FF7: Darkest Hours…. (Based on rpg)
Chapter Four
Part Three
He stands there in the frame of the door, blocking out the light and preventing you from seeing him clearly.
“Kind of hard to see me, isn’t it?” He asked, his voice a soft hiss.
You shield your eyes from the bright light as he suddenly steps away from the door and off to the side. You blink a few times as your eyes adjust to the light and you notice he’s gone. You look around the room slowly, turning slowly as you do. The room is wide and dark, except for the light shining in around you. You take a step forward and notice a light bulb dangling from the ceiling. You reach out and pull the cord and the room fills with a dull light. In front of you is a steel table with dark red-brown stains on it with a drain slot on one end. There are leather straps where the wrists and ankles are and a dip where the head is. You shudder and close your eyes for a moment as memories fill your head of the experiments done on you. You open your eyes again and find yourself face to face with him. He has a nasty grin on his face and a hunger in his eyes. You stumble back a few steps and he chuckled as you. He reaches out and runs his silver claw over the length of the table, making a scraping sound as he does. He steps around the table and stands at the head of the table looking down at you.
“I couldn’t see anything. I could hear though.” He says as he looks around the room slowly, “I could hear my own screams of agony and pain echoing in this room.”
He walks across the room and over to a table where surgical tools lay neatly placed on a small silver tray. He reaches out with his hand and picks up one of the tools. He holds the small silver scalpel out into the light and inspects it carefully.
“I remember the first moment of pain. It was sweet but bitter at the same time as I drew in my first breath. That will be the pain I will carry to my grave if I ever reach it.” He says as he places the tool down.
“I believe I was produced by Shinra because I have no memories of my earlier life what so ever. One day I just started breathing, and that was the first day of my life and the beginning of my death as well.” He walks over to a large chamber against the wall and places his silver claw against the glass, “After I drew my first breath, I was placed into this chamber. Jenova was fed into my body and then the experiments began. Hojo exposed me to a high level of mako radiation, a higher level of mako then Sephiroth was exposed to.”
He growls as he places both hands against the glass of the chamber. He suddenly slams his fists against it and as the chamber breaks a glowing green liquid rushes out. You try to get out of the way but you’re a little too slow as the liquid runs past you. You shudder as the liquid makes contact with your skin and you fall down onto you knees. The chill of the liquid slowly seeps through your pants and you shiver as you clasp your shoulder in your hands.
“Makes you feel weak doesn’t it?” He asks as he turns and looks at you, “It should, it is the purest form of mako next to the mako fountains.”
At the mention of the liquid being mako you feel rather sick. You reach out to grip the leg of the table but miss and fall face first into the mako. You throw up what little you had in your stomach and roll over onto your side. You notice he’s hovering over you, and then he slowly crouches down beside you. He reaches out and runs his finger down a trail of mako running down your forehead. He licks the mako off his finger and shudders.
“I was made before you. I was made to be Sephiroth, without question. And I was.” He growls out as his green eyes darken.
He stands up and grabs your shoulder, pulling you to your feet as he stands. He glares into your eyes and you notice how similar to Sephiroth’s eyes his are.
“I was set lose on the world to kill anyone who stood in my way. Anyone at all. At least that was Hojo’s goals for me. My own goals were entirely different.” He hissed out as he throws you onto the table.
You gasp in pain as you smack into the steel table and you roll onto your side holding your aching arm close to you.
“I wanted to kill Sephiroth because I knew exactly what I was. I was a clone, who had no real understand of who he really was. All I knew was that I was made to be Sephiroth but yet I wasn’t. I wouldn’t stand for it, so I set out to kill Sephiroth with my own two hands.” He hisses out as he walks around the room slowly, almost as if he’s stocking you, like a lion would its prey. “ It took sometime, but after getting the timing perfectly. I slipped out and disappeared down the hall… I found Sephiroth… but he was waiting for me. Somehow he had known I was coming.”
He stops and walks out of the room slowly and you stare after him. You slowly sit up and slid off the table, shuddering as you step into the mako. You walk after him, your body numbly listens to your commands but you make it slowly but surely. You look around into the room you just walked into and notice it’s a small apartment, usually used by shirna soldiers or employees. You walk into the bedroom of the small apartment and you notice him standing by a broken window. You notice that some of the glass has blood dripping off it.
“He and I fell from the window after sparing briefly. I fell to my death… I don’t know what happened to Sephiroth but I doubt he survived the fall unscratched.” He said as he reached out and touched the remains of the broken window. “I was dead, really dead. There was no other way to describe the mental state I was in. By the records, my brain had stopped working long before my heart ever stopped beating.”
He takes a step back from the window and before you realize what he’s doing he jumps out the window. You stagger towards the window quickly and lean out it just in time to see him hit the ground with a sickening crack. You run out of the room and find yourself suddenly standing outside over his fallen form. You gasp at the sudden change but push aside your surprise as you rush over to him. His eyes are open and starring at you blankly but his body looks broke and lifeless. You start to reach down towards him but he sits up. He pulls his silver claw close to his body and looks at you hungrily.
“I woke up like this. My body broken and useless, but I was back in Hojo’s lab. He promised he would fix me one way or another. He cut my broken limbs off and replaced them with someone else’s… someone who was still alive when he cut the limbs off. How do I know this? Because I still remember the screams of pain.”
He gets up slowly, his limbs slowly snapping back into place. You make a strange sound and take a step back from him as you feel rather sick again. He grins and you notice his fangs.
“Afraid?” He asks as he gets up slowly, “Perhaps you should be. Because after Hojo got done sowing on my new limbs he altered me into a vampire like thing.”
He turns away from you and walks a short distance away from you.
“I could stand light and all that, but the need for blood was there. And the fact I had fangs tipped off the vampire part to me.” He says as he draws in a deep breath and sighs it out slowly, “After that he released me out in the middle of no where. He mumbled something about wanting to see how I could survive in the wild and then he left, giggling in such a stupid way I wanted something to fall out of the sky and crush him then and there.”
He turns around slowly and looks at you again.
“I did survive though, and it was a slowly painful process because I became totally aware of myself for the first time in my life, of who I was… and what I was. I was afraid of myself and the hunger within me that demanded to be fed.”
He looks out at the vast distance as you look at him. His mood has darkened but he has become unreadable.
“My first feed happened at Rocket Town. I lured a young woman out of her home, killed her, drank her blood, and covered myself in it. No matter how bad that may seem, I accepted myself then because I fully understood what I was. I was a child of the mako, barer of the Jenova cells and a vampire. I was what everyone called a monster.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head slowly.
“I was fine with that at the time, because I avoided people at all costs as I wandered where ever I pleased. That was the story until I lost my arm. I needed help and I happened to come across fort condor. They tended to me, grafted this silver claw to my arm and then I killed them all in thanks. I lost the ability to feel emotions then.”
He holds his silver claw up in the air and looks at it as if it’s not even attached to him.
“I cannot say if I enjoyed killing them or not, I just know I wish I hadn’t. They didn’t deserve to die, not after working so hard to save the Condor that flew away anyway.”
He shakes his head and looks at you.
“There’s so much I don’t understand about myself so I cannot tell you my whole story. If you dislike me now, I understand. If you don’t, then I shall continue traveling with you.”
He bows his head and lets out a hiss of a sigh.
“I am a monster and always will be. Nothing you do can change that Cloud.”
Cloud suddenly sits up in the bed and draws in deep gasping breaths. He looks around the room slowly, noting the heap of fur Sam was under and the voice in the other room. He looked back over to Ilan and studied her for a moment. She sighed softly and rolled her head slightly in Clouds direction. He brushed some of her bangs out of her face and she opened her eyes slowly. Mako eyes met and gazed deeply into each other.
“Cloud?” Ilan questioned softly as Cloud placed his hand on the side of her face.
“Yes, it’s me Ilan.” Cloud whispered as he pulled Ilan up to him.
Ilan snuggled close to Cloud as he wrapped his arms around her. He stroked the back of her hair and listened to her softly call his name.
Domar opened his eyes and focused on the ceiling above him. He glanced over to the side at the little glowing fairy flying beside his head. He closed his eyes and sighed softly. He felt so tired but the thought of the so-called Sephiroth being alive made him open his eyes again. He had died but yet he was alive right now. Domar say up slowly and the chill of the air didn’t bother him.
“So then Cloud.” Domar called.
Cloud looked up at the small area above him and frowned slightly.
“Yeah?” Cloud answered.
“It seems that Sephiroth is still alive. What are we going to do about it?” Domar asked as the fairy landed on his shoulder.
“Stop him again and make sure he stays dead this time.” Cloud growled out as he clutched Ilan close to himself.
