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Chapter Two: Numb

I was shaking. I was cold. I felt empty. In a way, I was empty. I didn't feel alive. It was like, all the people who were around me, trying so desperately to make sure that they hadn't lost me, were images of light that just seemed to pass by, as if they were nothing. And I was still crying.

I didn't feel it when they carried me out of the castle. I didn't know that they brought me all the way back to the hotel room. I didn't feel the sting when someone poured antibiotic on my wounds before healing them. I didn't feel any warmth surround my body when they sat me in the bath tub and turned on the hot water. I didn't feel it when it burnt my skin. I didn't feel cold when they took me out of the bath. I didn't feel embarrassed or uncomfortable when someone changed me out of my wet clothes. And I didn't feel warm, comfortable, or safe like I usually do when they laid me down into a bed. I hadn't even noticed I had stopped shaking and crying.

I was so . . . numb. I could see these things happening, new I was feeling something, but I couldn't feel it. The only thing I eventually felt was the overwhelming need to sleep. I only felt slightly drowsy I slipped out of consciousness, hearing an almost forgotten voice scream my name.

Dream

"I didn't think you had it in you" Riku said to me smiling, walking toward me.

I took in my surroundings. I was in an all white room, and there was only myself and Riku. I stared at himin disbelief, not believing it was him.

"I truly thought you would give up Sora" he said to me as he got closer.

"I've never been one to quit" I said as I shook my head, not believing what was going on.

"No, you haven't been" he replied as he stopped walking, now that he was only a few feet away from me.

"Riku . . . " I said in a desperate voice. I really wanted to explain myself and what I had done, but I didn't have an explanation.

"It's okay Sora," he replied smiling, knowing what I was trying to say, "it had to be done. I just wish . . . " He sighed and looked away from me, pain and sorrow was spread across his face, "I just wish it could have been . . . different somehow. I wish . . . I wish I could have explained myself."

"You can now" I said as I smiled at him. "I can too."

Riku looked back at me and smiled. His presence seemed at peace somehow. It was like he had been waiting for this moment. It was like he had been waiting to have his final rest.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have that much time" Riku said as hisbody started to evaporate.

"NO!" I screamed as I ran toward him in a panic.

I tired to grab him, but I couldn't. My hands just went right through him, only making his essence shake as it disappeared into the air. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. It was his face. It was Riku's face that stopped me from crying. He was . . . smiling at me in a sympathetic, yet happy way.

"Until we meet again" He said in a whisper as he completely disappeared, his voice bouncing off the white walls that now only surrounded me.

I fell to the ground, still wanting to cry but not doing so. " ...No . . . " I said to myself in a whisper, feeling every part of me go numb, " . . . no . . . "

... And then, there was darkness . . . and all I could do was sleep.

End of Dream

I awoke with an overwhelming feeling of fright and sadness. I was cold and sweating, and I could feel my heart racing very quickly. I looked around me to see where I was.

I was in a bed. The walls were dark green and there was a table with a chair in the middle of the room.

"Right" I said lowly to myself as I remembered I was in the hotel my friends and I were staying at.

I pulled the green covers of the bed off of my half-covered body. I got up and walked left from the bed, toward the bathroom. I stopped half way there, feeling tired and dizzy. I walked back some to the chair that sat infront of the round table that was leaned up against the wall I had been near. I sat down and sighed heavily; man was I tired. Well, why shouldn't I be?

I had been fighting constantly, for three years, ever since I was sixteen. It all started when I was fourteen, but it was never really that bad until I was sixteen. I mean, before I was always able to have a break and I would eventually find my friends. But it wasn't like that these past three years. This time, it wasn't just the heartless or the nobodies. This time there was the Keyblade War. Not only was I fighting heartless creatures, I was fighting my peers, my equals. And it was all started by stupid, heartless creatures that just wanted us to kill each other off. We all fell for it.

Riku wasn't the only key barer I had to kill. Riku had just been the only one I had chosen to kill. All the others had come after me, had come for my life. For all the others it was just self defense. And we all sure did kill each other off. There were thousands of us, all supposed to be fighting for the same cause in all of our worlds. But instead of fighting the heartless and nobodies, like we should have been doing, we desperately tried to prove who was stronger, or who was good or bad; we forgot about everything but fighting each other. We let all the heartless and nobodies have their way with our worlds and then we finally realized that we had failed what we were supposed to do.

All the time we spent fighting each other only benefitted to the heartless and nobodies. We had been so wrapped in fighting each other that almost all the worlds were gone by the time the remaining of us had woken up. That's when it really became a battle. Because of our fighting and killing each other, some questioned if they were on the "right" side. So some of the Keyblade masters had decided to help the heartless or the nobodies, or both. Then, not only did we have many heartless and nobody boss' to beat, but we still were fighting our equals. By the time it had finally gotten down to the end, the only Keyblade bearer that stood in our way had been Riku.

Riku had been fighting along side with me, and the other Keyblade masters that had become my friends, until we had reached the home stretch. He had slowly been taken over by the darkness that had been left in his heart. He was so lost that he was no longer fighting for any side. He just destroyed anything or anyone that came near him. It was our duty to end his miserable life. It was my duty. He had been my best friend and so the burden to kill him had fallen to me. Others had offered, but I knew I was the only one who could do it. I knew Riku very well. I knew how he fought, how his mind worked, and how his heart worked; it was my responsibility to set him free from darkness. Then why did I feel so numb after he was gone? Why do I still feel numb?

I sighed. I was still so very tired from it all. I'm sure the others were tired as well. Especially my other Keyblade friends. They had all fought just as hard as I had, and they were the ones who had the responsibility of closing the Door to Light after I had defeated Riku. And I think the only reason why I feel like I'm more exhausted then they are is because I had just recently killed one of my best friends. I don't think it's even been 24 hours.

Not wanting to sit there and wallow in sadness, I tried with all of my might to get up. Eventually, I got up and I continued where I had left off; I was walking toward the bathroom. I made my way inside the bathroom, turning the light switch n as soon as I entered it. The bathroom, like the main room, was green, only it was a lighter shade of green. I closed the same colored green door and turned the shower off. I took off the only article of clothing I had been wearing, my blue boxers, and threw them in the corner of the room. I turned the shower on waited for it to warm up.

I stared myself down in the mirror as I waited. I looked nothing like I had remembered Myself. My hair was still a mixture of brown and slightly blonde messy, spiked locks. My face looked . . . older somehow; maybe it was the stubble forming on my chin. I was more muscular than I had remembered; now, I'm not talking Super Man buff but I wasn't little and scrawny anymore. And none of this bothered me. Change, most of the time, was a good thing. But the one change I saw that I was not pleased with were my eyes. They were still that same sapphire color, shining brightly and betraying how a really felt, but they were different. When I stared at them in the mirror, I saw . . . nothing, like I was dead.

I sighed sadly. I did not want to be dead, but I felt like I was. It was like I killed myself over the past three years, and killing Riku finished the job off.

I was awoken from my thoughts as I felt the warm steam that was coming from the shower surround me. I shook my head and got into the shower, trying so desperately to feel the warmth of the water.