Feeling was the first sense to return. Feeling cold, feeling lonely, feeling like a stranger in my own body. Although all the needles and tubes and catheters had been removed from my body, I could still feel every entry point like tingly numb spots. Save for the horrendous entry, and likely exit, wounds from where Hojo shot me in a fit of madness seemed to be gone, replaced only by a feeling of emptiness where my heart once was. My arm slowly raised from its spot on the counter ay my side to touch my face. My skin felt warm and smooth although somehow foreign to my quaking fingers.
Laboriously, I opened my eyes and was met by blinding lights forcing them back shut again. Somehow along the line my sight had returned as well. Fortunately my other senses did not return with the same ferocity of my hearing. When Hojo took my heart, he must have replaced it with an insatiable monster. With every one of my new motions, the roaring would only get louder.
I attempted to find the floor with my hand and perhaps crawl to even the security of a corner, anything that would get me away from the blinding lights and the screaming demon in my mind. But the table was higher than I estimated and I went tumbling unceremoniously to the cracked tile floor. It felt almost as if something was nibbling away at my very ribcage. My endurance could no longer sustain it and I loosed the monster's cries, lifting my head and released a blood curdling scream. But even the voice I heard was not my own. It was the voice of the monstrosity that Hojo cursed me with. Once all air evacuated my lungs, I fell again to the cold floor. Unfortunately, my head had been the first thing to meet the frigid tiles, I realized as blood trickled across my vision.
All I wanted then was to escape. Escape back to that perfect moment before I rose above the waters of unconsciousness, before I was faced with this pain in my heart and this roaring demon in my brain. But somehow I knew unconsciousness would not come, not until I had found Hojo. Not until I made him pay for what he did to Lucretia…
!!!
Lucidity struck me like a ton of bricks; I must save Lucretia!
I immediately rose to my knees, forcing my body back under my control. But as I rose, I noted my head injury had pooled no blood on the unforgiving ground. My curiosity overtook me and I reached up to feel my forehead. Only instead of feeling blood, or even my own flesh, I instead felt… fabric. Strangely a blood red scarf had wrapped itself around my wounded head, healing my minor injury. I would have to contemplate that later. First and foremost, I knew I must find Lucretia.
When I finally located her, my perfect angel, the wind nearly left my lungs. She was lying on a bed in the upstairs bedroom of the mansion. The bed itself had been turned into a sort of impromptu hospital bed. All the tools to assist in labor were covered in gore and strewn randomly along the floor around the foot of the bed. Lucretia herself lay crying, her torso half turned to her side, her legs still strapped to the stirrups. Dr. Gast must have helped her deliver while Hojo had done his work on me. But how could he have been so heartless as to have forgotten about her?
"Vincent?" She croaked weakly.
Without hesitation, I dashed to her side. And with unnatural strength, I ripped the very straps from the bed, releasing her from their cold grip. Once released, she rolled on to her side, concealing her face from me.
"Oh, Lucretia, thank goodness you are OK."
It was then she finally turned her tear-streaked eyes up to me. At first, I suppose, I could not seen the full extent of damage done to this woman. Although there was not a mark on her, her pupils had turned red, clearly a mark of the Ancient Jenova, indeed the very center of their experiment, that they had injected into her during her now ended pregnancy. "Perhaps OK is not the word you should use."
"I was so afraid you had died."
"Death would have been a mercy." She then revealed she had a scalpel in her hand. My breath caught in my chest when she held the surgical knife to hers. "A mercy I shall be forever denied." I gasped as she raked it across her heart. But no blood ever fell; her flesh knitted itself back together right behind the blade. I stood dumbfounded as she did it several more times. Finally she decided it was a fruitless endeavor and dropped the blade to her lap.
"Come on, Lucretia, let's go find Professor Gast. Perhaps he can put things right." I gently placed my hand on her arm. "Perhaps he can put things back to normal."
With the swiftest motion I had ever seen, she reached over and grabbed my wrist. From under her grasp my skin, my flesh, my bones slowly, excruciatingly warped into a grotesque, yellow metal claw. She then stood, forcing me to my knees before her. "This is normal now, Vincent. All of this in the name of my life's work, in the name of science." She finally loosed her hand and I fell onto my back, grasping my arm. Her eyes glowed with tears and an almost gentle fury as she stared down at me. "I have done many things I am not proud of. I wish I had not let Hojo talk me so far into everything. But more than anything, I wish you had not gotten so involved." She reached down and grabbed me by the front of my shirt, effortlessly lifting me to my feet. "But I cannot allow you to compromise our experiment any further." Tears finally tumbled from her eyes as she buried the short blade in my chest, raking it from the cusp of my collar bone to the bottom of my heart.
A blood curdling scream escaped my lips as I felt my very life blood flow from my body. But once again, no blood pooled. Instead it wrapped itself protectively around me, wrapping around my whole body in a sickening black combat suit, around my feet in heavy metal boots, and finally around my shoulders, falling behind me in a floor-length blood red cape.
"So Jenova will not let you die either." I heard her say as she dropped me again to the floor. "I hate to do this to you, you are such a kind soul, but please understand. Perhaps you do not understand, but maybe someday someone will help you see all the good of our research." She raised her arm to take another stab at me. And all I could do was lay there helplessly, my body nearly devoid of all life giving blood.
But the blow never fell for another hand reached out and stole the blade from her hand. Through the very thinnest veil of consciousness, I watched Hojo take the scalpel and backhand her across the face, sending her tumbling against the bed. "You ignorant woman," He snapped, "First you allow that fool Gast to escape with our specimen then you nearly kill my second experiment. You are a lousy excuse for a scientist. Now get out of here while I clean this up."
She then ran from the room, her sobs echoing down the hall. All I could do was feebly reach my arm out for her. Hojo took my outstretched appendage as an invitation and stomped on my forearm, finally forcing me into unconsciousness.
I never blamed Lucretia for her actions, vicious as they were. She was under the influence of Hojo and whatever plans he had concocted. And perhaps she is right; maybe someday I will find someone who will show me the good in the experiment that stole the life and the death from the woman I love. But for now, all I can do is sleep. And in sleep, all I can do is dream of my sins…
I was hit with inspiration for this one a few months back at Anime Detour in Minneapolis. I realized that no one in that room had a decent explanation as to how Vincent got from Hojo's experimentation table (in his Turks outfit) to the coffin (in red and black) when the note said that Hojo put him there. The weirdest thing I see about this story is that I don't even like Vincent all that much. I used to but the more I see him getting over hyped by all these sequels, the less I like him. I mean, why does he get his own game when he was an optional character in the first place? He is very aestetically pleasing though I will say. Maybe it's just that I have a bias against any character that everyone else likes (ie Sauske [Naruto] or Yuki [Fruits Basket]) or maybe it's just that I'm completely psychotic and should stop rambling.
Do note that I do not own any of these characters (as much as I wish I did)...