The Muse has finally decided to return from her mental vacation after a brief hiatus. Many thanks to all who have read 'I Let Them Go' and given positive and constructive feedback on it. For those of you returning for the sequel, welcome back. If you haven't read it yet and are just tuning in, welcome as well. (I do recommend reading the above mentioned story first, just to catch up on what happened to get to this point, but if you don't want to, that's cool too. You can still enjoy the story as is.) It's pretty obvious but obligatory disclaimer: I own nothing but the coffee cup on my desk, a computer, and a few very angry goats.
With that said, I sincerely hope that you enjoy the story, folks. Without readers like you, it wouldn't be happening, so thank you. If you have the time, or just want to say hello, feel free to let me know what you think of the story! I don't bite and constructive criticism is always welcome.
Chapter One - A Prisoner of Fate
How long have I been here?
The silken curtain of darkness continues to rest across my vision in a sinister, yet welcoming barrier between me and whatever world resides beyond its merciful protection. There is no day here, only the night. Time and the ability to keep track of it is gone as well, the only window to the outside world whatever I manage to hear in the brief moments of lucid thought that come and go at random.
I want to open my eyes, but the heavy weight pressing them closed along with the one anchoring my entire body against this uncomfortable surface traps me in this perpetual feeling of helplessness that I can't break free from.
A hospital bed. I've gathered that much from what little I managed to see in those precious few seconds of consciousness before the darkness came. I'm in a hospital, somewhere, and not in the Life Stream to my knowledge. But still, if this is what it will be, I should have damn well appreciated the spot it offered to me more than I did.
What comes with escape is so much worse.
A sharp sting of pain from somewhere in the vast, dark oblivion appears and vanishes just as quick. That's become a lot more frequent too. I want to draw away from it, but a strong force holds me in place, preventing any and all movement, no matter how horrible the pain becomes at times. This is Hades. It has to be. There's no way I survived any of whatever the hell happened to me during those precious few seconds when the stars fell from the sky and I woke up on the Life Stream's less-than-elaborate doorstep.
What happened to me…
The click of leather-soled shoes and heavy footsteps across what appears to be linoleum reaches through the darkness. Jumbled voices accompany it, but I can't understand what they're discussing. All that registers after a few words is the steady drone of the dark void not too unlike the ocean. A gentle, albeit rather chilly ocean that stretches as far as I can see, submerging me beneath its obsidian waves.
I don't remember being anywhere near any oceans though. And sand. The foreign, grainy substance sifts through my fingers. I pause, staring at the hand I couldn't move moments ago. A flicker of cerulean moonlight drifts over the waves breaking on the shoal. The darkness hangs in the distance, painted across the world around me, but I can move and feel the chill, salty ocean air touching my flesh.
I'm dreaming again… I feel my heart sink.
This shouldn't be new to me. When I'm not trapped in the grasp of a merciless darkness, restrained by some powerful force that prevents even the faintest motion, I'm cast out to a location I can vaguely recall being to over my lifetime. A dream world that feels all too real. Fate has a fickle sense of cruel humor, especially with this one.
The moonlight cascades across the bluffs in a steady stream of continuous brilliance, making me flinch with the sting of discomfort to my eyes. It hurts to even think about trying to see much of anything through that light. Just like the light of the Life Stream.
Zack. I tried to fight Zack on these shores. That tide pool over there, by the towering bluffs. Rekka landed in those when he struck it down with the Buster Sword. But that's impossible. Zack is dead. Nibelheim. This is the night I let them go.
It's a dream, I remind myself. Nothing here is real. I'm lying in a hospital somewhere. I saw it. Reno and Tseng were there too in those fragile moments, talking, discussing something about having done 'all that they could' for me.
All that they could…
A fearful quiver whisks across my shoulders, making me cower closer to the bluffs. I'm still wearing the battered midnight blue blazer and dusty tie, just like that night but something happened to me. Something horrible. I can feel it in the wind rushing off the ocean waves and through the stone crags. The ferocious tides beneath the moon's violent grace roil with the hints of a storm's approach.
The darkness rushes across the sands with the sudden waves of imposing water, at least I think that it is water. For all I know it could be something a lot like the Life Stream's waters, only much worse. Those waters didn't hurt half as much. A painful spasm seizes my muscles as the waters touch my feet, sending me plummeting back into the blanket of the endless darkness.
I'm beginning to feel like some sort of mistreated chocobo, allowed a brief walk of freedom every so often on a very short tether, but crowded into a far-too-small stall to suffer for the remainder of whatever time I have left of this miserable life just when I'm starting to enjoy being able to move under my own free will. This is a punishment, isn't it?
The metallic screech of something, a chair maybe, being dragged somewhere off to the left pierces the darkness where the ocean once was. Someone lowers themselves onto it with the soft creak of tired muscles. That sound. I've heard it before, many times before. I know this person, just by the way they move, that gentle caressing warmth enveloping my hand through the darkness and the confident warble of distant words across the abysmal darkness reaching me.
"Morning,'Nei. Thought I'd stop by and see how you are doing."
It's morning?
Feels later in the day than that. At least to me anyway. Then again, time doesn't pass wherever the hell I am. Maybe out there it can be measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and so on. But here, only the intermittent breaks in the darkness serve as any form of clock, one without second hands or even numbers. At one point, I might have known what time felt like to pass, but for some reason, I can barely make even the simplest connections between this world and the one out there anymore.
"Heh, still sleeping yo? Well, that's all right."
Sleeping? I'm asleep? But, I can hear him talking. Okay, so the words aren't as loud as they should be, and sometimes it's difficult to understand him through a few muffled syllables, but my mind is trying to fill those in as he speaks with those long, slightly drawled words.
Reno. He sounds something like my red-haired comrade.
"Rude's been by I see. Brought you some flowers. Not your favorite kind, but he tried. You like lotus flowers, don't you? Yeah, I think those were your thing. He brought daffodils though. Ugliest flowers on the planet yo. You never did like those."
Yeah, I was never very fond of daffodils. Too many bad memories.
The voice continues with a somber sigh, his hand clutching mine tighter, as though he is worried about something.
"Funny. I've known you for years and I'm still don't know for sure what flower you like the best. I guess I could ask, but what good is that at this point. There's a lot of stuff I don't know about you yo. Things I'd like to ask, to know more about ya know. I've been wanting to ask what your favorite colors were for years, what animals you like, what that goddamn real name of yours is, but, guess I never got around to it. Looks like I'll never get the chance to either."
He sounds so sad, like someone has beaten him into submission and kicked him around a good bit before finally allowing him to admit defeat in the presence of his foe. I don't recall him ever sounding this stressed and worried over something. He's always been so upbeat and cheerful.
"Fate's a bitch yo. An outright freaking bitch. I didn't mean for it to end up this way, 'Nei. Please don't hate me for it. I was following orders. You know I had to do it. If I didn't, someone else would have. You know how this whole goddamn mission thing works."
Reno…My mind flinches at the invisible hint of rage corralled behind those words. I can almost see his eyes, those gentle emerald eyes, narrowed at something only he sees, disjointed from reality in his own little world. He blames himself for this. For something he was forced to do.
"Please, 'Nei. You gotta wake up yo."
Wake up? The thought sounds so foreign, the concept impossible. I can't even move any part of my body, let alone my eyelids to prove that I can indeed hear every word he's saying.
"You can't stop fighting yet." The pressure on my hand increases, his fingernails carving into my palm. "Screw those jackass excuses for doctors and them telling you what you can and can't do. I know you're still in there, somewhere. Please, just wake up."
I wish I could respond. Oh how I wish I could respond and let him know that I can hear him. That I want to open my eyes and acknowledge his presence. That I appreciate it more than anything. To not be left alone here. To know that someone out there gives enough of a damn to spend some time trying to get me out of this hell I've created for myself. But I can't. I'm sentenced to be stuck like this, somewhere in limbo between life and death for Holy knows how long.
The sliding shift of a Plexiglas door being opened joins him - a second presence entering the void with a sterner, stronger step about their gait. Confident in nature, yet prideful all around. I should know this person fairly well. Tseng…I think it's Tseng.
"You are supposed to be home, resting."
"I'm fine yo." Reno shifts in his seat but does not venture from his place beside me, that arrogant presence about him as the smoothed, flat tone fills the air with long awaited words of reprimanding frustration.
The presence draws to a halt, the light brush of his jacket telling me that he's standing somewhere off to Reno's side, probably by the foot of the bed. "Any changes to report?"
The words are softer, quieter, and no doubt wanting a specific response that he knows he's not going to get today.
"Nope. Still asleep."
"Reno, you know what the doctor said this morning," Tseng sighs. "With the injuries she sustained…"
"She's not likely to regain consciousness. I heard the same goddamn bullshit speech you did. Tseng," he growls. "And I ain't taking back what I said to their faces either. Damn vultures are all they are and I will maintain to my dying day that she's still alive yo, 'cause you saw she reacted to that test better than she should have for a 'dead' person. She'll wake up. Just give her some time yet."
"Time is something we do not have. She does not have," Tseng's words are curt and to the point. "The doctors they appointed were more than clear that with her injuries her odds were not good from the start and I'm being pressured to make a decision. A legal one that if I don't make in a set timeframe, they will make instead."
"Screw them and their bullshit paperwork and rules. They've been wrong before."
"Not this time. The latest tests were not 'adequate.'"
"And you believe them yo?" Reno scoffs. "You and I both know those tests were straight up bullshit if there ever was any. You got just as angry as I did back there and don't you even deny it, Tseng. She isn't dead yet and you know it just as much as I do. You wouldn't have torn up that goddamn paperwork if she was."
Tseng sighs. "It makes little difference if I did or did not, Reno. Legally, the decision will be made according to the rules Shinra has put into place regarding matters such as this. Which you are just as obligated to follow as I am at this point unless there are substantial changes in her condition. On paper as it stands, the likelihood is slim."
"But it is still a chance," Reno's words harbor a defensiveness like a watchdog ready to fight. "'Nei's different from what's on that paper yo. She'll wake up."
"We can only wait and see at this point," Tseng's voice remains stern. "Which is why I am going to remind you that you have an appointment to be at since you refuse to stay home and rest."
I think I preferred being able to move freely, albeit clumsily, rather than this. This is just cruel. A prisoner. That's what I have become. I'm a prisoner in my own body, unable to even accomplish the simplest of instinctive, natural movements required to survive on my own. It's as though someone took my entire mind and just wiped everything from it, leaving me in this hell.
They talk about me as though I don't exist. As though I can't hear them. Maybe I don't exist anymore. Maybe this is all one big product of my overactive imagination. Reno. Tseng. Neither one of them are here. I'm not here.
What happened to bring me to this point? Why can't I recall even the simplest of commands to make anything work?
"Fine. I'll be back later, 'Nei. Got to deal with those jackasses in the white coats. Stay strong, okay."
The presence rises from his perch beside me with a soft word of what appears to be encouragement, only to be replaced by a harsher series of inaudible words and that familiar pinch of icy needles being inserted into veins that makes me want to scream out in agony not long after. It hurts and I'd give anything humanly possible to make them stop torturing me as whatever scalding substance being injected seizes my body as if it's a hostage. But the stagnant darkness prevents my cry of protest, driving me deeper into its embrace the worse the pain becomes.
It'll be over soon, I try to remind myself. Sooner or later, the pain will fade, leaving me floating in this dark ocean once again, alone.
Please…I try to will my thoughts to whomever is out there on the opposite curtain of darkness, a part of me knowing it will be in vain. Please don't leave me here.
I'm not even sure if I exist anymore as a human, or a shadow at this stage of the game. I can feel the caring touch, but no longer react to it. Like some sort of strange puppet, my mind distanced from my actual body, the strings in someone else's hands. Or is it the other way around? I'm not terribly certain myself.
Every so often, there is a speck of residual light in the distance, faint, but there, calling, beckoning me towards its warm, enveloping grasp. Damnedest thing is though, that no matter how much I strain to even put forth one fraction of effort towards lifting these weary hands to actually reach out and grab it, nothing moves. Absolutely nothing.
Gods that beeping sound is starting to drive me crazy. Even, pulsing drones that resonate from invisible walls, collecting and bounding back with the same monotonous echo. That eerie swishing sound is even worse, grating with some minute semblance of discomfort that comes and goes but never fully materializes into something I can use to get me the hell out of here.
That little, fractional part of my mind still intact warns me that something horrific will happen if I don't hear those sounds occurring like they are. I am, or was, alive. That much I do know. But as for how much so, or where in the hell I even am at this point, I really can't say. All I know, is that I have the faithful insanity-causing beeping occurring every so often, that warmth of someone holding my hand from time to time, and this annoying sense of foreboding discomfort to keep me company.
I don't like this one bit.
Life Stream…I was in the Life Stream. That eerie, yet awkward green glow, snaking and spiraling around everything with the warmth of a tropical summer climate not too unlike Gongaga. So warm and comfortable despite its terror, far from the frigid embrace of this darkness now.
A quiver of fear manifests in the back of my mind like a frightening winter wind.
I ended up in the Life Stream. For a certain amount of time, everything stopped...and I died.
"Don't fight it, Child…" Those words, gentle and soft, telling me exactly what not to do and yet, I somehow managed to screw that one up royally because I was scared. And this is my punishment, sentenced to the darkness for eternity, or what feels like it in a body that doesn't seem to want to play willing host to my soul anymore.
A punishment fit for a Turk. I wish I could go back and change everything.
What if I can't leave this place? What if - the chill rakes through my mind—I can't wake up?