Writer: beckychan
Kairi stood before the door. It was open only a crack, but a pulsing light radiated from behind it. Or was it darkness? It reminded her of hot water from the tap that was so hot that it felt cold. This was darkness so dark it was light, or light so bright it was dark. She couldn't tell which.
Her necklace pulsed in time with the radiance, and almost felt like it was dragging her towards the door. How had it opened? It couldn't have been Sora or Riku...
Don't be afraid...
She wasn't afraid, and that was odd to her. Despite the fact that she hadn't done what her friends had done, despite that if there was a squirming evil beyond this door, she wouldn't be able to fight, despite that her only trips to other worlds had been accidental, and she had always been dragged there by something else, she wasn't afraid.
She reached out, hesitating for a moment.
"Kairi, no!"
She yanked her hand back and turned around guiltily. She had thought she'd heard Sora's voice just now, but there was no one there. Sora and Riku. Her anchors, her friends, the loves of her life, her heros, her rescuers, time and time again...
And then, irrationally, she got angry.
"What are those two keeping from me?! They know everything, don't they?!" She thought about the previous morning, on the beach. The looks they gave each other. Sora couldn't lie... They knew what she wanted to know, and had kept it from her all this time!
Against her chest, behind her necklace, it began to burn again, that place deep inside. It felt like her heart was ready to burst, resonating with the darkness streaming from the door. For it was darkness. She knew that now.
Kairi, please, she could hear Riku's voice soothe from somewhere far away, or maybe not at all. We only wanted what's best for you.
"What's best for me?!" she shrieked into the empty cave. The darkness pulsed. Her heart pulsed and burned. Her necklace began to glow with the brilliance of a star. "What's best for me is to know who I am! To know my family! Why did you keep it from me?! I thought you were my friends!"
She whirled around and grasped the edge of the door. It burned her hands in the same way her heart burned, but she wasn't about to let go. Instead, she yanked, pulled it open, widened the portal.
The darkness lashed out with inky tendrils that did not at all seem to be completely there, and enveloped her, caressing her skin in absurdly sensual ways that would have made her blush on any other day. But she was sweet sixteen now. Or was she?
Don't be afraid. Step into the darkness, Kairi.
She took a step.
Sora gasped and clutched desperately at his chest.
"Sora!" Riku called, catching his friend before he fell.
"She's gone, Riku. She's gone!" the brunet cried desperately, reaching ineffectively toward the play island, which suddenly seemed eternally far away. Riku looked at him, and got a sinking feeling that he meant "gone" in more ways than one.
The strange feeling, the feeling of the door being open, ended abruptly. They knew it was closed, and that Kairi had taken it to... to... who knew where she had gone? If she was lucky she'd end up in Radiant Garden, and have her questions answered quickly, and then come home.
But would she come home once she knew?
"Then we're going after her."
Sora looked up at his best friend in all the worlds, the one who had travelled darkness for over a year, just to protect him, and nodded with resolution.
"We'll need a ship. I'll try to contact Goofy and Donald, and you try to contact King Mickey. I'm sure someone will hear us." His jaw set in grim determination.
"Right. Come on. We've no time to lose."
Kairi was falling. And not the standard type of dream falling, where everything was in slow motion, and you had no danger of hurting yourself upon landing because you would probably be right-side-up by then, and land on your feet. No, this was real falling, with wind so fast it stung your eyes and tore your scream from you, no matter how much you wanted to keep quiet and face it like an adult. And landing from a fall like this would probably mean death.
But then, she didn't slow so much as seem to have been falling from a much lesser height all along. She landed with an, "Oof!" that was still painful, but not fatal. Her head hurt, and her ribs, and her butt. Ow.
She sat up and looked around. Where was she? Where had the darkness taken her? It wasn't anywhere she particularly recognized.
An animalistic snuffling caused her to tense as something was breathing hotly in her ear. She could just picture the fangs and drool and glowing eyes. Nervously, she looked over her shoulder...
And received a slobbery lick in the face.
"Blach!" was the most eloquent thing she could come up with at a time like this. She wiped her face off and found herself looking into the soulful eyes of a large yellow dog of indeterminate breed.
"Pluto!" She hugged the mutt around his neck. The musty smell of a dog that could use a bath and the sensation of his diamond-shaped metal name tag pressing sharply into her cheek was extremely welcome, given the circumstances. "You've found me again!"
Pluto barked happily, his whip-thin tail wagging hard enough to cause bodily injury.
"Come on, boy. Let's go find out where we are."