Chapter 5: Out of Body


There was a loud horn in the distance, which Riku immediately recognized as an incoming vessel. He listened for a few more moments, and the sound of sliding boxes, waves lapping against the dock and the bow of the boat confirmed it. He was at the harbor, supposed to be lifting boxes.

He sat up with a start, scratching his head, and wondering how on earth he had managed to fall asleep when he was supposed to be working, then he remembered that he had enjoyed the coolness of the air, the smell of the salt, and the gentleness of the sounds of the sea. He must have dozed off in one of the storehouses. Feeling oddly weightless, and well rested, he sat up to figure out just where he had wound up, and more importantly, how he was going to get himself back to the boat before people started wondering where he was.

He decided with a hint of amusement, he doubted anyone would really wonder where he was. Part of the appeal of the harbor was that his exact location wasn't really monitored. All that truly mattered was that the work was finished, and that his supervisor never caught him slacking. Most other things were irrelevant. Keeping that thought in mind, he pushed himself to his knees and tried to stay hidden in the shadows just in case his supervisor was afoot.

Then a thought occurred to him. The storehouse was dark and often had droves of items packed within it with ambiguous shadows, but never before had he seen so many. It seemed as if he had fallen asleep in some kind of cave. A quick survey of his surroundings denied the possibility of a random cave suddenly appearing, but it did look as though he had somehow fallen off of whatever he had been sleeping on, and landed in a nest of empty crates. From the look of things, they hadn't seen human care in years, and smelled as such. Why on earth would he have chosen such a place to take a nap?

He scratched his head and looked above him. The boxes were covered in dust, towering precariously over him and raining bits of debris on his head. Certainly he hadn't decided to climb up there to rest, as the probability of them clattering to the ground was high. A closer examination of the boxes, however, revealed that maybe he wasn't so correct about his assumption of the fate of the crates.

Peppered around each of them were sets of finger marks, fresh and clear against the surface of otherwise dust-caked wood. Well, that was strange. Maybe he had been moving them and had somehow knocked himself out.

He rubbed his head, and felt that it was free of knots or pain. The thought of having done so was a bit alarming, as he never ventured to the store houses to move equipment. If that was the case, then no one probably knew that he had been back there, and—

Riku felt strangely cold as a memory worked its way into his consciousness. He remembered enjoying the breeze alright, but he also recalled that another boat had come in, interrupting his appreciation of the night. He had unloaded the dubiously legal cargo, having to cede to fussy crewmembers who were all too particular about which indifferent crew member hauled it into an obscure warehouse. Then there was something awkward…

His mind worked quickly, and he remembered that Seifer had shown up and a host of other people. Then there was a fight, and…

Oh.

Now he remembered. There was the unfortunate brawl-tuned-slaughter he had ended up in, and admittedly deserved. It wasn't really his fault though. If people insisted on making these sorts of things so easy, he didn't think it was fair for him to take all of the blame.

Seifer was just so easy to anger. One look at his permanently downturned eyes proved that. Riku would even bet that that scar crossing his face was probably caused during some outrageous temper tantrum. Throwing a burly individual like Rai into the mix added an extra element of intensity, and it became like staring at a tidy buffet of desserts. If the only consequence was spoiling dinner, the sacrifice was well worth diving in head first. He grimaced remembering that the fight hadn't quite been as kempt as he would have preferred, as a fair assortment of other people had shown up, making it a little more difficult to have fun.

Bad memories of being pummeled into oblivion filled his head, especially since he knew just how much Seifer was probably enjoying the whole thing. He clenched his fists with the memory, toes curling at the thought of enacting revenge, when another thought occurred to him.

If he was still able to move with relative ease, then maybe he actually won?

Well, that was highly unlikely, but given the circumstances, he supposed it was possible. He chuckled to himself. He didn't really remember throwing any spectacular punches—except for kicking Seifer in the stomach—that was pretty good—but nothing win-clenching. He really had to hand it to himself. If he managed to take home a victory without even remembering it himself, it must have been some fight. He couldn't wait to tell Sora about it when he returned. That would certainly validate his activities late in the evenings, especially since he took on six people without getting his neck broken.

Now though, he needed to get back to work, so he set about hunting for his gloves on the ground.

And then he saw it.

Or more specifically, him.

Himself.

He was there, lying on the ground, bloody, bruised, and unmoving. His skin had taken on the color of chalk, the mottled purple bruises visible even in the dim light of the warehouse.

Riku jumped backward, letting out a small yelp that he would never admit to later. It couldn't be possible. How could he be in two places at once? How long had he been sitting on top of…

A wave of nausea overcame him and he had to look away. It was impossible. People did not just separate from their bodies in real life. It could not happen. It was just the stuff of horror movies that Sora always dragged him over to watch. He put his hands over his ears as though hiding from it, and willed the body away, and for himself to be back in one piece, preferably on his way to the hospital. He shook his head for good measure, squeezed his eyes shut, and muttered a brief curse-laden mantra that he hoped would cause him to wake up.

He looked back over in the corner behind the boxes, but the image did not change. He was still sitting there, unmoving, lifeless.

Being the victim of an unfortunate hallucination was far too much punishment for being a tiny bit addicted to fighting, Riku thought bitterly. He tried again, mantra and all, but found that he was still in two places, and starting to believe that maybe this wasn't a hallucination after all. Curiosity clearly set on by the shock led him to crawl back to the motionless body, hoping that perhaps it could provide him with clues as to how all of this happened in the first place. Maybe he had been knocked in the head a few times…

A quick overview confirmed that he had indeed been knocked in the head a few times, along with a host of other injuries that would earn a reasonably high score on the extra credit project of some medical intern. Even Riku was surprised that he had managed to survive such injuries, especially given the dark ring of bruises circling his neck indicating some kind of strangulation.

As he pondered this, he felt a horrible sinking feeling befall him, as though he was about to open the cage door of a rabid beast. What if he hadn't survived the fight? What if this wasn't some hallucination, or dream that he could will himself away from?

What if he hadn't made it through that fight?

What if he had been killed?

Riku felt another wave of nausea overcome him, and tried to take in a few gulps of air to calm himself.

This exercise actually proved to worsen his condition, as he realized that he couldn't feel air enter his lungs. Panic overcame him and he pushed a hand to his chest where he knew his heart was.

There was no pulse.

"This can't be happening," he said out loud, glad to see that at least he had a voice. He could talk. He could feel—the panic proved that. Maybe that was all that was important. People didn't need to have a heartbeat, or inhale oxygen in order to live. Feeling and talking were the only things necessary for life. He nodded to keep his hysterics in check and then willed himself to look back at the body. He then slowly looked down at whatever he was.

He was strangely transparent, like a projection, or some holographic image. Curiously, he touched the crate next to him. His hand slid right through it.

Snatching his hand back as though he had touched a stove, he stared bewildered at the crate. The possibility of being dead was starting to become much more of a reality than he thought. Determined though, he slowly stretched his hand out again and willed it to clamp firmly on the corner of the crate.

To his surprise, it did not slide through as it had the first time he had tried.

With a smug grin, he thought he might just be a bit closer to cheating whatever had been going on, but the moment he broke his concentration, his fingers slid through the box, effectively wiping the grin off of his face.

He took a breath-not-breath, and closed his eyes. He really was dead. More specifically, he had somehow turned into a ghost, and his body was just sitting in the warehouse like some kind of rag doll for an undetermined amount of time.

Riku grumbled something unintelligible and ran a hand down his face. He had to figure out something. Maybe there was something important he was supposed to do. Why else was he still wandering around on the planet as though he was still human, cruelly having to discover that he was actually not on his own. Unfairness to this degree usually didn't come without some kind of goal.

Mentally exhausted and mind already steering towards its usual solution when he found himself in trouble, he figured it might be a good idea to get as far away from the docks as possible. Seifer and the rest of his entourage might still be lurking around, and while he found the idea of haunting them entertaining, he would have much preferred to enter round three with him in a more solid state.

It occurred to him that he might need to do something with his body. The thought of actually dragging himself somewhere without garnering the attention of someone, digging a hole and throwing himself in it made him wretch. He couldn't handle that. Not now.

Hiding it sounded much easier to stomach, and if he wasn't physically buried, he could perhaps pretend for a little while longer that none of this was real, and that he would wake up from this horrible, horrible nightmare.

Seifer and his company had done a fair job of tucking his body behind a few crates, but with his luck, someone might come into the warehouse and discover him. He probably had little to worry about in this area, as he didn't even know that it had existed before all of this happened, but he didn't want to take any chances. Using the knowledge he had gained earlier, he concentrated on lifting a nearby crate, concentrating so that his fingers wouldn't slip through.

Pleased that he was able to retain a small element of his humanity, he stacked a few more until he was satisfactorily hidden by the dust-coated boxes. He didn't want to think about what might become of his body. He refused.

Turning his nose up from the stack of boxes, he set about stepping forward, and found that his feet actually hovered about an inch above the ground. He rolled his eyes and barked out a humorless laugh. Of course he could float. He was a ghost now. Choosing not to think much more of it for fear of launching himself into a panic attack, he headed off in the direction of Sora's house.

Sora slid the pillow off of his eyes and growled. A few colors swirled in front of his eyes in the darkness, and he cursed them. He cursed the colors, he cursed the pillow, and he cursed the couch. He even extended a few curses to Riku for good measure, then he sat up fully in the living room and ran a hand through his hair.

It was well past a suitable hour and he still had yet to fall asleep. This was likely to lead to unbridled crankiness at work in a few hours, and Roxas and Kairi were going to pester him about it. Perfect.

Disgusted by how pathetic he felt, he threw himself off of the couch and gathered up his blanket. A change to his actual bed might do him well, considering that tossing and turning on the couch was proving to be unhelpful. He spared one final angry glare at his couch, and trudged off to his bedroom, where he threw the blanket over his face and waited for sleep to overcome him. As he partly expected, he felt just as awake as ever, but he supposed if he just sat there long enough, maybe his body wouldn't know the difference. He narrowed his eyes underneath the covers a few mere moments after snuggling beneath them, as his head made solid contact with the mattress.

He had forgotten his pillow.

Riku, meanwhile walk-floated up the hill to Sora's house, unaware that his friend was battling the throes of insomnia. He wondered if this was what all ghosts did: wander around in the late evening, searching for friends, family, anyone who might be able to find a possible remedy for their ghost-hood.

The thought amused him, but he doubted it. He hadn't seen any other bodiless beings wandering around this evening, and if there were that many people searching for ways to be restored to their original living selves, he might have discovered many more poorly hidden bodies during his time on the island. He cracked a grin at the thought of playing hide and seek at shore in one of the ruddy shacks during his childhood, only to see someone tumbling out, waiting for their own ghost to return. He himself would have probably jumped out of his own skin, and he bet Sora just might wet himself. It would have been rather awkward, and no one would ever want to leave their own houses for fear of disturbing someone's hiding place on accident.

That meant though, that he was probably doomed to be as he was, wandering about until…well, he wasn't sure.

That thought made regret well up inside him, and he had to concentrate on his floating feet to keep from letting the feeling consume him. How one simple mistake could cause him to end up this way was surreal to consider. He had engaged in some risky behavior, sure, but he didn't think it would ever cause him to end up with more trouble than what a hospital—or better, Sora's personal medical supply—could handle. He hadn't ever thought it could end up so disastrously.

He hadn't thought he would end up dead.

Riku shook his head and continued on. Though it looked hopeless, there was a twinge of hope. He was the only ghost he had ever seen, even as he wandered around a ghost himself. If he was a novel situation, an anomaly to the usual alternative of being beaten to death, maybe, just maybe his body wouldn't be doomed to rotting at the harbor. And Sora was into all sorts of things. Maybe he had read something about all of this, maybe he had a secret elixir of some kind stored behind the iodine and cotton balls in his medical box to get him back to his body—back to life.

More determined than ever, he hastened his walk-floating to run-floating and sped towards Sora's house.

As he approached the door, he pondered knocking, but decided that it really wasn't necessary. He stuck his hand through the wood, still shocked that the appendage was able to pass through so fluidly, then followed through with his body.

Riku looked about, and wasn't surprised to see that the house was empty. It was late, and a glance at the clock confirmed his suspicions that no matter how clear of an emergency this was, Sora was not going to be pleased at being woken up.

As he gazed about Sora's space, he felt comforted, as he always did. He just hoped his friend would somehow overcome his new appearance and be willing to advise him on the best course of action. He wouldn't really even mind if Sora was just as perplexed as he was. It would be nice to have someone to be there with him, help him overcome this.

Not that Riku would ever admit this out loud, of course.

He mused at Sora's couch and the pillow that had been left there. He wondered if Sora had decided to crash there for the night to stave off the inevitable stomach ache produced by his feast from earlier. Riku snorted. It would serve him right. That was an expensive meal.

He reached for the pillow, thinking it would be a good gesture to return it to Sora as an apology gift for barging in his room, when he heard a disgruntled growl echo from the very room he was about to invade. He tilted his head to the side and listened. Either Sora had turned into a bear—hopefully not the same way he himself had turned into a ghost—or his friend was not in the best of moods.

Sora growled again, fully twisted up in the sheets of his bed, awake, grumpy, and without his pillow. At this point he was convinced he was doomed to stay up for the entire night, but the thought of losing to his own body was simply too much to bear. He freed himself, released another groan, and marched his way into the living room. He rounded the corner, but stopped mid-step as his tired eyes took in a sight he did not understand.

He saw Riku.

Or rather, something that looked like Riku because he was transparent.

Holding his pillow.

Two thoughts crossed his mind as he stood there staring with a look of utter incredulity on his face. The first was that he had somehow actually fallen asleep, and that this was a rather strange dream.

The second was a confirmation of that fact, because Riku would never be so thoughtful as to return something to him in real life. Furthermore he hadn't arrived there looking as though he had just come out of a meat grinder like every other time.

Sora snorted at his own subconscious creativity, marched over to the transparent Riku and snatched the pillow away. "Thanks," he muttered, then stormed back to his room.

Once there, he threw himself back in his bed, but his arm missed clearing the nightstand by about an inch.

Sora rolled his eyes. This night was getting even better, he thought as he rubbed his wrist, worrying about the bruise that was likely to form. He was probably all out of ice, and Roxas and Kairi were going to think he was the clumsiest person ever, and then he'd never get any peace, especially if…

His eyes snapped open. If this was an elaborate dream, then he should have been spared any pain. He looked about his room for a moment, frowned, then headed back to the living room. If Riku was really standing in there, he was supposed to be solid, littered with injuries, and sniveling out apologies, as was proper.

He swiveled to a stop at the doorway and looked in.

There was the transparent Riku again, staring at him sheepishly. He even had the audacity to offer a small wave.

Sora's jaw promptly hit the floor.

"Um…hi," Riku said quietly, looking at his shoes, which hovered above the floor. "Did I wake you up?"

Sora couldn't move. His jaw was fixed in place, and his eyes refused to blink.

Riku chuckled nervously. "I can understand the surprise. I was too. Eh, as you can see, I've gotten myself into a little situation and—"

He didn't have an opportunity to finish his sentence, because Sora immediately started screaming.


.

Please take a moment to offer some feedback. I'd greatly appreciate it!