Sora-riku- 22. You share a dream with your soulmate when you're both asleep.
The dreams had always happened. As long as Sora could remember, really, but it only made sense since he'd been friends with Riku for as long as he could remember too. They happened more nights than not, always vague in the way dreams were, but the one constant was that Riku was always in them.
Riku had the dreams too, but no one else they knew seemed to have them. Sora could remember arguing with Selphie about it because she didn't believe Riku and Sora always had the same dreams. For Sora it was that when other people showed up in dreams, they weren't sharing them that was the weird thought. That meant they weren't really there, and fake people made from memories was a lot weirder a thought than sharing a dream with his best friend.
They were always little thing. Running around the islands. Building boats. Seeing places they'd read about in storybooks and the like. Or at least that's what the dreams used to be. Lately, the dreams were changing. Sora thought it was on Riku's end. The Secret Place kept coming up, and strange flashes of places. Riku would look at the wall of the Secret Place, and Sora could swear there was a door. But there had never been a door—wasn't one when he checked in the light of day.
"Sora," Riku said, when their new friend Kairi wasn't with them. Kairi who had appeared out of nowhere. "Sora, would you go to another world if you had the chance?"
"You mean like in fairytales?" Sora hummed, thinking.
"I mean like sailing out to find whatever's out there."
"I guess, yeah. It'd be cool to see someplace else. Like in the dreams where—"
"We sail into the stars," Riku finished. "And the stars are all worlds to visit. Yeah, like that." Riku let a handful of sand sift through his fingers. "I want that. The islands are nice, but they're small. There has to be more out there."
"Well yeah. Kairi came from somewhere."
"Exactly."
Sora stretched, considering that thought. Other places. Maybe even other worlds… What would that be like? "So we need a boat?"
"Maybe. I… have an idea for something else. But…"
Sora grinned. "We can make a raft! There's a ton of driftwood and you know about sails, and we can pack food and water and just go! We can make the dreams come true!"
"I want to," Riku said with an intensity that made Sora blink. "I want to go somewhere so much."
"Well then, we'll make it happen." A thought occurred. "Oh! We should take Kairi too! Maybe we can find out where she comes from?"
Riku… didn't look excited by that? Or maybe he was just processing it because a moment later he rolled his eyes and smiled. "Sure, we can bring Kairi in on making our raft. We'll get it done faster that way."
Sora leapt into making a list on what they'd need, Riku reigning him in to more realistic expectations. Of course they'd make it work. They'd get off the islands and see the world and maybe some of it would be like the books and the dreams.
It all was going so well, even if Sora found the dreams lingering on the door more often, Riku silent and pensive beside him.
He dreamed about Riku reaching out and opening the door.
The world, when Sora jerked awake, was already tearing itself apart. Sora ran, instinct driving him to the play island. Toward where the door should be. Toward where Riku should be.
Instead, he found strange shadow creatures digging into the world and a raging storm. The waves crashed like thunder. It was like a nightmare he couldn't wake up from even as Riku appeared in the darkness and held a hand for him to follow.
Sora tried. In any world, waking or not, he'd reach for Riku. But he was scared and confused and it was so much harder in reality than the illogic of dreams. Riku slipped through his fingers and the wave crashed down, dragging him under, to the deeper dark.