Untitled by Insomniac_Tales. Kingdom Hearts.
Title: Untitled
Author: Insomniac_Tales
Fandom and characters: Kingdom Hearts. Riku, mentions of Mickey, Sora, Goofy, Donald and unnamed nod to Kairi
Rating: Heavy on the PG, adult themes, violence
Prompt (and spoilers, if any): “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” --William Blake
As for spoilers, well, if you've played the first video game then you're golden. That's my jumping off point. I'm ignoring game 2 canon.
Note: This piece stumped me for a title. Nothing would come to me, even with other's suggestions. For now she remains untitled.
Many thanks to my 11th hour betareaders: kikkirhodes, olukemi, and mysticshell
In the deep darkness there is only the sound of a mouse and the growling terrors of untold numbers. You stop thinking of time in a linear sense. You stop thinking of life as a necessary thing.
At the first closing of those great doors there is a survival instinct so strong that you do not dare to fight it. You simply fight everything else. Hack, slash, behead, go numb. It's all the same when there is nothing but inky night all around, only the burning glow of venomous eyes, tainted yellow, some blue or red. All of them are peering into your soul with little deference as to your origin or desire to survive.
Perhaps that's why I became like them. I began to look at them the way they looked at me. Another soul to send to Kingdom Hearts.
I didn't understand it then, all of the lies the mouse propagated. He didn't know he was spewing lies. He had been spoon fed by the great and wicked Ansem. The moral of the story children: never trust men in power. Deceivers. Perpetuators of lies. Demon bastards who would rip the world apart just for a fascination with darkness.
That darkness was threatening to kill me and what little bit of light I had left, his smiles, her laughter, that was fading quickly in the all encompassing night behind the door. We weren't in Kingdom Hearts at all. We were in some other hellish existence where nothing good could live for long.
You start to lose yourself before you lose your mind. It's hard to remember who you are in the darkest places. You wonder if perhaps your real life wasn't some kind of dream, a fevered vision of momentary bliss in the unending terror of the void.
It's scary enough to sleep back to back with a mouse, surrounded by a mound of corpses for protection. It's downright devastating to wake up and not remember your own name. I could remember his name. It was carved into my memory, and now it's carved into my skin, a part of my leg sacrificed as a reminder of where I was from and what I was trying to save.
Sora
It was in the darkness that I finally realized what he meant to me, how I really felt. How many days had passed in his company without understanding those strange emotions. In the depths of madness it all seemed so very clear. If we made it out of here alive, anything was possible. Maybe I could claim his heart as I sacrificed my own. Maybe I could own up to my feelings.
So strange a thing hope is when you've lost so much and will lose so much more.
I could spend whole days tracing the scars on my leg, the raised scratches I couldn't see, could only feel. It was like my rosary, my lifeline to god. Following those scars I would carry for the rest of my life with the tip of my finger.
The darkness, it changed me. Seeped into my soul and stained me blacker than midnight and unlucky cats. I had never been a cheerful sort of person, but now it was locked in cement. As dour and quiet as I was before, enamored of the darkness; now it was a part of my being.
Recalling it now is like looking at someone masquerading as me in my body. I wasn't a whole person then. I was hardly even a fragmented version of myself. All of the little pieces were overshadowed by the desire to escape back into the dream of real life.
Nothing could be as hard as this. Life after darkness would be a relief, no matter how difficult. Mind you I didn't realize I'd be blind once I escaped into the light. That was something I wasn't entirely prepared for. If I'd really thought about it, I wouldn't have looked so expectantly into the blue sky. I might have saved that moment for a time when my eyes had adjusted to the brightness.
It was delirious, exhausting, finally being free. All of the doubt and fear had been removed, at least for a moment and in that moment I made the worst mistake I'd made in months. I hadn't even looked into those bright, blue eyes before all sight was stolen from me.
I felt arms grasping me, the sound of repentant crying. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry; it took too long." I must have looked awful. I hadn't yet realized I'd never know how I looked ever again.
I sighed into his shirt. I can remember to this day what it smelled like. Sweat, dust, and a peculiarly sweet candy scent. He must have had sweets for dinner, such a strange thing. I didn't know it was all he'd eaten all week, a cinnamon roll and a bit of peach shared with Goofy and Donald. I wouldn't think to ask about it for months. He seemed so surprised that those details would stick out so clearly.
Sitting across from one another, sipping mugs of coffee, we'd say so many things but never anything important. I'd already said everything I needed to. He'd seen the scars running up my calf, that first bit of Braille on my flesh. He knew the importance his memory played in my survival.
I may have forgotten myself in that dark place. I lost my mind on more than one occasion. Yet I never forgot Sora, never once forgot that the continued beating of his heart had been my sunshine.
Once the door opened anything seemed possible. I could tell him how I felt because my fear had been erased. I had been cleansed through pain and death, destruction on a scale I would never see again, both literally and figuratively. Nothing, not even the unrequited love I held for my best friend could make me feel that kind of desperation again.
Nothing mattered anymore because everything mattered.
I could share lunch every day for the rest of my life with the man who saved my life. I can sit across from my savior with a mug of coffee and smile at how very beautiful life is.
Author: Insomniac_Tales
Fandom and characters: Kingdom Hearts. Riku, mentions of Mickey, Sora, Goofy, Donald and unnamed nod to Kairi
Rating: Heavy on the PG, adult themes, violence
Prompt (and spoilers, if any): “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.” --William Blake
As for spoilers, well, if you've played the first video game then you're golden. That's my jumping off point. I'm ignoring game 2 canon.
Note: This piece stumped me for a title. Nothing would come to me, even with other's suggestions. For now she remains untitled.
Many thanks to my 11th hour betareaders: kikkirhodes, olukemi, and mysticshell
In the deep darkness there is only the sound of a mouse and the growling terrors of untold numbers. You stop thinking of time in a linear sense. You stop thinking of life as a necessary thing.
At the first closing of those great doors there is a survival instinct so strong that you do not dare to fight it. You simply fight everything else. Hack, slash, behead, go numb. It's all the same when there is nothing but inky night all around, only the burning glow of venomous eyes, tainted yellow, some blue or red. All of them are peering into your soul with little deference as to your origin or desire to survive.
Perhaps that's why I became like them. I began to look at them the way they looked at me. Another soul to send to Kingdom Hearts.
I didn't understand it then, all of the lies the mouse propagated. He didn't know he was spewing lies. He had been spoon fed by the great and wicked Ansem. The moral of the story children: never trust men in power. Deceivers. Perpetuators of lies. Demon bastards who would rip the world apart just for a fascination with darkness.
That darkness was threatening to kill me and what little bit of light I had left, his smiles, her laughter, that was fading quickly in the all encompassing night behind the door. We weren't in Kingdom Hearts at all. We were in some other hellish existence where nothing good could live for long.
You start to lose yourself before you lose your mind. It's hard to remember who you are in the darkest places. You wonder if perhaps your real life wasn't some kind of dream, a fevered vision of momentary bliss in the unending terror of the void.
It's scary enough to sleep back to back with a mouse, surrounded by a mound of corpses for protection. It's downright devastating to wake up and not remember your own name. I could remember his name. It was carved into my memory, and now it's carved into my skin, a part of my leg sacrificed as a reminder of where I was from and what I was trying to save.
Sora
It was in the darkness that I finally realized what he meant to me, how I really felt. How many days had passed in his company without understanding those strange emotions. In the depths of madness it all seemed so very clear. If we made it out of here alive, anything was possible. Maybe I could claim his heart as I sacrificed my own. Maybe I could own up to my feelings.
So strange a thing hope is when you've lost so much and will lose so much more.
I could spend whole days tracing the scars on my leg, the raised scratches I couldn't see, could only feel. It was like my rosary, my lifeline to god. Following those scars I would carry for the rest of my life with the tip of my finger.
The darkness, it changed me. Seeped into my soul and stained me blacker than midnight and unlucky cats. I had never been a cheerful sort of person, but now it was locked in cement. As dour and quiet as I was before, enamored of the darkness; now it was a part of my being.
Recalling it now is like looking at someone masquerading as me in my body. I wasn't a whole person then. I was hardly even a fragmented version of myself. All of the little pieces were overshadowed by the desire to escape back into the dream of real life.
Nothing could be as hard as this. Life after darkness would be a relief, no matter how difficult. Mind you I didn't realize I'd be blind once I escaped into the light. That was something I wasn't entirely prepared for. If I'd really thought about it, I wouldn't have looked so expectantly into the blue sky. I might have saved that moment for a time when my eyes had adjusted to the brightness.
It was delirious, exhausting, finally being free. All of the doubt and fear had been removed, at least for a moment and in that moment I made the worst mistake I'd made in months. I hadn't even looked into those bright, blue eyes before all sight was stolen from me.
I felt arms grasping me, the sound of repentant crying. "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry; it took too long." I must have looked awful. I hadn't yet realized I'd never know how I looked ever again.
I sighed into his shirt. I can remember to this day what it smelled like. Sweat, dust, and a peculiarly sweet candy scent. He must have had sweets for dinner, such a strange thing. I didn't know it was all he'd eaten all week, a cinnamon roll and a bit of peach shared with Goofy and Donald. I wouldn't think to ask about it for months. He seemed so surprised that those details would stick out so clearly.
Sitting across from one another, sipping mugs of coffee, we'd say so many things but never anything important. I'd already said everything I needed to. He'd seen the scars running up my calf, that first bit of Braille on my flesh. He knew the importance his memory played in my survival.
I may have forgotten myself in that dark place. I lost my mind on more than one occasion. Yet I never forgot Sora, never once forgot that the continued beating of his heart had been my sunshine.
Once the door opened anything seemed possible. I could tell him how I felt because my fear had been erased. I had been cleansed through pain and death, destruction on a scale I would never see again, both literally and figuratively. Nothing, not even the unrequited love I held for my best friend could make me feel that kind of desperation again.
Nothing mattered anymore because everything mattered.
I could share lunch every day for the rest of my life with the man who saved my life. I can sit across from my savior with a mug of coffee and smile at how very beautiful life is.