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KHInsider Halloween CW Winner!



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KingdomKey

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Thus the spooky ghosts, the jack-o-lanterns and supernatural creatures have once again vanished for, the remainder of the year.

Before I announce the winner for this years Halloween Creative Writing Contest, I want to thank all of the members who took the time to submit an entry. All of your entries were fantastic reads, that made the contest a great success, and we hope to see more inspiring entries again for future contests.

Now then, the winner of the Halloween Creative Writing Contest is Mite. He wins these two snazzy awards, Book Wyrm and Rising Star for making a marvelous story that would make Jack Skellington proud, and perfect for the Creative Writing category. His story shall be shown on the main site of KHInsider for everyone to see!

Roxas’ Halloween​

It was a dark clear night in Halloween Town, as it always was, with the bright full moon providing the only source of light. The perpetual state of night the town was in had always been a little off putting to Roxas, despite his home, The World That Never Was, being in a similar state. Halloween Town was always just so much creepier, but he pressed on, slowly and cautiously pressing forward down the stone walled alleyway with his mission always at the front of his mind.

It wasn’t the usual heart collecting mission this time. No, heart collecting was more of a bonus this time around as far as he was concerned. Xion had gone missing two days ago, her last mission being heart collection in Halloween Town. This wasn’t like the last time his friend had disappeared; something wasn’t quite right about it.

‘I hope she’s doing okay,’ he thought to himself, remembering the last time he saw her. Saix had given everybody their missions for the day; Demyx was being his usual lazy-butt self sprawled out on the couch complaining about “X-Face,” while Xion was in high spirits. She actually seemed pretty excited about the mission, even betting ice cream on who would collect the most hearts from their missions. Axel had joked that she was probably working overtime to win the bet when she hadn’t shown up later that evening, but after being gone for two days Roxas wasn’t going to sit around any longer waiting to find out.

As Roxas came to the end of the alley he pressed up against the wall, hearing the sound of tiny footsteps around the corner. He readied his hand so to call his Keyblade at any moment, and looked around the corner. It was a regular Shadow Heartless, aimlessly wandering around in the street. Roxas had seen hundreds if not thousands of these heartless on his missions, but Halloween Town had a way of making even the most benign-looking heartless seem creepier, seemingly more like a demented ragdoll then the regular version.

While it would have been easy to just defeat the lone heartless, Roxas decided to sneak past it, not wanting to waste time on a pure blood heartless he wouldn’t even get a heart out of. But before Roxas could make his way around the sound of a second set of footsteps could be heard. He looked around the corner once again to see yet another heartless, this time it was a White Knight heartless. There was something off about this one too, and not the usual added creepiness of this world. The white bandages that covered it where hanging losses all over it, cut and ragged, as though they had been ripped and clawed off of it. But even more eye-catching was that it was missing its left arm.

‘What happened to him,’ wondered the spiky-haired blond. ‘Was it in a fight with Xion? No. Even our toughest fights with Heartless never left them looking like that. They’d long be destroyed and their heats collected before looking like…that!’

As he continued to look on the White Knight slowly lurched its way to the Shadow, who hadn’t noticed its arrival, continuing to aimlessly wander the street. With an amount of speed surprising for how it looked the White Knight quickly grabbed the Shadow, tightly clasping its remaining claw around the neck and began squeezing tightly. Roxas’ eyes widened at this sight, watching as the Shadow’s tiny legs kicked wildly in the air. The Knight raised its prey closer to its face, holding it still for a moment as its maw suddenly opened and bit down on one of the Shadows antenna. Back and forth the Knight’s head shook, yanking and pulling on the antenna, not stopping until finally it ripped off of the Shadow’s head, and slurped down its throat. Roxas turned away, unable to watch as the action was repeated with the last antenna. While he had never gotten close enough in his life to see if a Shadow actually had a mouth, he could have sworn he heard a most horrible muffled cry escape from it as it was devoured.

Quickly he turned around and darted back down the alley the way he came. Whatever crazy thing was going on with the Heartless he didn’t want to find out. Saix had warned that Halloween Town sometimes had “odd effects” on the Heartless population there, but this was far beyond what he would have imagined. ‘What would lead them to so mercilessly attack and devour other heartless like that?’

Roxas hurried down an adjacent alley, wanting to find Xion even faster, thoughts racing about what horrible things could have happened to her. Her lifeless body lying on a cold stone street, heartless descending down upon her… he tried to block these thoughts, keeping hope that she was okay and hiding, waiting for help.

At the next turn Roxas stopped cold. They path ahead of him was pitch-black, his eyes unable to see even three feet in front of him. ‘Can’t stop now,” he thought. ‘Have to find Xion.’ As he took his first step forward a pair of beady yellow eyes lit the darkness and stared at him. Knowing instinctually what was to come; Roxas summoned the Keyblade to his hand in a flash of light, as the rest of the darkness lit up with yellow eyes. “You’re not going to get in my way,” he yelled, stabbing his blade forward at the darkness; but the eyes jumped forward, as a swarm of Search Ghosts attacked. The force of the swarm pushed Roxas back easily, and he was tossed out into the open street.

Getting back onto his feet Roxas readied himself for another attack. As the swarm reasserted itself, the Search Ghosts circling around Roxas, he swung the Keyblade wildly, swiping at anything that got close, but couldn’t land a hit. ‘Darn it, this isn’t going to work!’ Knowing the situation could become more dire the longer he took, Roxas broke free of the ghosts and made a mad dash as fast as he could down the street, wanting to find Xion and R.C. as soon as he found her.

Ahead he could see the main plaza, as he sped up a wall of the Search Ghosts suddenly appeared and blocked his only path. Having finally had enough of their interference, Roxas ran faster at the wall of enemies leaping forward swinging his weapon fast. “You can’t stop me,” he shouted. But again his attempt was in vain as a sea of hands jutted out from the ghosts, pushing him back with enough force that he slammed against a stone statue he hadn’t noticed before. “Ugh. Damn them!”

Using his keyblade for support he got back up, trying to figure out a new strategy to break through. However it wasn’t a normal statue Roxas had hit against. A shudder and cracking was heard, as Roxas turned around to see the Gargoyle Heartless begin to shift and shake off its stone disguise. ‘Forgot about him!’ Still stunned from the previous attack Roxas barely raised his blade in time to defend himself, as the Gargoyle moved in for the quick strike. As fast as he could Roxas slashed the heartless across the chest leaving a large gash. The Gargoyle lay in the middle of the street, sputtering as black blood oozed from his wound.

Seeing much easier prey the search ghosts turned their attention to the beaten down Gargoyle, quickly swarming over it, grabbing hold of any flailing body part as they started to bite into it. Two grabbing hold of its wings and ripping them out of its back, making the creature lash out one last time, gouging the eye of the nearest Search Ghost before finally succumbing to the attackers. However some of the swarm broke off from the attack, instead focusing on their gouged friend, as a tiny trickle of black blood oozed from its eye, causing a frenzy of ghosts attacking ghosts nonstop, biting, clawing and consuming anything they could get their ghostly hands on.

There was a hard pounding in Roxas’ chest now, watching in horror at the sight unfolding in front of him, legs too shaky to move. ‘Gotta move… gotta run… gotta get Xion and get out of here!’ Mustering up what strength he could, Roxas once again tried to run for the plaza.

With no demented heartless to get in his way he finally made it to his destination. Stopping to catch his breath Roxas looked around from the center of the Town Square. ‘No Xion by the guillotine, that’s good, but still no sign of her anywhere else.’ Knowing that he still had a lot of Halloween Town left to search, and more heartless hiding around every corner he decided to take one chance and see if his idea worked.

“XION,” he shouted as loud as he could. “Xion are you here? Xion!” He waited for a moment, hoping to hear his friend call back to him, letting him know she was okay. Hearing nothing Roxas started in the direction of Moonlight Hill, knowing his shouting would have alerted the heartless.

“Roxas…..”

He stopped, looking back around the plaza, thinking he had heard something. “Hello,” he called out. “Xion are you there?” Again he heard nothing. Thinking he was imagining things he started in the direction of the hill again.

“Roxas…”

This time he was sure he heard a voice. “Xion is that you? Where are you?” He wandered back into the middle of the plaza, looking around everywhere. From behind him the plaza’s fountain bubbled with green water, the sound of the water sloshing and getting louder. Roxas approached cautiously. “Xion…?”

A black hand splashed out of the water, grabbing the edge of the fountain. Roxas held his Keyblade tighter, preparing himself for what might come. “Xion…is that you,” he asked cautiously. With one large pull the rest of the body came out of the fountain and fell to the ground; looking over it Roxas instantly noticed the person was wearing the signature black coat of the Organization, the hood covering her face. “Xion,” he called out with renewed hope, running to her and letting the keyblade disappear.

Noticing that she wasn’t moving, Roxas grabbed Xion’s shoulders and started shaking her. “Xion, Xion c’mon get up. We have to R.C. out of here NOW. The heartless in this world are demented, and they’re not acting the way they should.” As if on que the heartless he had worked so hard to escape from started to appear in the plaza, White Knights slinking through the gates, Search Ghosts appearing and disappearing all around them.

As a Knight leapt toward the pair Roxas slashed back with his resummoned weapon, and hitting it far enough back to distract the others with much more easy prey to swarm around and consume. “That’s it; I’m just going to have to carry her myself.”

“You’re going to die…”

Roxas’ ears perked up at this, looking back at Xion’s motionless body. “Xion… did you say something?” He slowly inched back toward his friend, his free hand reaching out to her. “Xion…?” His hand reached down, gripping her hood and pulled it back.

His eyes widened in shock, quickly staggering back away from her Roxas dropped the Keyblade making it disappear in a flash of light. “Xion…w-what did they…” Tripping, he fell backwards onto the ground. Propping himself up on his arms Roxas looked in horror at his friend. Xion’s face was white as a ghost, one eye missing from the right socket, the left one having a broken black button sewn onto the eyelid, while her mouth was sewn shut.

“Roxas…is that you?” The words barely escaped from her sewn mouth.

Roxas could hardly look at his friend. “Xion…what did they do to you?”

Xion flipped over onto your stomach, not breaking eye contact she slowly crawled closer to Roxas. “Roxas…Roxas you wouldn’t believe it…” As she spoke the string tying her mouth together slowly began to snap in places, making her bleed from the puncture wounds on her lips. Crawling next to him she propped herself up, sitting on her knees and continued to look intently at him.

“There were so many heartless here Roxas….I kept fighting them Roxas… all of them… over and over again they just kept showing up Roxas… one after another I kept on fighting them, hitting and swinging and freezing and… and setting them on fire… Roxas they just kept coming, there was no end, so kept going and going as much as I could, Roxas…. I couldn’t R.C. because they just kept coming… but kept fighting more and more of them… I kept fighting because I wanted to see the look on your face, Roxas… the look when I won the bet and you had to buy me ice cream… So I kept fighting without rest…until I got so tired… I was so tired Roxas, that… that…”

“Xion?” Roxas was unable to look away, his breathing becoming more shallow, not
noticing the heartless were starting to surround them again.

“…that I fell asleep…and then I woke up with you here, Roxas.”

The rest of the world was nothing to Roxas, just an empty blackness that surrounded them. “Xion…Xion w-we should go back now…Xemnas, he can help you, he can get you back to normal, and then we can go back to the clock tower, you, me and Axel, and we can eat that ice cream I owe you.”

Xion slightly perked up at this. “Hey Roxas, do you think Xemnas will be happy?”
“Be happy about what?”

“About all the hearts, silly! There were so many of them…so many from the heartless I killed… do you think Xemnas will be happy with all the hearts I got?” She started to lean in closer, he speaking tone getting faster. “And do you think Saix will finally be proud of me? And Axel…do you think he’ll like having a heart? I worked so hard to get them all for Kingdom Hearts… I hope everybody is happy…”

Roxas finally noticed the heartless, so close to them, just standing and surrounding them, with their beady yellow eyes fixated on the pair. “Xion, Xion please, we have to go now! Just take my hand, take it and we can leave this crazy place with its demented heartless!” He held his shaking hand out, too afraid to move it more, lest he set off the heartless.

Xion tilted her head in confusion. “What heartless, Roxas?”

His eyes darted all around, looking at the monsters he so desperately wanted to escape from. “Xion…the heartless are all around us.”

At this she looked all around and back at her scared friend. “But Roxas… there aren’t any heartless here. It’s just me, and you, and all of the new friends I made here.” Roxas couldn’t even respond to this. “Ya know, they said we could live here with them if we wanted, Roxas. Then we wouldn’t have to go on missions every day, and we could eat ice cream all we wanted, and Axel could come here and we could all be best friends. Doesn’t that sound good, Roxas?”

Roxas’ hand fell down, no longer able to even keep it raised. “Xion…”

Xion wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and gave him a large hug. “It’s okay Roxas, everything will be okay now.” And then…there was darkness.

Xion looked down at Roxas’ unconscious body, and looked around at all the heartless. “Okay, I’m pretty sure I got him good,” she shouted out.

At this Jack Skellington walked out from the shadows and next to the pair. “And that was a marvelous performance, Xion,” he said with a bit of glee. “I must say this is most likely the best Halloween I’ve planned in ages! And it’s all thanks to you.”

Xion got up and wiped some of the makeup off of her face. “Thanks Jack, I’m glad I could help, and I got to scare Roxas to boot.”

“Indeed, and I must say you were the perfect addition to this year’s festivities. When I first saw you I knew that you would make the perfect demented doll.” Jack pointed to one of his empty eye sockets. “I’ve got an eye about these things.”

Xions stared at the empty holes for a moment. “Uuuuhhhhhhhhhh, yeah, I could tell.” She looked back down at her unconscious friend. “I think I should probably get Roxas back home now. I’ll probably be buying him ice cream for a month or two to make up for this, but it was worth it.”

“Then I’ll leave you to that, my dear, while I go plan for next year’s Halloween.” Jack walked off, heartless in tow, to prepare for next year’s festivities.

Xion looked away, rubbing her head in thought. “He’s kinda heavy though, so it’ll be a pain to get him home."

Roxas opened his eyes and tilted his head toward her, a scowl starting to form across his face. “Just so you know, Xion, I’m getting you back next year.”
 

Solo

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From the very first moment I set my eyes on that story, I knew that it's a definite winner.

I figured that I won't have a candle's chance in a cyclone by putting up an entry with a kid-friendly theme, but honestly, I don't care. I had fun writing it, but that's not all... I'm really, really glad that I was able to compete against these other members who are the best of the batch.

Kudos to all of you, and double kudos for Mite who netted the much-coveted awards! Let's all continue to do our best in writing! :D
 
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