Authors Note: Apologies for the lateness of this chapter, but at last my college work is all done! I'm free! (Until September that is…)

Believe it or not, I already have most of the main parts for this story in my head. I even have an idea of what I will write about- whoa, I'm talking too much here, can't reveal anything.

Chapter 17: Nocturnal

Beast's Castle – 4:30am

The Gummi Ship slowed down until it reached a stop. Within seconds, Sora and his company (consisting of Riku and Cloud for the moment) had set foot on the castle grounds. They looked around. It would soon be daytime, Sora needed to get inside.

"Come on, I gotta secure a good room." Sora didn't leave any opening and ran towards the castle, Riku shortly following after.

"Hey, wait up!" Riku shouted. Cloud shrugged and walked in their direction, taking his time. There was no rush. As he looked around however, he saw something that caught his attention. He looked up toward it, but it had disappeared. What had he seen?

"Cloud! Come on! Pick up the pace!" Sora shouted at Cloud. He sighed, and continued to walk. "God, he's such a slowpoke…"

"Tell me why we brought him with us again?" Riku questioned.

"Because the more men we have the better. We can't go barging into the Family HQ on our own. Even prepared, it would be suicide."

"Yeah, but what if they're all wimps?"

"You and your one-track brain…"Sora complained.

"My, it appears we have visitors!" The crew turned toward the voice and saw Belle standing there in the doorway of the castle. Of course, Riku and Cloud had no idea who she was, but if Sora knew her it was cool. Knowing him anyway, he'd probably introduce them to each other.

"Belle! Good to see ya!" Sora exclaimed.

'Does he get this excited every time he meets a person he knows?' Cloud questioned in his own thoughts.

"Good to see you too, Sora. And who are your two friends?"

"This is Riku, and this is Cloud." Riku and Cloud both waved to signal a 'hi'. Just as they were doing this, thunder sounded in the distance.

"Oh my! We better get inside before it rains. Come on."

They al ran inside (even Cloud, which was a relief) and Belle shut the doors.

"So, uh… where's Beast?" Sora asked.

"I'm here." They turned to the staircase to see Beast coming down the stairs, looking towards them.

"Hey, Beast! Had any problems lately?" Sora asked.

"Not really. Just me and Belle on our own as usual. Why are you here anyway?"

"Oh, you know… making worlds safe again, all that stuff."

Beast was giving Sora a curious look. Sora didn't notice because he wasn't looking, but Riku and Cloud noticed it. They were guessing that if this sort of mythology was real in this world, then Beast already knew Sora was a vampire.

"Actually, Sora… I wanted to talk to you about something. Private. Follow me."

Without waiting for a response, Beast walked to the wall of the staircase and pressed a button. A door opened and Beast signalled for Sora to follow. The corridor quickly became a large amount of stairs that led some way down. He guessed by now that they were underground. They finally reached a solid wall, but Beast gave it a push, and it opened into a bedroom. The room had no light at all until Sora took out his Keyblade and lit a nearby candle. He saw a few more and continued to light them all until all had been lit, and the room had it's light, albeit an eerie, orange light that flickered every so often and made you think that they would all go out at once, as if an invisible wind would blow them out.

"I have known many creatures of many myths and can tell when one is hiding its true self, Sora." Beast said. What he said sounded like a riddle.

"So, what does that mean?"

"I know what you are, Sora. And you are not human."

Sora gulped. How could he tell? Was he really that easy to see through? (Could Sora not even think for one second, and realise the crimson red eyes were a dead giveaway?)

"Are you gonna kick me out?" The one thing Sora now feared much like Riku did: Rejection.

"No, I will let you and your friends sleep in this room. As you can see, there are enough beds for everyone, so no worries."

Sora felt more relaxed. That was good.

"But if you attack Belle, or try to feed on her, I will kill you." Beast said with a very serious tone, a hint of anger in his voice also.

Sora felt nervous. He had a hard time controlling his feeding habits when he had recently fed, but he was getting a craving, telling him he would need blood soon.

Unfortunately, that would have to wait a few hours.

8:00am

Cloud and Riku had settled down into Sora's room and had all gotten a nice bit of sleep. Sora of course was still sleeping and Riku was sleeping in, but Cloud had gone outside to train.

Ever since he had been to Olympus Coliseum he had taken to fighting. And when he couldn't fight, he would train. It vented any frustration out he had, the frustration he had about Him…

Belle was watching from the outside, thinking why Cloud had to train so much. She didn't question him though, but she was still curious.

Meanwhile, Riku was getting up, not knowing what time it was (No electronics in a house can be hard), but as he turned to look at Sora, he saw something a bit weird.

Sora was there, and he was perfectly fine, but Riku felt it was eerie the way he was sleeping. His entire body was straight, facing up, and his arms were laid across his chest, resembling a cross. Riku shook it off and went upstairs, not forgetting to shut the door behind him.

Back in the main hall, Riku was just leaving their room. But he didn't realise he was being watched by someone. As the secret door shut behind Riku, he felt like a rush of hot wind passed by him. He looked around, even looking in the secret stairway, but saw no-one. Not a thing.

'Great, now I'm getting paranoid. Just what I need…'

The intruder had already reached the end of the basement hallway and opened the door. There on the bed lay a sleeping Sora. The intruder crept across the room to the opposite end of the room, and slowly slid behind the closet.

"Stupid Zangyre, he's the one who's an expert in hiding and all, I'm the complete opposite!" the intruder whispered to himself.

He noticed a strong smell in the air. It smelled like blood, but it was like an intoxicating aroma. He found the source in none other than… Sora.

'Oh shit, the smell… I gotta get control… but, the blood…' Without thinking, he wandered up to Sora and stared down on him. To anyone who didn't know vampires existed, Sora would seem dead to them. Completely still, cold body, no breathing, no pulse. He looked dead.

He was lowering himself to Sora's neck, baring his fangs, until he caught his senses and realised what he had nearly done.

'Whoa, calm down, man. You're not supposed to do that. You're NOT supposed to do that. Just back away and hide in the corner, wait for him to leave the room. God, why did boss say to hide in the kid's room? It only has one exit and no windows. I could've hid outside in the main hallway where I was hiding in the first place, but no…'

Sora's Dream

He opened his eyes to see a room. The room looked like a hallway in an antique house. The wallpaper was peeling off, the floorboards creaked. Sora ran forward through this hallway, not really able to see much further ahead of him by a few feet. Everything appeared so hazy, and it seemed it was getting hazier as he went further along. As he went far into the hallway, he began to notice the odd splatter of blood on the wall. As he went further, the amount of blood increased, and his senses were on fire. He wanted to scream and bang his head to stop it, but he couldn't. He just kept running. Finally, he reached a door, but everything around it was blood, making it look like the walls were dripping. He grabbed the door handle and swung the door open without a second thought, closing the door behind him.

He looked at his new surroundings. It looked like the hallway, only it was a proper (albeit empty) room and it looked just fine. No peeling paint or anything. But he saw next shocked him.

Standing in the corner, looking at him, was Riku. Just standing there. But he looked worried.

"Sora? What's wrong?" Riku asked him. He tried to respond with 'I don't know' but nothing came from his mouth. Hell, it didn't even move. He turned around and noticed the door was gone. He was locked in this room with Riku. And then he heard this constant thumping. Thump-Thump. He looked around for the source. Thump-Thump. His head was hurting now. Thump-Thump. And just like that, he knew where it was coming from as he stared at the source in horror.

Riku. Thump-Thump. He could hear his beating heart! THUMP-Thump. The beats were louder now. He scrambled around for an exit, but nothing. THUMP-Thump. He didn't realise that Riku had nearly closed the distance between the two.

"Sora what's going on, are you ok? Please tell me!" Riku shouted as he laid a hand on Sora's shoulder.

THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.

Without thinking, he pounced on Riku, and without hesitation went for his neck. "Sora! What's gotten into-" He was cut off as Sora bit down on his neck. "You?"

Sora sucked Riku's blood out the puncture wounds like there was no tomorrow. The thumping was increasing, but Sora could 'feel' it being drowned out by his activities. The noise was dying out and that's all he cared about.

"What…" Riku said weakly as Sora was reaching the end of his blood supply. "Are…" He had only a little bit left. He uttered two last words before going limp, his eyes going completely grey. "You… Sora…" Sora pulled away and felt so good. He felt stronger, more powerful… and that horrible beating noise had stopped too. He looked down to see how he stopped it. His body froze.

Riku… he had killed Riku. And he was staring at him. But how could a dead body still look at things? Sora got up and tried to move out of its eyesight range, but he could still see those eyes, looking directly at him. He turned around, not wanting to look at him. But what he saw next he wasn't expecting.

The wall he had turned to face had turned into a mirror. And what he saw scared him to his core. He saw himself, but… he was covered in blood. But that wasn't the most disturbing thing. His face looked distorted. It looked beast-like. A shifting noise went unheard past Sora's ears, as he stood there, paralyzed by this horrendous image. But the mirror only brought him more horror, as in the corner, he saw someone or something getting up. It looked like Riku, but something was off, and not just the dried blood stream that went from the figure's neck, down the front of his shirt, further down to his trousers where evaporation had caught on and stopped it there. Sora closed his eyes, wanting this to all stop. He felt something tap him on the shoulder. He opened his eyes. The mirror was just showing him, without the screwed up face, but still with the blood.

He turned around, expecting to see a perfectly fine Riku and realise it was all a dream.

But instead, he got something much worse than a reminder it was all happening. It was a deformed version of Riku. His skin looked all grey in some places, others it was green and red, some parts even looked ready to fall off. His eyes were the freakiest thing, simply because they weren't there. Just replaced by hollow eyelids.

Sora screamed louder that he ever had in his entire life, until Deformed Riku put a hand to his mouth, and said the words:

"You… Killed…Me…" He said in a strained, moaning voice. Before Sora could react, this creature plunged its hand into Sora's chest and wrapped a hand around his heart. Sora screamed in agony (because D-Riku had moved his hand), and only screamed louder for a split second before going silent when he pulled the heart out. He could see it, still attached to some tendons, but another yank completely disconnected it from Sora's body. Sora had gone silent, just shaking and looking forward in shock, making choking sounds as blood poured down his chest, and out his mouth.

"Don't… Need… This…" he said, referring to the heart. He dropped it on the floor beside him, just as Sora dropped to the ground. D-Riku knelt sown in front of Sora and put a hand over Sora's wound. He was dead already. To make one final statement, he plunged his clawed hand at Sora's head…

6:52pm (After Sundown)

"NO!" Sora screamed as he woke up. It was a dream. More like a nightmare. No-one was in his room. And he wasn't in a hallway or any room other that the room he was staying in at Beast's Castle. He quickly pulled himself up into a ball and began to cry. Why did he have that dream? He always thought 'your dreams are prophetic' but this was just a really bad nightmare!

The door to the room opened, and in came Riku, with dinner.

"Hey, Sora, you're awake, I brought you some- Sora?" He noticed that he was crying. He put down the food and ran up to Sora.

"I… had a… bad dream…" Sora said with a very shaky voice. He was trembling like mad, Riku's hold not calming him down.

"Sora… it's just a dream… how bad could it be?"

"It seemed… so real… and as for… how bad it… could be… you don't… wanna know."

Sora got up, pushing Riku aside.

"I need time to think." Sora said. Without looking back, he ran up the stairs. As he did this, Riku felt another hot wind pass by him in Sora's direction.

'Where are these hot winds coming from? Are they a coincidence? And why are they really hot?' Riku thought.

Outside, 6:55pm

Sora sat outside, hoping that he would never harm his friends. That he would kill one of his friends. He prayed to some benevolent force that it would never happen.

"I'm becoming a liability to everyone around me." Sora sighed.

"You're right on the money there, kid." Someone immediately grabbed Sora and held his arms with one hand. He held the other out in front of Sora as he continued to struggle.

"Ah, ah, ah." His hand suddenly burst into flames. Sora knew what he was threatening him with, and he knew who it would be.

"One of the Family?" Sora asked.

"You're a good guesser. My name is Nash. And you're all mine now."

End Chapter

Authors Note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter!