SQUALL
"… I hate this job." He sits in his car, forever doomed to smell like orange chicken and burnt fried rice, and doesn't move. He watches the setting sun reflect off of the high windows of the brick walk-up, turning cool glass into rectangular slices of suspended fire. Squall winces, the motion marring his forehead even farther, the scar once again in extreme relief. He turns up the A/C.
He considers leaving the cartons of takeout on the passenger seat to ferment, and pointing the car west. Driving until he finds the spot where ocean meets sky. Maybe turning north afterwards. Canada's supposed to have reasonable weather. Cold year round. Never getting above eighty degrees-
(Apartment two. Eleven-Fifty total.)
Squall groans and switches off the engine without looking. The boxes are grabbed, warmth leeching through the cardboard to burn his fingers, making them itch at the foreign sensation. Out of the car, up the sidewalk, ring the doorbell, wait for an answer, say the price, wait for money to be gathered from between the cushions and terracotta jars above the fridge, collect the money, make prolonged eye contact to get a bigger tip, and drive away.
Same thing day in and day out. 2 PM until 10 PM. The eighth circle of hell, forced to reenact the same routine day after day until eventual psychotic breakdown.
(If you hate it so much why not quit?)
"And who would hire me?" Talking to yourself was safe in the car. But not in subway, public bathroom, or chain coffee stores. Squall learned this the hard way. "I barely have my GED and a six-year gap where I did nothing other than take multi-colored pills and talked about my feelings."
(That's good though.)
"You call medicated stupors good?"
(The talking. Feelings. You should do it more often. You hardly talk to me as is.)
"You're the voice inside my head. How could I not talk to you?"
(You'd be surprised.)
The sun's finally set. Squall rolls down the window and sticks out one pale arm, allowing his fingers to slice through the air currents like knives. Its summer, but the air is already cool. His car radio got stolen but he doesn't need it. Shiva starts humming an ancient melody, fragile as glass but just as deadly.
Everything is at peace. He's encased in ice.
ZELL
Zell hates the smell of Chinese food.
Hates the way it gets into the seams of your clothing and lingers for days, no matter how many windows you open.
He stands in the train terminal, on a little wooden dock, watching trains fly by. He can be taken anywhere. To Yonkers, to the city, down to the south where the sky is clear and the air clean. To where hot dogs aren't left to sit in the murky water of their carts all day and are actually warm when they give them to you.
Zell scowls as his stomach growls and flips up the collar of his zip-up. He should've gone shopping yesterday. Stocked up on the essentials. Buns, ketchup, relish. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. If not for the tattoo perched on his left temple, spread out like the roots of a tree, he would've seemed like a discouraged twelve year-old.
New Jersey smells like burning Chinese food and paper factories. Cerberus is getting antsy. Zell hops from foot to foot. People glance over, but Zell doesn't stop. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and starts to swing them, slowly.
Cerberus never speaks. It's a rush of foreign emotions, clouding his judgment, making him laugh or scream at a drop of a hat. Right now invisible haunches are being raised, and the urge to maintain dominance is extreme.
Somehow this translates into shadow-boxing.
The empty circle around him grows wider as people slowly back away. New Jersey is used to strangeness; the proximity of New York City ensures it.
Zell's tried so hard to control the foreign intruder in his mind. There were once pills, a counselor named Kadowaki and a very short stay in a padded room.
But he's given up on all of those things. It's the way of the Jedi now. All meditation and "Zen and the art of Faking It".
Cerberus wants him to let loose, give this train terminal a rampage it will never forget; anything to turn all the eyes away.
Zell gives the air in front of him one more ferocious punch-
(Booyah!)
And twists his fists deeper into the pockets of his coat once more. He is in control.
(I am in control. I am in control.)
SELPHIE
It's hard to pull off a yellow jumpsuit in everyday life.
It's even harder to pull it off underwater.
Scores of fish follow her as she swims through the water; florescent lighting above the tank cuts through its depths and renders strange shadows on its floor.
She could feel Leviathan twisting in her mind. Swimming through imaginary currents.
No one in the aquarium knows she's insane. That she's been hearing voices since she was old enough to understand Basic English. And she's told no one.
Selphie harpoons a dead parrot fish and places it in the mesh bag she's clenching in one gloved hand. Blood is swirling through the water like ink droplets in vinegar, entrails float on the minuscule current to be eaten by smaller fish.
The Voice (even though it can hardly be called a voice, it rarely ever speaks. Selphie likes to think that it chooses not to, instead of being unable to.) is her friend. A constant companion in a world of abandonment that understands her even better than her own-
(Foster.)
Mother.
The Aquarium is the best place for them.
A giant water serpent in a perfect little artificial world of aquatic life. And the little girl that wants to help any animal in any way she can. They've combined their interests until it's hard to tell where Selphie ends and Leviathan begins.
Leviathan refuses to let her work with the whales though. They're too big for him not to get nervous when Selphie's around them, no matter how many time she's explained "They eat plankton, Lev. Not people. Geez! You get so twitchy sometimes-"
(She told one person once about Leviathan "The Voice In Her Head". It had been her best friend through elementary and middle school.
One minute she was opening her mouth to speak, the next moment she was laying on her back while an ER doctor shone a light in her eyes. Apparently she had an epileptic fit, apparently she was not to leave the hospital until she was given the clear, apparently her best friend didn't want to talk to her anymore.
Apparently the only thing Leviathan could now willingly say was Sorry. I didn't mean to.)