Nightmare
“Sora…”
The voice sounded far away, echoing, and Sora turned, searching for the voice.
“Sora!”
The second voice was closer, sharp and alarmed. A girl’s voice, close to Kairi’s, but not quite. Sora whirled.
No matter how many times he turned, no matter how many voices he heard, he couldn’t see anyone. Disembodied, the voices buffeted him like a gust of wind, and then everything went dark. The ground beneath him disappeared, and he was falling, falling.
He didn’t land on his feet, like he did in Deep Dive. Instead, he came down on his side, hard, pain blossoming and radiating outward. He was quick to find his feet, reflexes quick after years of wielding the keyblade. He put his hand out to summon it, eyes probing the darkness. The keyblade, when it appeared, glowed, the light growing until he could make out a little of his surroundings. The ground below him was loose dirt, and all sides around him were open. There was a low roar in the distance, and a cold wind tore at his clothes. Sora took a deep breath, and then a step forward, his posture ready.
As he moved forward, the light grew. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he was certain at least that it wasn’t the realm of darkness.
“Sora…” This time, when Sora turned to find the voice’s owner, his eyes landed on a person.
It was Lea, unmistakable with his height and red hair.
No.
It was Axel, the marks stark on his cheeks. “Remember me?” His lips were stretched, cracked and bleeding, in a mockery of a smile. He wore an Organization coat, half-unzipped, so his chest was bare, and Sora could see the gaping hole where his heart should’ve been, and around it, the skin blackened and flaking, or red, oozing fluids. His whole body smoked, black curling up, noxious, from his skin.
Sora choked, backing away. “No…you’re gone! Lea got his heart back!”
“Did he?” Sora whirled to see Ansem—Riku? He couldn’t be sure. He’d thought Riku was back to normal, but then, Lea was Axel again, so…so then— “He must’ve lost it again, then, huh.”
“You let us down, Sora.”
“Kairi!” Her eyes were vacant, like they had been before, when her heart had fled to his. Sora pressed a hand to his chest, searching for her familiar presence.
“It’s gone,” and Kairi’s voice was just as empty as her eyes. On second glance, Sora could see the red ruin of her chest.
“Wait—Kairi—no, we’ll get it back, there has to be a way!” Sora reached for her, but more voices were pressing in from each side, more familiar faces, more gaping chests. It was becoming hard to breathe, and he pushed forward, through them, panic rising with the bile at the back of his throat.
It only took a few steps to break free, and space opened up before him. By now, it was light enough to clearly make out his surroundings: a barren land with cliffs in the distance and behind him. And in front of him, as far as the eye could see, flat, tawny dirt, but more importantly—
The keyblades. Thrust into the ground blade-first, they jutted up like lifeless skeletal fingers, reaching for the sky.
There was someone standing just beyond the first lines of keyblades, their back to Sora. They looked…more alive than the people at Sora’s back. He took a few more steps forward, and the person turned.
It was a mirror of himself, the same hair, the same face, though his hair was darker, his eyes a golden yellow.
A taunting voice spilled from his doppelganger: “Wake up, Ventus!”