C h a p t e r t w o :
A d r i f t
Riku
He looked back at his home, now totally engulfed by the shadows. What have I done? I unleashed these things, it's my fault…
Torn between grief and the relief of a safe escape, he rowed on, along with sora, to find their new home.
As the hours passed, Riku stared to regret not bringing more food. All that was left was a palpu fruit and the bait for fishing. He turned to Sora, "listen Sora, we need to get some food. A few more days out here like this and we will all be done for. Do you think you could spear a fish with your wooden sword?"
Sora looked at his wooden sword and the blunt end, "could I use you keyblade? I don't think mine will work."
"alright, here you go." Riku handed Sora his keyblade. But when Sora held it, it disappeared and reappeared back in Riku's hands.
"huh?" said Sora with a look pure confusion, waving his hand through the air where the sword had just been. "Riku. What just happened?"
"I don't know. That was weird… I guess only I can hold it. Interesting." He gave it a swing and heard the air cut in half with a whistle. "Oh well, I'll do the fishing, you and Titus row for a while, we still need to find some land." Sora and Titus nodded and picked up the oars.
The sun had almost gone down, and they had only caught one fish and 3 shrimp. As Riku looked out at the sea, he was struck with awe. I never imagined that the water could go this far. We must have been rowing for at least seven hours and we cant even see another piece of land. Maybe there isn't anything out there… no! Riku shook his head to get the notion out of his mind. Sora broke him out of his trance, "we should go to bed for the night. We need our energy."
Riku nodded and threw a rock overboard that was tied to the boat by a rope. "goodnight guys, see you in the morning." And with that, he lay down and went to sleep.
Sora
Sora woke up terrified of Kairi's scream. Why do I keep seeing her there? He pushed the thought out of his mind started to wake everybody up. he tapped Riku on the shoulder, "time to get up. its another day at sea."
Riku groaned and got the oars ready while Titus pulled up the rock. They were tired and hungry, so they didn't make much progress. Sora looked around to see Riku, as usual, staring out at the water. Just then he got an idea, Sora took off his shirt and his shoes and dove into the water. Titus saw what had happened and yelled to Riku, "stop the raft! Sora's in the water!"
With one swift motion, Riku kicked the rock overboard and scanned the waters for Sora. After about a minute, Sora came up smiling with a fish in each hand. He threw them onto the deck. Riku and Titus' faces lit up with joy! They took off their shirts and shoes and dove in after sora. Riku came back up with three fish and turned to Sora, "hey! I beat you in fishing too!"
"Oh no you don't!" Sora dove back under and came up with three fish in his arms and one in his mouth! "hah!" Riku gave him a smug look and kept fishing.
After about thirty minutes of diving for fish, they had gotten about 20 fish and a good pile of seaweed. The three stood on the raft staring at their feast. "what should we eat first?" asked Sora, his mouth watering.
Riku stepped between him and the fish, "hold on, we cant eat this fish raw. We have to find a way to cook it." We looked around, seeing nothing that could start a fire. He turned to Titus, "Dive down and find we a few rocks." Titus nodded his head and jumped in.
Sora cut in, "so riku…" he paused, "… where do you think Kairi is? Is she-"
"don't even say that!" Riku was shouting at the top of his lungs, "I'm sorry. I just cant bare to even think that."
"I understand." Said Sora, looking down at the palpu fruit, remembering how they had both taken a bite. are our destinies really intertwined now? Sora sighed and rubbed a piece of seaweed between his fingers. He heard a splash and turned his head to see Titus climb back up onto the raft with three rocks in his arms.
"Here you go Riku. But what are you going to do with them?"
Riku smiled, "that's easy. We dry some seaweed and the rocks, then we make a spark and light the seaweed on fire."
About an hour later when everything was dry, Riku laid the rocks on top of the seaweed and hit them with his sword. A shower of sparks flew off of the rocks, landed on the seaweed and Riku started to see smoke. Sora jumped to joy, "Yay! Food!"
Later that evening, they all had their fill of fish and seaweed salad. The three of them sat around the fire telling the funniest stories they could remember. Titus told about the time he had kicked his blitz ball into the water and picked up a puffer fish by mistake. Riku told about the first time Sora had tried to use a wooden sword and hit himself on the head. And sora remembered how he tripped on a carb in his final race with riku. They all sat and laughed. But there was pain in their laughter. These stories made them think of home, and they knew that they could never go back.
Sora looked up at the sky, "what do you think out new home will look like Riku?"
"I don't know… maybe just like our last one, maybe totally different. I really can't imagine."
"I know what you mean."
They sat together and let the silent darkness guide them into sleep.
Riku
Riku awoke to hear the crack of thunder and the glare of lightning. "Wake up! we ran into a storm!" Sora and Titus jumped up and looked around and saw a 30 foot wave coming at them. Riku yelled to them, "Hold on! Don't let go of the raft!" they braced themselves for the impact of the wave.
It seemed to take an eternity for the wave to finally hit. As it came down upon them, it seemed as if the world itself was about to drown. The wave threw them under water and shattered the raft to pieces.
Riku slowly came to and felt himself still rocketing towards the bottom of the ocean. No! I can't die! He managed to stop himself and began to swim for the surface. As he got higher up, he saw a water-logged piece of wood sink. Damn it! The raft! He kept swimming until he reached the surface. He took a deep breath and looked around. The storm was still raging. He caught sight of Sora. He swam over to him, "Sora! Are you ok?"
"I'm ok but Titus… he… he…" Sora pointed to where the water was discolored by blood.
Riku turned away, not wanting to accept that he had lost another friend, "Come on, we have to find a log or something else to use as a float." Sora nodded and began to search for a log. When they met again, Riku was holding on to a log and Sora had only found his wooden sword. He got onto Riku's log.
"Sorry Riku, all I found was my sword."
"that's alright, I found one. But that reminds me…" Riku held out his hand and in a flash of light the keyblade was back in his hands.
"Whoa! How did you do that?"
"im not quite sure but it sure comes in handy!" then they started to once again search for land.
Sora
"Sora? Sora? Sora! Wake up!"
Sora slowly came to feeling sicker and hungrier than he had ever been in his life, "Ugh… Where am I? and why am I soaked?"
Riku sadly laughed, "our raft got destroyed by a wave. This is all we have to float on."
"what about Tidus?" Riku just shook his head, looking out at the infinite sea that had become his grave. "I see…" it was all he could do to fight back the tears… but he knew that they needed to find some land, food and water. He stated to kick his feet and
Riku joined him. Sora turned to Riku, "Hey Riku,"
"yeah?"
"thanks for sticking with me"
"no…no proble-" Riku collapsed. Sora let out a scream of surprise and anguish. He pulled Riku up onto the log and turned him belly up so he could breath. As he did, he noticed a huge cut on the bottom left of his stomach. Oh my god… he must have had this ever since the raft got destroyed. That means… that means that he's been going all this time with a wound like that. He looked at riku, and I thought I was you equal…
Sora was knocked out of his trance by getting hit by something big. He looked up and saw that he had hit a giant rock- only 20 feet form an island!
Sora was almost sure it wasn't real until he put a foot on it. As soon as he was sure that it was real he fell asleep without a second thought.
End of chapter 2
