DISCLAIMER: I don't own final fantasy 8
I revised it.
10 years previous
"What the hell is going on here?!"
He looked around, his features strangely calm, even though he'd been caught in the act.
"Cid, Cid, Cid. I wouldn't expect you to understand." he replied, shaking his head sadly.
"This is the end. I'm calling the cops." said Cid, reaching for the phone on the wall. He'd hardly started dialling, when something cold was put against his neck.
"Put the phone down." he said calmly. Reluctantly, Cid complied.
"Put up your arms, and turn around." again, Cid did as he was told, glaring hatefully at the person across the room.
"Such a shame it has to end like this. I was always quite fond you." he said remorsefully, pacing closer to Cid, until they were nearly touching.
"The dead can't speak, and can't return. I'm sorry Cid, but you won't be returning" he whispered, then he thrust the cold metal into Cid's chest. Eyes widened in shock, Cid watched his own blood stain his white coat, crimson blooming like a grotesque flower. He fell to his knees. The metal was pulled out and plunged in, again and again, until the coat was no longer white at all.
Crimson stained his hands, and made a puddle on the ground. The only sound in the room was the steady tone of a monitor, hooked up to a person whose heart was no longer beating, and more crimson dripping off the sharp blade into the linoleum. He sighed.
"Oh dear. Look at the mess I've made ..." he said, smiling faintly.
(o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o)
Rinoa sat at her desk, twirling her pen, and resting her head lazily against her elbow. The summer heat was stifling, casting students and teachers alike into a stupefied haze.
Miss Trepe gave up trying to force her students to learn after the first five minutes. It was obvious that they weren't going to concentrate last period on a Friday, so she (wisely) gave up, and changed tactic.
"I'm handing out your term assessments now. You're all randomly paired up, with different focus topics. For the rest of the lesson you can locate your partner, the person who has the same topic as you, and then start planning your approach." Miss Trepe paused, placing a sheet on Rinoa's desk, then like a dam breaking, chatter broke out, as the students realised they'd been given freedom.
Rinoa's eyes skimmed over her sheet: "'The unsolved murder of Cid Krammer.' Hmm ... sounds interesting enough ..." she thought.
"And please, try to keep your voices down. I expect civil behaviour from senior students." yelled Miss Trepe over the din that had been getting steadily louder as she passed out the last of the sheets.
"If anyone has any questions I'll be in the resource room ..." said Miss Trepe, closing the door behind her, though her students were no longer listening.
The room was filled with groans and excited squeals as the students found out their topics, or partner.
"Hey Rinoa what's your topic? I got 'The timber constitutional land reformation .' I'm fully gonna fail. I have no clue what that even is." said a boy sitting on Rinoa's right. He stared down at his sheet with a bewildered look on his face, scrunching up the elaborate curved tattoo on the side of his face.
"You always say that Zell. Then you pass." replied Rinoa smiling.
"Yeah I spose ... but always only just! Aw man, are you not my partner?" said Zell grimly, running a hand through his cropped blonde hair.
"No Zell."
"This sucks. I was hoping I'd get a really smart one. Might have a chance that way. What did you get Rinoa?"
"Nothing as interesting as the reformation of land in timber. I got 'The unsolved murder of Cid Krammer.'" said Rinoa grinning.
"Tch. This isn't fair." said Zell glumly, "I've actually heard of that."
"Yo chicken wuss! What's your topic?" yelled someone from the other side of the room.
"Shut up Seifer!" yelled Zell angrily, springing out of his chair. Seifer chuckled.
"Just making sure you ain't my partner Dinch, cause I don't wanna be partnered with a dumb ass."
"Screw you Almasy." said Zell, flashing him a certain finger.
"Heh, just do me one favour Dinch. Please tell me you aren't doing 'land reformations in timber'"
Rinoa laughed outright, while Zell stared at Seifer in shock, disbelief written all over his face. Seifer was no longer smirking.
"No way!" they yelled at the same time, both clearly horrified.
The rest of the class went quiet, staring at Seifer and Zell.
"Hahaha. You two are so screwed! You're both idiots, and you're both lazy. Just give up now, if you try to do anything together you'll kill each other." said a small brunette sitting at the front. She was nearly falling off her chair laughing.
"Shut up Selphie!" yelled Zell and Seifer.
"All right, I say we make me the leader." declared Seifer.
"What?! This is a partnered project! There isn't supposed to be a leader!" replied Zell indignantly. Seifer carried on as if he hadn't heard,
"How about you collect and process information, and I'll oversee."
"What!? That's ridiculous! That's all the work!"
"Ooh ridiculous eh? Been reading the dictionary have we Dinch? Increasing your vocabulary?"
"Why you ..."
Rinoa tuned out the rest of their yelling, and looked around the room. Most people had found their partners, and were sitting together discussing quietly, or watching Seifer and Zell's spectacle.
All except for a one person. There was a boy sitting in a corner at the back of the room, reading his sheet. Rinoa recognised him as the new boy that had joined their class a couple weeks previous.
He was always silent, unless spoken to directly, and even then you only got one word answers. Rinoa would have hardly noticed him, were it not for the rumours that preceded him.
Something about him getting into a fight with another student at his previous school and seriously injuring them. She'd heard several variations of the same story, one girl swore he'd had a machete, while another said he didn't beat up one guy, but five Asians in a science room.
It didn't help his image that he seemed to be missing from school a lot of the time, 'Probably drug dealing.' everyone concluded, and he never got punished for it. If the teachers were too scared to punish him, then something was definitely up.
Rinoa was highly sceptical abut these so called rumours. She couldn't quite imagine the boy getting angry, and wielding a machete.
Everyone tended to avoid him because of this hearsay, too scared in case they were to be his next 'victim'. This seemed to be fine with the boy, he never made an effort to bridge the gap, or to rectify the rumours.
Rinoa smiled. Something about him sparked interest in her. While everyone else had written him off as 'the psychotic druggie that got kicked out if his other school for beating the crap out of another student,' she'd been watching him closely, concluding to herself that he looked decent enough.
He yawned, and flicked his head to the side to rid his vision of brown hair. It was very easy to picture him stalking prey, lithe as a feline, treading carefully, closer and closer, every movement executed deliberately with pin point accuracy, always with the same calm face.
Never betraying a hint of what he was thinking. He didn't seem like the type to rush into anything blindly, but then again no one knew what type he actually was.
He was an enigma to all.
And now Rinoa was going to make it her business to find out about him. She rose out of her seat to introduce herself.
(o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o)
Squall looked down at his sheet and frowned. "'The murder of Cid Krammer.' ...I've heard of that ..." he thought, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn.
He'd had basically no sleep in the past two days, and although his mother said he could have the day off if he wanted, he'd refused. He needed to get out of the house, and he hated hospitals.
The hair prickled on the back of Squall's neck. Someone was watching him. He turned his head, and saw a girl staring at him. She smiled broadly, and walked over to him.
"Hi, you're Squall right?" she asked. He nodded.
"I'm Rinoa, and I think we're partners for this. Do you have the murder of Cid Krammer?" again, he nodded. There was silence between them for a moment.
"Do you want to meet up sometime in the weekend to plan this? There's only about five minutes left now in class, and I want to get a good mark." said Rinoa earnestly. Squall frowned.
'God. I don't want to meet up with anyone ... can't I do this assignment by myself?' he thought. He looked down at his sheet, and as if in answer to his question, he read a portion of the marking criteria -
'Students will be marked based on their ability to work well with others ... Great. When am I going to be able to do this?' thought Squall. He needed to pass this subject, he needed to work, and he had his mother to attend to, when all he wanted to do was sleep. He sighed, and looked up at the girl. She seemed nice enough. 'Exactly why I should avoid her.' he thought.
"Whatever." he mumbled. Rinoa chuckled at his response.
"Write down your phone number here, I'll give you a call sometime to arrange it." Squall nodded, and accepted her pen, writing it down where she pointed. He decided not to mention that their phone wasn't connected yet. The bell rang, setting off a chain reaction of scraping chairs, and opening doors.
Rinoa winked.
"See you later Squall." she said, then she was gone.
Squall packed up his things, and walked out of the school slowly, not really in any hurry to get to work. Whispers and glances followed him down the corridors, and no one met his eye. He knew what rumours were going around about him, and quite frankly, he didn't care.
There were much more important things for him to worry about, and as far as he was concerned, people could believe what they wanted. They were really making his life easier by not talking to him, but he had a funny feeling Rinoa was different, her smile had been really sincere. Reminding him of someone. Squall shook himself slightly, casting the thoughts out of his mind.
'The dead can't return ...'
Tell me what you think. If people like it/ are interested, I'll continue ...