Endless Screams

Chapter 3. Connection.

My head hurts. I can't concentrate. I can't remember much of what happened, but…Kairi was there. She held me in her arms and stayed with me in this place when no one else did. None of my 'friends' came to see me after the accident. Goes to show…what does it go to show?
-Excerpt from Riku's diary.

Kairi sat on her bed staring out of the window. Rain was drizzling from heavily clouded skies and the sparse trees outside of her room were whipped and torn by the howling wind. Her music was down low because her parents were home, but Kairi could still hear the haunting strains above the wind and rain. It was a dark and horrible Saturday so Kairi was trying to take the opportunity to get a head start on the huge English assignment that they were given the day before. She was finding it hard, as her thoughts turned inexorably to the silver haired boy that she had held briefly in her arms the day before.

A bottle flew across the room, smashing against the door. The sound of Kairi cursing violently rose even above the sounds of the storm outside. Why couldn't she stop thinking of that arrogant, stupid, egotistical, gorgeous, cocky, beautiful…dammit, why would he not leave her thoughts? After everything she had been through and still she falls for the biggest jackass in school. Hah, well, maybe the second biggest; Sora was really the ringleader. Dammit, he was still in her head…

Swearing again Kairi viciously punched her pillow. Grabbing her pad of paper and a pen she glared at the blue lines that stretched across the page. Unbidden, words flowed from her mind and scarred themselves deep into the white surface of the paper.

Who am I

That dares cry

Ancient tears

Of hidden sorrow?

The night hides my shame

But we all know

That the emotions I have

Are not the same.

Who am I

That dares to ask

For understanding

Of my past?

The hates and fears

That mar my soul

Now black as coal,

Redemption now

Is an impossible task.

Who are you

To judge the damned?

We, the hated angels,

Live too.

My broken wings

And dead blue eyes

Are not my core.

But beyond this

Flawed angel form

My perfect spirit flies,

Much like yours.

Who are you

To say who I am.

I may be damned

An angel cursed,

But who are you?

My halves are whole,

The angel and the devil

Balanced in my soul.

Do not judge the devil

For the angel also sees

Your condemning heart.

The spirit sees

Who is the angel

And who has been the demon

Right from the start.

Memories assailed Kairi, buffeting her from all eras of her life. Her father, beating her. Her cutting over the years. The abuse from numerous relationships. The many times that she had lain on her bed covered in blood, drowning in alcohol and her parents sat in the other room oblivious. Her whole world was taken over by the memories that mixed in with her current pain.

Tears smudged the scribbled words and streaked the paper with dribbled black lines. As the wind whistled and roared past the window and the rain pounded down, red blood slowly began to drip onto the paper, mingling with the tears. Black jagged lines on smooth white paper. Glistening rubies encased in diamond crystals. Quiet sobbing barely audible behind the angry storm.

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Riku lay in the hospital bed, his thoughts buzzing wildly. The feeling of Kairi in his arms, and the look of her face as she slept by his bed, the tearstained look of longing she had given him would not leave his mind. He had drifted off to sleep late the last night, with Kairi was still sleeping next to him, but when he woke up on the Saturday morning she was gone. He balled his hands into fists and tried to hold back tears. He was stunned at how much he missed her quiet presence.

He raised a hand to his bandaged temple and winced at the sudden jag of pain that shot through his whole head. Tears came to his eyes, and suddenly overflowed, taking Riku by surprise. The overwhelming feelings that were swirling round inside him took hold and he gave into the pain and confusion.

Riku was finally raised from his misery when the rain clouds burst outside and the storm started hammering at his window. He sat listening to the fury of the weather for hours and hours, alone and sore in the hospital. Thoughts raced round and round his head, Sora, Kairi, feelings, emotions, heartache, headache, he felt like he was going insane.

Suddenly Riku leapt off of his bed and, ignoring the bolt of pain earthing itself in his skull, grabbed a pad of paper and started hunting frantically for a pen. His feelings were getting so overpowering that he needed some kind of release. And since his usual way of letting out his feelings was at the training grounds and therefore out of reach, he needed to find another way. Once he found a pen, Riku collapsed back on his bed and tried to stop the room spinning. He snapped his head back up and completely ignoring his physical pain, proceeded to pour out his confusion and growing panic.

Feelings strike me down out of my control,
And take over my world and my mind too.
Feelings those I love just cannot accept
But this I can't deny, what must I do?
Can I go against the will of others?
Or will I bow to those who rule my world?
I walk around and endlessly pretend
That inside me emotions are not furled.
I'm torn in two by these things I now feel,
And I am at a loss for what to do.
The choices all are racing round my head
And what to pick, I really wish I knew.

My head is all messed up on the inside.
These strange feelings I know I must hide.

A tear leaked down his cheek and Riku did not even bother to brush it away, in letting his feelings loose on paper the silver haired boy had opened much more than a floodgate of tears. He felt his thoughts spreading and searching, until they found something that called to him. Little did Riku know it, but he had touched Kairi's mind with his own. Little did he know that he and the Goth girl shared something deeper than the emotions that they were both discovering.

As soon as Riku felt the connection of his thoughts with something else, his whole world was overwhelmed with a huge sense of pain and loss. His mind was deluged with memories and feelings not his own, but not totally alien to him either. He caught glimpses of fists flying and heard dim screaming. He saw a towering figure standing over him and felt the impact of a foot in his ribs. The visions blurred and then he felt, with piercing clarity, the slice of a blade into his skin. His minds eye looked down and he saw blood flowing freely from both of his wrists.

With a stifled scream Riku jerked himself from the disturbing visions. He knew beyond a doubt that what he had seen was real, but he was unable to figure out where, or to whom the terrible things were happening. Riku sat in his hospital bed, thoughts whirling uncontrollably through his mind. He stared blankly at the wall all his energy going into unravelling the tangle of thoughts he was trying to cope with.

Sleep closed in on the boy without warning and within seconds he was asleep, oblivious to the storm outside. His dreams were filled with fragments of the horrible visions he had witnessed just before, but over everything else he could hear the soft voice of a girl speaking his name.

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