| Chapter One - Recalled to Life |
Everywhere was the dank, rotten scent of bodies that were long dead, but not long gone. It was as if someone had just slaughtered a mass amount of diseased animals, and left them in a warm, moist pile to melt together into one large bacterial culture. No one had told him that it was going to stink like this prior to his being sent. Then again, he wasn't ever told much, just who and what to do, no matter what the complications. Just do your duty.
Bone and insects too slow to move out of the way crunched and squished, respectively, beneath his feet. Juice and dust flew up and dulled the shine he tried so hard to keep on his shoes. It was highly annoying, and only meant a longer time spent to clean them, but duty pushed him on, and he made his way through the domain of the dead.
The sealed coffin that was before him now had been grown over with a peculiar purple mold that seemed to glow with an eerie ethereal light. It was probably carrying some disease of the dead, and he didn't want to touch it. He kicked at the side of the coffin absentmindedly, trying to picture what was inside. A whole, intact body? Or did it have a face covered with the purple mold that was growing on the coffin, its body writing with maggots? Was it still human or warped both mentally and physically by whatever it had to go through to get to where it is now?
There was no response from within except tiny dust motes flying up, illuminated by the glowing mold. They settled on his clothing, giving his blue suit a lavender-gold sheen. He brushed irritably at them, as they made him look sloppier than necessary. Of course, his job usually involved getting sloppy, but he preferred keeping as clean as possible.
He kicked it again, this time more purposefully and urgently. The door was shut behind him, but there were some things that would not be held back by closed doors. With no responses to his assaults on the wooden box, he began to become worried that, just possibly, he was given the wrong orders. It was an insane request in the first place.
With nothing else to do, he cringed as he silently unsheathed and slipped his newly cleaned sword underneath the vile-looking growths and pried chunks of decaying wood from the coffin. He suddenly stopped as his blade was caught on something, something soft. Fearing that he would damage whatever the contents within, he stopped and started to withdraw his sword. But it was stuck.
He realized suddenly that it wasn't just stuck, it was slowly being pulled inwards. Common sense led him to let go of the hilt and back away, as much as he didn't want to leave his sword to whatever Fate held for it. His life came above his weapon, however, and he would be of less use to anyone if he were dead and decaying with the rest of the carcasses strewn about.
There was nothing he could do but watch as his sword moved back and forth on its own, as if it was sawing at the lid of the coffin by itself. Or maybe some invisible specter had grasped it, and was opening the coffin so that it could return to its body.
The sword suddenly was pitched out of the wood. It flipped over once before plunging into a half-decayed corpse further back in the room.
He took a quick few steps backward, his argent eyes going from watching his landing in a lump of moldy flesh to the bulge that was appearing in the lid of the coffin. It splintered, ever so slowly, then finally burst. What came out was a naked fist, slowly spreading its fingers to pull away chunks of rotting board. Another hand followed it, aiding in the dismantling of the tiny wooden prison.
A man slowly stood up through the splintered wood, his clothing and hair looking much like his awakener, although a few notches messier. His dark hair was matted and twisted, the condition one would expect someone to wake up in after a feverish sleep. Blue shreds of bloodstained cloth hung across his torso, as if he had mauled someone or was mauled himself. He blinked through the dim darkness at the person who stood in front of him.
"...who are you? Why have you wakened me?" he croaked out in a strained voice, unaccustomed to speaking aloud to a living being.
"I've been called to wake you. You're Vincent Valentine, former leader of the second command of Turks. You were put to sleep here twenty years ago at the age of 24. That puts you at the age of...26?"
His gaze had been fixed on the tattered and stained remains of the blue suit, as if amazed that any living thing could allow himself to look so mutilated for such a long time. He looked into the sleeper's eyes for some signal to continue, but was met with a peeved silence and the shocking glare of red eyes slowly growing brighter as they adjusted to having true sight. Unconsciously, he wet his lips and groped around for more words to string together. "You'll, uh, have to come with me to--"
"You're a rookie." It wasn't a question. Everything about the wavering, silver eyes to the stiff speech screamed out inexperience.
"...I am not! I've just never had to…wake the dead before…" trailing off into a mumble, the self-denied rookie Turk tried to think of anything to convince the coffin-napper to go along with this. His job would be in jeopardy, after all.
"Go back to Shinra, rookie, and tell them this: I've nothing to do with them anymore, and sending fresh-out-of-the-box Turks to come get me won't change a thing."
Chik-clik.
"No."
A handgun was leveled to the coffin-clinging Turk's head, cocked and ready to fire. His gaze was perfectly steady, the glint from the polished gun gleaming in his silver eyes. "You're coming with me to Kalm. And if you don't, I'll shoot you."
"Hm...as if I were afraid of being shot."
"I'm serious, I'll shoot you." His trigger finger tightened with the reinforced threat.
"I believe you. You've already stabbed me in the leg just trying to get me to come out; no doubt you'll shoot me to get me to come with you." A hand waved at the fresh blood staining his pant leg.
"...but this time I'll be doing it on purpose."
"Go ahead." He raked his straggly hair out of his face to give a better target to point at.
"I will!"
"I'm not stopping you."
"Right now!"
"Fine."
"I swear, I'm gonna do it!"
"If you really want to."
"You'll be dead!"
"Possibly."
"I'm doing it now..."
"Have fun."
Chik-BANG. A fresh bloodstain dripped over the old caked blood on his torso, opening the same wound that made the first stain. He sank back into his coffin, one finger poking into the hole in his stomach to assess the damage.
"You're possibly the stupidest Turk ever..." was the only response he had for the one standing there, gun still leveled at him. He said nothing more, but kept his ruby red gaze locked with the gleaming silver one until his own eyes dulled to a light brown. They slowly drooped shut as he heaved a sigh ranking someone between tired and exasperated.
With a disgusted look on his face, the conscious Turk holstered his gun and pulled his sword free of the gray flesh it was lying in. Before sheathing it, he wiped it on the sleeve of the unconscious Turk, then proceeded to drag the bloody mess out of the domain of the dead.
Notes: Everything that makes no sense will be fixed...sometime. All Dickens haters (me being one of them), don't kill me for the chapter title...I really really REALLY couldn't think of anything else.