No…Roxas…
Just…. No…
No…
No.
NO!
It's like everything had been moving in slow motion until the gunshot and them it went into over drive. Oh God no…Please don't let that be real. Please let this be an awful dream that I can't wake up from. Please let him open his eyes and tell me to wake up…
Wake up Sora.
Wake up!
Now I know…That I can't make you stay…
Nothing…I shook him again and again as I called to him "Roxas please… Please Roxy I love you so much! Wake up. You need to wake up now." I kissed him hard on his bloody lips, but they were dead and cold beneath mine. I choked on a sob as I clung to him, gasping in a panic and pain, "P-Please Wake u-up Roxas!"
"He won't."
The voice sounded like poison…
I looked up to see Mr. Orner leaning on the terrible chair that he'd hurt Roxas with. The pistol he'd just shot off in his left hand as he twirled it around and aimed it at my head. He had a smile set on his ghastly face that reminded me of a shark in mid kill. I had my hand over the bullet hole in Roxas' side, applying pressure, trying to make the blood that was gushing out stop…it just needed to stop. But I looked up at him with hate seeping out of me through my every pour as I addressed him.
"You don't know that!" I hissed, "He's a lot stronger than you know…"
He chucked sounding a little drunk as he squatted down next to me, looking me over with lust in his eyes. "You think I don't know the power within my own son?" He laughed at it again, only this time it was insulting and painful to hear. I looked away from him at the dying face of the boy I loved contorted in pain. Hold on just a little longer…
"You aren't his father…" I muttered my eyes so distraught that there was no hiding it for the evil man. He grinned, his long silver hair tied up out of his handsome face so that I could see the true evil inside the man.
"You always were so innocent Sora…" he smiled, taking my chin in his hand, his breath hitting me hard in the face and I couldn't get away. "I see that it's stuck with you even after I took it away." His words were like an ice pick stabbing through me. Stole my innocence? My father? Who the hell was this man? And what was he talking about? I didn't have to say anything. He looked straight into my eyes and smiled like messing with me was his favorite thing in the world. "Don't tell me that you can't remember?"
I stared at him my gaze not moving and my mouth not opening. I was wasting time here and he knew it. He knew as well as I did that Roxas had only a few minutes, maybe half an hour before he bled out and that was the end…But he had the gun…I was his hostage and he would use everything her had against me.
I didn't give him the satisfaction of showing him how afraid I was, but deep down, I was terrified…Roxas was going to die and then I'd be left here all alone. Was there even a way I could get him out of here without being fallowed? Could I move him without killing him then and there? I had to believe it was possible… I had to hold on to something.
"Tell me Sora," Mr. Orner went on, his voice as smooth as black velvet and just as deceiving. "Did you ever wonder why you couldn't remember anything about the five years you spent with your real family?" He let go of my face and stood back up, looking through his test tubes for something that I wouldn't know. I didn't answer him, but he was right. He'd been right this whole time and I've been too stubborn to answer. I wouldn't let him distract me. There was something far too important to loose in my arms. I leaned down and placed my ear to his chest, listening to the very small sound of his heart beating away from me.
Roxas…What did he do to you?
But where's your heart?
But where's your heart?
But where's you-
I caressed his face, his entire body drenched in sweat as he fought to hold onto his dying breath. "Just hold on." I whispered to and then I took off my shirt and wrapped it around his bloody side, packing the wound. I stood up and faced him. My father. The man that had flittered across the outskirts of my nightmares for years but I could never see his face. But now that he was in front of my, my hands drenched in Roxas' blood, I had no choice but to face him head on.
"He's going to die if you don't let us go…" I told him, my head held high and my voice free of the trembling that was pulling at my knees. He smiled but didn't stop his goings-on, he simply nodded like this was all going according to some plan and walked around behind me.
"Yes," He said calmly, his voice without the face even more terrifying then I could imagine. I worked hard to stand still as I asked the only thing that would get us out of this situation.
"What can I give you to let him go?"
And I know!
There's nothing I can say…
I could feel his putrid breath on the back of my neck…
To change that part…
I had the urge to sun away, but I forced my legs to stay still and wait for his response. But then the memory came to me…It hit me like a brick wall.
No…
To change that part…
To change!
I was hiding under the bed, to afraid to come out when I was all alone. I did this a lot when Mother took Roxas with her to the store and Dad came home…Dad was never happy with me…He told me that I was a man and ment don't hide from their problems like children.
But I was a child…
And he was very drunk.
It was so cold under the bed, I wrapped up in mom's big pink sweater as I waited anxiously for them to get home. They'd been gone for two hours…she said that she'd be back, but I had to stay away for Dad. She said that he was…mad at me. I heard him enter my room, his footsteps like my heart beating wildly out of my chest. He closed the door behind him, the lock clicking into place and the little light that shined under it to the hallway was like the flickering of my hopelessness in the darkness of the room.
So many,
Bright lights they cast a shadow…
He was walking around in circles; I could see the bottom of his shoes through the skirt of the bed as they pitter-pattered against the floor and the heavy heave of his breathing. He was looking for me in all the high places. For a five-year-old in the high places. That's how I knew he was drunk. He would never look under the bed, not unless there was a reason, a noise, a hand sticking to far out. Or maybe the small sniff of my runny nose.
Snot slipped down my face and mixing with the tears that poured in silent waves from large eyes that were desperately fighting against my mind to shut. If I can't see him, he isn't there… If I just close my eyes and keep my mouth shut then no one can hurt me…
Hear no evil…His footsteps were fading from my mind.
See no evil…My eyes were shut tight; only the light for the hallway was peeking through.
Say no evil…
I sniffed.
Well it's hard understanding,
I'm incomplete…
He stopped…
And then everything began to move faster.
He yanked me out from under the bed with the same sickly smile on his face and a knife in his hand as he looked at me like a father who actually cared about his children. There was something wrong with this picture… "There you are little buddy." His voice was poison and my ears were full of it that night. The horrible things… the blood…the pain…His slimy touch and the way he spoke to me…
I don't want to remember anymore!
A life that's so demanding…
I get so weak.
And now I'm back in the room. The terrible room with a monster breathing into my back while the only person I will ever love is lying on the floor dying at my feet. I waited as he got his response together, my eyes dripping with the pain of my memory starting to resurface. I didn't sniff this time, I held my head high and waited for him to speak. Just speak already damnit! He was wasting precarious time that I didn't have. "What can I do?" I asked him again, my voice cracking with the pain crashing down on me. My body was shaking now with effort to keep me from crashing to my knees in the sorrow and shock that was clawing at me.
He held my shoulders to keep me up, his voice in my ear and a smile in his voice, "What are you willing to do Sora?" He asked me, walking out in front of me, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
It took me a moment to answer him. I felt a terrible ping of fear in my heart as I realized what kind of power giving in would give him over me. But he had a gun. The blood I was standing in was all the evidence I needed of that. But could I just give him my life in exchange for another?
Behind me Roxas groaned, moving just slightly before crying out in pain , making me turn to him. I had to help him, and to help him was the only thing that was in my power to do. I knew my answer.
A love that's so demanding…
"I'll do anything…"
I can't speak!
"Then sign the adoption papers" he told me simply, pulling a pen from his pocket and pushing me to the lab table with a legal contract that held my name. "Just sign the papers Sora and you will once again be my son. Roxas will go to your parents, I think Vincent will do good with him. Yuffie will still have a child to love, and in turn I get back my perfect son." He pinched my cheek but I swatted it away making him sigh in frustration. "Look Sora, I am a very powerful man. And you… you are a very powerful boy. Let me harness your power Sora, and then I'll let Roxas go. You can take him to the hospital. He'll live. He'll be happy. Just sign the papers."
He held the pen out and with a trembling hand I took it inching it down to the white paper beneath it. I couldn't remember my name. The pen slipped from my hand, staining the paper with a few drops of Roxas' blood along with the ink. My name is Sora Valentine. The thought came to me easily when I saw the red that was covering me. My name was easy…this life was hard.
I signed my name to the paper and looked at him for the green light. He picked it up and examined it smiling and then nodded to me, "Go."
I ran to Roxas, hoisting him as carefully as I could onto my back but he still cried out. I felt his blood on my back but that only pushed me farther, faster. I had to move. I ran with him up the stair and through the cellar doors out into the night sky. It was so dark out that I was running blindly for a moment as my eyes adjusted. There wasn't anything around that I could recognize…Nothing at all, just grass and the cellar behind us.
Just keep running Sora…
That's what I told myself. Just keep running and everything will be okay, everything will be okay, everything will be okay, everything will be okay, everything will be okay. It has to be, it has to be, keep breathing, just run, left, right, left, right, left, right, left-
"Hey!"
I couldn't run anymore…it hurt…Life hurt…there was no breath left in me…
I am not afraid to keep on living!
I am not afraid to walk this world alone,
Call me if you stay, I'll be forgiven,
Nothing you can say can stop me going home!
There were headlights behind me, a car that I didn't know, but a voice that was familiar. I was crying so hard that I was hyperventilating when he pulled up, "Sora? What are you-" The door was hurled open and Roxas was taken off my back in an instant. "Holy shit! I mean holy fucking shit!" Axel was next to me, putting Roxas in the back seat and pulling me into the car. "What the hell happened!" he demanded, jamming the gas pedal as far down as it would go.
I couldn't breathe, and he seemed to get that. "Dude, Blue, calm down." I tried but I couldn't stop gasping, he grabbed my arm, "Look, I know this is a stressful situation, but you need to calm down. Roxas will be okay, alright? Just take a minute and breathe." I nodded but that wasn't enough. "Sora look at me," I looked into his emerald eyes, noticing how calm he was. He believed this, "It's going to be okay"
Can you say my eyes are shining bright?
Cause I'm out here on the other side…
Of a jet black hotel mirror, and I'm so weak.
The ride to the hospital was completely silent, but everything erupted as soon as we pulled into the emergency lane. We both jumped out of the car and the doctors helped us pull Roxas out, strapping him to a gurney and wheeling him away from us. Away from me…
"You're next," One of the men told me, trying to push me down in a gurney they rolled up to me.
"No, it's not my blood," I told them, but they still tried to get me down. "Stop…" I told him, the panicked memory of my father holding me down on to a bed, "Stop! Get the Fuck off of me!" I jumped away from them and ran as fast as I could into the hospital.
"Sora!" Axel called after me, but I kept going. I had to find someone, someone important to me, where was she? Everyone was staring at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was, but I needed to find her…I needed to see her…I needed to-
"Mom?"
Is it hard understanding,
I'm incomplete…
Yuffie stood at the nurse's station checking a patient chart talking to a woman with long, chocolate hair just like mine. But as soon as I called to her, she zoned in on me, and then she was running, falling to her knees in front of me, taking me in with wide and worried eyes. "Sora?" Her voice was shaken and a frazzled as her short black hair. "Sora baby…wh-what happened to you?"
"It's not me…" I was barely able to whisper, "It's Roxas," The woman at the counter looked over at us and I recognized her in a second. What was she doing here? Why was she piercing me with my own eyes like she was afraid I was hurt? I didn't want to see her when the pain of her abandonment was fresh in my mind. She saved Roxas and left me in the unstable hands of my father. And now, Roxas was the one strapped into bed.
A love that's so demanding…
"What happened?" Yuffie asked, standing up and pulling me into the break room so I could sit down and rest my trembling legs.
"He was-" I had to stop myself thinking of what Mr. Orner was capable of and the fait that I would not put upon my family. "We were mugged…" I told her almost lamely. I had no more energy or life left in me. I wasn't her son anymore…but Roxas would be. I told her a lie, a beautiful lie that made Roxas out to be the hero that he truly is so that she would love him as much as she'd loved me. And she believed me like the beautiful person that she is.
She stood and kissed my forehead," You just wait here baby," she told me, "I'll go check on him for you." I smiled until she got to the door and I stopped her.
"Mom?" I asked her quietly, I was almost sure that she didn't hear me.
She turned around, her hand on the door knob and smiled at me, "Yeah sweetie?"
It was so hard to hold onto the tears in my eyes, "I love you," I told her for what would be the last time.
She laughed, "I love you to silly boy," And then she was gone.
I get weak!
"…Sora?" The beautiful mother from my dreams stepped through the door, closing it slowly behind her. I didn't respond. I stared only at the blood coating my hands as she walked over and sat down next to me. "Sora…are you alright?" She placed her hand on my back and I stood up, walking to the other side of the room.
"You had no right…" I told her in a low and angry voice after a long silence, "You had no right to leave me with him." I told her my eyes blazing when I looked down at her. She met my eyes with pain, letting me know that I was right. I hadn't forgotten. I hadn't made a mistake. She deliberately kept me there and stole my brother away, leaving me to look in fear toward the hall lights under the door frame, wishing she'd saved me to.
"You're right…" She whispered, tears filling her eyes , "And I am so sorry baby, I am so, so sorry. I thought that I was doing a good thing separating you. He wanted you together, I don't know why but he did and now he wants you apart."
"And he got it." I told her, my voice completely dead.
"What do you mean?"
"He adopted me today." I told her, keeping the emotions off my face, " I stole me for my unknowing foster parents and traded us. It was the only way that I could save Roxas…"
She looked like she wanted to say so many things, but the door opened and Vincent stepped him, freaking out as soon as he saw me. After telling him the same thing that I told Yuffie He just sighed in relief, hugging me tightly and kissing the top of my head like he never wanted to let go of me again.
I would miss this…I would muss all of this…I would miss standing here in security with a father who loved me. I looked up at him with a smile, "I love you Dad," I told him, the words seeping out of my eyes into his. He ruffled my hair and told me the same and then he went to find Yuffie so they could celebrate having their boy back.
I kept my back to the woman. She wasn't my mother. She was Roxas' mother but not mine. I had allowed myself to fall into her trap for a brief moment but that was over now and I was out of time.
"I'm sor-"
"I know you are." I turned toward her, eyes filled with pain. "I forgive you." I told her, a tear falling down my face. "I forgive you." I said again, and then she was crying. She embraced me, holding me close until I stepped away. "I have to go now…" I told her and she nodded watching me turn before she grabbed my arm.
"Don't be afraid to live Sora." She told me as I departed, but I was terrified of just walking.
I am not afraid to keep on living!
I am not afraid to walk this world alone!
Call me if you stay I'll be forgiven!
Nothing you can say can stop me going home!
The hospital was filled with the sounds of beeping and running, people crying and people cheering for their loved ones that never found any hope. My parents were talking outside of a room, they were talking about Roxas… About me. They thought that they were keeping us both and they were horribly mistaken. They didn't know what was about to happen and they couldn't. I didn't want to look at them anymore.
But then I saw him…
Roxas…
I see you lying next to me…
With words I thought I'd never speak…
I went to him, his eyes just barely opened and bloodshot. He was hooked up to a million boxes and tubes and there was nothing that I could do but stand there. His head turned towards me and a ghost of a smile crossed his face. "Hey," he croaked almost as if he didn't just almost die in my arms. He was so un afraid of all the shit that just happened that it made the sorrow close over my chest. How could he be so calm when he almost died tonight?
"Hey…" I said back, walking up to the bed and sitting on the edge. He took my hand and I gave it a squeeze of reassurance, mostly for my own self doubts. We hadn't spoken in such a long time, and not he was here and we were holding hands, just looking at each other with nothing left to say.
Awake and unafraid…
Asleep or dead!
"I love you." I told him softly, not bringing myself to look into his eyes. He grabbed my cheek gently and made me look him in the eyes.
"I know…" He whispered, a smile spread across his beautiful face expecting on in return, but I had only tears to give him.
"I have to go now." I told him, straining hard against the sob that was knotting up my throat. "But I love you, I need you to always know that I love you."
"Sora, what the hell are you saying?" It was obvious that I was scaring him, but I was scared to. I was terrified because I knew that this would be the last time that I ever saw him. His grip on my hand tightened and I knew he wouldn't let go.
"Roxas, I have to go…" I told him, tears spilling down my face. "Just let go okay?"
"No." He said, clutching me, hurting my arm, but I didn't care. "I'm not letting you go. I'll never let go again." He pulled me down to him, connecting out lips in a kiss filled with fear but it couldn't last. We couldn't last…
I see you lying next to me…
With words I thought I'd never speak…
"It was the only way I could save you…" I breathed, his face inches from my own. I couldn't bear to move away when in a moment I'd be pulled free of his arms. "I had to do what he wanted….But you'll be okay here, Vincent and Yuffie are great parents. They'll take care of you Roxas. You-"
"What did you do?" he demanded, but I looked away from him again, making him angry and hurt. He grabbed my face with both of his hands, pulling me nose to nose with him. "Sora, what did you do!"
I looked into his eyes and shed my last tears before I smiled at him softly, through my trembling lips. I kissed him, just a small ghost of a kiss and murmured, "I set you free…" I pulled back and looked at him with all my love showing through my eyes, "I'm not afraid anymore Roxy." I told him moving away from him. I was about to break down and I couldn't let him see through the lie. I'd always been a good liar…
Awake and unafraid…
Asleep or dead!
"Sora…" The word came out of him like a bullet straight into my heart. My back had been turned to him but I paused at the door.
"Goodbye Roxas," I told him and then I walked out the door. Out of his life. Out of his arms. Out of my everything and back into the abuse of the world that was falling down on me.
I am not afraid to keep on living!
I am not afraid to walk this world alone!
Call me if you stay, I'll be forgiven!
Nothing you can say will stop me going home….