Kingdom Hearts fic: To Keep Us All From Dying

[mistressofmuses]

Summary: It began with panicked news reports, coverage of increasingly frantic press conferences with astronomers and scientists of all kinds. “The stars are disappearing.”

The stars begin to vanish, and shadows appear. Natural disasters all but destroy the islands. There's one last evacuation planned, and Riku, Sora, and Kairi promise each other: "We'll go together."

Day 5 of AUgust: Post-Apocalyptic AU
Considering how much I love post-apocalyptic stories, it's surprising I've never really written this type of AU. I think the canon of Kingdom Hearts could easily be skewed toward horror or apocalypse, instead of the fantasy story we really get.
This is also Day 3 of SoRiKai week! This does not really fit the Day 3 prompts ("Childhood Friends" and "Magic"), though could arguably fill the Day 1 "Hurt/Comfort" prompt.
The title comes from the song "Freakazoid" by The Silversun Pickups. The song gives me a definite post-apocalyptic vibe (though maybe not exactly this kind.)

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It began with panicked news reports, coverage of increasingly frantic press conferences with astronomers and scientists of all kinds. “The stars are disappearing.” No supernova flashes, no slow fade, just… vanishing.

Speculation ran rampant. Unexplained solar phenomena? Widespread equipment malfunction (that somehow impacted even amateur telescopes and the human eye)? A hoax? Aliens? Angry gods?

And in the way of things, the panic faded. It became so much background radiation as lives continued more or less as normal. Nothing to be done, so why worry? Or if you had to worry—and who wouldn’t?—then why let it rule your life?

Until the darkness really arrived. Visual distortions, shadows too dark and sprawling; not chased away by light, but magnified.

And then came the disasters. Earthquakes, followed by tsunami. Storms that came with lightning bright as day, serving only to intensify the multiplying dark.

Monsters. Darkness given form, with lamplight eyes, staring. Shadows that became hunters, stalking people in alleys and dark corners. People vanishing, consumed somehow by the darkness, feeding back into it.

The reports took on a different tone: these Shadows were feeding on the hearts of their victims, creating more of themselves in the process. And perhaps the world itself had a heart of a kind, and as even it was consumed, that created the worsening natural disasters that plagued the Islands.

Perhaps all of the vanishing stars had watched in horror as the darkness took them over.

Eventually there were no more reports.

There were evacuations, of course. Most failed, when the bridges were washed away, with hundreds of people still on them. Some tried by boat; Islanders were accomplished sailors. Some fleets washed up as wreckage on the ever-rising tides. Some didn’t. Everyone remaining hoped that meant some had made it. To the bigger islands. To the mainland farther away. Maybe it was safer there. Maybe.

Any chance was better than none. There was no hope left on their island. Everyone who was left agreed: they had to try. One more fleet, the rest of their boats, carrying all of them away.

Riku’s parents bought them passage on one of the bigger boats, one that had a good chance of making it… somewhere. Kairi’s parents bought themselves and her the same chance, local government prestige and money still counting for something. Sora and his mom were on a smaller boat, but the fleet would stay together. Riku and Kairi refused to sit below deck where they were supposed to, even as it continued to rain. They had to keep Sora in view.

They’d agreed, before the fleet launched. We’ll go together. We’ll all go together, or not at all.

The boat that Sora was on didn’t have as much available shelter. There was some, but plenty of people had no choice but to stay on deck, despite the danger.

And that danger materialized as they headed into another storm. The storms could boil up out of nothing, but they’d already launched; it was too late to try and return to shore.

Riku and Kairi huddled down, trying to stay out of the way, but refusing any attempts to get them down below deck. So they saw the wave that capsized the boat Sora was on.

They both screamed, though the wind and the waves stole the sound. Riku hit the railing hard enough to bruise, rushing forward to look. Kairi was half a pace behind him, gripping his hand with all her strength.

Sailors from the other craft leapt into immediate action, throwing ropes, or tying themselves to their boats and leaping in to rescue the passengers from the capsized boat, despite the seas remaining rough.

With some relief, they saw Sora’s mother pulled out of the water. But not Sora. And then a glimpse of brown hair, farther than any of the rescuers could reach…

There was a split second where they shared a look, and they knew without question that they were on the same page. We’ll go together.

Riku squeezed Kairi’s fingers, and they dived. They’d grown up surrounded by water, fully aware both of its dangers and how to work with it. The sea took plenty of people away, but also gave some back.

The storm intensified, waves roiling, pushing the fleet farther out to sea, even as Riku and Kairi were pulled the opposite direction. The same direction as Sora. They struggled to reach him, to find him in the growing darkness, against the crushing water pulling them down.

---

The shoreline wasn’t a beach, not anymore. The water had risen too far for that, the waves lapping at uphill cobblestone roads. Houses and stores were gone, or had roofs just barely poking up through the water. The leaves of the tallest trees, ones they’d never been able to climb, now formed their own miniature islands. The light was still too dim, the shadows too deep in comparison to the light, like the contrast of the world had been skewed.

But they woke up together.

The sea gives some people back.

They were waterlogged and bruised, and otherwise alone, but they were together.

Riku lunged toward Sora, memory of the boat capsizing and Sora going under far too fresh in his mind. Their lips met in a crash, tasting of salt. Kairi’s were the same when he pulled her close, seeking any comfort they could find.

“You came for me,” Sora murmured, grasping at both of their shoulders, burying tears in their necks.

“Of course we did,” Kairi soothed.

“We’ll go together. We promised,” said Riku.

“But the boats…”

“They got your mom out of the water,” Riku said. He wanted to reassure Sora of that much. “She was okay.”

Sora let out a shuddering sigh, like that had been an answer he’d been afraid to hope for. “But the boats… they aren’t coming back.”

“I know.” Riku couldn’t pretend otherwise. He also couldn’t pretend it mattered. A chance at the unknown, with Kairi but without Sora… or being together with them both, for however long they had.

“We made our choice, Sora,” Kairi said, mirroring his own thoughts.

A glint of sick sulfur-yellow in the shadows between wrecked buildings told them that they needed to move.

“The island is a mountain,” said Kairi. “We should seek high ground. There are freshwater springs, and it will keep us above the new tide line.”

“There are still storms,” Riku said. “Wind and lightning.”

“And Shadows,” said Sora.

She nodded. “And we’ll be together to face them.”