Like many fellow FFVI fans out there, I wanted to write something about the deterioration of Kefka's sanity, and this is what I came up with. I will admit, this story can be a bit…disturbing, so just a word of warning. (It makes me worry about my own sanity a little, the kinds of things I've been writing lately.)

And the characters and all that are property of Square, while many ideas also come from the unofficial, so-called FFVI Ultimania, which had a backstory for Kefka that I thought was canon until I recently found out that, well, it wasn't. Nevertheless, I liked it so much that I still use it, and I want to give credit to whoever came up with it, as well.

Let's Destroy Everything

Kefka felt the stirrings of something deeply wrong the day he was first injected with the essence of an Esper, but by the time such a thing came to his attention, it was too late to turn back. He had volunteered; Dr. Cid had not forced it upon him, but had reminded him, nevertheless, that once the process got started, it couldn't be reversed. He would proceed no further with the experiments if Kefka wished it, but what damage was done was done. He had never said those words, not so bluntly, but that didn't mean it wasn't so.

The damage was done.

Cid asked him if he was all right once the first batch of testing was done and Kefka was released from his restraints. He was pale and in a cold sweat, but he insisted that he was fine. He wasn't fine, but science had its risks. He knew this.

But, he wasn't all right.

Whispers began in his head, like an unfelt breeze that was only known by the stirrings of a curtain, and even if he had been honest with Cid, what would he say? The tests continued, as painful as ever, but the pain faded eventually. Not the whispers, though, breathy whispers that had made him look about until he found they came from inside his head, where there was nowhere he could go that they wouldn't follow. And then he started to be woken up by noises even harder to ignore, that would emerge from the shadowy and mysterious place his mind had been as of late, only there for a second before withdrawing, and he couldn't be sure what they were, but they sounded like voices, distant echoes of groaning and crying, and he couldn't get to sleep again as he waited and listened for when he would hear them next.

Cid had to repeat his inquiries as to his wellbeing because, even once the next day's testing had ended, he was still listening for them. And he didn't think Cid believed that he was okay anymore. And now the voices, because that was the only thing they could be, had gotten louder, since becoming screams and words, and they asked him things, questions he, too, wished he had an answer for, and he broke down into tears more than once. Once he felt them running hot down his face, only then did he know the crying was his and not theirs. It wasn't until Cid started shaking him that he knew the screams were his, too, but he didn't know what he was screaming at. That wasn't a lie, when he told Cid this. He could've been screaming at any number of things.

And he found quickly that responding to the voices was a mistake, for though they asked many questions, calling to nothing and receiving no answers, giving them these answers only brought more questions, and he couldn't tell them so easily who he was when they asked because he wasn't so sure himself anymore. He didn't know how to respond to the accusations, either.

It became even more important to hide the conversations he had set in motion once Cid gave into his care the little half-Esper girl they had once studied together. Apparently he had been better at hiding than he thought because Cid seemed to think he was far more fit for such a task than he really was. He knew nothing about raising a child, and he couldn't say how much time he could devote to her when his mind was filled with problems he and he alone had to deal with.

Nevertheless, once they had known each other for long enough, he was more or less certain that she loved him, though he couldn't say why when he wasn't always there to pay much mind to her, whether he was present or not. But, he knew he loved her. And he thought they were happy together when he could get his mind focused on her, and he didn't think she could always tell when it wasn't. In fact, he thought many good things happened in those years, and he remembered her grinning up at him one day in particular, only to find himself, the very next moment, standing in his sitting room in the middle of the night, with no recollection of how he had gotten there or what time it was or, whatever the time, why he was even up at this hour.

And Terra was grown already, a teenager, which was certainly far older than she was just the other day, and he couldn't ask her what it was that had gone on in all that time, nor could he be sure how many birthdays had passed that he could no longer recall, two each year between the both of them, of course, but he could be certain of little else.

He remembered seeing her smile less, but not why, and he remembered a time when he hit her, and maybe that explained where her smiles had gone, but that still didn't tell him why he had done that, either. He thought he had apologized. He heard it through the voices, he thought, through the blame they wanted to put on him, but it was none of their business what he had done, and they were one to talk, when it probably had something to do with them.

He was brought to the lab, not of his own free will, he believed, one of the days that followed, and in between sedatives, he remembered fire and laughter, even when there was little funny about being bound and jabbed with needles to put him to sleep. And when he would lay still for long enough, he was told that not all of the soldiers he had attacked had survived. Now that was funny. He had laughed hard enough, at least. And so was watching Cid clamber about as he tried to escape Kefka's cell backwards after he had screamed at the fool for what had been done to him, because he was quite certain it was that idiot's fault that his memories had wasted away, and he was surely to blame, as well, for the fact that he was no longer the General of the Imperial army. Cid had destroyed his life. He hated that man. He hated…

Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate…

Kefka paints his face white when he's returned home. It's not like he has anything better to do. He's not allowed to leave unless he has work, and he hardly cares to leave for that, either, when his rightful position has been given to a pinhead named Leo.

He'll kill that man one day.

A girl lives with him, a girl named Terra. She tells him often that she loves him. Apparently, they've known each other for a while. The voices confirm this, but he can't be bothered with them right now when he has more important things to devote his attention to. He was still not satisfied with his new appearance, one thing that no one could take from him. He paints on a red smile, for all the times he can't maintain such an expression by his own strength. That was much better.

His smile wasn't enough to prevent Terra from starting to avoid him, however, and as bothersome as she could be with her reminders of things he never recalled happening and the affection he didn't care to put effort into returning, he knew very well how dangerous those that fear you are. Fear made people unpredictable, and Terra wasn't like other people. She was born with the ability to use magic, while he was not. Her powers were real; his were not. And he had no need of that reminder, either.

But, she's gone now, sent away on some errand for the Emperor with her new slave crown to keep her obedient. His peace is still so very far away, however, when the Espers screaming in his head are the one thing he can't ever rid himself of. His floor mirror is the first thing that comes to mind, and glass cascades down its frame when he strikes it, creating a thousand-fold reflections of someone he doesn't recognize, but is the only man he's ever known. He stands there and pants, and when he looks down, he finds his white, painted hands dripping red from the shards embedded in them.

He destroys countless other things, but it only brings a temporary relief, and he is hot once it's done, with all his many layers of clothing and the heat of the fireplace, but he needed that to throw his dolls into before the sting in his bleeding hands prevented him from torching anymore. And now he was sitting on the floor. He could tug the glass out of his hands later. Or make Cid do it. He hadn't terrorized that numbskull lately, and such a visit was long past due.

Kefka breathed heavily, and he thought he would need to reapply his makeup later. And now that the room was quiet again, the voices resumed, the voices of the very Espers who had given him his ability to wield magic, but had also ravaged his mind. Everything in life he had ever enjoyed had been snatched from him. The Espers and Cid and Leo, and he, too, he supposed, had destroyed it all. If he had known that everything would be taken from him one day, he wouldn't have tried so hard to hold onto it.

It was all wasted effort, if everything he had ever cared for was only destined to be destroyed in the end, and it wouldn't surprise him if the same fate awaited all things. Surely the entire world was destined for destruction one day. Why would it be any different? And he couldn't fight with those blasted Espers anymore, not when they seemed to be the only thing he was incapable of destroying.

Kefka released a quiet chuckle. In that case, we'll do it together, just you and me.

Let's destroy everything.

I seem to have an unhealthy obsession with the tragic side of Kefka. And I also seem to be in a strange mood for writing depressing stuff lately. Anyway, I really wanted to take a look into Kefka's terribly twisted mind, and I hope you enjoyed my story, even if I must admit that it's rather distressing. I always thought that it was rather possible that the Esper(s) Kefka was infused with could've possibly been able to speak to him and may've been aware of what's been done to them and didn't want to be in his head anymore than he wanted them there. Yeah, I'm weird….

My goodness, there's not something wrong with me, though, is there? Well, no matter. Please review, dear readers.