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Overslept
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The first thing that alerted Vincent to the fact that something was off was the silence.
This might have been seen as quite a stupid reason because, hey, how much noise are you going to get in an old, dusty and forgotten mansion said to be haunted by the locals. Most of the monsters had been slain and slaughtered when a noisy, yet fierce group had wandered on through the soft, dust-padded halls, and the only remnants of them left were bloody smears and drops, a faint metallic smell of blood, and a rather stronger one of decomposition. You could, of course, barely smell it overtop of the musty, tomb-like smell that dripped onto everything from the tall, soaring open rafters of the attic, to the cold, slimy wet stone of the basement's flooring.
But for the single, breathing and yet not quite living individual that stubbornly refused to leave, there was barely ever any silence in this place. This house's memories were not yet forgotten in the book of this man's mind. No, for the scrawl was completely legible in his mind's eye, and it's medium of choice most often blood over ink. He hadn't had to read it to himself though, for the old ShinRa house did so for him, perhaps in some ironic twist of cruelty. Indeed, the soft, lonely silence that echoed through the mansion rose in pitch and volume, crackling from static, yet the voices that spoke in whispers and shouts were clear and comprehensible, as was the broken tune of the piano's, the very day it was played, all those years ago…
But this time silence swept in on him, soaking him through to the bone, sinking into his ears and nose, plugging his natural order to breath. It was cold, colder than the previous chill that had settled residence his body, mind, and soul. In fact, it was perfectly frigid, for icy needles poked all about him, the more sensitive skin like eyelids and lips slashed to ribbons, or at least it felt like it. For a moment he considered not moving, simply letting it continue its quick pace on its path to his lungs and then his heart. He wondered if silence could stop a man's heart. To kill. A certain ninja's voice came dancing on tiptoes through his mind, imagine what your tombstone would say, huh Vince: Vincent Valentine, rest in peace. A giggle floated in his mind, and though he knew she would probably never say such, the voice mocked him still: killed by the very thing he desired most. But he shakes his head, ignores the twitch of long-since-used muscles at the corners of his lips.
His final reaction was not the same as his decision, though he hadn't mentally made one yet. For with a gasp for air, lungs compressed and filled, a sudden, familiar presence took control of his limbs, and he found himself bursting through the hard wood of the coffin, somehow sturdy despite its years and wear. The pressure on top was amazing, crushing, so that once the wood broke into splinters he was somehow sucked back down in the bottom of the coffin. But Chaos wouldn't let him lie, even after all these years, and so with a burst of inhuman strength and will, Vincent swam towards air.
When his head broke the surface, his body had returned to its natural state, and he floundered in the cold about him. His body weak and exhausted (though he knew sleep would do nothing), he grabbed a board, perhaps from his coffin, which floated along the surface. His eyes had closed after Chaos had taken control, though that firs sight had been far too blurry and incomprehensive to understand, and so he let his forehead rest against the rough wood, trying to let his senses awaken from their fitful slumber.
It wasn't silent anymore, though the voices had stopped yes, but instead a rushing and crashing met his ears, though it was hard to distinguish beyond the sound of a heartbeat–his heartbeat– that beat in his ears. He was vaguely aware that a humid, almost salty scent had filled his nose, though the more important fact about it was that it smelled fresh, like true air. But he was much, much more aware of the cold, wetness that surrounded him, that splashed on his face.
It was water.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the ruins of a mansion, water rushing in and down to him in waterfalls. His mind turned to a blank slate for a few moments, spinning reason after reason as to why, though from where he was he could only decide on one: one of the rivers from the mountain had some how diverted from its path and tumbled down the steep mountain side, down onto the small town beneath. Looking around, he wondered what kind of state the rest of the place was in.
Paddling awkwardly, he managed to make it over to the stairs that wound up, and pulled himself up. Looking up, he could see straight through the three stories of the great ShinRa mansion, right up to the grey sky above. The stone flooring was so worn away in some places he was genuinely surprised he hadn't woken sooner from one cause or another. He skipped rickety stairs on his way up, seeking the gradually cooler and fresher air that leaked down above, as his increasing curiosity spurred his worn legs. Soon he made it to the top, finding himself in a drenched, old room, the hidden door in the bookcase obviously left open. He idly wondered if one of the crew had opened it, or if the lock had finally just rusted and broken. Despite this, he didn't bother to check, and instead walked over the sodden floorboards, being careful enough to test each step before putting his full weight on it.
The place was a mess. If it had been bad before, it looked like Yuffie had stolen Knights of the Round from Cloud and used the old house as a test-drive. There were holes in the walls everywhere, some small, while others positively huge; whole corners ripped off by who-knows-what. He caught glances of the grayed and desolate landscape beyond, but didn't think much of it, nor did he stop to look. Instead he climbed up, heading for one of the spires in the southwest corner of the mansion.
After a few minutes of careful trekking, he arrived in what had been the main hall of the mansion. What had once been an elegant, magnificent, marble-paved entrance long, long ago was now an open window out the front door, to what looked like…sea?
A hundred or so meters out down the slope of the land, he saw the shapes of what looked like bedraggled rooftops, splitting the rushing waves that sped towards him, leaving great smashes of discolored white to shock his vision. But that wasn't what made his eyes widen to their full extent–it was the great, endless blur of moving water. Full and flowing out and over the horizon, the only sign of civilization smudges and bumps on the darkened horizon.
The first emotions that swept through Vincent Valentine that day he woke up, were of fear, absolute horror, and an acute sense of loss. All curdled at the bottom of his churning stomach, mirroring the sea below, as he wondered at the irony fate had proved existed, time and time again. Yuffie, although wasted away to mere fragments of bones, had in her own way finally woken him, this times through her own Leviathan. And though she had finally succeeded, one thing was painfully so obvious:
He had overslept.
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AN/: Well, how'd you like it? Got the idea from a random fic I was reading…can't remember which exactly, but oh well.
The idea was, obviously, he went back to his coffin for some unknown reason after the Meteor crisis, and ended up sleeping for a very, very, long time. He wakes up after the world has completely changed, partly from pollution, damaged ozone/Lifestream, and melting snowcaps in the Nibel Mountains helping the rising sea levels. But I felt this was getting too long and wordy, so I didn't include any of that in the actual writing.
Oh! The inspiration, I just remembered, came from "The Final Jerusalem", a Vincent-based fic, where he oversleeps. I stopped reading it for a moment, but now that I'm done this, I really should go back and read it…
A few mentions of Yuffie in here, to remind you that he does remember and still cares about our adorable AVALANCHE group, which brings the feelings at the end. And because I just got back into my OTP fandom again
Good to be writing again.