Kingdom Hearts: Army Of The Roses

Chapter Seven

Resting over my knees, I held myself balanced as I watched a pair of men surround It. I stilled above them, some jagged boulders or such gave me an ample view. The forest trees kept me from sight yet the words they spoke were visible no less.

"Damn... This one's intense..."

"Yeah, it's a big'n alright. Whatcha think it was?"

"If I could take a guess? No idea." They circled a book. One so large and so toxic — it dripped with that worldly poison~ That Darkness.

"How much you think we could squeeze for this one?"

"Thousan', least." I couldn't stand this. Will I sit by and listen as they barter my home? To Hell with such a notion!

I dropped. The leaves beneath my foot had them frozen. Hobbling on, I met their faces: the two didn't look too old, perhaps a decade of experience more than I.

"You're going to take it, aren't you?" A dead man's words were so soft.

"Please, I beg you don't... It's all that's left..." Their eyes grew at the thought: how much coin could they squeeze from my pockets!

"We ain't a charity case," The one furthest shuffled about, from his cloak he pulled a crossbow, "You should get along. Dangerous things happen this far from town."

"Don't do this... Please." I could stand for an eternity yet no humility would I find in these... cretins think me so weak? A mistake they'll find to be their last. I won't allow this affront of all that's left of I to persist.

Coming before me, the other man — palming a hidden weapon beyond his belt — came close. So close. Too close.

"Bugger off, yeah? We aren't looking to kill anothe-" My palm pounded his chest; inscribing into his vision birthed a reality so harsh. He stumbled over in terror as the world beyond him fell to flame and ash. Swift, a bolt ripped through my thigh. I yelped 'fore I kneeled and took the arrow in my palm. Seething with painful rage, I cast my palm to him: leaping from my tips that weapon plunged into his chest. He clicked? Before he fell to his back.

From mine to his, I yanked the bolt and took it to the artery of his calf. He kneeled as I did before I locked his neck in my arm. A brief struggle was all he was good for before he found the floor.

A limp wrung quivering breaths from my cold lungs. The crunching- the dragging from beneath stopped. The silence; it held beyond my focus yet here it was no more a drum to my ear. Breathing, heavy whispers called to me. My name on their tongue stirred my thoughts til eternity.

It... Broke me.

My strength crumbled, to my knees I was held in its presence. Its anthem a call through the infinite void; a beacon for me to bear witness to an undeniable truth...

"So it is then..."

All that there was, all conceivable ideals... All squanders and perils - futile dogma... All that was known... To be faced with the incomprehensible truth...

It would only be refused.

He had to refuse to have strength, to able to carry on...

Yet, here he was.

Now, weak and broken to his knees before revelation.

Numb fingers trembled towards the beacon.

Scraping across its flesh, he snapped.

Dragging it in, he hovered over the testament. Dragging across its rotting leather, his touch read the word...

It couldn't be...

"Narnia..." The empty hands of sorrow took his throat, holding him in silence as his heart shattered twice more - its rhythm forever a hymn to catastrophe.

Quaking with a flurry of agony, his lips parted and he wailed to... To God?

To the flimsy bounds of fate which held his children and yet did reject him.

Empty and shallow, as all he saw began to blur into an ivory noise, the ill-fated survivor snagged his attention.

Dashing through trees, waking from a nightmare I no longer wished to lived in, my mind~ I couldn't afford a thought.

Blood drenched... It poured from my hands... What did I do?...

Stuffed under my arm I held it... It...

Couldn't afford a thought: run. Just. Run.

Outrun this Hell...