A/N: My friend and I once created a Kingdom Hearts drinking game. For every time the word "darkness" is spoken, you drink. Who gets hammered first? :D
He simply couldn't run fast enough. Whatever he imagined as being his legs would not obey him, and the ground beneath his eyes was slowing and speeding up at irregular intervals.
His mind wasn't working properly. His head was throbbing, his heart racing, his stomach churning. His eyes did not see the metal-lined walls framing the never-ending corridors or the steam-gushing pipes jutting out of every other nook and cranny in the floor and ceiling. Nor was he able to detect the eerie silence, broken only by his padding feet upon the stone floor. The walls were cold and hard, yet they had a certain life to them, and the entire building seemed to breathe.
Exasperation caught up with him as, guided by the fire-lit walls, he ran full on into a dead end. Stopping himself by hitting the wall with his bare arm, he paused for only a brief moment. His eyes scanned the vicinity in a craze, but the creature who'd been stalking him was not seen.
So he kept running, pushing himself off the wall and launching towards the opposite direction in full speed, skidding around the corner. The lanterns on the wall each flickered as he blew past them, some going out completely and leaving a pocket of shadow spreading across the ground. Riku's eyes saw nothing as he pushed himself forward, only desire to escape this godforsaken maze of twisting tunnels and playful shadows. In truth, he was terrified, and this panic was all that drove him back to the water in the pit of rising falls. He had it in his mind that returning to whatever portal lay down there would send him back home, to his islands.
But… that wasn't what he wanted.
He hit another dead end and cursed aloud. It was as though this place was altering itself to purposefully trap him it its clutches. If he would at least spot a doorway, he'd have some hope of escaping this nightmare.
Sinking to the ground, he hugged himself and bowed his head to his chest, catching his breath.
Then it reappeared, the demon in black, and it had him caught between these three grinning walls. It had him with nowhere else to run, and he fought his own weakness that begged him to back up into a corner and go down without struggle, and he'd hope there'd be little in the way of pain. He wouldn't even grace the monster with his broken gaze, wouldn't yield to the temptation of battle when he knew it was already all lost.
He only felt the creature and felt only the creature. It was soundless and noiseless, and it floated with such calm serenity that greatly foiled Riku's jerky shudders. Looming ever closer, the crooked grin that it wore was large and empty, sucking in dry air to whatever vortex it was made from; its charred yellow eye sockets fixed on the boy's pathetic huddle.
It was the smell, the reeking, nauseous, vile stench that emanated out of every crack and crevasse of this monster that pushed Riku's head further into his arms, burying his nose into his own un-intimidating skin. The ball pressed itself up against his knees suddenly, nudging the top of his head curiously with its gnarled appendages. Its movements were agonizingly slow, but no matter whether or not the rancid ball of darkness wished harm upon him or was simply interested in Riku's presence, he was too stubborn to exit this position of being curled into himself, as it promised certain safety.
The thing emitted a strange sound, then, something like a cry of pain although Riku had done nothing to it except play helpless victim. The noise compelled him to lift his head slightly, giving it a wary look. Apparently, the noise was nothing more than an odd black steam being released from a pocket of--what else?--darkness.
Disbelief colored Riku's expression. Had he ever left death? This being that stood before him, nuzzling him with a sick affection, it was pure darkness, that he could obviously make out. The steam, it was also darkness. Was this darkness plaguing him? And why? Perhaps, the thought came to his mind, because he should never have abandoned it in the first place. The way the light had cruelly ripped him away from darkness's clutches, maybe he should have stayed. Perhaps that was where he belonged: stuck in the sea of blind, unrelenting darkness, forever floating in ignorant bliss.
The darkness, as it caressed him, attached itself to his being, and his everything was quickly filled with nothing. Violet hues of uncertainty pervaded his blank mind, but the feelings and emotions accompanied with life were absent. It was as though with no light, there could not even be life.
Was it, then, this thought that attracted the other forces of darkness to Riku's small form? For they came; in multiple rows, they plowed powerfully toward him, the small wriggling creatures composed entirely of shadows. As with the larger ball, their eyes glowed mischievously and locked onto his, as his head was entirely raised. It was fitting, after all, that he may as well watch as he became, again, consumed by the darkness. They were all upon him, and he was again defenseless. His body was far too weak to counter this predicament, proven subconsciously by the widening of his eyes and the premature wincing of an already destroyed heart.
It was just like on Destiny Islands, they way they came. But back there, standing on the shores of his home, he'd been immune to their stares. It'd been Sora, his friend Sora, who had acted as magnet to their attacks. He simply watched as his friend attempted to survive, simply chuckled as his friend found himself unable to protect himself, but it was not with disdain. They… they should have been partners, after all. They'd been partners their whole life, growing up together as best friends. Sora, he'd been like Riku's younger brother.
What happened to him? To their islands?
The shadows converged upon him, breaking the pretense that all they were looking for was an answer to who this intruder was. Riku must have been proven guilty as an outsider, someone who obviously wasn't welcome because the creatures were ruthless. They covered him, suffocated him, their heavy bodies pressing down on him from all sides. Like nothing had changed, like he was still dead…
"Wake up."
A witch's claw reached through the storm of shadows and roughly pulled him by the shirt collar out of the black mess. Wherever the mysterious hand had came from, it yanked him without struggle, and he sifted through the many jerking monsters with ease as though they were nothing but smoke.
Again his face found the surface of the water, guided this time not by the burst of light, but by this woman's sharp fingernails digging into the back of his neck. He gasped and his eyes sprang open, but to find not beautiful waterfalls, instead a low, dim ceiling framing the face of a rather nasty looking hag.
"If you have dreams of yourself being weak, then it's no wonder the keyblade left your side." Her lips were moving slower than the words hit Riku's ears, and he blinked, chin jutting forward at the slight pain of the woman's fingernails still lodged in the skin of his neck.
She wrenched her fingers away and turned from his view, exposing the unsightly black horns protruding from the back of her scalp.
"Get yourself to the front hall," she barked emotionlessly at him.
And with that, the witch slipped out of his room.
"Wait…!" Riku called to her back. She expected him to know where this front hall was, and if his dreams told him anything, it told him he wasn't the best at directions. The door slammed shut loudly behind her. He rose from the hard floor, taking a good look around, notably calmer now than he had been in his dream.
Some treatment, he thought while glaring at the door, for someone who'd just saved himself from death. He thought it'd be quite appropriate for a grand celebration. Perhaps he should become a celebrity, starring all over the news, grinning down at all those poor unenlightened people who've never seen the darkness and the light struggling before their very eyes.
It was this thought that provided him with sudden confidence, a pride that allowed him to open the door and trek down the hallways that so closely mirrored the maze in his dreams straight to the front hall without any obstacle where he was confronted with his less-than-friendly witch comrade and his kidnapper at the peak of the rising falls.
Erm sorry about the much shorter length compared to the first chapter. I haven't been feeling too well today or yesterday. :X I hope the whole thing didn't sound too abrupt. I'm pretty out of it, you see. R&R.