What Happiness Is
Hey.
The Voice echoed, abruptly creating the distinction between empty nothingness and something, as its living, vital presence lit up something that he now recognised as being a featureless, lightless, timeless void. Acknowledgement of this prehistoric fact prompted understanding of others, facts cascading into his brain like so much water; the knowledge of light, warmth, and a pair of endlessly laughing violet eyes.
Hey, are you okay?
Odd. The Voice seemed to be male, uncertainly high/low pitched in the way that was unique to late-adolescent males. Still, what a inane question for the Voice to ask – how was he supposed to respond when he had no idea what okay was, had no frame of reference, nothing to measure his current status against in order to correctly classify his feelings. It was a fluid question, heavy with abstract concepts and a preordained balance between physical and mental health. Something in the achingly vulnerable tone of the Voice begged him to answer, and answer true; so, after pondering all possible repercussions of various answer, he responded with a simple
Yes.
At his words, the void brightened. Light-blind eyes blinked until they became accustomed to the faint light of a withering snake of poison-green energy. Within seconds his addled mind accepted the snake, accepting that it had always been his companion in this little islet of time, and indeed, it was as though he could no longer remember a time when it had not simply been there.
Where are you?
The Voice distracted him from the everlasting play of lightshadowsouls contained in the green. As he processed the words, he realised that he had heard them before, innumerable times. A doll-like blond had screamed them at him as the doll's hometown had burned at his back, fire a senseless violence against the solemn purity of the snow, as heart wrenching as rape, and, a rape in its own way.
Where … am I?
The concept was undeniably foreign; almost too much for his sluggish mind to comprehend.
I have not always been here?
He noticed, with clinical detachment, that an almost plaintive note had crept into his voice, and, if the over-hasty reassurances of the Voice were anything to go by, he had too.
No. You don't remember?
Ah. That one word explained everything. He did not want
No. I do not.
to remember anything. He had noted the broken-hearted, unadulterated pain in the little blond's voice; it was ample warning about emotional attachments to the past. Besides, the Voice was clearly
Traitorous….
worried about nothing. He was safe here, here where the ravenous voice of Mother could never fully reach him, even if her remnants did echo within him on occasion. Mother, eternally voracious in her need for physical embodiment, could never exist in the confines of his little islet in time. The green brightened as the Voice, stripped of the playful tone that had buffeted him from the full impact of its words, said
Why?
With that one, heart-rending word, time rose up around him like a vengeful tsunami. It battered against him like storm waters over a particularly stubborn rock, flooding him, mind, body, and soul, with memories upon memories. He remembered now. He remembered everything; remembered the endless, bouncy, excitable warmth of a boy-SOLIDER, like being bowled over by an oversized, exuberant puppy; remembered unruly spiked hair and steady violet eyes as everything went to hell around them; remembered spending countless hours with Fair … Zachary … Zack, speaking of nothing but the reassurance that everything of importance was being said. The oceans of time rose and crashed around him, waves driven to storm-fury as Mother shrieked in impotent fury as Her favoured Son remembered what it was like to be human, and trembled at the magnitude.
Zack…He remembered Zack now. Remembered how Zack had begun to blend into ZackandCloud, the little blond taking a shy liking to the bigger, country child after Zack had saved the blond from a group of young men intent on taking their losses out on innocent bystanders. He remembered how summer-sky-blue eyes would stare at him when he looked away, silently overawed by his presence as Zack snuck an arm around each of them, herding them off to any one of a million place above and below the Plate. Remembered being able to communicate with the too-clumsy, too-heavy burden of words. Remembered staring at the few stars visible through the dense layers of smog and pollution that choked Midgar on any given day, Zack a constant murmur at his side as he told them the folk stories behind each constellation, and promising to take them star gazing when they went home with him on leave, for of course he intended to introduce them to his parents, how could he have though otherwise?
He remembered, and he wept for his loss, even as Mother's voice grew to fever heights in his time-ravaged mind, and Zack's voice called out desperately from the past.
He remembered, and gladly let Time drown his as punishment for his sins, for his failure to save either of them.