Angel Fallen
A Final Fantasy VII Side Story
By Chadwick V. Simmons
Darkness drifts like soot blackened snow. All is darkness, inky black in varied hues. The gentle murmur on tortured souls echoes muted in the background. The sickly wet splatter of demon talons rending flesh pierces the haze like the beating of a giant ruptured heart. All is dark, cold, and horrid. All is burning pain and dull ache.
Thoughts form out of a consciousness that is barely coherent. Vague thoughts, full of dull colorless images from someone's life, a life lived a thousand lifetimes ago, or so it seems at least.
What…what is this…who am I? Do I live…do I exist? Is this hell?
Rational thoughts begin to fade away once again. After all, if this is death what use is there for thought? What use is remembrance of something too far lost to ever hold again.
Yes child sleep…sleep eternal, for you need not fear the turmoil and struggles of life any longer. The deep slithering voice of doom and darkness pours like chill water full of fetid slimy filth. You need not concern yourself with the world of mortals any longer. You are a twilight child now, adrift in the limbo between life and death. Fear not for it shan't last forever. Come; come with me to a place of warmth, a place of fire. Offer up your very soul, entrust it to me. Let me be thy keeper, trust in me for I am the end of all and all comes eventually to me…
Tempting, so tempting this offer. To escape this pain, to escape this fog of memory, this dull ache of an unfulfilled life. Why struggle anymore, what would it matter? This is the end of all things after all; all things come to this. There is no use clinging to the threads of shattered hope; the vapor of lost dreams.
Listen not to this uncouth beast. Sweet like mead, like the touch of a gentle lover, comes the voice of light and love. There in the darkness looms a beacon. The silvery glow of and angel's wings sweeps through the hues of pitch. He speaks with the voice of despair and hate. Go not with the unholy one to his dark land of fire and misery, of shattered hope and lost dreams. Come with me child, for I am the mother of all. All things are born of me and all things good to me shall return.
Yet another tempting offer, too much for this little girl's mind to comprehend. Both better that this empty limbo. Or both lies? Who can say? What does it matter to one grown so weary? Perhaps oblivion would be sweeter still, an end to shattered hope, a balm for lost dreams. Perhaps it would be best to just fade away.
No sweet child, you mustn't. There is much love, much life left in you. Succumb not to this numbness, succumb not to the words of the serpent lord. My power grows weak sweet child, weak with all your doubt. Soon I can do no more for you. Sorrow, and longing echo in the voice of mother, the silvery angel wings grow dim.
No dark child, you mustn't listen to the lies of the mother. She is no angel. She created all, both the light and the dark. Her essence will ever be tainted by her capricious nature. Come dark child, ride the currents of the Styx with me. Surrender to sweet oblivion, for all you have loved is lost and can never again be. Smug and brutally wounding drips the venom of the serpent lord's words. A battle well fought and well won. The mother has no hold on the soul of this innocent little girl. The darkness deepens, the shades of night merge into one.
No serpent lord, you'll not have her sweet soul. With the last of my power I will save her. If she will not be mine then she will not be yours either. I am the mother of all, the creator of all, and thus I shall recreate. Mother's voice holds the keen kiss of steel, the smoldering inferno of volcanoes erupting. Open your eyes sweet child of light. Open them and see your life as it was, remember and return there.
I cannot, mother. I will not. I no longer wish to bear the pain of shattered hope, the ache of lost dreams. I no longer have anything to go back to. I am sorry mother, but there is nothing there for me now. Oblivion beckons the girl, and the waters of the Styx rise up to engulf her.
But you do, sweet child, you do. Open your eyes and remember him, his sparkling blue eyes…
A psychic gasp echoes through the void, pushes back the waters of the Styx. One word, one name fills the void despair has left. And with that name comes a flood of love and hope. With that name the dam of memory breaks.
The little girl feels warmth for the first time in what seems an eon, the warmth of the earthly waters upon which she floats. And from her ruby lips comes a voice gentle and harmonious, sweet and sighing like the summer breeze dancing through a field of wildflowers. With that voice she speaks but one word, but one name, the name that has restored her hope and dreams, and brought her back from the very brink of oblivion.
"Cloud…"