Slight delay again cause work and school and all, but here it goes again with the next chapter!
Chapter 14: What Wanders in the Night
Sora yawned while laying his head down at the table. Suddenly he felt someone poking him in the arm and he shot back up. "Huh, what?"
"Did you hear what I said Sora?" Kairi asked.
"Oh? Uh no sorry. Guess I was kind of dozing off there," Sora said rubbing the back of his neck.
"You've been dozing off a lot lately," Riku said. "Not just at lunch but also during classes. You doing all right?"
"Yeah, just a bit tired and all. You know how school is with me."
"You play video games all evening and then do your HW when you should be sleeping," Kairi deadpanned before eating her lunch.
"No! I mean… maybe… not all the time though!" Sora replied meekly.
"You need to get yourself in shape, we only have a little bit left before the end of the semester and you know what that means," Riku said.
"Yeah yeah I know, more studying and uuugh. Can we not talk about studying and school?" Sora whined.
Kairi and Riku laughed at Sora's exasperation. "Alright, what should we talk about?"
Sora shrugged. "I don't know… something interesting at least."
"How about the monster people have been seeing at night?" Riku suggested.
Sora and Kairi looked at Riku with wondering eyes. They had head of what he spoke up, but they never really had a chance to talk about it. It never came up in their conversations before despite it being a strange and interesting topic.
"What about it?" Kairi asked.
"Well we know it is some shadowy monster that has the shape of a human, but it is the color of darkness and has glowing yellow eyes. No one has ever really gotten a good picture of it because it runs off into the shadows before that," Riku explained.
"Yeah, I wonder where it came from," Kairi added. "Like there hasn't been any reports of it causing any problems. It just roams the streets at night as far as we know."
"Maybe it's a ghost?" Sora suggested.
"But the pictures that we do have of the creature don't look like a ghost. It looks solid from the looks of it," Riku said as he pulled out his phone. He then pulled up an image and showed it to Kairi and Sora. It was indeed a blurry picture, but there was a cear human shape and it looked black as the darkness and solid. The more eerie part of it being its glowing yellow eyes.
Sora shivered at the sight of the image. He couldn't explain it, but it made him feel really uncomfortable and uneasy. But before he could give it too much though he yawned again. His tiredness overpowering him over his thoughts and concerns.
"Well whatever it is, I don't know if I would wanna run into it at night. I know it hasn't actually done anything but run around, but you never know," Kairi said.
"Agreed," Riku said.
"Yeah," Sora said before yawning. "Also agree."
"Speaking of night, are we going to have that meet up in the park still tonight?" Riku asked after a few moments. "The Halloween weekend party bash at 10pm?"
"Oh yeah! I am still free for tonight," Kairi replied. "How about you Sora?"
Riku and Kairi turned to Sora to hear his answer, but he was already fast asleep on the table again. The two of them laughed, thinking of how amusing it was to see Sora so sleepy. Though they just passed it off as he was brushing off his homework until the last minute and getting very little sleep because of it. But if they only knew the real reason, maybe then they would have been more concerned.
That night Sora sat at his desk, trying to write out as much of his homework as he could. Though the math as well as the literature was proving to be quite difficult for him. He sighed heavily before leaning back in his chair.
"Ahh… maybe I should really get Riku or Kairi to tutor me."
He then sat up straight and looked at the clock. The time read 9:52PM. Sora nearly jumped out of his chair. "Ah! The party! It's starting in eight minutes! I gotta get dressed and get out there. Kairi and Riku are probably wondering where I am."
Sora ran to his clothes and started picking out the stuff he needed for costume. Though as he started picking out the outfits, his head started to hurt. His winced as it started to feel like his head was spinning.
Stumbling back he groaned as the pain became worse. His head was pounding now and everything felt disjointed and hazy. He couldn't even get his eyes to focus on anything because of how bad the pain was.
But he was able to open his eyes and what he saw he wanted to be shocked about, but with the pain he could barely process anything else. He could see his arms and on them there was an inky darkness that was spreading.
He tried to shout, to call out for help, but he couldn't even use his voice. He could only stay there frozen in pain and horror as the darkness continued to spread. And then everything went black.
Kairi and Riku were at the party, it had just begun but everyone was already eating away at the food or dancing. But not Riku and Kairi. They were standing by the entrance to the park, wondering where Sora could be. They hadn't seen him yet or even gotten a text from him.
"You think he forgot?" Kairi asked.
"Forgetting about a party? Sora? No way. He may have just fallen asleep, you saw how tired he was today," Riku replied.
"Yeah I guess, maybe we should go and check," Kairi suggested.
"All right, let's go."
The two of them then began walking down the street, heading in the direction of Sora's house. Though there were street lights lined up along the way, it was still fairly dark outside as well as in the distance.
Eventually the sound of loud metal crash caused Kairi to jump. She nearly crashed into Riku, but he managed to catch her. "Whoa, you okay Kairi?"
Kairi nodded and looked to her left, there she saw a trash can had been knocked over by a raccoon who was scavenging for the contents inside. "Just a bit startled. It's a little quiet tonight, don't you think."
"Pretty spooky if you ask me," Riku teased as they continued to walk. "Maybe we entered The Twilight Zone."
Kairi gave him a playful shove before laughing. "Oh stop! You know that stuff isn't real."
"Hey you never know, strange and odd things happen all the time. Just like that shadowy…" Riku said, but then he trailed off. He stared in front of him, his eyes widening.
Kairi looked at him confused. "What? Riku what are you… you better not be trying to fool me or anything. Otherwise I'll-"
"Look."
Riku pointed forward and Kairi turned to see what he was pointing at. A small gasp escaped her at what she saw. Near the edge of the street was a shadowed figure. But it didn't make any sense to be shadowed as it was standing near a street light.
From what they could see the thing was covered in shadows or at least something dark that covered every inch of the body. And there were two bright glowing eyes on its face. And right away from those glowing eyes, they knew what they were looking at.
"It's that shadow monster," Kairi mumbled.
"Maybe we should head back," Riku said taking Kairi's hand and read to run at a moments notice.
"Wait!" Kairi said, pulling her hand from Riku. She slowly took a few steps forward, her eyes locked on the creature who also seemed to be staring.
"Kairi we should really get away from it, we don't know what it could do if we get to close," Riku warned.
"But look… the shape of its hair… isn't that familiar?"
Riku stopped to actually look carefully this time. Though it was still hard to see with the lighting, he could clearly see the familiar shape of spiky hair. "N-No way… it couldn't be…"
"I mean… Sora has been awfully tired lately," Kairi replied. "So it could be… I mean it is possible… isn't it?"
"I don't know how… It just doesn't make any sense," Riku said.
Kairi then slowly started to approach the shadowy figure, surprised it stayed still and kept staring at them. Riku came up behind, ready to grab Kairi and run if the situation took a turn for the worse. But he started to have a feeling that something like that wouldn't happen.
"Sora? Is that you?" Kairi asked once she was close enough.
The shadowy Sora-like figure cocked its head at her. Staring with the wide glowing eyes. It walked a bit closer and now Kairi and Riku could see the clear defining features that were Sora's. Though they were covered in the darkness that surrounded the shadowy version of him now.
Kairi took another step closer, reaching her hand out. She hopped to hold onto Sora and hopefully get some answers. But he jumped back and bolted off into the distance, running along the ground like an animal.
Kairi and Riku stared, both of them completely shocked at what they had seen. But once Sora was out of sight, they turned to one another. They still could not wash off the state of shock and utter confused that they were feeling.
"Do you think… he remembers any of this?" Kairi asked once she finally found her voice.
"If he did I feel he would comment on it more or something, or maybe he is just doing a good job playing dumb on it," Riku replied.
"Should we go and ask him tomorrow?"
"He's probably going to be really tired… but yeah we should. We gotta get to the bottom of this."
"Agreed, though who would have thought it was Sora. That really is the surprise of the year."
Riku nodded though he chuckled a little. "Though now we know why Sora is so tired at least. He isn't as lazy as we thought."
A very random one again for sure. But it is just the thought I had when doing it at least. Hope you enjoyed!
