For Day 14 of the Kingdom Hearts 3 Countdown Challenge - Memory.
Kairi stared at the girl in front of her.
Other than the fact that she had short dark hair, the girl was the spitting image of… well… Kairi. It was like looking in a mirror, almost.
Kairi took a step closer to her, the tide lapping at her feet. "Who… are you?"
Kairi had never seen her before. Was she like Naminé? Her body was hidden beneath a long black coat that looked too hot for Destiny Island's warm temperatures, so it was hard to tell.
The girl was silent for a moment. "I'm you, as Sora remembers you," she finally said.
Kairi paused at this. "Me as Sora remembers me? What does that mean?"
When had Sora ever seen her like this? Kairi wracked her brains for a time Sora might've—
The girl smiled sadly. "I'm just a puppet. I was never meant to exist."
Kairi's heart pounded. That sounded a lot like the things Naminé had told herself before. I'm Kairi's shadow. I was never meant to exist. Nobodies are meant to fade away.
Well, if Kairi knew one thing, it was that even if Naminé wasn't meant to exist before, Kairi wanted her to exist now. And if this girl was anything like her, she wanted her to exist, too.
"A puppet?" She glanced at the waves washing up against the girl's feet. "But you seem real to me."
"You see me as I see myself, then."
"Black hair, blue eyes?"
The girl nodded, and Kairi took a step closer. "You're not me, then."
The girl shook her head. "No. But Sora filled me up with so many memories of you that I took on your appearance." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, with a few differences."
"Memories… of me? But why me?"
She smiled shyly. "I don't have a heart, or so they told me. But I saw enough of Sora's memories of you to know why."
She took a step forward and found Kairi's hand. Hers was as real and solid as anything Kairi had touched.
"This is for you," she said, putting something in Kairi's outstretched palm. Kairi recognized it easily.
"A thalassa shell?" she asked, running her thumb across its familiar shape. Tales of the old sea goddess they were named after flitted through her mind.
The girl nodded. "Kairi, I never got to meet you, so you never forgot me. So please, don't forget me when you wake up."
"Forget you? Why would I forget you?"
The girl's shoulders drooped and her eyes were filled with sorrow. "Because everyone else I ever knew did."
"They did? But why?"
"Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made—"
Kairi thought of Sora's smile right before he'd disappeared into her arms.
"No. No more sacrifices. The darkness has taken enough from us as it is. I won't let it take any more." She put her hand over the girl's. "And I won't forget you. I promise."
The girl smiled through her tears, and Kairi gave her hand a squeeze. "What's your name?"
The girl opened her mouth to speak, and the world around them blurred together and started to fade. All Kairi heard was the stirrings of the tide before the girl slipped out of her grasp and into the depths of sleep.
Kairi's eyes flew open. She took a few deep breaths to orient herself as her mind transitioned from sleep to wakefulness.
Clutched tight in her hand was a thalassa shell and tucked away in her memory was a girl. A girl filled with Sora's memories. A forgotten girl that deserved to be remembered.
She gripped the shell tighter. "Sora, Riku, I think there's another person we're supposed to save."