kh_drabble | (no subject)

Challenge:[82] Crossroads
Title: The Other Side
Word Count: 522
(anything else): Riku-centric This is set at the begining of the first game. No real spoilers unless you haven't played any of it. Enjoy!

Run.

It was simple. Yet, it consumed his concentration entirely. Sneakers bounced off the pavement drowning out all other sounds. He focused on the dull thudding so he’d stop hearing her screams, while his silvery hair rushed in front of his eyes obscuring the chaos they had taken in. His home falling farther and farther into the distance.

Don’t stop running.

He didn’t know where he was going, but his feet never ceased their abuse of the pavement. Running blind. Pulled by a will that was almost foreign yet entirely his own.

The night air whipped at his face as the breeze came in from over the water. But he didn’t stop running, not until he was sitting in his small raft rowing furiously for the island. He couldn’t take it anymore.

He didn’t stop until he was sure no one would bother him. Sora and Kairi were probably already getting ready for dinner with their families and no one else would come here.

Alone.

Panting, he doubled over, shaking his head as if to rid himself of unwanted memories. Lean hands tangled his hair. He was afraid, and he hated being afraid almost as much as he hated people knowing he was afraid.

The world swayed as a wave of sickness came over him. He shifted to better support himself only to realize how sore he had become. There were sure to be bruises.

It was too much. His home, everywhere except this one small island sanctuary, was tainted with the stench of his past. It was there in the way the adults looked at him, as if they suspected, but it wasn’t their job to help out. Soon… soon enough Sora would have to realize it. He was fairly certain Kairi already had figured it out earlier this summer and had been acting odd around him ever since. It hurt. Sora would find out too and those innocent eyes that always looked up at him with such admiration would realize what he truly was and look down on him in pity.

He hated it. Hated what it did to him. More than anything else, he wanted to go away. To a place where everything else faded into memory. Somewhere, where it was just Sora, Kairi, and himself. Somewhere far away from those people back home.

And as his breathing began to calm and his pulse began to steady his head lifted slowly upwards so that his eyes came to rest on a solitary door, one that was always there but that he never really paid much mind to.

When he looked at it today however, the echo of a voice filled his mind. A memory so distant that even now he couldn’t place it.

”This world has been connected.”

Was it… a way out? This might be… the answer that he had been hoping for. It could… take him away from this place.

He stood and took a shaky step toward the door, closing his eyes and hesitantly stretching out his arm.

What was on the other side? Was it any better than here?

Did he dare to find out?