turning the happening level up to 11, not sure if I should raise the rating. Let me know your thoughts

He first became aware of the pounding in his head; lying on the ground and shaking from the chill that surrounded him, the world slowly came into focus.

The room was dark and damp, precluding him from examining his surroundings. He could see a set of stairs on the opposite of the room, his view of where it led obstructed by the wall. Shelves lined the walls, holding tools of a wide variety and from his position he could see a tiny window in the top corner. Cars passed by, their headlights briefly illuminating the room, and all he could glimpse were their tires. He was underground.

It was at that point that Sora realized he couldn't move, he reached forward and attempted to pull himself along the floor, only for something to hold him back. His right hand was cuffed to a pole; he strained against it, balling his hand into a fist and trying to squeeze it through. He gave up quickly, his wrist rubbed raw. Sora reached up and felt the back of his head, it was warm and soft and a spike of pain flared up where he touched it.

Panic. As his bearings returned to him, the enormity of what had occurred, and just what had happened to him, became apparent. His breathing quickened, fear gripping him, he tried to control his intake of oxygen but he choked and the world blurred again.

Calm. Stay calm.

Footsteps. He paused. Heavy thuds meeting the floor above him, sending dust flying about the room. Someone was coming. Sora heard the steady creaking of a door swinging open and those feet began to descend.

The man, or perhaps more accurately the boy, who approached him could not have been much older than Sora himself. Face hidden by shadows, Sora could discern only the black beanie, baggy pants, prominent and threatening combat boots, and a distinct scar that marked the boy's face. The boy stood, looking down at Sora. Sora stared back. The boy spoke first.

"What's your name?"

Sora opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Sora."

The boy remained still, looking down at Sora. Then he kneeled so they were at eye level, and Sora was confronted by steely aquamarine eyes.

"You hurt one of my boys," his captor spoke, and Sora could hear the quiet menace in his voice.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Sora stammered. The boy's hand shot out and grabbed his face, Sora shouted in surprise.

"You hurt one of my boys," he repeated. "Someone's gotta pay for that."

"Please," Sora managed to spit out, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The boy said nothing, his hands gripping Sora's chin and forcing him to meet his captor's eyes.

"You're out on that corner, aren't you?" the boy questioned, "The one with those girls."

Sora could only nod his head.

"Someone came to you a few weeks ago, got his arm twisted up real bad, said you were there."

Suddenly it all made sense.

"Wait!" Sora spluttered, "It was Yuffie, not me! I had nothing to do with that, I swear!"

"Oh yeah?" the boy let him go and stood up. "Well then, why don't we ask him?"

Sora's eyes widened as the boy barked, "Huey! Get down here!"

Sora watched as Huey lumbered down the stairs, his arm nestled comfortably in a cast. Even here, in this terribly dark place, he could see the grin on his infinitely smug face.

"Yeah, Seifer?" he asked comically, very clearly amused by the sight before him. The boy, Seifer, turned to him angrily.

"Don't use my name, you idiot!" he said furiously, punching Huey in his injured arm. Huey yelped and jumped back. Seifer let out a breath.

"Sora here says he wasn't there when you had your accident, is he lying to me?"

Huey nodded. "Big fat liar."

"Okay," Sora could feel the panic beginning to overtake him once more. "Okay, I was there – but I didn't do it, it was Yuffie!"

Seifer turned to Huey. "Is that true? Did a girl do that to you?"

Huey did not hesitate to deny it. "No," he shook his head, "it was him," he pointed at Sora with his uninjured hand.

"Hm," Seifer tapped his forefinger on his cheek, "I think we need to teach Sora a little something about fibbing," he mused.

"Wait!" Sora pleaded, holding out his hand to shield himself from whatever was coming. "Just wait-"

The first kick caught him in his chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending his head back into the pole. Sora cried out as waves of scorching pain radiated down from his skull.

"Stop-"

Another kick. Right in the side of his face. He slumped downwards, his weight dragging his restrained hand further into the handcuffs. He coughed and saw specks of blood hit the floor.

"Pl-"

Seifer landed one on his side and he heard a sickening crack. The pain was excruciating, a splitting, overwhelming feeling that made him see stars; bright spots that danced before his eyes. He was going to die, he was sure of it.

This is how it ends

Not with a bang, not in the soothing presence of family and friends, but an inglorious end. Locked away in some basement somewhere, nobody would ever find him. Roxas, Kairi, his mother-

(does she even care)

-they would never know the truth. The world would keep on spinning and spinning and spinning just like his was right now and-

Another one got him straight in the jaw; the taste of copper filled his mouth.

-he would be forgotten. Just another kid on the streets. Just another fool. Just another-

kick to his face. If they weren't careful they'd knock a few teeth loose. He'd seen a couple of sad folk on the streets like that and promised himself he would never become like-

-sad sorry sack who couldn't get himself straightened out.

It's not like that.

Fists to the face.

It's not like that.

Pain.

It wasn't my fault.

Blackout.

When he awoke, the room was empty. His face was throbbing, a constant

(constants and variables)

dull aching, his abdomen was aflame; every breath he took sent a burst of fiery agony coursing through him. He could feel the wet droplets of blood trailing down his face and onto the ground, piercing the silence of the room with its rhythmic dripping. But he was alive, and he was alone.

He struggled to lift his chin from his chest, the aching becoming ever more severe as he gingerly leaned his head against the pole. Dazed and bruised, the room was a mass of fuzz and swirls. But he was alive, alive, he repeated the mantra to himself. He was alive.

His eyes lazily scanned the room, the walls, the shelves, the ground that had become host to the metallic taste in his mouth, and they landed on something, tucked away in the far corner of the room under a wooden table. Two white canisters, both slapped with a big red label on the front. One word.

Flammable.

"Flammable," he chuckled, and his breathy laughter became a hacking cough that wouldn't stop.

"You awake down there?" Seifer's voice called from somewhere beyond. Like a guardian angel, he thought.

Sora continued to cough, his throat backed up with phlegm and blood. He spit on the ground.

"Ah," Seifer leaned over the staircase, studying him as if he were a mere curiosity on the other side of the world. Well, the other side of the room would have to do.

"Got some people here who wanna see you," Seifer said, leering at him from above. Sora felt the hope in his pained chest deflating rapidly. He was alive, yes, but the walls were closing in.

"Let's go boys," Seifer beckoned, and they came. One familiar face after another. Stewie, Lewie, Huey. A reunion of monumental proportions.

"So," Seifer began, leaning back against the table that covered the canisters, "turns out my friends here know who you are," he came in closer, "you're a troublemaker, aren't you Sora?"

Sora said nothing, ignoring the three boys who were watching him with expressions that fell somewhere between hunger and malice, choosing instead to focus on the beanie bearing boy as he pranced about the room. He was clearly enjoying this, eagerness bordering on excitement.

"Listen," Sora urged hoarsely, "I can tell you stuff…stuff about-"

"Like how you're with the Organization? Yeah, I know all about that," Seifer quickly shut him down. The tepidness in his voice struck Sora. He didn't care. He just didn't care. He didn't care what happened here, so long as Sora wasn't around to talk about it when the sun rose again.

"I'm not with anyone," Sora countered, trying his damndest to keep his voice from shaking, "I work on the corners, yes, but I'm not one of them, I'm not," he stressed. Seifer had to understand, he just had to. He hadn't wanted any of this.

"You are," Seifer said, and his voice was cold, "maybe you don't think it, but you are."

"He's one of them," Huey growled. "He looked right at me and smiled."

"I can help you," Sora pleaded, "I can-"

"I can," Seifer mimicked, he laughed cruelly and looked at Huey, "How'd you let this scrawny little stick get the drop on you?"

Huey looked embarrassed for a moment, but quickly reverted to indignation. "He had a gun," he said, "pulled it on me."

Seifer made a sound of acknowledgement and turned to Sora. "Is that how the Organization does business these days? Gotta stick 'em up to shake 'em down?"

Sora glared hard at Huey. "He's lying," he spat, "lying straight through his teeth. It was the girl, it was Yuffie. Twisted his arm right around."

"Shut up!" Huey shouted and stomped on his calf. Sora gasped as something within him was torn and his thigh burned.

Seifer looked on in mild amusement. Stewie and Lewie were rearing to have a go, and Sora could see through the hazy edges of his vision one of them swooping in for the kill.

"Wait," Seifer held out his hand, and whoever it was stopped. "I'd say this is worth exploring, wouldn't you?" he asked. Nobody answered. He ambled over to the other side of the room and pulled something from a shelf. Seifer turned towards them, and Sora saw the outline of a bowie knife in his hand.

"Now," he said, unsheathing the knife, "two stories, two accounts, what are we going to do?"

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees. A car passed by outside.

"I think I'd be speaking for everyone here if I said how unfortunate it would be if there was to be a…miscarriage of justice," Seifer twirled the knife in his hand. There was a gleam in his eyes and the knife he carried shone in the dim moonlight.

"It was him," Huey repeated, but now he sounded off-beat, unsure of himself. He visibly shrunk under Seifer's stoic gaze.

"You know, I read something about justice once…" Seifer nodded, staring out at nothing in particular, "about how the greater should get more and the lesser should get less," he turned on Sora, "there is inequality rooted in nature. How do you feel about that?"

Sora did not know how to feel about that. The situation had taken an unnatural turn, bequeathed with the feel of a twisted comedy routine. The boys looked on in discomfort. Suddenly Seifer strode forth and stuck his knife in the pole above Sora's head.

"Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius; make this offering to him and do not forget!" he bellowed. Sora drew back, but Seifer grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him forward so their noses were almost touching. He pulled the knife out of the pole and ran the blade down Sora's cheek.

"Did you do it?"

"No."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not."

Seifer let out a harrumph and stood back. He turned to the boys, who watched him warily.

"What about you?" he pointed the knife at Huey. "Are you lying to me?"

"No," Huey said, shaking his head fervently. "I s-swear."

Seifer stared at him blankly. "Why don't I believe you?"

Sora turned away from the unfolding scene and frantically searched the room with his eyes. Things were running their natural course and soon it would all be over. He was alive, but the end was nearing. Outside the birds were chirping and the sky was brightening. He wanted to live; he wanted to see the sun rise.

"You know what I hate, more than anything?" Seifer tightened his grip on the knife.

"What?" Huey asked. Fear and trembling.

There had to be something. Anything. By the grace of God, he needed a miracle; something that would pull him back from this precipitous descent. Hammers, nails, hoses, matches – he paused.

Matches

"Liars."

It happened in the blink of an eye. Seifer drew his knife wielding arm back, took a giant stride forward and without hesitation plunged the knife straight into Huey's gut.

Huey's eyes went wider than anyone's Sora had ever witnessed, so much so that they were practically bulging out of their sockets. He let out a low, shaky groan and fell back, collapsing against the shelves and falling to the floor in a stupendous crash.

Then he started screaming.

Chaos ensued. Lewie flew forward, grabbing Seifer and tackling him to the floor, Stewie bent over and looked down at his friend in abject horror, his hands held out in a display of utter stupefaction. Cries and crashes and screams flooded the room. Sora watched as Lewie struggled to disarm Seifer, the pair rolling around on the floor in a desperate effort to overtake the other. He saw the small shiny object fall out of Seifer's pocket and clatter to the floor.

Sora knew what it was in an instant. He reached forward, ignoring the cries of protest emanating from his beaten body, his fingertips just grazed it, he pulled forward, harder, harder, his knees wobbled and his fingers closed around it, but the exhaustion beat him to it and he slumped against the floor; the key to the handcuffs just out of reach.

"Are you whacked?!" he heard Lewie cry as they fought over the knife. Huey was still screaming, screaming, screaming, an unending drone. Like the buzzing of bees.

One more chance, Sora begged. Give me one more chance. He gathered what strength he had left and made one last effort and the strain was incredible, the pain unbelievable. He thought he would explode. He slumped again, sure that he had failed, certain that he was doomed, when he felt the key in his fist.

"Yes," he whispered. Sora stuck the key in the cuff and turned, for one brief and terrible moment he thought it wouldn't work, that it was the wrong key and it was all for naught, but it clicked and the cuff broke apart. He was free.

Huey's screams had turned into a death rattle, a lowly croaking. Stewie seemed to be in shock, face almost as white as his fallen friend's and incapable of movement. Seifer had managed to get Lewie on his back and he raised the knife up high, prepared to deliver the fatal strike.

Sora moved quickly, he seized the knife from Seifer's hand and without thinking tossed it under the wooden table. Seifer whirled around and his expression transformed from stunned surprise to a murderous rage. The taller boy leapt off of Lewie and grabbed Sora, pulling him forward and then pushing him back. Sora attempted to regain his balance, but capitulated to the fire in his chest and the crippling pain in his thigh. He fell against the table.

Seifer pulled no punches, launching himself onto Sora and laying into him with certain homicidal intent. Sora blocked and grabbed at his freely flying fists as best as he could, but he felt what little he had left in him whittling away under Seifer's sustained blows.

The table collapsed under them and they were sent sprawling onto the floor. Seifer hit his head on the ground and Sora took advantage of this opening. Spotting the knife lying beside him, Sora grabbed it, thrust it backwards into one of the containers and pulled it downwards. It gave way easily, nothing but plastic.

A stream of gasoline shot forward, spilling onto the ground and streaking across the floor. Seifer, dazed though he was, had managed to pick himself up. Lewie sprung up from behind, wrapping his arms around Seifer's neck and putting him in a chokehold. The two of them flailed about wildly and Sora had just enough time to think of ice skating before he hurriedly limped over to one of the shelves and took possession of the item he sought.

Sora lit the match and held it over the trail of gasoline. Seifer sent his elbow straight into Lewie's nose, sending him flying backwards, nostrils spurting streams of blood. The beanie had come off, and Sora saw now that the boy had brilliant blonde hair.

Seifer saw what he was about to do. "Wait!" he cried, holding out his hands.

Sora hesitated and looked him straight in the eyes. He was just another fool, another kid who had fallen off the straight and narrow, just a little older – or maybe as old, as himself. They could have gone to school together, maybe they did.

"Just relax, man."

Let it burn

"I am relaxed," Sora said, and he flicked the match onto the ground.

The flames shot upwards in a flash of orange heat and the fire rapidly traced the course of the gasoline trail towards the canisters. Sora turned and propelled himself towards the stairs. He would still need to climb. An insuperable task, surely.

He channeled what adrenaline still remained within him and he climbed- no, crawled furiously upwards, clawing at the stairs as he saw the fire reach the canisters. It's over, he thought, and a strange peacefulness fell over him. It's all over.

The first explosion obliterated the staircase behind him; he was thrown forward out of the basement door and into a wall. He fell backwards, landing hard on his back. He felt the heat behind him and he started to laugh.

The second explosion was more powerful, ripping through the floorboards and blasting a massive hole through the walls. He was blown away, lifted into the air by the force of the blast and smashed through a window, tumbling over bushes and coming to rest face down in the grass.

As Sora lay there in the grass, his head turned weakly to the side, he found himself watching two simultaneous events. He witnessed the sun ascending over the Brooklyn residencies, and watched as a bumble bee without wings crawled through blades of grass. As he studied that bumble bee wiggling its way over the grass and the first rays of sunlight bursting forth and lighting up the sky from its pale blue to a streak of red-orange, he felt an immense curiosity awaken within him and elation so great that his resulting grin stretched nearly from ear to ear.

That red-orange sky was complemented by the red-orange flames raging behind him, consuming the home within which he had been a prisoner, and the people who had imprisoned him.

Sora heard the sirens sounding off in the distance, and shakily rose to his feet. He was bleeding, bruised, broken, but he was alive, and he had never been more thankful for that fact. He wasn't sure where exactly he was, but he could see the city skyline in the distance. All that was required of him was to follow it.

So he did. He limped away from the lawn, past the onlookers who stared at him in shock and awe, into the dense urban neighborhoods, alongside the East river, into Brownsville and finally entered the projects.

"Hey Yen," he waved to the owner of the building, seated behind the front desk. Yen looked at him in surprise.

"Sora? Your brother's been looking everywhere for you…you look terrible, son. What's happened to you?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it," Sora assured, smiling pleasantly as he passed and mounted the steps. What were a few more?

Sora reached the door to his apartment. He stood in front of it and let out a content sigh. Home at last. He opened the door.

He did not expect the amount of guests. Roxas, Kairi, Naminé, Olette, Hayner, and Pence were all gathered in the living room. Sora allowed himself to drink in each and every person's appearance, which was only fair, as all eyes turned towards him the moment he entered the room.

Nobody made a move. Nobody said a word. Why were they all looking at him like that?

"What's up?" Sora greeted, shattering the silence. They stared at him with wide eyes. Surely he didn't look so terrible. His stomach grumbled.

"I'm starving," he said, moving towards the kitchen. He made it about halfway to the fridge before he fainted.