Anyone else think about how absolutely fucked up Traverse Town is when you think of it
Like. You’re just living your life when suddenly these monsters attack. There’s a storm, and it’s raining so hard and you can’t tell what’s a streetlight and what are those strange yellow-eyes creatures that keep—well, you can’t tell what they’re doing actually. They’re monsters. They’re attacking people but they leave no bodies behind. Only hearts. The two-loops-at-the-top and a pointy end kind you used to draw as a kid. Suddenly a monster gets to you. You black out.
You think you’re going to die.
Then you wake up. Maybe a friendly face finds you, or maybe you’re left to wander these strange streets until you find someone. Either way, the first person you talk to tells you that your home is gone. Everything you’ve ever known is gone. Best of luck finding anyone you know, let alone anyone you love. Maybe you do find them. Maybe they were lucky too. Most likely, though, it’s only you and maybe some others from your home that you don’t know.
Maybe you’re from a world that knows about other worlds. Maybe that makes it easier to swallow. I’m just somewhere new, you think to yourself. I’ve always wanted to see other worlds anyways. But your home is still gone. And there are monsters that eat hearts everywhere. And there isn’t a known way to reverse it once they take yours. Everyone else treats this as sad, but normal now. Is this really your new normal? Are you ever going to go home?
But maybe you don’t know about other worlds. Suddenly, you have to contend with the fact that not only is your home gone but now you’re in a strange new place. Maybe they don’t even speak the same language as you. Certainly, all their customs are different. And not to mention—there are monsters that eat hearts everywhere. And there isn’t a known way to reverse it once they take yours. Everyone else treats this as sad, but normal now. Is this really your new normal? Are you ever going to go home?
You end up staying in this strange new town for a decade or more. Or maybe you’re only there for six months, maybe even less. Either way, the longer you’re there, the more stars—worlds. It’s hard to remember that sometimes—disappear. The more you grow used to the night. You forget what the sun feels like when it hits your face. You forget what it was like to live without the constant fear of yellow-eyed monsters taking your heart. You forget what it’s like to be one of the new faces that appear day in and day out, confused, alone, afraid. Why would you still be afraid anyways (when are you not afraid)? This is sad, but it’s normal. When did this become normal?
And then a mouse—a talking mouse!—comes and tells you that there is a way to end this all. That it will be someone wielding something called a Keyblade. That he’s looking for them, don’t worry. Just hang tight. You’ve been hanging tight for so long. How much longer do you have to wait?
Maybe you begin envisioning who this Keyblade wielder will be. What they’ll be like. They’ll have to be strong, wise, everything the heroes in the storybooks you read as children are, surely? Maybe they’re already here. You just have to find them, amongst the crowd. People here use magic. How different is a Keyblade from that, really?
(Maybe, just maybe you know the stories of the other Keyblade wielders. Ones who failed. Ones who fell. But you try not to think of them. This one is different.)
So you look. And wait. And you hope. And everyone else does too.
And then, one day, the Keyblade wielder appears! But he isn’t what you expected. He’s a child. He’s naive, bright-eyed, and all he wants is the same thing as the rest of you: to find the people he cherishes and go home. Except he has the power to do that.
Maybe you pity him. Maybe you envy him. Either way, you have to wait and hope some more. He’s but a blip on your radar, a stray breeze on a hot summer day, a drop of rain in a desert. He is your only hope. He is never there. Are you really supposed to rest the fate of all the worlds on the shoulders of a child?
And then, the worst happens. Hundreds of stars disappear at once. Hundreds more people, confused, alone, afraid.
But then it’s over. In a blink of an eye. One moment, everything is lost, the worlds are gone, and then they’re not. Maybe you blink and you’re home, like nothing ever changed. Or maybe you’re stuck in Traverse Town, watching the stars blink back to life wondering—why didn’t I go back? Your neighbors have disappeared, gone home apparently. Eventually you find a way to too.
(Or maybe you even don’t want to go home. You’ve established a life here—why do you want to leave it now? Besides the sun burns.)
Home is not the same as it used to be. Maybe it’s like time stopped at home. You return to a home that doesn’t fit you anymore, that doesn’t remember that it fell at all. You’ve changed, people say. You didn’t, you want to say but who would believe you? Maybe they look at you like a freak, up to a decade or more older than you ought to be. What kind of demon did this to you, they whisper under their breaths. You don’t know how to answer that.
Or maybe time has kept moving, wherever that world was when it was gone, but the people in it have no memory of the months or years they were gone. You have to explain, like you did to so many faces before. Maybe they call you insane.
And then there are the faces that never return. Your neighbor never comes back. A new family moves in next door. There are whole parts of town that are just gone, houses still standing waiting for someone to come home.
It’s so much, almost too much, that you forget about the Keyblade-wielding boy. But you always know someone important ended it. You keep thinking about hope and envy and pity whenever you think of them. You think they were a hero, but the images you remember from your childhood stories don’t quite fit right.
(He comes to mind, one day, all of a sudden, and he slots his place into your mind like he’d never left it in the first place.)
And then, just as you’re finally settling in, a whole year after your world came back, people start popping up on the streets. Your neighbor returns to their apartment only to find it different. Maybe they have aged, maybe they haven’t. Either way, the world has moved on without them. Maybe they’re crazed, talking about cults and kids with giant keys and being killed—
You can’t decide if it would have been better if they’d remained gone, wherever those monsters took their hearts.
And despite this all, everyone forgets. Everyone moves on like nothing had happened. Or maybe they just don’t want to acknowledge it—the decade they’re missing—because it hurts too much. You slot back into your place, but the yellow eyes still haunt the darkness.
(And you still have nightmares about the months, years you’ve spent under a sunless sky, where they lurked much closer than they do now—and you fear it’ll happen again.)
