kh_drabble | (no subject)

Challenge: Ever After
Title: And Happily
Word Count: 300
Etc.: Hoyes. This is why I will fail my physics midterm. >D>D>D

The afternoon eases into a foggy haze, lukewarm rainwater puddling on the scuffed asphalt, in between the cracked slabs of cement. They can almost see the sun. Riku looks down unfeelingly at the creature writhing at his feet and lifts his foot. He crushes the wispy throat in cruel mercy with the heel of his boot and watches it fade away. It is the last.

“Riku,” Sora calls.

Donald sits on the watery floor and weakly musters up the incantations for a mild healing spell. The ugly red mess of Goofy’s back slowly mends and his breathing grows less shallow. His eyelids flutter and open groggily. King Mickey lays his hand on the court magician’s shoulder and nods his appreciation. His tattered right ear bleeds and stains his black cloak even darker.

Riku does not register his knees giving out until he is caught. “Aw fuck,” he mutters quietly, after biting his tongue when his chin bumps abruptly into Sora’s shoulder. He tastes his blood.

Except for Sora’s laugh, it is quiet. The wind blows hesitantly through the maze of crumbling walls. Every few seconds, a drop of water falls from a twisted pipe to the stained sink below. Remnants of lives lived and lives taken litter the floor like discarded trash. The city lies in ruins and bathes in shadow blood, long forgotten by its inhabitants and abandoned to the slowly creeping darkness.

“Let’s go home now,” Sora says. Mickey pushes himself up with his keyblade. Goofy shakily stands and painfully helps Donald do the same. Riku does not move, hearing his friend’s steady heartbeat drumming in his ears and his voice echoing in his chest. This is their somewhat happy ending, he realizes, and he feels so deliriously elated that he smiles.

“Yes,” says Mickey, “let’s go home.”