Disclaimer: If I owned FFX, I wouldn't be writing fanfiction

Can I?

I should have died. When my father breathed his last, I should have faded into a thousand sparks of multicolored lights. Like the Aeons. Like my old man. Like Auron. But I didn't. I don't know why. I was no more real than any of them…I was less…I was the fragment of a dream that had died before I was born. Not that I had ever been born in first place. Thinking about it confused me. But the fact remains that I should have died.

But I didn't.

Instead I fell into a dizzying spiral of guilt, self-loathing and doubt. A whirlwind world of adrenaline-pumped blitz games and screaming crowds during the day. My nights were strewn with fast music, empty bottles and broken hearts. The others abandoned me, but only after I pushed them. Yuna was the last and hurt the most.

I failed her.

I knew we had failed, that Sin had not been defeated, that my father was still alive. I could feel him, inside my mind, my heart, my head. He was there, weakened but not destroyed, waiting, biding his time until he was strong enough to rise again. Of course, I couldn't prove it. To anyone else, it sounded like the ramblings of an insane man and one thing I was not was crazy. Sin was still out there and I could feel him.

I told Lulu about it once. She snorted with derision. "Do you want Lady Yuna to fail? You of all people…"

I don't know if she told the others, but they started avoiding me after that. Or maybe I started avoiding them. It didn't matter. The friendship we had once shared was shattered. Gone. Like the wind. But not like Sin. He was still alive. Like I shouldn't be.

It was only at night, in the darkness of my room with my stomach heaving and my head pounding that I had time to think. I kept myself busy other times. Parties, games, training. Drinking too. I once said I never would but with the bottle came forgetfulness. I could forget the truth. That was I from Zanarkand, another time, another place. One that had never really existed save in dreams.

Did that mean that I had never really existed?

If I had never existed, could I die?

And that's why I'm here, with a knife in my hand and the moonlit waves of the bay drown in. To find out if I can die. If I die, then I am crazy but it won't matter. If I don't then I'll be vindicated, proven sane by my own hand. It won't be Sin's toxin still affecting my brain and I'll know for sure.

They'll have to believe me then…that I am from Zanarkand. They don't. They never did and the only one who knew, who'd been there with me was gone. He had met the fate he deserved. Why hadn't I?

Why had he left me? It wasn't fair! I needed him- my role-model, my guardian, my friend. I needed him to believe me to tell me I wasn't crazy and that my Zanarkand really did exist outside of my head that Sin was my father and was alive and well…

I'm crying. There's no reason not too. My father can't see me, to call me a crybaby. If he was, he'd be right. I am.

I hold the knife to my throat. One quick slice and it would be finished, over in a heartbeat. Or not. Perhaps I really would live through it.

I press the knife into my skin. I feel blood trickle down my neck. My arm tenses as I draw the knife across my

"Tidus."

The only sound in the night is the sound of the knife hitting the stone pavement with a dull ring.

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A/N: The idea for this has been bouncing around in my head for a while and I finally got it out on paper. Not sure if its going anyway though. Also, I have not played X-2 and am in no hurry to do so. If this fic continues past this point, it will be bases solely off of the first game.