Warnings: None...really.
Effects: Feeling of extreme helplessness. Guilt. Failure. And protective...ness.
Riku had followed the room that felt even too bright for a person like him to even be in. Ansem the Wise seemed to have an understanding of what his young follower needed in his life to feel even a brief moment of happiness or of feeling whole for that matter. For all of the things he had gone through to get to this point; was a trial that most would lose their hearts too. Even if Riku had felt as though he had lost his own along the way. He was too ashamed to face Kairi or his friends from the island -- even if he knew he had the ability to return home if he wanted too. From the time in the mansion, he knew his goal in life had to be to get Sora back to them. Sora could accomplish many things the other keyblade wielder could not. He had accomplished things he could not. Riku had always had a lot of regrets in the short time he and his friends had been introduced to the fact that there were other worlds out there, worlds that they were capable of reaching. Worlds that they did reach. People they met. The things that they had seen were everything that he was sure had haunted him in his dreams for years: he had always known they were out there, somewhere. He just didn't know that the path of going to them would distort his life so much.
He had so readily longed to escape the world he lived on before, the world he considered a prison -- that he hadn't any worry of those hearts who had been lost because of his obsession. Those hearts that Sora had saved because unlike him he had seen that the path Riku was going on was not the correct one.
"Sora rests within here..." Ansem the Wise suddenly said before the blindfolded teen came to a sudden stop at the center of the room. The pod that held his sleeping, incomplete friend at the epicenter of the room. Ansem had explained his friend's situation. Ansem had explained it all. The state of sleep his friend was locked in as long as his memories remained incomplete. His heart sank as he leaned forward against the memory pod, shutting his eyes as he tightened his hand into a fist. He wondered, if he had been strong enough would he have saved his friend from this.
His voice shook as he tried to speak but the words failed him for a moment. "Sora...I'm sor--"
Riku suddenly wakes up, looking up at the sky from where he had sunk into his hammock before reaching over to fumble around with his dreamberry and turn it off.