A/N: Wow, this is only the prologue and already a question.
OK, so. Just so we're clear:
Sora et al do not exist. None of the events of the game have happened. The same themes are here, but expect almost everything beyond the basic premise of the game (darkness of the heart, interconnected worlds, etc.) to be original.
You can offer your work up if you want, and if I'm interested, I'll contact you about doing a chapter. If you like it, let's make worlds together.
prologue
It was while he was shaving that Jon finally decided things were pretty bad.
Not that shaving itself was necessarily some dark window to introspection, or that he hadn't had the thought before...but it was this particularly uncomfortable Thursday morning that the facts had come crashing down:
There was not supposed to be a round oak doorway right below the showerhead.
The rent was overdue and Kevin had eaten all the cereal.
Mary was probably never going to talk to him again.
He hadn't heard from his dad in months.
There was not supposed to be a...wait, he'd already covered that one. But really. What was it doing there?
He glared at the thing, shaking his flimsy plastic razor free of face-debris, and for the third time in as many minutes reached out to touch it. Old, and heavy, and warping from all that leakage the pipes must've been getting all over it; solid and round and not supposed to be there.
He had eyed it a dozen times an hour the first time he noticed it-- how do you miss the presence of a door without a knob that suddenly appears in your shower after three months of not-being-there, a door other people can't see or feel, a door that apparently leads nowhere and is shut tight?-- but the mystery of its existence was no more yielding now than it was a week ago.
With a sigh he pulled the shower curtain closed, and turned away. There were some nagging questions that needed answering (weren't hallucinations for crazy people?) but just staring at it wasn't going to help.
Not with Mary, not with the rent, not with his father, and definitely not with--
A groan from the other bedroom. Kevin, finally waking up.
Jon allowed himself a small groan of his own, leaning over the sink and staring into the mirror, for a change of pace. Same bony college kid as always, he supposed; he mussed his artificially-black hair, tugged fitfully at the corners of large blue eyes, and gave his freshly smooth cheeks a slap.
"You're not crazy." He murmured, staring himself in the face. Now, if only he could muster some conviction...
"Really? Wow, you had me convinced." Kevin shuffled into the tiny bathroom, automatically falling into his routine-- stepping onto a scale that was only going to tell him he was a large young man, with a middle that was getting harder and harder to explain away.
"Yeah, well. At least our little friend there still whispers sweet nothings to me," Jon quipped, noticing the unhappy tug at the corner of his roommate's mouth that usually indicated a rude reading-- Jon had picked up a prank scale that simply flipped to "One at a time, please" or some variant for anyone over two hundred pounds a month or so back, and though Kevin protested almost daily that the joke had long grown old, he had yet to buy a normal one.
"Still seeing the uh...knock-knock?" Kevin mimed rapping his fingers against the door, eyes (formerly focused intensely on the insulting scale) quickly moving to his friend, who simply shrugged.
"I dunno what the deal is. I'm...I'm not a schizoid, Kev. I don't see any...y'know. Dancing hippos or whatever. Just the door. I guess it's just stress."
A long moment; Kevin was looking down at the scale again, even though he'd just stepped off it.
"Yeah...probably. Don't worry about it, man. Last day of the semester is tomorrow, and I swear I'll get my half of the rent in by then, and we can finally get a solid night's sleep." He slapped a thick hand on Jon's shoulder...but there was that new hesitance, the slight awkwardness in his glance as he shuffled out, a muttered "Goin' to class" slung back over his shoulder.
Huh. Wouldn't even go near the shower, Jon noted.
He let his head drop forward and bump against the cold glass of the mirror, eyes losing focus for a moment.
Something...shifted.
With a yelp, Jon spun around and yanked the curtains out of the way, and stared in blank surprise. A doorknob, big and gold and suddenly there, right in the middle of the door.
He waited for the sounds of Kevin leaving the apartment, and then somewhat-impulsively, he reached for it and turned.
Somewhere, a latch clicked. The door swung open, but there was only darkness on the other side...and nothing happened.
Jon stood and stared for a few minutes, but nothing continued to happen.
After a moment's hesitation, he tried to pull the door closed again, but it wouldn't budge...and trying again only made him feel like an idiot. He was imaging this, right?
Another minute ticked past, and finally he turned and fled the apartment.
In his absence, the darkness grew; the solitary light bulb flickered and died.
---
In darkness, they breed.
They are an overwhelming force, an aspect of nature.
Their hunger drives them on, but they are blind to the future.
They are the now; they are the poison in the veins of the universe. They are entropy.
They swallow the light whole, and for an instant it fills them. But that instant is over and nothing is left but darkness.
In darkness, they breed.
Another door is open. There is light, there.
Maybe this time, the light will make them whole.
Maybe this time, when they swallow the light, it will become them.
If they become the light, there is no darkness.
Darkness is hunger.
Another door is open.
They must swallow the light, or it will burn them right through.
Another door is open.