The Boy in the Mirror: You
Part 2: Fragments of Sorrow
A day can be foretold by its morning, and currently I don't think there's a greater truth. My foot still sends little twinges of pain up my leg when I step down on the thin slice (I'd wrapped it up in toilet paper before slipping on my socks to prevent any blood from staining them, but I think it was for naught) and the walk home from school is, as usual, long and dreary, but Naminé seems to be trying to alleviate the awkwardness. I tell her how my day went and about the homework I didn't finish and she smiles a little before warning me not to make it a habit.
She doesn't have to worry. I intend to graduate and leave this sorry place behind.
I don't tell her about the other times today, though, that I found myself drifting away in my thoughts. I think if I had any other reputation, I would have been reprimanded, but I was mostly ignored. As it was, I had been free all day to think back on that obscure dream.
My chest still hurts a little. With wakefulness it should have faded away, but my breath hitches a little with each breath and if I turn my body too much the aches become very pronounced in my ribs. It's not mind-numbing pain, but it brings flashbacks of the dream's end, of gears tearing me open and snapping my bones like toothpicks. The fragility of the human body is a wonder.
When the door to the house opens up, I backpedal. There's a sweet scent in the air with a hint of spice. Naminé and I share expressions of disbelief—the only person at home during the day is Mom, and Mom holes herself up in her room more often than not, jumping at shadows or staring at something we can't see with a somber look. She doesn't cook until dinnertime, and that's only on good days, but normally dad whips up something simple in his exhaustion. Mom's coffee is never this strong either, but I finally figure out that I smell cinnamon.
"Mom?" Naminé asks into the house. We step in carefully, kicking off our shoes and taking light steps toward the kitchen. There's a rattling sound before Mom steps out with a tray, three mugs balanced expertly on its gleaming surface. I figure it out. The mugs are full with steaming hot chocolate and I can see the cinnamon sticks she's inserted into the drinks.
I haven't seen her prepare that drink ever, but Dad told us stories about how she would make some for him as a comfort when they were growing up. He said the cinnamon was a helpful tip from a friend she used to know.
"Welcome home," says Mom. "I'm glad that I timed it right. I made some for you as an apology...for last night."
Mom's better than she used to be, and she was never stupid. She knows her episodes are terrible and frightening, but this is the first time she's ever done anything to make amends. I'm awful, I know, for assuming she has to make amends for anything, but I don't think on that all too much, certainly not now. Right now, I want to cry, because this kind of behavior is normal, and its an earth-shattering breakthrough.
Excited, Naminé gleefully accepts the peace offering and I follow her lead with trembling hands. The heat barely permeates the ceramic and I don't burn myself, and the smell of the cinnamon cocoa is heavenly. I don't know if I can drink through the lump in my throat.
It's there for two reasons: I'm moved by Mom's improvement, but I'm also terrified that this won't last. I'm scared that by tomorrow she'll withdraw again, a shell of a mother with a family in shambles.
A door opens from somewhere in the house and Naminé and I nearly drop our mugs. Mom, in the act of placing the tray down on a side table in the den, glances at our hands until she's sure we've renewed our grips. Who the hell is in my house?
There's an old, beat up couch, springs poking in the wrong places aplenty, against the wall of the den and Mom sits down gracefully, patting the ratty cushions to her right and left. Numbly, we sit, and a moment later Dad strolls into the room, yawning mouth hidden behind a hand.
"Dad?" I ask this time. I try to balance my mug on my thigh, but the bottom is too hot and I pick it back up again a moment later. "Don't you have work?"
"Called out," Dad explains. He peers down at the cups in our hands, Mom having taken up the third and last mug, and can't hide his surprise. "I didn't...I didn't sleep well last night. Kairi, did you make cocoa?"
Mom giggles. I didn't know she could make that sound. "I thought you'd nap longer, so I didn't make any for you. I'm sorry."
No one has a response to that. I thought my day would turn out poorly by way of my painful morning, but I'm beginning to believe it's just going to be strange. I, for one, am just happy no one is bringing up the mirror shard I've tucked away in my desk drawer.
Sleep is quick to descend upon me that night, something I attribute to my brain trying to cope with the bizarre nature of the day, but I am once again dreaming that I am falling through the abyss of black. The platform is coming close again, but the image on its stained glass has changed: three colorful, star-shaped objects are joined together in a trinity, green, blue, and orange, and I'm intrigued by the design.
I land gracefully as the night previous, with my feet whispering across a panel of green glass. The darkness around me is deathly quiet until I take a few steps forward, causing echoes to rebound off the nothingness around me. It's eerie, but nothing I can't shrug off.
After all, last time I was here, I died. I guess it isn't true that if you die in a dream in you'll die in reality. This is, however, my first time with a recurring dream, and I can only grasp at straws as to what my subconscious is trying to tell me.
A tinkling sound punctures through the silence. At the platform's edge, a small platform the size of my desk's top at school shimmers into existence, also made of sturdy stained glass in nonsensical patterns. My feet move on their own by my own curiosity until I'm standing on it. Funnily enough I don't feel like I'm going to plummet off if I lose my balance. Moments later a second platform, reminiscent of the first, appears just before the one I'm standing on, and I realize what's happening. "Follow the yellow brick road, huh?"
Sure enough, as soon as I step onto it, another appears, and I'm creating a pathway. Dream logic powers every fearless step until I see a large tower with a flat top. The glimmering path beneath my feet winds around the tower, illuminated by many shining lights, until I've reached the top. It's another large platform—the one I was on previously must have been another tower's apex—and my brave trek through the dream world stops there. I waver, one foot on the big platform and the other on the path, as I spy the brown-haired boy with the giant key standing at the center of the tower's top, watching me with wide, blue eyes.
"Y-you're alive!" cries the boy as he runs at me. I try to step back, but the pathway vanishes beneath my feet, and I end up propelling my arms to save myself. I don't want to count how many times I've nearly plummeted from these dream towers, but I don't have to worry. A strong hand clasps onto my forearm and pulls me back to safety.
"You again!" I breathe. "Why am I dreaming this again?"
The boy's elated expression morphs, partly confused and the other disturbed. "Dream? Roxas, this is reality. Maybe not yours, but definitely mine."
I frown. "If I'm not dreaming, then why am I still alive?"
"...He must not be strong enough to take your heart yet," the boy murmurs and I startle. I don't think I was supposed to hear that.
"What?"
Smiling broadly for a reason I can't place, the boy points to himself. "I never introduced myself. I'm Sora." The smile wavers suddenly and he looks away. "The other guy you saw, the one who hurt you, his name is Vanitas. If he catches you, he'll just kill you again."
I frown even harder. Maybe because I'm sure I'm dreaming and that my subconscious was taking me down a crooked road where Sora is trying to keep me away from waking up, but I'm more affronted that one of my dream characters is so keen on killing me. Maybe ripping out my heart. "And why does he want me dead so badly?"
Biting his lip, Sora shrugs. "Vanitas is a creature of darkness. He doesn't need a reason to do something evil. You wouldn't be his first victim, but you'd definitely be the first one he hunts down on this side of the glass."
That is as baffling as it is horrifying. "I'm not sure I'm following. I don't know what 'this side of the glass' means, but...that guy's really hurt people?"
Sora's tentative expression disappears under the sharp spikes of his eyebrows, mouth set in a grim line of determination. "He has. Before I was around to stop him, I know he hurt a lot of people. He's a monster with an animal's hunger. He's a demon without a heart to bear the weight of his emotions. He's predatory and volatile, a lethal combination to many a person."
"And now he wants me dead, is that right? That's crap!"
"Huh?"
I'll admit Sora can spin a pretty tale, and whether or not it is full of truth or lies is irrelevant before the tidal wave of fury crashing turbulently through my body. I live in a world that judges me before they know me with a family on such a fragile balance between peaceful and chaotic that we could have been a bunch of carnival style tightrope acrobats, and I really do not need this kind of treatment from my subconscious. Dream or no dream, this Vanitas guy makes me angry deep down to my core. "It's just crap. I didn't even do anything to deserve that."
"I told you. He's evil, Roxas." Then, Sora grins mischievously. "But don't think you're so special. He hates me, too, and there's another guy running around here besides yourself. I'm doing double duty, watching your backs!"
"Well, isn't that spectacular?" I'm annoyed, really annoyed, and I'm wondering how I can wake myself up from this. I don't care about Sora's heroics or a stranger's Vanitas dilemma. I'm a little more preoccupied that I'm being unjustly hunted in my sleep, a time of respite, and I'm justifiably mad.
Whether or not Sora understands my mood is lost on me, because while his suddenly comforting hand on my shoulder proves he doesn't, there's something in his eyes that tells me he's not that oblivious. "Hey, chin up. You make it sound like you don't stand a chance. People have gotten away from him before."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah! Like...two, and I might be rounding that number up, but...one person definitely has! She's stronger than she comes off as, you know."
"That's real helpful there, pal," I grouse.
"And hey! There's me! He's been trying to pound my face in for a while now, not that time means a whole lot here. But you got big, so..." Sora trails off and he's not looking at me anymore.
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, seriously. Excuse me, but if you don't wanna die, Sora, get out of my way."
Both of us turn like one unit to see a pool of darkness gathering on the glass panels. Like a horror movie, a dark hand reaches from the pool, pulling with it a sinewy body I don't want to recognize. Dark spikes of hair look oily with the darkness before it fades away, letting them settle into their natural arrangement. This is Vanitas, my brain informs me, and he wants me pushing daisies.
Sora is in motion quickly, pushing me behind him before a blinding array of lights shimmer at his hand. The lights manifest into one shape before, with a final flash, the key-weapon from before is tight in Sora's experienced grip. "What is that thing?"
He glances back at me as Vanitas laughs mockingly, mimicking Sora's pose as, instead of little lights, swathes of darkness dance along his fingertips. Just as the gears begin to form on the other's weapon, Sora answers, "This is a keyblade. Mine is called the Kingdom Key, but it manifests with a different name for every person, should they be lucky enough to master one."
"And he has one, too," I breathe.
Sora nods. "That's the Void Gear. Watch yourself. He might really be able to kill you this time, Roxas."
"I'll do more than kill him!" Vanitas boasts as he lunges forward. Despite Sora's Kingdom Key's diminutive reach, he parries the Void Gear easy, the boy's legs bending easily to absorb the force. I back up when their blades sing through the air again, fighting like it's a game in which they take turns going on the offensive. "I'll eat his heart! I bet it'll taste great, and I'll take it as vengeance for that brat saddling me with you for all these years, Sora! It'll be a thing of beauty!"
"Get over yourself, Vanitas! You killed that boy already!"
Vanitas bounces back and away from their deadly dancing, before he dips a hand through the glass floor. I take a moment to realize he's plunged his fist through another pool of darkness. The muscles in his arm tense as he pulls his hand back out and snakes of darkness race across the tower top. They move fast and purposefully until they've made a half-circle around us, enough of a circle to show us that the only direction we can run is off the tower.
"I don't think so!" Sora barks as he pulls me close. The Kingdom Key's tip flies into the air as he holds me down with one hand and uses the other to raise his weapon. I look up sharply to see light gathering at rapid speed like a miniature sun. "Trinity!"
Immediately the orb punctures, beams of light rocketing free at Sora's command, targeting Vanitas's tendrils of darkness like missiles. Awestruck, I stay down near the ground even as Sora re-enters the fray, thrashing wildly at Vanitas. The other taunts and laughs in his strikingly familiar way, as though pleased that Sora and I are not dead yet, even if all he desires is, almost quite literally, my heart on a plate.
Time slows when I hear one last clang of weaponry and my eyes watch as the Void Gear successfully dislodges the Kingdom Key from Sora's grip, Vanitas's mighty blow sending the weapon flying through the air and Sora onto his back on the top of the tower, scrabbling and clawing to put space between them. The Kingdom Key lands teeth first into the glass, truly piercing through and radiating an alarming amount of cracks. It's so close by that the spider webbing darts between my sprawled limbs, a shock of terror shooting down my spine when I think the glass will finally give way under such abuse.
Vanitas jeers something that trails off into a manic laugh as I push myself away from the Kingdom Key. Then I can hear, "What's going to happen now? Do you think you can protect him from me now? Do you think you can even protect yourself?"
I remember last night's dream in which I was distraught with confusion of fright. I'd had the courage to take up Sora's Kingdom Key without preamble and had managed to ruthlessly challenge Vanitas before. I'd come out with gears knotting up my insides, but I woke up in the safety of my twisted sheets. Sora warned me that this time could end very differently.
But I'm finding myself having difficulty caring. This is my dream, and there is no way I'm going to lose my life to this joker, all slasher smiles and poisonous words. If I can't take control of my life outside this dark world of towers and mayhem, then I can do it here, and I dare anyone to try and stop me.
I step back onto the cracks with a hefty lunge, clenching my teeth to bide my fear away when I hear the cracks spread even farther with my body's weight, and I wrap my fingers around the hilt of the Kingdom Key. With a pull it budges a little, and with a second it comes free, and miraculously and impossibly, the glass panels beneath me maintain their place. For both the peace of my mind and my dream-logic honor, I move away from the dangerous network of cracks, speeding my way over to Vanitas and Sora.
"Look who's trying to play the hero again!" Vanitas shouts through a laugh over Sora's warning, but I ignore him.
Or maybe I just can't hear him. There's a voice in my head, one I don't recognize though it is warm and parental, and I am dimly aware it's the voice of the Kingdom Key itself. I'm not yours, you can't win with me. But you, too, have the power while you are here...
Light once again shapes the form of the Kingdom Key in my right hand as I dash forward and Vanitas's grin fades from his face into a look that is equal parts confused and determined. I brace my other hand against the hilt and my fingers before drawing away, unsurprised that the light as expanded to my other hand as well. Two shining blades finally form in both my grips, long keyblades in black and white.
One is white and angelic in form, and its voice reminds me of an ocean's wave. I can help you. Let my winds guide and protect you.
The other is black and menacing, its voice that of a confident baritone. I am your strength, allow me to cut down your enemies.
"Aero!" spills by my lips without my consent, but I don't mind when I can feel the white one's pure, unadulterated happiness in my consciousness. I lift off into the air like I'm its javelin, wind supporting me and tussling my hair.
As Vanitas stares up, agape and horrified, and Sora's worried face has transformed into a wide, toothy grin, I let the winds drop me above them. As I barrel down towards Vanitas, black keyblade poised to strike and all its excitement bubbling in my blood, I hear him gasp, "Oblivion and Oathkeeper...?"
He manages to dodge out of the way enough that I can't seriously harm him, but the black keyblade nicks him just a bit.
"What are you going to do now, Vanitas?" I hear Sora, who is pushing himself up from behind me. As soon as he regains his feet, the swarm of lights dances once again to his hand, Kingdom Key taking form. "You can't have Roxas. Everyone is against you, and you don't stand a chance."
Outnumbered and certainly underpowered, I hope, Vanitas steps back with a grimace, Void Gear nearly limp in his hand. He smirks suddenly, like he's just come up with the best idea in the damn world. "Do you really think you two can beat me like this? And Sora, just because you got lucky with that whore you loved before doesn't mean you can save her son, too."
I almost drop my weapons. What?
"Leave Kairi out of this!" Sora bellows as he rushes forward, a bull to a matador, and Vanitas is quick to use his anger against him, ducking to the side and using the flat of the Void Gear to smash Sora in the back. "You've done enough!" he cries as he topples to the floor, distressed.
"C'mon, Sora. You won't let me have the whore, you won't let me take away the man that stole her from you, and now you won't let me kill the spawn. You're really just no fun."
"Enough," I say quietly. "Enough!"
Oathkeeper, the white blade's name is, uses her power of the wind to propel me forward with phenomenal speed, and Oblivion's sharp teeth bite into Vanitas's chest. For a moment he doesn't react, only stares at the point of impact with a blank expression. Then, he laughs. "Look at the balls on this punk. You're really not helping your case, you little bastard."
He swings the Void Gear more swiftly than ever and I see the gears of teeth heading towards my face. I can't react quick enough, clamping my eyes shut as I wait for the inevitable agony—
"Wake up, Roxas!"
I open my eyes, breathing heavy, and Mom is standing before me. It's still dark out, but it's not the impenetrable darkness of my dream scape, and I can see my room's furnishings very well through the moonlight filtering through the blinds. "M-mom...?"
It's rare that Mom remembers that she is, indeed, a mother, so to find her standing by my bedside is shocking. She looks curiously at my hands, clenched tightly in the blankets, before she watches my face again. "Are you okay? Your father was having a nightmare and it woke us both up. I came to check up on you and your sister, and I'm surprised you're sleeping poorly, too."
I sit up in bed, looking away from her. Confused, I can only cry silently.
A/N: I'd apologize for this update's long wait, but I'm not going to? Why? Because it always seems to take me a year to update The Boy in the Mirror, lol. And because it's at the bottom of my priority list. But don't think I've abandoned it!
Special thanks to readers, please drop a review!
Also, I think it's interesting to give the keyblades voices and personalities. Oathkeeper is based off, strangely enough, LittleKuriboh's Ocean (think Mako Tsunami, guys, when she "forgives him"), and Oblivion's is based off the man who sings Ifrit's version of the Hymn of Fayth from FFX. I think Kingdom Key would sound like Jun Fukuyama, and Void Gear is definitely the Riddler from the Arkham Asylum/City Batman games.