Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII. All I own is a copy of the PC game and a whole lot of homework that I should be working on instead of this.
A/N: This was originally written for a role play on LiveJournal. They wanted a writing sample on the application, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. (Apparently they were, too, because I got the role.)
Well, the role play is dead, though it might be savable (Selfless plug: he need a Hojo, Tseng, Barret, Marlene, and Cid, last time I checked – let me know if you're interested!), but I thought I'd share the little drabble. Enjoy!
He crouched down in the tiny cell, his muscles tensing. His tail flicking with pent-up energy, he took a deep breath, trying to smell something besides Mako, his own fear, and the... thing in the cell across from his. A strange creature, unlike anything he'd ever before encountered (he seemed to recall Hojo letting the name "Jenova" slip as he crooned over it), but he couldn't dwell on that now. He had heard something, something that he had learned to dread in his few weeks as Hojo's plaything. (Just a few weeks? It felt like an eternity...)
What he had heard had been footsteps. Footsteps usually meant that someone was approaching his cage, someone who would proceed to poke him, prod him, stick him with needles, and do who knew what else to the "precious specimen." If they were lucky, they also remembered to tranquilize him. He crouched lower, fervently hoping that whoever it was wouldn't remember.
But no one came. He sniffed the air again, but it was too hard to detect anything over the usual stenches that he was reluctantly getting used to.
Be strong Nanaki, he reminded himself. You have to survive this. You have to get out of here. You must return to Grandfather and Cosmo Canyon. You must protect them. You must be brave and strong...
And he was. Despite weeks of torture, he hadn't yet given up hope of escape. But there were some things that caused even his blood to run cold, and approaching footsteps had become one of those things.
But the footsteps had stopped. And that scared him even more.