Swallow The Knife
A FFX fanfiction
3PockyAlmond

Hello all! This is my first FFX fanfic, and it's a bit weak. It's AU(sorta, although not realli O.o; ) and bizarre and boring. Yey. If I get lots of reviews, that usually makes me want to continue, so if you like it... Refer it to your friends or something?? O.o;;

Snuggling against the cold, dirty ground, I wipe the almost nonexistent sleep from my eyes.

Sleep really isn't a word used much around here. It's hard to sleep in a place like this. With the painful screams of other prisoners being beat half to death, and the mournful cries of young women being violated and abused by their male cellmates, sometimes it's hard just to be here.

…But we really don't have much of a choice…

But still, even with all of the pain all around us, I look at my blonde haired compainion, sleeping contentedly, snoring softly.

I smiled slightly when she mewed in her sleep, and cuddled closer into the damp wall. I turn my head to look at my older cellmate. His eyes are open, staring at the door, and he shifts his gaze to me.

"You're awake." His raspy voice croaked in my direction. He squinted a bit when I nodded.

I knew he could barely see me. He was getting old, and besides, there really isn't much light to work with here. A few dim lamps hung between the cells, only providing enough light to barely see the other side of our small cell. Also, there was a large crack in the wall, that let light in from the outside world. Many times Rikku and I had tried to further break it apart.

"We're gonna get outta here, Tidus." She would always say. "We've just gotta."

Rikku is Al Bhed. She's fifteen years old, two years younger than myself. We've known each other for about eight years. When I was nine, her mother found me wandering around in the desert. I didn't remember who I was, where I had came from, none of that stuff.

Rikku had always been around me. Even when the Yevonites took us from our Home, she made me promise that I'd never leave her.

I don't really know much about Auron, my other cellmate. He's generally quiet, hardly ever moving from his spot against the wall.

He's been here for ten years. He's given up all hope. He says that hope is a false concept.

Still, I hoped that someday we'd get out of here.

The door opened, artificial light flooded into the room. There was a clank of keys, and the large iron bar door that kept us from the outside world creaked open.

The tall guard grunted as he flung a large object into our cell. It plowed into me. He turned and laughed, slamming the door shut. My teeth ground together from the screaming of the metal rubbing together.

Rikku shot up. "What happened, Tidus?" She rubbed her eyes sleepily, looking to the body lying upside down in my lap.

I turned it around, and looked at its face. It was a girl, and from what the dim light revealed to me, she was pretty.

"Hey, hey wake up" I whisper, shaking her shoulders gently. Rikku appears at my side.

"Wow, they must have knocked her out good." I nod.

"Lay her down and let her sleep." Auron says simply. I comply, laying her gently on the ground.

She's wearing pretty clothes. A white dress and soft white leather boots, all with colorful, intricate designs on them. That's a big contrast to the rags we dare call clothes. Rikku stares on in awe.

"Wow, maybe she's a princess or something."

"I doubt it." I say thoughtfully, "Or else she wouldn't be in here." Rikku looks down.

"I guess you're right…"

"You two. Go to sleep now. We can talk about this in the morning." Auron barks, and we automatically go to our corners of the room.

"What's wrong with you?" I heard myself say, even though my thoughts were with the girl lying in front of me.

"Shut up and sleep."

"Fine, fine." I mutter, laying my head against the wall. I struggle to go to sleep, but my mind—and my eyes, keeps wandering to my new companion. It's strange how I'm so… intrigued, so infatuated with her.

I reluctantly let sleep overtake me, the last thing I heard being her gentle breathing.

I'm running. I'm running, and my legs hurt and burn. I'm desperately trying to figure out why the hell I'm running, but my mind is completely blank. I can't see anything; I'm enveloped in darkness. But I can hear myself breathing unevenly, and my heartbeat throbbing in my head. It feels so hot, and I'm soaked.

And then I hear someone calling to me. Except, it's not my name.

"Shuyin, Shuyin…" The voice femininely calls, almost in a whisper.

I freeze in my tracks, looking around. All I see is darkness. Nothing, a void, just…painful darkness.

"…Lenne…" I whisper, tears coming to my eyes.

Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my side. And then another one.

"Fyga ib, oui pis!" The voice sounds strange, but I can tell it's Rikku, and she's kicking me.

"E cyet fyga ib, tysh ed!" She shouts. I hastily sit up, barely dodging her foot.

"What is it? What the hell do you want?" I whine, scratching the back of my head.

"You were crying." She says, sitting down next to me. "Was it…"

I nod, somewhat reluctant about this touchy subject. "Yeah…" Rikku drapes her arm around my shoulder.

"It'll be okay, don't worry, 'kay?" I nod.

Then I remember the new girl. I look around for her.

"She's gone. They took her this morning. Took her to see Maester Seymour." Rikku says. "You missed her, though. She was awake and talking. Her name's Yuna. She's real nice." Rikku says, standing up to stretch. "You'll get to meet her when she comes back."

I wanted to remind her how once they take you out of here, you never get to come back. You never have that luxury. They usually take you to the monster arena and make you fight until you die, with all of the other prisoners watching. Or sometimes they just kill you. They'll cut you, and let you bleed out until you rot. Then they feed you to the fiends. It all depends on what mood Kinoc's in at the time.

I wanted to remind her, but I didn't. I knew that she knew. She didn't want to know, but she did. We all did. That's just part of our reality.

We sat in silence for the longest time. Auron sneezed.

"Bless you." A weak murmur resounded through the room. Mostly women and children.

"I wonder when she'll get back…" Rikku looked to the crack in the wall. "The sun's almost gone down." She paced.

"She'll be back soon." Auron states blandly

"But Auron—" I begin.

"They won't kill her. She's too valuable. Seymour'd have to be stupid to do that."

Seymour is stupid, I thought.

"…Huh?" Rikku says inquisitively.

"She's got power. A summoner, and a noble. Daughter of High Summoner Braska." He stands.

"And how do you know all of this?" I ask.

"That's none of your business, boy." He scoffs. I snort.

The big door creaks open. She saunters in, followed by several warrior monks, who all have their machina guns pointed at her back. They unlock the cage, and she walks gently into the cell. I can't even hear her footsteps. And her face, hard and emotionless. Eyes. Beautiful eyes, one green and one blue. One of the monks slams the door, and she flinches as the air hits her bare arms. She gracefully sits down in front of the gate.

Rikku rushes over to her. "Are you all right?" she fusses over her.

"I'm fine, thank you." Yuna smiles, she has a pretty smile. Her two-tone eyes shift in my direction, and her smile broadens. "Hi."

"Hi…" I mutter, a blush creeping over my cheeks. I look down. I hope she can't see me…

"Wh… Did I say something?" Rikku giggles.

"No, he just likes you a lot. A lot a lot." I withdraw even more, hiding my face in my hands, cheeks flaming with embarrassment.

"Oh…" Yuna says. I can almost hear the smile in her voice. "Well, I think it's kind of cute."

"I hate you, Rikku." I mumble.

"I love you too, honey." She taunts. I uncover my face to shoot a glare at her. Thankfully, it's regained most of it's normal color.

Yuna smiles warmly at me, and then her face turns serious.

"You guys are… Al Bhed, right?" She asks. Before I can say anything, Rikku answers.

"Yeah, we're Al Bhed."

"Do you… Do you know anyone named Cid?"

Cid… Cid's Rikku's dad!

"Yea—"

"Nope. Never heard of him. Why?" Rikku interjects. I give her a questioning look.

"Well, my mother is an Al Bhed. She… separated from her family when her and my father married. But before she died, she told me that if I ever needed any help, any help at all, to find her brother, Cid, my uncle."

"Whelp, never heard of him. Sorry." I look at her again. She winks at me.

I'll have to ask her about it later I think to myself.

Days pass by. Yuna doesn't talk much. She constantly seems on the lookout for warrior monks. She hasn't slept in days. I still haven't asked Rikku why she lied to Yuna. I honestly have no clue.

Auron seems to be moving slower. Well, slower than before. He seems to have gotten a lot older in these past few days, he's been really short with us. Kind of annoying, really.

Every night when they brong us our food, Yuna seems nervous. Like theu're gonna take her away or something.

Tonight was no different. When she heard the keys clanking against the barricaded door, she scooted further into the cell, closer to me. She eyed the door nervously.

"What's wrong?" I ask. She looks at me.

"N-nothing, why?" She says.

"Well… No reason. Don't worry about it." I say, looking down. She looks back to the door.

The guard comes in, pushing a cart with large bowls of some horrible type of food.

But somehow, it actually tasted good. Maybe that's just because we were so hungry.

He stopped at our cell first. He unlocked the door, and set four bowls into our cell, filling them up with the rancid oatmeal.

But something different happened today. Along with the oatmeal, a small shiny object fell with a clunk into Yuna's bowl. I saw something in her eyes flicker, and the young guard winked at her. She smiled and weakly bowed.

We ate our food quietly as the guard finished distributing the others' food.

"Yuna, what was that that guard gave you?" I asked after he was gone.

Instead of saying anything, she pulls a small brass key out and shows it to me.

"I've got a key. Now we can get out of here!"

Huzzah! There it is, what do you think? Well, you can flame me if you want, but I already know it sucks. So RR, and I'll be back (hopefully) very soon with chapter two of Swallow The Knife.

Thank you for reading 3