Prologue:
Day 1: In Which [_____] Are Returned
Nothing seemed strange when Roxas was running through the town, the rush and the adrenaline and the pounding of his sneakers against the pavement carrying him on until the silver thing slid through the crack in the wall of the tram common. He hesitated just for a beat before plunging through after the thief, rushing out into the forest with his heart beating so fast he could feel it in his throat. But as the shadowy canopy closed in around him, cutting him off from the bustle of the town, Roxas started to feel -- almost surreal.
He was chasing a thief
out into the forest
near the haunted mansion
and although his friends had been there, they weren't following.
Questions flooded him now that his footsteps were muffled by the grass and damp earth. Could the thief possibly be human? Why was he so quick to follow it? Why had it stolen not only physical items, but words? How?
The thief came up short in front of the gates to the mansion, and shivered around to face Roxas. His uncertainty deepened as he slowed and stopped, staring at it. "Creature" was a better word -- there was no way it could be human. It stood erect on two skinny legs and swayed in place, boneless undulations of its long silver arms in a way that no human could possibly mimic. Its fingers were long and clawlike, bound together over the heel of its hands, and its head was eerily angular, with a long zipper over the mouth.
The -- the creature slithered forward eerily and Roxas took a step back for each sly step forward.
We have come for you, my liege.
Roxas sucked in a breath and staggered back again -- that eerie, asexual voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, come directly inside his head, strangely reverent and horrifyingly familiar. He stared numbly as the creature slid towards him again, this time not trying to back away until it pulled close.
Its mouth unzippered slowly and pulled open. Fascinated almost to the point of forgetting what kind of nightmare this creature must have walked out of, Roxas just watched. For a mesmerized moment he found himself thinking, There's something inside, like maybe there's a person in there, or, or something LIKE a person, and then it hit him like a brick: Oh -- oh god, this is fucked up.
He scrambled away quicker, his fingers clenching and unclenching. A weapon -- he needed one, he didn't have one -- he glanced around quickly and spotted a butterfly net half buried under a bush. Hayner had brought it one time, he remembered, thinking he might catch the ghost (and Pence had encouraged him and only Olette's good sense had kept them all from hunting the undead like fireflies)...
It was long and it was sturdy enough, so Roxas made a dash for it, snatching up the pole between both his hands and trying not to feel ridiculous as he turned, net dangling in front of his face, to watch the strange creature advance slowly.
He took a step back and collided into something. Roxas stumbled away, already murmuring an apology as he turned and saw -- another of the creatures, with a third behind it. Panic took control quickly and he swung wildly with the bat at the one he'd run into.
It passed right through the silver monster.
Roxas gaped at it. Maybe it was a little flimsier than he'd like, he'd take a Struggle bat any day, but -- intangible?
They rushed him together, and Roxas yelped and swung again, with no more success. A creature twined around one of his feet and then yanked, sending him crashing to his back on the grass, and then they seemed to swirl in and meld together, stretching up eerie thin limbs to form almost a cage around him.
Roxas got reoriented quickly and scrambled upright, clinging to the butterfly net. "Let me out!" he shouted, grabbing one of the 'bars' to shake the creature loose -- but although he could touch them, their boneless, seemingly fluid flesh was cool and solid beneath his hands, like steel. Even when he braced his shoulder against it and pushed, it didn't give an inch. He'd have better luck prying his way out of a real cage, one made of metal. At least metal he could use the net against.
"Let go--" He was starting to hyperventilate some, wide-eyed and desperate, but even in his frantic state Roxas stopped abruptly short as the air before them rippled, and darkness -- pure black, pure darkness -- started welling up out of the air, almost like a tall, thin portal suddenly appearing before them.
The silver creatures maintained their odd cage around him, but lifted themselves up and shifted closer to the portal.
Roxas felt the panic ebb away, replaced with sick certainty -- this was wrong, this couldn't be right, he was going to -- to maybe die, and he'd never seen his friends again, and they'd never know what had happened to him, never know about the thief that wasn't...
His fingers clenched about the pole, and then he heard it, a sound like a camera about to go off, followed immediately by a digital flash that almost blinded him. When Roxas lowered his fingers from in front of his face, he could see numbers spiraling around the net -- see it suddenly shimmer and vanish, replaced by a giant key in his confident grasp.
I've seen this key before, Roxas realized. It's from my dreams.
Startled as well, perhaps, the creatures paused, and one twined back around, almost folding in on itself to peer between silver-limb bars at him. Roxas gritted his teeth and swung straight down for its head.
It made contact -- rough, jolting contact. The creature gave a thin shriek and disappeared, and the cage fell apart as if it were made of string.
Real! he thought, almost giddy, even though he'd been sure it would work this time. Roxas rolled to his feet and then swung back around to face them, holding the key (keyblade) in front of him warily. The creatures didn't seem how to react to this either, the two survivors milling about uncertainly from a short distance and waiting. One of them shuddered convulsively and then almost flung itself at Roxas, eerily reluctant as if it had been shoved by an unseen hand.
Just like Seifer, just like Struggle at the sandlot -- he could almost hear Seifer's catchphrase ringing in his ears -- Roxas struck hard and fast.
The creature popped like a balloon, and Roxas flinched back from the sound. When he recovered, the final creature was already gone, and the air was filled with fluttering photographs, spiraling down to earth like confetti.
The most surreal experience of all was coming back to a grand fanfare of nothing.
"You guys-- you didn't see it?" Roxas said pleadingly.
Pence frowned, his brow furrowed, but for once he didn't have anything to say -- no talk about alien invaders, not once while listening to Roxas's story or now that it was finished. "No, Roxas," he said. "I just dropped the camera, and you took off like a bat out of hell. I thought you'd gotten a clue and solved the mystery, like a detective or something." He was clearly not as pleased with the obvious explanation now, that Roxas was crazy.
Roxas wasn't happy with it either.
How could they not have seen?
They were right there!
"Well," Olette said, a little brighter than she should have needed to be. "The photos are back, and the word photo is back, so. All's well that ends well!"
"Except that we didn't catch the thief," Hayner said, scowling. He was clearly not so happy.
They were just going to pretend he hadn't said anything about a silver monster. Roxas rubbed the back of his neck.
Pence ducked his head, shuffling through the photographs and clearly trying as hard as they were to take his mind off the story. "Roxas, you sure are in a lot of these pictures," he said. "Like -- all of them."
"What?"
Everyone leaned over his shoulder, watching as he presented them one by one. His expression was turning crafty. "It's kind of suspicious, don't you think? And some of these -- when were they even taken? It's like someone's been following you around... waiting in the shadows... watching everything..."
Pence could always be relied upon to make him feel stable, at least. Roxas gave him a strange look. "Uh, well, as far as 'when' goes... This one was taken because I was the first customer at the new accessory shop. This one when I won second place at the race during our class picnic, and..." He scowled at a picture of Seifer gloating visibly, above Roxas, who was on his hands and knees shaking off dizziness. "And this one is probably why Seifer thought I took them." He pointed Hayner at it.
Hayner scowled, snatching it out of a disappointed Pence's grip. "Let's tear it up," he suggested darkly.
Olette reached out, distressed, and pushed Hayner's hand back down. "Then Seifer will tell the whole town, and we'll look like jerks again! Let him have his stupid picture."
Hayner scowled, but Roxas was still looking at the photos. He asked slowly, "We had -- other pictures, right? Pictures I'm not in."
"Huh? Yeah," Pence said, nodding.
"...where are they?"
"Still in the drawer," Hayner said, folding his arms over his chest. He made an aggravated sound. "Come on! We better start returning those things. I still say we drop Seifer's into the trash..."
Roxas lingered a little, staring at the pictures of him that had been stolen from everyone in the town.
NEXT >>> Prologue (Part 4)