Turn your Back on the Mountain
by Mariye
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Disclaimer: I don't own any FF8 character. The poem is one my friend wrote and had published in our school literary magazine 2 years ago. For some reason I always remembered the last 11 lines, and I just ended up writing this story based on them.
BTW: This is an alternate reality fic (sort of) and it takes place before the guy you think it is ever enters Garden.
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No one said it was easy.
So forever dry your eyes and always null that pain and
continue to drill those emotions back where they came
because where they came is now as cold, and rough, and
burdensome as the mountain itself.
So
In your right hand a razor,
eyes fixed toward new lands
you turn your back on the mountain,
so long forgotten,
and take it like a man.
- Ramah-David Malebranche (exerpt from Take it Like a Man)
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He sat on the ruined stone steps outside an old stone house. Everything was dark, cold, harsh.
Like his heart.
He was always alone, he understood that now.
Even when this place had been warm and comforting and filled with the sounds of running, laughing, happy children.
He had always been alone.
He was the one always standing on the stone steps. Always whining about the family... the sister... who had left him here so many years ago.
Even in the foster homes with the doting parents trying to coax the poor little boy out of his shell, he was alone.
And since he was alone, nothing mattered to him.
He learned long ago that if you hardened your heart and mind, made it as cold as the cast iron metal that made up the gates that now stood in front of him, that nothing could ever reach you again.
It didn't matter when he was tormented endlessly by an annoying brat with blinding white hair and ice blue eyes. It wasn't the boys fault. He was doing what came naturally. The boy was just attacking someone he saw as different.
Children always know when someone is different.
They can sense it in their blood.
And even more, they can sense when someone is truely not right. When they have pushed aside any emotions, thoughts, and dreams they may have had.
That makes them torment the odd one even more.
But by then it doesn't matter.
He slowly rose to his feet.
By then the odd one has come to a point where nothing can phase him, and the only things he can hear are his own endless thoughts.
He looks at the dagger in his right hand.
He had always been told he had endless possibilities.
Everytime he came back here, the Matron had told him so.
So many times that the words had lost meaning.
"Your life, your future, all the challenges you could ever face, are like a huge mountain. It always stands right before you. And one day, when you're old enough, the time will come for you to face that mountain. And you will climb. Now it won't be easy. I won't lie to you and tell you it will be, but it will be worth it. You'll reach the top and find everything you had ever hoped for."
He could still hear her voice in this place, in every nook and cranny. But he shut it all out, like he had learned to do years ago.
One day he had asked her what the alternative to the mountain was. If he didn't want to face that, then what would he face.
"Nothing. Oblivion. Endless lands of darkness. Don't even talk like that."
But now he had come to a point where nothingness looked so inviting. So tempting.
He looked down at the knife.
Now was the time. He had to decide.
So he thought back one last time. Back to when he had dreams and aspirations, and hope.
And then he slashed the knife across his wrists and collapsed to the ground.
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[the end]