Hikari was lying in her bed, staring thoughtlessly at the ceiling, dreading the moment when they would come again. She rolled onto her side, wincing slightly as the bruises on her arms, shoulders, and sides from where they had held her tightly pained her as she moved. She pulled her knees up to her chest as she curled up, not really sure whether or not she wanted to try to go to sleep, even though she knew it would be the only chance she got before they would come again. Sleep, though, only brought the dreams, and she didn't want them, whether good or bad. The nightmares only forced her to experience again what she lived through while she was awake. The good dreams, which brought her back home with her family and her friends, back to where she was loved and remembered, really only brought sadness in her heart. Sadness over what she didn't have any more. Over what she might never truly have again.
She was losing the battle. She had no doubt about that. Despite the fact that she fought them at every chance she got, her strength was waning. Sometimes she wondered if she should just give up. It hardly mattered to her anymore one way or the other. In the end, she was going to fall; giving up would only bring an end to the pain sooner. She wasn't even sure how long she'd been here, but it had to have been days at the very least. However long it was it was long enough to know what they told her had to be true. No one was coming to save her. Her friends weren't coming. Taichi wasn't coming. Gatomon wasn't coming. Takeru wasn't coming.
She shut her eyes to try and stop the tears brought on by the feelings suddenly welling up inside her, but as she did the memory of when she first arrived came unwanted into the forefront of her mind.
When she first woke up, she glanced around in confusion because she was in her room with no memory of how she got there. The last thing she did remember was talking to Takeru, so she supposed that perhaps he had taken her back and she had just been too tired to remember it clearly. She smiled at the thought of the blond boy. He really was just the sweetest boyfriend any girl could ever ask for to be willing to come comfort her not only in the freezing cold, but so late at night. It wasn't his offer to come over that had surprised her (she had been somewhat expecting it the moment he spoke her name over the phone); it had been her acceptance of his offer that did. She hated being a burden to anyone, but, in hindsight, it never seemed so bad when it was Takeru. Perhaps because he never made it seem like it was a burden.
But the nightmare she had before he came felt so real. Her hands had grasped for her phone and were dialing his number before she was even aware that she was awake. But he had answered. And he had come for her.
A wave of coldness rushed through her as her body shivered. That was the moment she felt something was wrong. Even in the middle of winter, the apartment was never so cold. Her parents were always worried that she would get sick again (despite the fact that she hadn't been seriously sick for years) that they never let the apartment get cold. She had sat up quickly and looked around her again, this time studying the room more closely then she had during that first glance. It was her room, but at the same time, it most certainly was not. Her things were here, arranged mostly like they were in her room, but some were out of place. The walls were a dull gray, something she would never paint in her room, and there was no glass doors leading out to the balcony. The truth hit her with such cold certainty that it left not a doubt in her mind.
She was not in her apartment.
She closed her eyes and cast her mind back to the last things she remembered happening to her. Takeru had come. He had comforted her and made everything all right again, like she knew he would. They were about to go back to the apartment because Takeru didn't want her to get sick. She gasped and opened her eyes as the final memory fell into place. Then she had felt the pull. Ice flooded her veins in dread. She knew exactly where she was.
The Dark World had taken her again.
She tried not to panic. Takeru had been there with her. He had seen her go. He would have guessed what would have happened. He would get the others and come to rescue her, like he always did and she knew he always would. She had to be ready to help him open the portal when he reached out to her, since she knew opening a portal back to the world of light required both of them, whether they were on the same side or different sides of it.
She reached into her pocket and sighed in relief when she felt her D-3. She was glad she had grabbed it before leaving to meet Takeru. Not that it had much use outside a watch without Gatomon with her. Which was probably why whoever had taken her had left it with her.
This train of thought led her to wonder who had taken her. With Dragomon and Daemon gone, there wasn't anyone else in the Dark World that she knew of, let alone someone who would want to kidnap her. She cast her mind about, trying to think of something, anything that would bring her here. Her thoughts suddenly fell on the nightmare during the night that had her calling Takeru so desperately in the first place. With a shudder, she remembered what they had left behind when she and Takeru had fled back to the Digital World.
"Hikari…" She gasped and looked up at the door that was not her own. The eerie wispy voices that spoke her name in unison were ones she knew far too well. She looked about panicking despite her resolve not to, desperate for an escape to anywhere else as the door clicked open. Dragomon's dark creatures, the same ones that haunted her nightmares, slithered into the room.
She backed up away from them as far as she could and tried to call upon her light, her power that she thought might be able to destroy the creatures, but it had been so long since she had used it and her fear of these creatures was gripping her mind so tightly that she couldn't call it up. In this world, surrounded by darkness and away from her friends, she could feel her strength ebbing away bit by bit. She wasn't made to live here.
They came up to her and gripped her tightly in their ice fire grasp. She clenched her teeth against the gasp of pain that threatened to slip through her lips. "Queen…Hikari…" they intoned.
"I'm not your queen," she protested, trying to rip herself out of their grasp, but they just held on even tighter the more she fought. "Your Master is gone. Why have brought me here?"
"Master is gone," they said. "Hikari will be queen…"
"No! I won't," she screamed at them defiantly. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to go home. She was confident that being some kind of dark queen to these creatures was the last thing she wanted.
"Without the shield, we can finish what Master started," they continued, ignoring her protests.
That gave her pause. She remembered the cold tentacle wrapped around her neck and the darkness pressing in on her, before golden light had blasted it away. She knew then who, rather than what, they were talking about. Takeru. The shield. Her shield. "He will come for me. They will all come for me," she told them wanting to warn them off, knowing that Takeru and Taichi would probably do whatever it would take to get her back, but there was a catch in her voice, just the slightest hint of doubt. This place always affected her like that. It made her distrust herself and drew her into its obscuring despair.
"No, Queen Hikari," they said, and they said it with such assurance that she stopped struggling for a moment. "We used the darkness against them. We caused everyone to forget who you are. The Chosen will not come for you."
She was stricken. Her eyes caught the picture sitting on her dresser. It was the picture that usually sat on Takeru's desk, the one of her and him those many years ago in New York, but just last week she had taken it to put a newer picture of her and Takeru in it for him. But exams had come and she'd been so busy studying that she hadn't gotten around to it yet. She wrapped herself in her feelings for him. They loved each other. Surely that was a bond no darkness could destroy. "No," she denied desperately, tears forming in her eyes. "They wouldn't forget me. They couldn't."
"They have," the creatures said. "We have brought your things. You will want to be here once the darkness fills you. Queen Hikari…"
"No," she said brokenly, shaking her head as the tears began to fall.
Hikari opened her eyes as the end of the memory came. They had gripped her and delved their darkness into her, turning her to it as Dragomon had started in the summer. She fought them as much as she could, managing to call upon her light a few times, but she had destroyed so few before they overcame her again and again. There was just too many of them and her powers weren't as strong here in the Dark World, especially without Takeru. They were truly stronger together than when they were apart. Perhaps that is why he had not fought off the darkness yet to come get her.
The creatures would come again. Day and night meant nothing in this world; there was only everlasting grayness, devoid of light. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered really. The dark creatures would come and push the darkness into her. She could feel it in her even now. Her light was fading; it could not exist here for so long without her shield, her hope. As her light faded, however, she knew that would only make Takeru weaker as well. Their powers were two halves of the same whole. Whatever happened to one would certainly affect the other. She could only yearn that the darkness now in her would not affect him. She couldn't live with herself knowing if she had sunk him into darkness with her. And she knew she was sinking. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. "I should give up," she whispered, just wanting everything to end.
"You can't give up, Hikari."
She curled up tighter against his voice. "Great," she muttered to herself. "I'm hallucinating again." It wasn't the first time she heard him talking to her, and it wasn't always him that was talking; his voice was just the one she heard most often. She knew she was hearing them because she was losing herself, her very memories to the darkness and her mind was defending itself by bringing the voices of her friends to her mind. She could feel the memories slipping away. She wondered if once the darkness took over if she would know anything else; if she would even want to leave anymore. Without the things that made her who she was, she wondered if she would even belong anywhere else.
"Hikari." If she concentrated, she could even feel the ghost of his hand against her cheek. She missed him so much. And he was slipping away, just like the rest of them. Soon, she would no more remember him than he did her now. She didn't want to think of a life without her friends, here in this dismal world surrounded by only the creatures. They would treat her like their queen, but that wasn't something Hikari wanted or needed.
"I'm so tired, Takeru," she said to her phantom, not even caring anymore that she was really talking to an empty room. "I can't fight them anymore. I need you, but you don't even know who I am anymore." She wondered if he was fighting the darkness that was causing him to forget her; if perhaps his shield could push it away. But if he never realized something was wrong to try and use his power, which he had to go to the Digital World in the first place to use, then he would never know that she was in trouble at all before it would be too late for her to go back.
Her phantom spoke again, but that was probably only because of what she knew Takeru would say to her. "You have to fight them. You're strong. Besides I thought you could take care of yourself," he said and she could almost see the teasing smile that would splash across his face.
"There are times when even I need help," she said to him.
"You have to hold on," he told her. She could almost feel the whisper of his lips on her forehead, but it brought no comfort to her as it might have done, because, despite how much she wished it to be so, he was not really there. It was only her mind that was fabricating what she wanted.
She rolled off the bed, wincing again as the bruises pained her. She stepped up to the dresser where the picture sat and picked it up, a soft sad smile cresting upon her lips as tears gathered in her eyes. She might never see him again; if she did, they would be on different sides of a battle. She set the picture down and slipped over to her shelves where a photo album was. She sat down on the floor where she was as she began to flip through the album. Some of the people still had names in her mind. Some were nothing more to her than vague recognitions.
After a while of searching for something to help her hold onto her memories, she slammed the book closed in frustration. She wanted to remember so badly. It was a terrible fate, to lose her friends one by one. She wondered if it was easier for them to lose her all at once, not slowly and painfully like she was. She had the clearest grasp on Taichi and Takeru still, but the rest of the Digidestined were almost gone. Soon she knew she wouldn't even have them anymore. Her most apparent memory was of Gatomon. It was almost as if the darkness wasn't trying to get her to forget her, which didn't make sense. It was taking everything else from her, so she didn't know why it would leave her Digimon partner out of that.
She didn't know if the creatures' memory loss had included the Digimon, but she didn't know if it would really matter with the time she had left. Even if the Digimon remembered, none of the Digidestined would probably get to the Digital World to learn that something was wrong in time to save her. She was well aware that the next time the creatures came, which could be at any moment since they never left her alone for long, it could be the last time they would have to come. She was tethering on the edge and so close to falling. She might be able to fight them off one or two more times, but that was truly the last she thought her strength would last out. After that, she would be queen of the dark world, knowing nothing but the creatures that she would rule.
The door clicked and she cringed at the sound, knowing they were coming. Sure enough, the door opened and the dark creatures slithered in. She fingered the D-3 that she still kept in her pocket, drawing the same small comfort that it brought to her. It fed a small hope that, somehow, she was still connected to the Digidestined and the Digimon.
They gripped her tightly, probably adding more bruises to the ones that already existed. She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out. The words of her phantom Takeru floated across her mind. You can't give up. You're strong. It was her last chance; if she did nothing, then she would belong to this world and these creatures. He was right. She had to try. Even if she failed, at least she knew she wouldn't go down without a fight. She had to take the chance and try to open the portal, even if he wasn't there to help her. Even if she no longer had enough light to reach him.
She opened herself to her power, but darkness is what met her. She panicked and tried to push it away, but it was too strong and too deep. It gorged through her mind, erasing everything it touched. Glimpses of faces she no longer knew crashed across her mind before disappearing completely. She tried to hold onto them, but the darkness encompassed them, pressing on her until she no longer knew anything but the cold blackness. Even her own name was out of her grasp in the dark abyss that was now all she was.
Escape flashed into her mind. She no longer knew from what, but in her panic, she reached out, desperate to find something to cling onto, knowing she only wanted to be somewhere that was not where she was now.
A golden light sparkled and met her and she allowed it to wrap her in its warmth. A tiny pink light, deep inside the heart of the darkness that was now her world, answered the golden warmth. She closed her eyes and let it pull her away as she fell into a void where she heard a soft voice say, "I'll always be here."