Author's Note: I thought I'd change it up a bit and do a piece that isn't centred around Squall... It's basically a short exploration of one of the many ways Rinoa's story could go. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!
Ghost
It has been one year, seven months, and twenty-three days. Four hours. Sixteen minutes. Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine seconds, counting endlessly upward in the expanding distance of time. These numbers are all I have left, the one constant in my life. My mind is fading. I can feel it; each synapse succumbing to a millennia-old power, burning away at my memory, my sense of self.
Even in my dreams, I find myself overwhelmed and consumed by images of people I've never seen, voices I've never heard, places I've never been. Every day, I have to keep reminding myself of who I am. My walls are covered with post-it notes. Affirmations of an identity that is becoming less and less familiar with each second that ticks by. My name. Birthday. Birth place. Hobbies. Parents, favourite colour, favourite food, favourite songs... I keep repeating them over and over again, out loud, trying—praying, begging—not to forget.
I never asked for this. At least, I don't think I did.
I just want to live a normal life. Husband, house in the suburbs, two-and-a-half kids. Seven passenger SUV. Soccer practice, piano lessons. Maybe I only want this because it's the one thing I can never have. Every time I think about it, my chest gets tight, and my eyes begin to sting. It hurts, god, it hurts so fucking bad. I feel the cumulative pain of the hundreds of women who have carried this burden before me, feel their sense of loss, their longing for normalcy.
I hear their screams for freedom.
Part of me wants to scream, too.
Instead, I do nothing but wait. What exactly I'm waiting for, I am not sure. All I know is that I have to do this alone; I don't want to be a danger to others. I live in secrecy, in this tiny cabin, hidden amongst the cold shadows of Trabian trees. It feels a little bit like purgatory, a place to pass the time while I slowly lose my mind. There is no one else around for miles, no one to witness my quiet descent into madness.
The only times I dare venture out are when I am in need of necessities. Food, toiletries, a new lighter for the fireplace. It takes between twenty-three and twenty-nine minutes to drive my pile of rust truck to the nearest store, and for the time that I am out, I am terrified. What if someone asks me who I am? Will I know the answer? What if I forget where I am going? Or maybe something will set me off? Will I burn everything to the ground?
Will this be the last time I ever see another human being?
I wish you were here. But at the same time, I'm glad you're not. I don't want you to remember me like this. I am not the person you once loved. Most days, I don't even feel like a person at all. I'm just a vessel, a mannequin that has been trapped and bound by someone else's damnation. You probably wouldn't even recognize me.
I keep post-its about you. I feel like if I forget you, I will have lost everything. But when I brush my teeth in the morning, I see the note that says you have the most incredible blue eyes I've ever seen, and brown hair that, no matter what you do, can never be tamed. And when I sit down at the table, I am reminded that you love to read, and that your favourite book (publicly) is about the rise and fall of the Dollet Empire. The note right below that one reads that your actual favourite book (privately, I might add) is a novel about a music-lover who just got dumped and spends the narrative examining failed relationships. But don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
I miss you.
I know you didn't want me to go. You wanted to look for another resolution, a way for us to stay together. You believed you could help me. Fix me. Save me. For once, you were the optimist, trying to find light in circumstances mired by darkness. But this...corruption, it cannot be stopped. It has made a home inside of me, in a place I cannot reach, taunting me with its ever-growing presence.
What will become of me?
How much longer will there be a "me"?
One year, seven months, twenty-three days, four hours, twenty-one minutes, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four seconds since I last saw you.
The broken pieces that remain still search for solace. I dare to step outside, and am overtaken by the impossible smell of flowers against the air; the feeling of the August sun, somehow warm, even here; and the sharp blue of the sky, so distinct and yet so familiar, like love, like comfort, like home.