This is the posted chapters of a quest I run on my Discord occasionally. The idea is that you're a fresh Dusk unleashed in the worlds. As this is a quest, the main character may come off as...odd. Given 3-10 people are directing him as an emotionless sock, give him a break. Also, you'll see mechanics sprinkled in to give context. Remember this is the story, I'm not accepting any votes or 'directions' for what to do next. You can join my discord for that.
I mostly write on Spacebattles so don't be too mad if I don't respond often here.
The world had ended.
No. Not ended. It had been devoured by rising tides of evil. One day a normal world where you went to school and then went home... had a normal family, had a pet, had friends... and now it was gone.
Was it even evil? Even evil looked like it was...aware.
You even remember the last moments before the sky turned black and everything was smothered in hopeless darkness. You had watched as your family were gone in a flash of light, a soft light that was wonderful until cloying shadows consumed it. Your family became the darkness.
Those wriggling clumsy looking insect things. Inhuman yellow eyes that turned to you at the same time. You screamed in rage and despite the fear coursing through your veins, you didn't let that stop you as you grabbed a chair and smashed one of them into a dust cloud of darkness. This didn't stop the others. One flattened itself, like a drawing, it dashed across the ceiling and came at you those little claws.
The pain was horrible, the skin damage non-existent as the claws sunk into your body. Still, you managed to throw yourself mostly to the side. You smashed it with the chair, it exploded into balls of yellow and blueish building blocks, the noise jingling as they hit the ground.
You didn't have a chance to grab them as the remaining shadow things jumped at the same time towards you. You threw the chair at the first three shadows coming right at you, trying to throw yourself under them, maybe if you could angle it right, you'd be closer to the front door?
The chair got two of the three you were aiming for, the third landed on your back, but was thrown off by your roll, but not before dragging those burning cold claws through your back. It felt like they were trying to reach for something inside you.
Something you couldn't let them reach! You rushed to the front door and slammed it shut behind you. Several heavy thumps smashed into it and you breathed a sigh for a moment before the shadows flittered out in their flat state between the cracks.
You turned in a panic but was forced to stop as you saw the city ahead. Skyscrapers were being matched by towering humanoid black figures with giant cartoonish hearts cut off of their stomach. Even further out, a large tornado of what you thought were crows swept the city in the distance. It wasn't crows. It was millions of those shadows sucking up glowing red lights by the dozen. Several of the black figures that had their heads wrapped in what seemed to be thorny vines held their hands up, throwing up dark orbs with infernal light inside it. It was unlight, there was no other word for it.
The orbs became one and a moon of darkness hung above your life, your world... your home. The shadows ignored you suddenly, more keen on reaching something. They darted away as a beam of light shone from the Statue of Liberty.
It hit the sky in a keyhole-shaped beam of light, bright and beautiful. Then the darkness that was everywhere drove the pulsing orb into the source of the light. For a moment everything was still. Then the world began to shake.
You stumbled and nearby a lone shadow monster turned to you. It tilted its head as if not sure to kill you or play with you. Large cracks in the earth erupted, tilting New York in half and to the side.
It moved towards you, the creature with eyes so yellow. It raised its claws and you prayed for power, someone to save you, for anything... you closed your eyes. But you knew the truth after a few seconds. No one would come. You opened your eyes to see the shadow flexed its antenna once before slashing down.
You felt those cold claws seep deep into your chest.
Part of you left at that moment. You watched that crystalline heart left your chest. It was beautiful and filled with light. Then it became a shadow. Your vision began to fade... you watched as your heart... your heart ran off like a mindless beast.
The world was eclipsed as you laid there for a long moment, your body breaking down into nothing. Your world ended. You ended.
What was left but a hollow husk that nobody would remember? You fell into the darkness.
A nobody of no importance in the grand scheme of things.
You didn't know how long you floated there in absolute darkness. You weren't even sure you were a 'thing' anymore. You just were. You lay there. After time beyond counting, you were beginning to assume you were not going to ever properly die or fade. You just floated and despite how utterly empty you felt...
You were still thinking of your Heart. It was like feeling the gap where a loose tooth had fallen out of. Only a bit more important.
You tried calling out, but in the darkness, even the odd noises you made just faded away. Your voice, your words, were reduced to murmurs and odd noises. Trying to find out your range, you found out you could go no higher or lower. No vocals stretched out or echoed. Your voice was flat in every way. Looking around, you tried to find something in this odd place. Light, colours, meaning...
Only shadows found you along with that weird noise of someone talking to themselves. You ignored that to find light. You tried to remember who you were, but that seemed even emptier than your own heart, as if the knowledge wasn't there. The voice sounded glummer by the second so you paused. You turned to where the voice was coming from and headed that way, pushing what remained of yourself towards the voice. It was very much a wiggle manoeuvre through the shadows. Darkness passed for ages, but in this place, a voice spread far. Not your own less voice, but a proper voice!
You soon came across something that should have made you happy or excited. A town!
But... you felt only mild acceptance of the fact. Odd, but you couldn't even worry or care about that. This was some impressive depression. You landed on the roof, not disturbing the loose shingles and you finally saw what you were or what was left in the light of a street lamp.
You held up two handless limbs. They looked like ropes or tentacles instead of hands. Your feet were no better. The dull silver colour was only broken by the pulsing blue going up each side of your torso. You were a rave sock. You looked around the town and noticed it was quite odd for a town. No sky or ground after a certain distance. The homes were empty and the streets were empty. The air even felt empty.
The felt was quite important as a physical sensation over say an emotional one. You were sure you'd feel happy normally that you could still experience touch.
The lights were nice, but it felt like they were barely hanging on in this dark place. Testing your limits, you wiggled in a dance. It was productive information gathering. Looking to the center of town, a giant spear of ice impaled familiar-looking monsters. You wanted to feel fear, hate, anger, confusion... you wanted to feel. Period.
But you couldn't and that was something. Moving closer, you saw a woman with blue hair utterly dispatch the horde of shadows. It was impressive from a technical standpoint. She used a giant key as a sword. The black metal of the shaft and key spewed lightning and ice about like she was a wizard. A whirling darkness tornado rushed at her and she protected herself with a weird glass dome that shattered the assault on impact.
You watched with detachment as she swiftly cleared the rest of the monsters. She panted slightly and with a flash, her weapon vanished with glimmers of light. You tried to clap, but with no hands, you didn't even make a nice whap sound. You stared in quiet thought. With a thought, your hands expanded into wide flat circles as if you were made of rubber and ignored physics. Interesting.
You looked up to see the blue-haired woman had walked off, not seeing you. She headed towards a bridge. You followed because you lacked any other clear goal. You moved and instead of falling, you wriggled through the air like a discarded pair linens.
Your body was nothing. You did not obey any laws because you were too sad to be noticed by them. Interesting. You landed behind a street light as the woman held up a glowing hourglass and before your eyes, a crumbling bridge rapidly reversed itself in time to rebuild itself.
You touched your face.
No eyes. How did you see? Did it matter? Did anything matter besides following the woman building bridges to a giant castle? Wait... you shoved your hand into what you thought was your mouth and it appeared finally. Your eyes were inside your mouth and up! Wait... that wasn't a mouth, it was a hole with a zipper...
You followed after the lady, stepping as best you could. Your body twisted and moved like everything was dramatic. Without bones, you were lucky you didn't walk upside down or backwards. The woman stopped and you had no idea why, but you darted behind a tiny pillar on the bridge wall. You risked a glance as you had no real urge or feeling towards being stabbed by a giant key.
The woman looked unsure. Her pale face and downcast features made her look constantly sad. If you had your heart, you might feel sad too since you were a weird walking sock with a zipper mouth.
"Hello? Cinderella?" she called. You had no idea who Cindy umbrella was, but you moved down the side of the bridge and floated along the side.
To your bad luck, your movements had... a certain noise to them. Like swishing but more annoying. A head peeked over the edge of the bridge and you barely had time to vanish under the bridge to safety.
"Wait, come back!" the woman called back. She sounded desperate. You could appear to her... but logically speaking, the sad woman had utterly destroyed those that had murdered you or semi-killed you. Pecking order wise, that made her dangerous.
You rose your head up to see her still bent over the far side. You made your noise and she turned with that key appearing in a flash. She stared at you and you ducked as the sight of the key.
No ice for you.
"Wait, I won't hurt you!" the woman promised. You risked another glance and saw she had made her weapon go away. You stared at her. She stared back.
She wore a one-piece black suit of some kind under a kilt skirt and detached sleeves. Her shoes had blades on it. You weren't sure you should be around this lady. She seemed slightly unstable. You spoke your mumbling weird noises and she reacted as if you had slapped her.
'Hello'. You tried blankly. She stared as if you called her something rude. You slurped over the side and she took a step back. You walked towards her, your boneless movements making her summon her weapon in fear. You paused.
After a moment she spoke up again.
"Who are... you?" she asked. The unsaid 'and what' was loud and clear.
'I am what you see. Who are you?' you asked in returned flatly. The woman winced and looked down at her hands.
"Maste... Aqua. My name is Aqua," she said quietly. A silence filled the area for a moment before there was an odd cracking noise. You looked down to see the bridge breaking in a spider-web of cracks. You took off as the woman fell for a moment, you looked back in your gravity-defying wiggle as she used broken pieces to propel herself back up like some ninja. Each time she looked at a falling piece of rubble, her body flashed and she flowed towards it, leaving behind a trail of blue and gold. She landed on the same side as you and grimaced at a raw patch on her arm where she had brushed past stone too fast.
"Impressive,' you complimented and she gave you a narrow glare.
"You just left me!" she accused and you stared at her.
"Yes," you agreed. The answer seemed to throw her for a moment.
"You don't even seem upset that I'm angry with you," she said slowly, anger leaving quickly. You twisted your torso slowly like a corkscrew.
"I am not. I cannot feel anything. I have lost my heart," you explained casually. The edge of her key was in front of your face in an instant. The sight of it did something odd to you. Not... feeling, but more an awareness of it.
"You're a Heartless?" she asked and you tilted your head so hard you brushed your body.
"I don't know. I just said I don't have a heart, so I would be Heartless. Those things you fought stole my heart and I awoke like this. Am I a Heartless?" you questioned blankly. Aqua hesitated.
"No. You're nothing like the creatures here. You feel... you feel faint, like you're barely here," she admitted as she lowered her weapon. You stopped moving for a moment to think.
"What is that key? You wield it well," you inquired as Aqua smoothed her skirt thing down. She blinked then gave you a smile that made her face seem more alive. Her face was made for smiling. You'd say she was pretty by most standards. You could see it, even if you could not appreciate it in the most base manner.
"It's my Master's Keyblade! A Keyblade is... well... it's a..." she trailed off as you assumed the subject was complex enough to stump her on where to begin.
"It's fine. Where are we?" you asked instead. Aqua gave me an odd look.
"We're in the Realm of Darkness. How did you get here?" she asked slowly, trying to be polite and not hurt your feelings by dragging up the memory. You would normally appreciate that... so... you guess you could just act like you did.
You appreciated the fact that she was being tactful. The lie was harmless and you mentally patted yourself on the back.
"My world was destroyed and my heart was taken. I fell here and found you," you went on to explained, showing how easy it was to give answers. Really, she could have just said 'a giant magic key that lets me fight' and it would have been fine.
"Strange. Losing your heart should have made you a Heartless or caused you to vanish... I've never seen anything like you," she said, inspecting you closer, but with more curiosity than caution.
"Perhaps. You should leave here. It seems lonely," you stated and turned to examine the castle.
"You don't just leave the Realm of Darkness. It's hard for beings of the light, it requires a door... a very important door or maybe even a connection..." Aqua said sadly as she looked to the dark sky above.
Seemed odd.
"Why do darkness beings get to come and go?" you turned but didn't turn your body so your head looked snapped. She smiled weakly at you.
"Most do. Without those doors, the darkness would just flow out like nothing, but a lot of them can since darkness exists in the light realm which is enough... There are things down here that cannot leave, thankfully," she closed her eyes. You took a moment to think about a world of light... about your world. You stared as a tiny hole of pooling darkness emerged before you. No bigger than something for a child. Aqua stared as she quickly came to your side and peered in. The darkness seemed to lunged slightly at her, causing her Keyblade to appear to shield her.
"It's like the pool that tried to take Terra..." she whispered. You tilted your head.
"If it leads back home... then you should take a chance," you said easily. Aqua hesitated, the desire to touch the darkness not high on her list by any means.
"Maybe... but this world is somewhere I know. If you could let me look around and make sure someone I know isn't here... I'll try it," she stood up and the portal closed. You walked on with her but she paused to look back at the ghost town.
"Not even my memories... are safe from the darkness," she whispered. You knew you'd try and cheer her up if you had a heart. Perhaps share her woes?
"I don't have any memories since the darkness killed me," you said kindly as you could. She gave you a look that wasn't quite reassured.
Inside, the grand castle doors showed a staircase across a marble floor. No roof capped the building, it didn't seem to have made it into this version. Aqua stared up at a clocktower.
"What I wouldn't give to rewind time for real," she sighed. You eyed her.
"Time Travel is a bad idea and causes paradoxes or unsatisfying results," you warned calmly. She ignored me as she looked up at a sky with no stars in it except for a few static ones.
"I just want to spend time with my friends under the stars again... I'm not asking much!" she said, voice turning frustrated. You poked her as you saw someone climbing down the stairs.
That man's pants were huge! She turned and gasped. A friend of hers?
"Terra?! What are you doing here? Did the darkness get you? What happened to the realm of lig-" she trailed off before her voice turned sadder as her hand phased through his like some illusion made of light dust.
"Why won't you talk to me? Are you just here to tell me to not lose heart?" she asked and you moved to the illusion and saw it was tied to the location slightly. It was like this place was conjuring memories in reaction to Aqua.
Neat. You guessed it was cruel, to show her a friend who wasn't actually here... a proper response would be...
This emotion thing was harder than it looked when it wasn't natural...
"Is that your friend?" you asked instead. She shook her head as the illusion faded.
"No, but I'm kind of glad. If nobody is here... maybe they escaped before their world fell to darkness," she looked at me and then suddenly looked thoughtful.
"What's your name?" she asked and I stared.
"I don't know. It hasn't come to me," you explained. Aqua processed that. "How about Chrirthy? They were magical guides to Masters of old and Ven loved that story," she offered.
"It sounds like an annoying bird," you stated truthfully. "Well... how about..." she thought hard. It was nice that she didn't ask if you had ideas. You let her carry on, the girl really needed the distraction.
"Eraqus," she said finally and you digested that for a moment. It was... suitable and not annoying.
"I accept. I will be Eraqus the not-Heartless," you summed up. Aqua gave you a weird smile.
"Don't bring a bad reputation to it. It's an important name," she warned, though you could tell she was mostly jesting. She seemed rather eager to name you and keep you around. Perhaps she was lonely after all.
You did find her talking to herself after all...