reality

A/N: I was listening to the Hikari planit-B remix when I was writing this. Vague inspiration from it and "Sharada" by Skye Sweetnam.

Disclaimer: I don't own Sora. If I did, I would be busy watching him fangirlishly, not writing yet another fanfiction about him.

Everybody tells Sora he has an overactive imagination, and they're probably right.

Take that dream, right before this whole mess started. Shifting sea and sky, falling into the sand (through the sky)...and for Sora, that's pretty typical. Riku told him one day that his name meant "sky"; fitting for someone who always has his head in the clouds. His dreams are so surreal (and yet he thinks nothing of them), and sometimes he swears he sees things that aren't there, like the monster in the cave and all those visions of Kairi...back before.

Fantasy blurs with reality; the islands were thrown into chaos; what was real and what wasn't? There was the dream about the sword and the Keyblade (he knew nothing of it then...Sora more than half-wishes he never had); how could he have known about it?

When he was younger, as it is with everyone, the lines between surreality and truth were blurry, but perhaps more so than with others; does he really believe in the fantastic beasts (or is it wishful thinking?). He always wanted an adventure, but he's gotten much, much more than he bargained for. And yet he dreams still, and they are fragmented...a blonde girl, transforming into...what? And another...Riku? Even after he wakes, these dreams trouble him. What do they mean?
He can't tell anybody, not even Donald and Goofy (what if they think he's gone crazy?). Kairi and Riku are far from his grasp. Surreality is king in Sora's mind. A swirl of color, imagined but still real, invades his thoughts, followed by the image of Kairi. It's been a year, he realizes, a year since he last saw her. She must look very different now.

He reaches out his hand in his vision, trying to reach Kairi, but the image fades away (he is going nuts, he must be, this is worse than when he saw her everywhere before). Riku smirks at him from the image in his mind, but then is gone, just as soon as Sora realizes what he saw.

Sora's brain is a jumbled mess. Images flick past: a blond boy (do I know him, he looks so familiar...); the girl again (who is she?); a man dressed all in black, with flaming spikes of hair (why does he seem so near?)...he holds his head and wishes for someone to wake him from this vision.

But nobody wakes him from the dream. A voice sounds in his mind...the blond boy's image appears in his mind again. I had it a lot worse. At least you've been like this your whole life. I must not have gotten that part of you.

I am going crazy, Sora realizes, screwing his face up in concentration, trying to block out the voice and picture. He hears a laugh, and it is echoed hundreds of time; Kairi's giggle (I never realized how much I'd miss that), Riku's knowing laugh (that used to aggravate me so much, but now I'd kill to really hear it again), Donald, Goofy, Yuffie, Belle, his mom, everybody he's ever met and some he's sure he hasn't.

Forget it, says the voice, and the sound is echoed again, but only once, in the only voice he didn't hear before - his own. This is reality.

"Sora?"

Donald's voice wakes him. Sora grins sheepishly, and puts a hand behind his head. "Sorry. Guess I didn't realize I'd said that out loud."

"I've been having these weird thoughts lately...like, is any of this for real or not?"

A/N: Please review.