Love and reason keep little company nowadays.
-A Midsummer Night's Dream
Elena woke up in a cold sweat.
She couldn't see at all. Everything was pitch black upon black, looming around and over her like a menacing cloud of foreboding. Yet…she could hear the birds outside her window, chirping, as they always did, irritatingly mocking her own dreariness and gray demeanor. But now…it must be morning. Everything about the sounds she heard indicated the break of day, as she'd listened to it so many times. She could smell the sun-warmed scent of the outdoors through her open window. But the world was still black.
Rubbing her closed eyes with her fists, she blinked into the endless darkness, but it did not give or ebb away. Elena slid unceremoniously out of bed, crawling on hands and knees near what she knew to be her small cot. She met the displaced, mildly fuzzy coverlet with her searching hands, and held it to her face, suddenly frightened of the fear. She, Elena, ex-Turk, could not fear. She could not be afraid.
She groped for the light switch on the wall of her tiny apartment, knowing where it was from having fumbled to find it in the middle of the night for three years. When her fingers connected with it, she flipped it, and then closed her eyes, expecting to have to grow accustomed to the blinding light that would so contrast the darkness that she saw, and knew, and felt. But when she slowly blinked them open, there was nothing. And then she began to worry.
Numbly confused, she sat down on the cot again, bumping her arm into the bedside lamp. Futilely, she tried flipping it on and off, but it provided no cercise from the black. Was she blinded then? By what? She blinked frantically, rubbing and clawing at her apparently useless eyes until they were red and irritated from the procedure. Squeezing out one solitary tear, she tracked it's passage down her cheek with a forefinger, her mind toiling to take in this new development, this new impediment to her livelihood.
But then, she thought, what does it really matter? Ever since The End, I've been gone. In her mind, she called it that, because it had ended everything. The flames still flickered in the back of her now sightless eyes, seeing through her mind and memories. Somewhere, the will to get up every morning still lingered, and the desire to eat, and walk, and live remained. But was she really living? Elena debated the concept with herself. How long had it been since she had laughed? Since she had loved? So this loss of sight, compared to the loss of true life, seemed of little significance.
Still…perhaps it would pass? She hoped so, suddenly wanting very much to see the sunrise outside her window, a sight she had viewed with little interest for three years, day in, day out. Walking to the sink, arms outstretched in front of her, she splashed water over her face, but it produced no results. Well, there it was, then. She couldn't see. For how long it would last, she didn't know. Sagging back down onto her bed, she buried her face in her hands. Doesn't really matter, she thought. I might as well go back to sleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
It only really hit her when she woke again, and couldn't tell what time of day it was. She beat at her face with her hands, until her eyes threatened to burst forth. She couldn't see, couldn't know, couldn't move, couldn't go out into the streets because she wouldn't be able to tell, wouldn't know. Rocking back and forth on the bed, she shook her head back and forth, asking why, and how, and if she really deserved it. What had she ever done? But that was a stupid question, she knew, even to ask of herself. She knew what she'd done. She'd killed, she'd ravaged, and she'd been proud of it. She still was, in a way. It had been her life, her glory, her time to shine. She had been one of the Turks, the elite, the feared, and the known.
Now…now she was just the woman who lived upstairs, whom the little children ran away from. It had only been three years…but it felt like forever, like decades decay, rotting away in the highest room of the tallest tower, waiting for her prince to come and find her. That was one thing her mother had always warned her about, she randomly recalled. Never wait for the prince on his shining horse. She could do it all herself, she'd never need a man's assistance. And she'd held up her mother's faith, to some degree.
But she'd had her princes. And they'd been fine ones, too…the best friends anyone could have. They'd had their fights, the four of them, sure. But how could anyone, living together, fighting together, growing together, have hated? They'd grown into one being, one predictable heart, and then Tseng had died…it had all gone downhill from there. Those others had gotten involved, and Rufus Shinra…he'd wanted too much, too fast, had stretched them too far. He got his just deserts. But Reno and Rude hadn't deserved it. She hadn't even seem them go down…and then the building was burning to the ground, and she was alone. She'd been alone, always alone, for three years.
Her mother was right. You couldn't rely on the princes. But she missed them, all the same. Crawling out of bed, she crumpled to the floor, lying spread-eagled on her battered carpet, facing the ceiling. She wondered, briefly, if perhaps this was her own punishment, this isolation, this solitary confinement within walls, and within herself. But she couldn't go out, because people still knew, and hated, and hated, hating so much that it consumed them like the frustration was consuming her. The Heroes ran the world, now. They thought they'd saved everyone. No, she was trapped in this quiet little building, on this quiet little street, where no one knew her, because no one had taken the time to care.
And she was so very, very tired.
(Yes, this was short. Don't worry, it's only the Prologue. J)