Chapter 6: Waking up alive

"Roxas?"

Axel's voice was heard somewhere nearby.

He slowly opened his eyes.

The sudden contact with light made the eyes sting and he flinched, closing them again for a short moment, before opening them again.

He took a deep breath, tasting the air, smelling it. He felt so alive!

"Hey, you're awake?"

A new voice, the words coming in an uncertain tone, as if the speaker didn't dare to believe what he saw.

He turned his head to the side and met the pale blue eyes of a young man with blond hair made up in a style that left it standing straight up on the top of his head, but flat down on the sides.

A name flashed by as the features of the face started to seem familiar.

"Demyx...?"

His throat felt dry and sore, his voice sounding just as raspy as it felt, but the blond had heard him and understood.

"Axel get in here!" Demyx called out the door to the room and smiled widely. "He's awake, and he knows who I am!"

Demyx somehow managed to sound like a child with a big pile of candy in front of him, over filled with joy and excitement, and still keep looking like the young adult he was.

"Rox?"

Axel's voice was closer now and soon his face came into view.

"Roxas? Are you alright, buddy? Do you know who I am? "

Roxas smiled faintly, a warm feeling filling him up at the sight of his friend.

"Axel," he whispered slowly and managed to lift a finger towards his forehead. "Got it memorized," he added with a short laugh.

"Yeah, that's right," Axel said, smiling with relief.

Roxas wrinkled his face in concentration as he took the room in.

"Where... where am I?" he asked after a moment's thought and once again Demyx's face came into view beside Axel's.

"In your room at the Oblivion mansion. You've been out for some time now, so we figured you'd like to wake up here instead of in the lab."

Roxas got an image of a large complex building with eight or more floors and a city some mile away.

"I... I've been out?" he asked, uncertain of what Demyx had meant by that.

"Yeah," Demyx answered, suddenly looking a lot less joyful and gave Axel a look of uncertainty himself.

Axel sighed. A heavy sigh, filled with worry, heartache and most of all sadness.

"You've been in something close to a coma for the last two years, Rox. Don't you remember anything?"

Roxas looked from one of them to the other as he tried to grasp what they'd told him.

"T-two...years?" he asked in disbelief.

Both the other men nodded.

"But... he said..." Roxas started and remembered something about Diz mentioning he'd be feeling a bit nauseous, but that he'd be doing a lot better when he woke up in the morning.

"Who said what?" Axel demanded to know, his clear green eyes sharp.

"He said I'd only sleep for a night... not two years..."

"Who told you that, Rox? What happened?" Axel repeated himself and leaned in closer to him.

"I... as soon as Roxas tried to answer the question, something else came to his attention that almost blocked him completely; A memory of a silverhaired young man burning up and turning into thin air, Axel holding onto him in the midst of the inferno. But he hadn't been himself, he hadn't been Roxas.

"Axel..." he said lingering as he tried to focus on the redhead's face. "Who... who's Sora?"

Both Demyx's and Axel's faces showed up a display of utter surprise and confusion for a few seconds.

"What?" Demyx finally said, not having the slightest idea of where Roxas had gotten that name from. "You mean the Sora?"

Axel glared at Demyx and the blond shut up quickly.

However, Roxas kept his eyes on Axel.

"Who is he?"

Axel coughed into his fist as he tried to gather his thoughts enough to be able to give him an answer.

"Sora was a keaybearer, before you were. He..."

"...was killed by his best friend's betrayal."

Axel turned around to look at the one who'd interrupted him. A young blue-haired man had entered the room and came into Roxas' view.

A name linked itself to him as Roxas' memory started to wake up.

"Zexion," he mumbled. The new visitor gave him a short bow of his head.

"That's not the story as I was told," Axel ovjected.

Zexion only stared coldly at him with the one eye that was showing from behind his thick bangs.

"As I recall it, Axel, I'm the historian of this organization, not you. And I'm telling you the same facts that are written in the databases and the volumes of recollections gathered in the dusty library archives: He was betrayed and this lead to his death as the shadows of the system consumed him."

The two of them stared at each other with cold hatred for a few moments, before Axel averted his eyes and turned back to looking at Roxas.

"Does that answer your question?" he asked in a low voice, trying hard not to let the simmering fire of irritation be heard.

"I think so. Maybe, " Roxas answered, still a bit confused by the memory.

Zexion smiled coldly.

"Good then. I'm here to tell you that Xemnas wants to see you," he turned to Demyx and wrinkled his nose, as if disgusted by finding him there, "not you, Demyx," and then turned back to Axel and Roxas, "but you two, as soon as Roxas feel good enough to walk. Is that clear?"

Axel's face went through a series of expressions before he answered Zexion with a quick nod.

"Yes. Is he in the office, or at the lab, or..."

"The office," Zexion interrupted him with an annoyed voice. "He'd prefer to see that it won't take you too long to get there. Try to make it within an hour."

Axel grimaced at this.

"Really now? Is that all then?" He pressed the words through clenched teeth, careful not to say what he felt like saying about that kind of demand.

Zexion nodded.

"Yes, I think so. Now, I'll be on my way, duty calls," he said with a bored expression on his face and walked out of the room.

Demyx looked long and hard at the door, until he was certain that the blue-haired man was out of hearing distance.

"Phew, he's so mean," he breathed out and relaxed for a bit.

Axel didn't say anything, but his green eyes were practically glowing with held back fury.

Roxas watched them in silence, feeling strangely detached to it all, as if it didn't concern him.

Axel turned his attention back to Roxas when he realised that he was watching him.

"Do you think you're able to take a little walk any time soon, Rox? 'Cause i'm afraid we'll just have to do our best to follow those orders," he said apologetically, the fury suddenly replaced with concern.

Roxas wriggled his toes underneath the comforter and bent his knees. He found it odd to discover all of his muscles still functional after two years of rest.

Demyx caught his perplexed facial expression and found it best to explain a thing or two.

"We had you wired up to every physiognomic machinery we could find in order to keep you alive, so we sort of added daily training of the muscles as well. Electrical impulses can do a whole lot of good if you use them wisely," he said with a smirk and Roxas had to smile himself. Demyx seemed to have that effect on people.

Even Axel pulled up the corners of his mouth for a bit when he saw Roxas' smile.

"Just give me a moment or so to gain some balance and I think I could do it", Roxas answered Axel's question, then tooka second look at himself and added: "And maybe a change of clothes? Going to see the boss in one's pj's just doesn't seem like a good idea."

Axel finally lightened up enough to laugh and Demyx's smile widened.