Chapter one: Night time experiences

Sora looked up at the starry sky above and exhaled heavily in a sigh of exhaustion.

This was getting nowhere.

He'd been running for hours without destination in a futile attempt to clear his head from the ever persistent dreams that had kept haunting him for some period of time now.

Sora couldn't quite pinpoint the first time he'd woke up screaming, all covered in sweat and with his sheets wrapped tightly around his limbs, as if he'd unconsciously been trying to snare himself while sleeping.

He just knew that he hadn't had one single night without a return of the dream ever since.

It wasn't the same dream every time; it altered from one night to the other, but some things remained the same in every dream, making him recognize it as it came over him.

In the dream he saw people he for the sake of his life couldn't remember ever having met with, but when seeing their faces he got the feeling he knew them all very well.

Another thing that kept repeating itself in the dreams were the feeling of being watched and a sense of growing fear of the darkness, resulting in pure panic as the shadows in the corners of every new dream's scenery grew until they ultimately enclosed him like a dark cage that kept on shrinking.

That's when he usually woke up.

This night had been no different in that sense and he'd woken up screaming his throat sore.

It was lucky, he'd thought grimly once he'd calmed down enough to get back to reality, that he'd been living on his own the entire time.

The mere thought of what his mother would make of the screaming made him wince.

A mild breeze swept gently through the soft grass and invited it to dance under the moon, tickling Sora's bare arms where he was lying.

With a slight shiver he sat up, but kept his eyes on the stars above.

This night he'd woke much earlier than usual and his first thought had been to get outside for some fresh air. So he'd put on a pair of sweat pants, a t-shirt, socks and his running shoes and gone ahead with his plan.

Usually his mind would clear up while running and afterwards he usually felt refreshed and trouble free, but not this time.

No matter how much he tried to think of nothing but the steady movement of his feet, parts of the dream kept breaking through his concentration and the images of a blond, blue-eyed guy kept flashing before his eyes in different ages and sceneries.

Sora shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment and listened to the soft whispering of the leaves in a nearby tree as the wind went on to make them join in the midnight waltz it had already started with the grass.

Who was this guy?

In his dream, Sora had sometimes walked beside him, other times he'd been him, talking calmly and laughing together with someone else that he didn't know.

It was as if they were friends, close friends even. But for his life he couldn't remember his name.

His face, sunkissed and somewhat childish, even in the scenes where he'd been at Sora's present age, seemed just as familiar as his own reflection. If he hadn't known better, Sora could have sworn he'd been looking at a lighter blond version of himself.

But the blond twin wasn't the only face he kept seeing in these haunting dreams.

There was an older guy there as well, with brilliant green eyes and hair so red it looked as if on fire.

Somehow this man always seemed to be around the blond one, in the background or right next to him. And for some reason the look in his eyes made Sora feel as if his heart was being squeezed dry.

It was a painful feeling, and yet something he didn't want to be without once it left him.

Sora knew this feeling well enough to be more than puzzled over it as it came over him at the sight of the redhead.

It annoyed him something fierce, especially since he could swear on the fact that he hadn't seen this man before in his entire life.

Somehow he guessed the feeling wasn't really his, but belonged to someone else; the redhead himself, or perhaps, the blond he followed.

Sora opened his eyes again and took a deep breath.

The night air's chill was finally starting to make itself noticed to him as it caressed his sweaty warm skin and he decided to get back up on his feet and return home to the apartment before he got himself a cold.

While slowly walking over the gravel on the city park walk, Sora kept pondering over his dream, having given up his tries to shove it away.

He'd seen the faces of people he truly knew as well, only they'd looked somewhat different from how he remembered them, as if being a sharpened copy of what they really were, all expressions and colours enhanced, or marked by experiences he hadn't known they'd had.

Kairi he'd recognized right away.

She was a girl he'd been friends with back when his family used to spend the summer vacations at a beach house near a small group of islands down by the south west coast. But he hadn't seen her since his last vacation there, before they sold the beach house and moved permanently to Desnei, a suburb of Traverse Town, as his dad had managed to get a more or less well-paid job at one of the city banks.

He'd been about 13 back then, and realizing he'd be parted from her Sora had almost packed a bag to run away from home, had it not been for Kairi telling him not to.

They could stay friends despite the distance, she'd said and they'd promised each other to write at least one letter a month to stay in touch, and visit during holidays.

Sora smiled to himself as he remembered his joy when receiving the first letter only one day after their arrival to the city. He'd written back the same day and he'd been smiling all the way home from the mail office.

But there hadn't been any more letters after that first one.

He'd kept hoping for it for almost an entire year, before he finally gave it up and forced himself to realise that the friendship was over. He'd been crying, but as the time went by, he'd let it go and hadn't thought about her ever since.

Until the dreams started.

Sora sighed.

The old pain was struggling to get back up to the surface at the thought of those long lost days on the island beach, but it wasn't as strong as it had once been and with another shake of his head, he'd subdued it.

A crow was heard from somewhere and a dog was barking.

The low humming of the first traffic of the waking morning made him turn his eyes towards the direction of the old clock tower some distance away as he exited the park and started walking up the street leading home.

4:30 AM.

How lovely. He'd been out in the park for almost three hours, during the "worst" time of the night, if you should believe the local papers screaming out warnings about murders and robbery and whatnot.

He snorted at the thought of anyone ever getting the urge to jump him when he so obviously begged for it by walking straight into the park unarmed and without any sort of valuables apart from the key to his apartment.

Bad guys don't jump the easy targets, simply because they're too easy to not be suspected of some kind of trick. At least that's what he thought and as far as he knew, it still hadn't happened anything to prove his theory wrong.

When these last thoughts rushed through his mind, Sora remembered another part of his dream this night, an episode near the end that involved another person he knew.

Silver hair surrounding a tan face with glittering mischievous turquoise eyes gave Riku a striking appearance that he was well aware of, but seldom used to his advantage.

He was about one year older than Sora, and cocky to a degree of being suicidal, but he also knew how to back it up with strong fists, whenever a witty remark of his hit the wrong nerve of someone in lack of the necessary sense of humour.

He was tall and fit, fast on his feet and just as agile as his slender body seemed to be, so as far as Sora knew, there hadn't been one fight from which Riku hadn't walked away being the victor.

When he'd first met him, it had been on his first day at the Traverse Town University and Sora had been in awe of his whole person; the attitude, the strength and his good looks.

The fact that their first meeting had been a case where Riku more or less saved him from a big bully when the brute had been about to remodel Sora's face for no apparent reason, other than Sora being small enough to boss around with, was another thing to add to the list of "all the things that makes Riku great".

After that, Riku had always been around to make sure Sora was doing ok, but they still hadn't become actual friends. All that there was, was a casual nod or a hello as they passed each other in the corridor or at the university grounds. Every now or then they even shared a lunch, but only if they happened to bump into each other during that time of day.

But in the dream, they were closer than that.

Much closer.

Sora shook his head violently as he had a sudden flashback of the dream.

Those kinds of thoughts and the feelings attached to them weren't exactly something he wished to awaken. Especially not when it came to Riku.

Another look at the clock tower told him he had about two hours left of his night before he had to get out of bed (again) and get to school.

Splendid.

Muttering curses to himself, Sora locked up the entrance door to the building where he lived and once inside, jogged up the stairs to the third floor, locked up his own door and got in.

Leaving the shoes on the door mat, he walked slowly towards his bed while undressing with stiff movements. He considered taking a shower, but decided it would be better if he just went to sleep as soon as possible. He could shower before he went off to school, if he still felt like it.

As his head hit the pillow, Sora came to think about the end of the dream again.

The shadows that had appeared to be alive, and the growing fear of being devoured by the darkness, had him somewhat confused.

It didn't fit with the rest of the dream, where all images were filled with light and warmth, or, in some cases, with a feeling of loss.

Whatever the dream was about, he had to figure out a way to get rid of it soon enough, because his lack of sleep was starting to show on his results in school, and since he was allowed to live in his present apartment at half-rent on the one condition that he was successful in school, Sora intended to do what he could to get his grades back up again before they got any worse.

He liked living on his own, without his mom constantly worrying over his recent lack of friends, or whatever was her subject of worry of the day, and his dad's constant comments on his grades in this or that subject.

The digital alarm clock on his windowsill announced the time with shocking red numbers.

5.00 AM.

The red colour reminded him of someone.

Fire in his skin, in his chest, in an apartment on a street bathing in sunlight...

Sora drifted off and was soundly asleep before he knew it.

One hour later he woke up screaming again, just in time for his alarm clock to set off.