holding him down, forcing him deeper in.
"SORA!" Riku screamed. This was just about the stupidest thing he could do at that second, as he was submerged in an unfathomable depth of pure darkness. Needless to say, he got a mouthful of warm, sour, salty evil, and lost his breath. The image of Sora forcing him down deeper turned to total black as he drowned in what was his own misery.
TO BE CONTINUED...
