other things that aren't calculus
fandom: Kingdom Hearts
Title: backdoor soul
Notes: Saix is the male narrator. First drabble in a while I haven't been sort of lackluster about.
“Don’t let them get her,” are the last words he ever hears his parents say. Then the door to the apartment is locked and they are alone in the dark rooms. The electricity died yesterday, the water this morning, but the gas still flows. There is always a way out.
A week in, all the food in the fridge is either spoiled or gone. Another week and a half and the pantry yields only condensed milk and what appears to be a fruitcake from his earlier childhood. To her credit, she never complains, even though they’ve been drinking metallic lake water since the invasion began.
That’s the only time he leaves the sanctuary of their broken home: to fetch water every two days. Once a week he bathes. A month after he starts bringing diseased frogs and raw fish back for dinner, she is so filthy not even brotherly affection can keep him from avoiding her. He resolves to make an extra water trip so she can wash, too.
The trip down to the water is uneventful, the thick fog and crushing silence more like old friends than anything else. It’s when he lifts the bucket from the water and turns around to a horrifying scream that he knows something is wrong. He can fend off the little tar-black beasts, but not this. Not this.
It has to have been a man once, now contorted and bleeding, only a gaping hole down for a face, bearing down on him with slow assurance. He doesn’t run. There is always a way out. This is his.
-
Years later a woman appears at their gates, blond and tall, and vicious. She electrocutes the first Nobody they send to greet her. Next they send Demyx, who fares about as well. He comes back bedraggled, muttering about knives and fucked-up stories. He already knows what kind of stories Nine is talking about.
It’s Axel who actually convinces her to listen to them, with a sneer on her face, but no body count, thankfully. When they ask her where she’s from she says “hell” and he knows she’s right. Xemnas argues that only Heartless can steal your heart but leave you with the shell they all have now, and she rolls her eyes. “Heartless are nothing.”
“I’ve seen evil.”
Axel raises an eyebrow and Zexion coughs politely. Still, no one says anything, because these are the same words he said once, and no one crosses him. She refuses to acknowledge his presence as she leaves.
Later that day, alone in his room, he falls to his knees: an involuntary spasm of guilt. “God, Arlene.”
He doesn’t know who he’s begging for forgiveness.
Title: backdoor soul
Notes: Saix is the male narrator. First drabble in a while I haven't been sort of lackluster about.
“Don’t let them get her,” are the last words he ever hears his parents say. Then the door to the apartment is locked and they are alone in the dark rooms. The electricity died yesterday, the water this morning, but the gas still flows. There is always a way out.
A week in, all the food in the fridge is either spoiled or gone. Another week and a half and the pantry yields only condensed milk and what appears to be a fruitcake from his earlier childhood. To her credit, she never complains, even though they’ve been drinking metallic lake water since the invasion began.
That’s the only time he leaves the sanctuary of their broken home: to fetch water every two days. Once a week he bathes. A month after he starts bringing diseased frogs and raw fish back for dinner, she is so filthy not even brotherly affection can keep him from avoiding her. He resolves to make an extra water trip so she can wash, too.
The trip down to the water is uneventful, the thick fog and crushing silence more like old friends than anything else. It’s when he lifts the bucket from the water and turns around to a horrifying scream that he knows something is wrong. He can fend off the little tar-black beasts, but not this. Not this.
It has to have been a man once, now contorted and bleeding, only a gaping hole down for a face, bearing down on him with slow assurance. He doesn’t run. There is always a way out. This is his.
-
Years later a woman appears at their gates, blond and tall, and vicious. She electrocutes the first Nobody they send to greet her. Next they send Demyx, who fares about as well. He comes back bedraggled, muttering about knives and fucked-up stories. He already knows what kind of stories Nine is talking about.
It’s Axel who actually convinces her to listen to them, with a sneer on her face, but no body count, thankfully. When they ask her where she’s from she says “hell” and he knows she’s right. Xemnas argues that only Heartless can steal your heart but leave you with the shell they all have now, and she rolls her eyes. “Heartless are nothing.”
“I’ve seen evil.”
Axel raises an eyebrow and Zexion coughs politely. Still, no one says anything, because these are the same words he said once, and no one crosses him. She refuses to acknowledge his presence as she leaves.
Later that day, alone in his room, he falls to his knees: an involuntary spasm of guilt. “God, Arlene.”
He doesn’t know who he’s begging for forgiveness.