writetomyheart | [Team 1] Don't close your eyes (and don't try to hide)

~1200 words of a kh soriku fight scene that comes at the end of a longer ghostie fic I'm writing. (rating: T to some spooky violence)

“This way!” Sora shouted, running back the way they came and towards the grand staircase. If they couldn’t go out the front, maybe they could get through the secret door Sora and Jake had just used.

However, with each step, the hallway stretched, the stairway forever out of reach, the ceilings growing taller. On the walls, the portraits and landscapes stretched, revealing glimpses of even more gruesome subjects. A woman balanced precariously over a waiting alligator’s mouth— a trio of men sunk into quick sand—

Ahead of them, a roar sounded. Riku pulled on Sora’s hand.

“We’re not getting out. We’ll just have to wait.”

Sora nodded.

They didn’t have to wait long. With another roar, the Ghost Host returned, larger than ever. His transparent form pulsed with energy gained from the heartless surrounding them. His eyes now glowed yellow, and shadows emanated around him.

“Where are they?” Despite the roars earlier, the Ghost Host’s speaking voice was dangerously calm.

“Gone,” Sora shouted. “Constance, Issac, and Jake— they’re out of your reach forever. We’ll make sure of it.”

The Ghost Host’s eyes narrowed in derision. The air shifted as the heartless Shadows were suddenly called away from where they had been circling Riku and Sora, and instead circled the Ghost Host.

Sora almost called out a warning— he had seen this before. Countless times. When a person lost control of the darkness in their heart when they became overwhelmed by it—

The Ghost Host shifted once again, becoming monstrous. His limbs lengthened into something animal-like, his face twisted into a permanent snarl, his back hunched. Sora was reminded of some kind of hound, but ghostly and transparent.

“Well… I guess he got that power he wanted,” Riku muttered. “Power enough to leave the house on his own.”

“Yeah, but that kind of Heartless power comes one big weakness.” Sora threw his keyblade in a perfectly executed strike raid. It nailed the heartless in the head and the heartless reared back in pain.

They may have had difficulty hitting a ghost in this world, but hitting a heartless was old hat. Even a big monstrous one like this.

Especially a bit monstrous one like this.

Sora and Riku fell into a rhythm as the fight broke out. Riku stayed low, dodging feet while attacking the Ghost Host’s ankles. Sora went high, running up the wall to swing off the chandelier and attack the creature’s face.

If it had stayed like this, they may have one easily, except the Ghost Host still retained some power over the house. Soon the chandelier swung the other way, knocking Sora’s grip and sending him crashing to the ground. The rug pulled up from under Riku’s feet, making him tumble into the path of a stamping foot. Riku managed to raise a barrier just in time, rolling out of the way and back to Sora’s side.

“Big dumb heartless are easy,” Riku muttered, “But I’ve never had to fight a house before.”

“I have,” Sora said, jumping out of the way just as the floorboards rumbled and broke, revealing a gaping one-way fall to the basement. “But… we were on the outside of that place. And I’m not sure how much Oogie Boogie could actually control.”

“Well,” This time it was Riku’s turn to dodge, casting a protective barrier over both of them as the chandelier crashed down on top of them. “We have to think of something!”

“I think we’ll just have to wear him down until he can’t control the house anymore,” Sora couldn’t think of any other way. He remembered back to the ballroom earlier. The moments when Constance asserted herself, taking control of the situation. The house had listened.

Maybe if she was here they could do something— but she was outside, and hopefully far, far away from her father’s wrath.

So they would have to stick with plan A.

“You focus on the house attacks,” Sora said, “I can swing up and try to weaken his concentration.”

Riku nodded and they split again, this time Riku using a mix of magic and well-timed keyblade strikes to keep the house busy and away from Sora. Floating candelabras suddenly found themselves frozen, their fires’ extinguished, while gravity spells kept the rugs where they lay. Riku also healed Sora at every chance, though Sora wished he would keep at least a bit of mana to heal himself.

Sora used the house attacks in his favor to reach the Ghost Host’s face, launching off a stair banister that tried to trap him, and swinging once more from the chandelier to get a few good wacks in. The Ghost Host, roared, having lost all ability to speak in his transformation. A large ghostly hand swung wildly. Sora managed to dodge the first strike, but the second hit him unexpectedly in the back. With a grunt of pain, Sora fell, grabbing onto the banister at the last moment to soften his landing.

“Heal!” Riku shouted though the spell didn’t have nearly the effect it should have. Sora groaned, using the last of his own mana to heal both of them as much as possible.

“You okay?” Riku asked as he reached Sora.

“Yeah, I—” Sora was cut off suddenly when Riku pulled him close, twisting his body. Sora blinked in confusion, at least until Riku grunted in pain.

Sora looked down, his eyes widening at the splinter of wood that had pierced Riku’s side. The floorboards had snapped, attacking them like the jaws of a great beast. With Riku leaning heavily on him, Sora had just enough room to swing his keyblade down, slamming the floorboards back to the ground. “Riku!”

Riku winced but shook his head. “I’m fine. It just grazed me.”

“You suck at lying.” Sora huffed, searching his pockets quickly. He could have sworn he had a potion in there somewhere. “C’mon… where is it?”

“Sora! Lookout,” Sora twisted, raising his keyblade just in time to deflect another floorboard attack. But the Ghost Host had noticed their prone position and was advancing quickly. Sora continued to hold off the floorboards while Riku weakly tried to regain his mana to create a barrier.

They wouldn’t last much longer. They needed something— a break, a moment to regroup, a—

“Stop!”

The feminine shout echoed around the foyer. Surprised, Sora glanced at the door, expecting Aqua, or even Kairi or Xion, to have come to their rescue.

To his surprise, he saw a figure in white, her long transparent hair blowing widely as the doors were forcibly swung open. Constance stared at the scene in a mix of horror and resolve.

“Stop.” She repeated and the house listened. The floorboards sunk back down, their nails tightening them back into an even surface. The banister returned to its place on the stairs. Even the ceilings listened, shrinking back down until the Ghost Host had to haunch over to fit.

Then, with one last groan, everything returned to how it had been.

The air grew deathly still.

I'll tag Kit on the discord since I'm not sure how to do it in this new formatting yet. but the last line is "The air grew deathly still"