Wild Horses

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and storyline from the game 'Kingdom Hearts', they belong to Disney Interactive and Squaresoft.

Uh... I don't really know where this came from. Riku/Sora if you squint. Riku remembers. Please let me know what you think! Set in the Hollow Bastion ruins.

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Riku remembers.

If he didn't know the other side of his world, then he would not feel so alone.

Riku remembers throwing caution to the wind, running free like a wild horse across an endless plain, damning consequence and letting everything happen by itself. That was the person he still wanted to be. That person he could still see, laughing with his friends, doing crazy things just to inspire a laugh.

But he wasn't that person anymore. That person in his mind's eye was gone, a long time ago. A shell of himself, Riku looks at the dearest friend he has ever had and feels nothing, because the only thing he could feel now was hatred and this person doesn't seem to be worth it anymore.

Riku remembers.

If he didn't know the hidden half of himself, didn't hear it screaming in a forgotten corner in his tortured mind, then he would not feel so alone.

As he battles his last friend, Riku remembers a time when when they were children, hitting each other with wooden sticks. Things are different now, he screams to his rebellious mind, the darkness is deep, embedded to the BONE, you bitch, try getting that out. It's a bloodstain, long encrusted and dried to the darkness in Riku's eyes.

His friend was different now. He was stronger, his blows had real hurt in them. Riku could feel that he would lose this fight, but he would not give up. He would not give up. That stubbornness was the only part of his personality that remained.

Riku remembers.

If he didn't want only to be whole and one again in his own mind, to not have to do anyone else's bidding, to be truly free, then he would not feel so alone.

And as his best friend struck him down for the final time, dark-light eyes stare up at the star-encrusted sky. Every world he visited had the same cold, unfeeling, uncaring sky gazing back down at him.

Riku hated the sky. Riku hated beauty and happiness and cheerfulness and friendship, the word sickened him to the bone now because he no longer had so much as one friend that cared for him, not anymore, and Riku had always despised that which he could not have.

Riku was the embodiment of hatred, a seething being of anger and fury and darkness made flesh. A fallen angel, the darkness at the heart of the light... a sobbing child curled on the floor of his mind, begging only to be free.

I'm sorry, he cried. I'm sorry, let me go, I'm sorry.

And as his world crumbles around him, and the darkness finally eats the rest of his heart, Riku, the living embodiment of hatred, remembers one, final, thing:

'Sora'. The word means 'love', doesn't it?

Riku remembers.

It was time to go home.

---Fin---

Thanks for reading! If you liked, review, if you didn't, criticise, if you didn't get it, just blink and move on!