No Reply
Author's Notes: Sorry it took so long for this to update! Please forgive me! I fell into quite the slump when I realized how much of a blob this story was. So, as promised, I tried extra hard on this chapter to make up for the last one. (Not really, I just tried to make it longer. I'm lazy. Durr).
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, or any of the characters and worlds affiliated with it. I do own, however, the original concepts, thoughts, and ideas put into this story. So HA! Key is mine!
Chapter 8: Disoriented
The air reeked; the thick, heavy stench of rotting food.
His head hurt, blurry premature thoughts throbbing viciously against his very skull.
'Where…?
Why…
Such a fool…'
The sound of an unfamiliar mechanic whir buzzed to his right. To his left, was nothing. He felt dizzy. He felt nauseous. He felt the sour need to retch.
Key opened his eyes, and the world that immediately greeted him was dark. There were no stars. There was no sun. In all actuality, he could not decipher if it was night or day.
The wall was gritty behind him. Brick. A dead-end alleyway. Walls towered above him for a good 8 stories. Windows, some broken in frame, signified each floor. A faint light poured out of some, complete darkness poured out of others. He had landed in garbage. His stomach gave a lurch, and he felt his nostrils flare in disapproval of the smell.
He sat up, gingerly rubbing the back of his head. It was swollen right above the neck, and a patch of hair was stiff and crusty with what he could only presume was blood. His fingers felt numb, as did his toes. He wondered vaguely if he was still bleeding.
He gave a heavy sigh, slouching back onto the wall, cradling the base of his head with the palm of his hand so as not to irritate it. It throbbed. He clenched his eyes shut again, convincing his head to stop spinning, coaxing his thoughts back into order.
'Where…?
Why…
Such a fool…
He should have just…let me go.
I should have let him go.'
That's right. He remembered suddenly that he hadn't come to this world alone.
And immediately he started to panic. He tried to stand, but his body seemed to favor crawling. His vision blurred for an instant. His numb hands tingled oddly when he put weight on them.
Where was he? Where was Sora?
He stumbled. Had he not made it? Did he lose him?
He glanced frantically over the muck and garbage around him. The smell triggered his gag reflex.
"Sora!"
His voice sounded pathetic, but for the moment he didn't care. He couldn't care. He fumbled clumsily around on his hands and knees, like a dog, a stray mutt sniffing out the only hope left for it. His stomach turned.
Shit.
Shit.
SHIT.
Where was he?
He didn't know how to place this feeling.
He didn't recognize his own sense responsibility, the guilt was already sizzling through his skin, tingling in a chill of shivers down his spine.
Sora should have landed right next to him, right?
He took a deep breath, willed himself to regain composure. His head was throbbing, but he pushed the pain aside. He desperately tried to remember.
He remembered clutching onto his shirt at the last second, but recalled nothing of the Jump itself. He never did.
He looked at his palms, and saw no sign of Sora there either. Had he let go? Did he lose him? Was Sora lost?
He cursed himself, and sat on his feet. All he had to do was hold on to the boy, and he couldn't even accomplish that.
"Sora?" there was the sound of his own feeble voice again. He had to admit he hated it.
And then silence. The steady mechanic hum to his left made his head want to burst. The air was thick, and hard to breathe.
"Key?"
And his gut nearly exploded into his throat. He really, truly, thought he imagined it, thought he was going insane. Haunted by the voices he lost. Would he hear Anitta's cries next?
He heard his name called again.
"Key…?"
His gaze snapped around the whole alleyway, darkness, fliers, broken windows, broken lights… before finally settling on Sora. He had been in right front of him, quite literally, the entire time….just…covered in trash. Key sighed away his worries in relief.
He crawled over to the boy, and with a pull helped him up out of the garbage. He looked disheveled, disoriented... But not hurt. His hair was a bit messed up, the hood of his jacket hanging on by frail seams…but…other than that surface damage, Key could see nothing wrong with Sora.
And they sat.
And they stared at each other. Key found his lungs uncomfortably tight, his head still pulsing a bit in pain. His hand went to rub the nape of his neck. Sora opened his mouth a few times, as if to say something, but muted himself in favor of the silence. An awkward silence.
"You're a fool." Key finally spat.
Sora flinched as if the words had been a physical assault, turning his face away. He wanted to say something. Key could tell. He could read individuals as easily and simply as a normal person could read a book. What motivated them, these people, he could never quite figure out.
There were many things he did not understand, however, and he was not about to exert the effort to waste his days unlocking them.
Sora sent a feeble gaze again his way, and his eyes spoke more words than Key would ever think to gain the meanings to.
His mouth suddenly spoke without his own command. "What?" And the voice diffused once it hit the air, the evanescence of his lingering breath barely catching in Sora's ears.
What did he so desperately want to say? To ask?
Funny, this boy had seemed so shameless before. Now he just seemed awkward and anxious.
How could he ever be envious of such a pathetic state? Was his confidence just an act? He felt a scoff fumble through his lips. Pathetic. The thought was familiar to him. Pathetic people, pretending to be all they wanted to be, when their insides were hollow and rotten from negligence. How lucky that they could achieve the 'charmed' life they desired solely by lying.
Could he so easily compare Sora to one of those people?
He glanced over the other boy again, and found that his anger, in all of it's madness, was not really anger at all.
He was looking for an answer, really. He wanted to speak, to ask, as desperately as Sora did. Frustration.
'Why did you follow me?'
And he found he couldn't ask. And suddenly wondered if that made him pathetic. Pathetic. The thought was too familiar to him. He was the pathetic one. Accusing Sora when he didn't even know him.
It's not like they were friends, after all.
"You okay? You look like you bust your head on somethin'."
Key snapped his thoughts back like a yo-yo on a twine.
"I'm fine." He replied shortly.
Fool, fool…What a fool. Even Sora's observations were foolish.
"Where are we?"
Key shrugged. "I dunno."
He felt Sora look over him suspiciously for a moment. When he stood, Key was surprised. For a second, he looked almost noble; like some heroic figure transcending time and space to tell his glimmer of a hopeful tale.
Key shook his head and the glory faded.
The buzzing to his right, Key finally found, was not actually 'buzzing' at all. Rather, it was the whir of bullet-like busses zooming their way down an, what appeared to be, eight-lane track. Four heading right, four heading left. Each train was lined with windows, and the passengers aboard would have been clearly visible if not for the hazy smoke that streamed the frame. Each had three headlights, two white, and one that blinked red while slowing down. The luminance of such seemed sort of strange, like search-lights on the look-out. Racing lighthouses, with many windows.
On the side of each 'bus' was a script of numbers that Key could make no sense of, seemed to be random.
38654103
He had never seen such sophisticated technology.
Well, not that he could remember anyway.
Key and Sora looked at each other, both equally intimidated at the speed as the tailwind thrashed out at their faces. He saw Sora's mouth move to form words but could not hear him over the immense noise.
"What?"
Another bullet-bus zoomed past. Sora started chasing after it. And Key instinctively followed.
Tears sparked at his eyes when another train went whipping past, his hair tangling in around his face. He regretted not cutting it when he got the chance.
"Sora!"
But the other boy didn't hear him. He let out a heavy sigh. Tired. Apparently the jump had not taken as much out of Sora as it had out of him. A part of him was relieved.
Sora slowed to a stop just as the train did, and waved for Key to catch up.
'Boardin' the train, eh?'
Sora was a quick thinker. Seemed unfazed about being in an alien world. Again, a part of him was relieved.
The red light blinked, and kept it's constant click as the doors unfolded and collapsed onto the pavement with a loud clumsy 'thud'. A ramp. Key approached it timidly, and peeked inside as Sora walked past him. He seemed more excited than anything else. There was no driver. No signs of having to pay. He followed after Sora, again.
The train, like the rest of the world, was dark. The lights were dull, and flickered as the doors folded up again in a loud clatter. The seats looked almost like crude couches, no seatbelts in sight, no cushions either. The 'windows' seemed to have no resemblance windows at all, and seemed to be there purely for vanity purposes. They were high above the 'couches', hardly reachable if attainable at all. The aisle was narrow, barely enough room for two people of Key's size to walk through comfortably. There appeared to be no other passengers on board. His feet stuck obnoxiously to the floor. Dirty. He stumbled as the train started moving again.
"Sit down!"
Sora's voice sounded very out of place, cheerful. Key obeyed the other boy's request, and sat across from him. The seat squeaked underneath his weight, and he was instantly uncomfortable.
For once, Sora did not talk to numb the silence. He just stared at Key… as if waiting for him to admit something. As if waiting for him to say 'Okay! Joke's over!'.
But he didn't. Key didn't say a word. He looked at his feet, to the wall, up at the window, down to his feet again.
The words Sora was waiting for never came.
The boy sighed, leaning back into the seat. Key noted bitterly that Sora's seat did not seem as wiry as his own.
"So…"
'And so it begins…' Key mused.
"What happened?"
A simple enough question to answer, really. He looked at Sora from the corner of his eye.
"We Jumped."
He knew he wouldn't know what he meant by that, he was merely delaying the subject.
"Jumped?"
"Worlds. We Jumped worlds."
"Without a ship?"
Key nodded, then shrugged. Sora seemed slightly eager, if not familiar with the topic. Key was more than slightly reluctant to share. Though, it wasn't exactly something he could hide anymore. Not from this one, anyway. He stared at Sora. His confidence would not waver.
"You can…do this at will?"
Key nodded, then shrugged again. Two times, now.
"Pretty much." He concluded. "It's really tough, sometimes, though."
"You Jump with people a lot?"
"No. You're the first. I was afraid you were lost, truthfully."
Sora seemed slightly stunned at this. Key could only presume that the thought of being 'lost' was frightening to him. Key was already used to the idea.
"Oh." Was all Sora managed to say. More questions followed.
"When can we go back?"
"Back?"
"To Donald and Goofy!"
"Dog and duck?"
"…Yeah."
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know!"
"I've never really tried to return to places I've been--"
"What! Ever?"
"Never."
"Not even home?"
Key turned away at this, even before the words finished leaving his mouth. Flustered for some reason. There was no use in lying, but for some reason he found he would not so readily admit the truth. His hand went to the back of his neck, prodding gingerly at the cut and crusty hair. Was he ashamed?
"You…don't have a home…"
Sora had answered for him.
Key shrugged. Suddenly, he no longer felt like talking. Talking was tiring. He yawned. He was just tired. Of everything.
The lights flickered as the train slowed again, and the doors collapsed again in a loud mess. No one boarded. Sora showed no signs of leaving.
And the doors closed.
The lights flickered.
Key jerked forward a bit as the train started moving again.
"I'm sorry!"
He looked up at Sora. Why had he apologized? He had done nothing wrong! The words had just spilled out of him, as if his lips had sprung a leak.
Sora blinked.
Key prayed that he had only imagined himself needlessly apologizing. Stupid.
"For what?"
Damn. He hadn't imagined it. Stupid.
"For…I dunno…" He stammered. Why was he sorry?
"I'm sorry you got stuck here with me."
Was he sorry for that? Whose words were these fumbling out of his mouth? Who was this stammering idiot? Key cursed himself. Talking was tiring.
"Sorry that you got seperated from your friends…Sorry we're lost…"
Damn words!
"Sorry I called you a fool."
Was he sorry for any of that? Stupid. He didn't know. His was suddenly aware of the tightness of his lungs, again. The familiar pain had not departed, even after the jump. He was…tired. He wasn't used to talking. To conversing. He shook his head.
"Nevermind."
"It's okay!"
"…Whatever."
Words were too complicated. Talking was too much trouble. But still, Sora persisted. Key stifled a yawn, leaning into the coils, attempting to get comfortable. Sora was curious. Too eager to get to know him. He found himself getting used to his voice, less hesitant to answer questions.
"How long have you been jumping?"
"I dunno, as long as I can remember, I guess."
"Wow, that's a pretty long time."
Key shrugged.
He truthfully only recalled few of the past couple years of his life. He didn't tell Sora. He needed no more pity from this boy.
"Where have you been? How many worlds?"
Key shrugged again
"A lot."
"Any favorites? I mean… guess not if you've never been back to one…" He was talking really fast. Smiling widely. Key suddenly recalled Sora's own tales of travel. This boy was in love with adventure.
"Not really. I just sorta…wander."
His own experiences were not near as exciting. Somehow, this depressed Key slightly. He had no stories of his own to tell. He had no valiant quests to partake. No friends to find, no home to recover. He was simply at a loss.
"Wander?"
Key nodded, yawning again.
"Well. There was this one place. The people were nice even if the world wasn't pretty."
"Oh?" Sora brightened at the concept.
Then the words formed a lump in his throat. He averted his eyes, looked back down to his feet. "Not that I'd ever want to go back…"
Sora didn't pry.
Key was grateful.
The train didn't stop again. It just followed the track, the lights flickering sporadically if they felt the need.
Key and Sora talked well into the night. About nothing. About everything. Sora about stupid things, Key about whatever he felt worthy enough to share.
Key had never had a friend.
But he suspected this was the kind of comfort they were supposed to bring.
His lungs didn't feel quite so tight, his head didn't pound quite so hard. He yawned a lot.
Despite the hard springy squeaky coils, he was comfortable.
He didn't know when he fell asleep. Didn't know when Sora stopped talking.
But he dreamed for the first time he ever remembered.
Chapter Notes: Blah. This chapter was horrid. Key would not cooperate. After I hit 1000 words on this, I felt the need to pick up the pace. I just feel like I make things dawdle onnnn and onnnn. Tell me if the consistency is annoying.
Wooooo! This is the most Key has ever talked in a chapter (I think)! I am still adjusting to Sora, forgive me if he seems slightly OOC. I feel like I wasn't descriptive enough for this world…I'm really lazy, though. I'll put a better grasp on it next chapter. Maybe. If I feel the need. XD
I cannot even begin to tell you all how many times I almost just started this chapter over. (I never did, mind you. In the end I was just too lazy.) But I definitely feel some flow problems. Again, too lazy to fix it. Also, sorry the ending is kinda rushed. I just…didn't feel like workin' on this chapter anymore. FORGIVE MY LAZINESS! I'll get better, no worries.
And here is where I will thank all of you AWESOME reviewers!
Special thanks to Magical Girl Pretty Sammy (I shortened your penname for my convenience)! I really appreciate the suggestions! I know my spacing style is super weird and fragmented, but this time I tried to mash as many sentences together as I felt possible! I hope it makes it easier for you to read!I'm hoping to let things get exciting in the next few chapters or so!
Special awesome thanks to Absinthian for giving me some future plot ideas! That I will not spoil yet! But I feel the need to thank! (throws confetti)
I actually have quite a few ideas bouncing around my head. XD
And thanks to you too Sumi! You're always willing to give me such nice critique!
And you obaa! Such a faithful reader! (hugs)
And even to the new reviewer who hates cliffies! I'm sorry I kept you waiting skyvsearth!
OH! And this may not seem like very big news, but this story has over 500 hits! This is a new accomplishment for me, and I'm pretty proud. (Don't laugh at my low stats. I fail at life).
Remember! It's reviews that keep me motivated! They give me the confidence boost I need to keep writing this story! No reviews, no new chapters! I'll try to update sooner next time! School, ftw.
Seeya next chapter!