Kingdom Hearts: Army Of The Roses

Chapter Four

Awkward and broken, my body limped through the trees.

Bloody and tarnished, the wounds I suffered were nought.

I stumbled into the street. Just as I had, I gazed helplessly as the sky — as if being swallowed by powers that lied in the unknown — was clouded with waves of rolling ink.

Darkness engulfed all.

"Impossible..."

Suddenly a beast of grotesque form lunged from the shadow. It was too quick. Bent and shattered, my sword broke into my own flesh. Blood dribbled from my lip as the demon kicked me to the path. Scrounging in mud and filth, I had to my name nothing but a broken hilt of a blade. I felt all but dead. Exhaustion, fatigue, these were words that did me no justice. I considered my body already dead. My mind was simply left to follow.

Then, as if Death had taken a dagger to the strings of a violin, a sound so harsh — so strident — pervaded my mind: so close, yet impossibly far, Amelia cried out in agony.

Those that stood in my way were no more than pitiful cur!

In a breath, I crawled to my knees and looked on. With a strength I couldn't imagine I had, I lunged with a broken blade to the beast.

By the end the creature fell. Bubbling in a vision of disgust, the creature 'popped' into a black mist. A peculiar death none had had before now.

The hilt I held kept no weight, no texture, no grip. Nothing. To my hand I looked to see a weapon unknown. Kindling a light, faintly it held a shine in this darkness. Holding it one way and another, I looked at the faces it had. What I palmed over in my fingers was a key, a key so large it held its length as a blade. If what I seen proved real, its effectiveness was unmatched by any sword I could ask for.

All who opposed me were nothing but cattle!

Any that dared stand against me would meet the void, a promise to keep... until it was I found Amelia...

... lying below

... a rain... pattered... window

"... girl..."

"... girl, get up... there's no time!..."

Broken.

I... had crawled... outreaching my hand I palmed cold blood. Cold... and black...

"Get up, Amelia!" I begged.

"We. Have. To. Run!" I... neglected the idea that her body... wasn't... all there...

I choked.

My breath clotted my throat.

"Please!!" I cried.

Denial, no more. I hovered over a body. Chips of wood splintered her skin, the pitiful sword I bid her take... not a weapon worth a skirmish... perished under a malfeasant world because I demanded this?!!

My fault... all... No.

Jerek abandoned them- Them!

My eyes threw themselves to the room around me.

There!

Held behind the crack of a cabinet.

"Luke!" I tore drapes and coddled him between Amelia.

He bled too, mortal? Maybe. A wound to his gut but he breathed nonetheless.

I held his head to my heart but God gave little time for mournful embrace.

"Shhh...-" The earth trembled beneath us. Out from the window, I looked as something... inconceivable grew from the horizon: tears, rips in in the earth itself. Ripping into chunks the forests and mountains, all I could see frayed apart by plumes of darkness. Fleeting, it enveloped all in seconds. Rolling as a wave it was upon us.

I found myself running. As glass shattered, this shadow choked us as we did so. The ground beneath my very feet had worn thin, I felt we would fall any second. As I clutched Luke to my breast the floor beneath had crumbled.

We too fell into the void.

Me, holding all I had left so dearly tight as we plummeted to our deaths.