Chapter One – An Other World Awaits You
If there was ever a reluctant Seer, Tidus was surely he. So sometimes he drank around this time of day, to blank out his mind enough that he could sleep. Regardless of whether he passed out or passed sober into rest, the dreams would come: he found it easier to pass out on occasion. There were plenty of memories to want gone whilst he was awake, and if he couldn't control the ones entering as he slept, so be it. Most of them weren't his, anyways. He sometimes wonders if all Seers in Spira see the past instead of the future. He sincerely doubts it.
It is early, so he is not yet drunk. He loathes himself, despises every bit of his flesh and bone, for what he's becoming; an alcoholic bum just like his old man. He tries not to succumb, but sometimes it's just so hard. Sometimes, it feels as though this is all that stands between him and insanity - he'd really rather choose the aforementioned boozing over madness. He'd met crazies before in the Old Zanarkand as a kid, and they had terrified him. There were those who were born into psychosis and those who learned its twisted embrace at some point in their lives, although the two origins were identical in their result. Some who stayed around the insane were drunkards, leaning more into that slant of life, continuously losing sense of reality from heavy bouts with a bottle. If Tidus became addicted, he wouldn't last a second out here. Still, his liquor stores were running low which he found more alarming than he cared to admit, and that feeling left him so ashamed that he didn't care to mention the fact to Rikku. She'd delivered the latest crate a mere two months or so prior, and the contents would have lasted a typical citizen about three times as long.
The sun is going down on the horizon of Spira's upper coast, so the Zanarkand Dome off in the distance gleams with golden light, and the ocean beyond that glitters. The rest of the Ruins surrounding appear to have a dusty roan or caramel colour, deeply shadowed with blue-black: skeletons of buildings, all of them, including the one where Tidus now sits. A ground-level home, so he can't fall off a building some night if he sleep-walks. Watching the sun as it sets is his evening ritual, a form of vigil for his lost companions. He was once familiar with this part of town, and it's an ideal location for observing some of the delightful, contemporary tourist attractions of the area. Oh yes, from here he could see the Dome, and the Gagazet Pass, and sections in places of the Summoner's Pathway. It's where Rikku and him had fallen to from Sin, and he was too apathetic to move out now from where he was (kind of) comfortable. Besides, if he did that, Rikku wouldn't be able to find him so easily with supplies.
Then again, maybe he'd deserve that. His nearby hovel – unfurnished but with chunks of broken stone or metal, constantly dusty, disguised with coarse tarps and shielded by magical machina - was perhaps a bit too comfortable for the scum of the earth. And he'd not so much be hurt by the move as inconvenienced. Even as he thought this, though, a thought at the back of his mind niggled its way to the front, presenting itself in a whisper. This place was well protected from Fiends, it argued, and that was important, wasn't it?
Tidus massages the twisted scar on his chest. It stretches from right shoulder to opposite thigh. Yes, protection from Fiends was very important, particularly when Tidus was in no state of mind to take care of himself. So he shelves the notion of changing address, and lifts his bottle for another swig. Only the finest for this monster, yessiree, burning fiery down to his belly and fermenting his liver by degrees. The sun is starting to fry his eyeballs, from the feel of it, and they'll be more bloodshot than ever in the morning. His whole insides and outsides are scorching. Delicious fried Tidus.
He hawks a bitter laugh, then falls silent. It's getting so that nothing but the morbid jokes are funny now, and that's slightly worrying. Cynicism and world-weariness? Sure, he can handle those, and accept them as understandable psychological effects given what he's been through. But morbid thoughts just make him think of death, and death makes him think of her, and thinking of her makes him want to leave this place behind to find her wherever she's waiting for him. Maybe Seymour wasn't so crazy after all. Maybe the only way to escape this psychotic shit-hole of a world was to disappear entirely. Maybe that's how you became free.
So why... did that something-voice inside of him keep saying, 'not yet, not yet'?
"Because I'm... a coward." Muttered Tidus. And it was true, wasn't it? He was just a coward. He was too scared of leaving Rikku behind, he supposed. Too scared of being alone, and finding out what really happened once you... died. He didn't want to be alone. He also thought a part of it was that she'd – come back.
... He couldn't remember her voice anymore.
He takes a deep breath and regards the liquid still in the bottle: about half. With another steady breath in and out he raises the neck to his lips and chugs, nearly finishing the damn thing. Maybe this would be one of his lucky nights, where he'd see visions of them again. All of them, the freaky fuzzball to the ice queen, and especially Yu- ...her. He'd get to hear them laugh again, talk again, maybe cry again. He wouldn't give a flying Shoopuf fart what they were doing or where they were, as long as he could hear them, see them, nearly touch them. Certainly his thought processes, muddled up and fast losing capacity, were as contradictory and self-destructive as ever. Just like everything in this fucked up world. Drink to forget, but hope you'll remember. Vow never to become what your father was, but make your way there incrementally. March your sorry carcass across the entire planet, on a suicide mission for a few more years of quiet that most people'll stop appreciating right around the time the carnage starts again. Fight for life, and all it stands for, while knowing that your death won't mean anything lasting in the end. She had died for nothing.
He was rambling again, wasn't he? Mulling the same rotted thoughts around in his brain, the ones that were poisoning him more than the drink could. But he can feel that booze working its magic on him, bless it, which is good. The sunset dribbled blood across the sky. A mist is rising around him, clammy upon his skin. He's starting to shake from the temperature drop, which the moisture only makes worse. Not so good. A chill now wouldn't do. He's running low on healing tonics and potions. They worked wonders on the hangovers, and he couldn't spare what few he had remaining on stupid things like a cold. Time to head inside? Yeah, for sure. The floor takes a while to approximate itself into an angle he can actually walk across, but when it starts swaying in a general forward motion he thinks he's making pretty good progress. A wall surges up to meet him, and a giggle burbles up into a hiccupping noise, followed by a tiny belch. His groping hands find the handle of Brotherhood, which he drags behind him while continuing on his way. Its still-keen tip carves an erratic line, this way and that, across the floor behind Tidus, though he holds the sword loosely. This shit had hit hard, and fast. Haste Liquor. Maybe not so good that he'd nearly finished the bottle out here tonight – with the last hints of daylight giving way to darkness and the stars, he needed to be reasonably nimble and fast. He was only two buildings away from the one he called home, but even that distance could be enough for Fiends to have infested already.
He was in luck tonight, though, and encountered nothing. He chalked it up to the Fiends' obviously delicate constitutions; on account of the weather being poor, they must have chosen to stay home. He was hilarious tonight, a real laugh riot. His friends, if he still had any, would likely have groaned and laughed simultaneously, or made comments on his lack of ability to tell jokes with smiles on their faces. It took him a while more than it should have to lift the rug hung over the main doorway; it was thick, woven heavily, and he still held both the bottle and sword. It simply never occurred to him to let go of either to make his job easier. The interior gloom was difficult to adjust to – Tidus had no candles or lamps set up and burning - but even out of his mind Tidus could see an impressive amount. He located the chunk missing from his bedroom wall that served as a door, and made his way towards it, painstakingly slow so he wouldn't fall over.
A hollow-sounding chime rang through the air somewhere to his right.
Immediately on his guard, Tidus whirled around and blinked furiously. There was nothing in the room with him, nothing that could have made the noise.
And yet it came again.
Tidus once again spun on his heel, nearly toppling in the process – the arm holding the empty liquor bottle was flung out for balance, and at the farthest point out from him it released the glinting noise once more, a soft sharp sound. Legs splayed out in a wide stance, sword presented defensively to the side, Tidus stared in amazement at the glass. It was thrumming. With each slight vibration, the sound came... and it seemed to be getting faster.
Tidus looked at his sword and saw that the substance forming the blade – he never knew what it was – appeared to be boiling on the inside of its confines. A terrified glance down showed the dust around his feet jittering up and down. Outside, the wind began to pick up.
The bottle in his hand shattered with the loudest ring of all. Tidus yelped, pain lancing up from suddenly bloodied fingers. He felt the hairs on the nape of his neck beginning to stand up, and was reminded of the Thunder Plains. The air was beginning to pulse, with a steady beat – a heartbeat, almost- and there was a thin whining beginning to stretch from the air, a wire of sound. Tidus heard from outside a cooing, ethereal noise, and rushed through the main entryway. Blood dripping from his wounded hand, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what was happening outside: the thick mists were glowing at a point in front of him, where the buildings parted and made way for a sort of clearing or courtyard. Bands of light pulsed in time with the air, hoops that enlarged and thinned before vanishing in their outward motion like ripples.
Not even a second later, the Ruins lit up, brighter than day. Tidus looked up to see Pyreflies. Thousands upon thousands, streaking down towards him- immediately he dropped into a protective crouch, hands and arms clamped above his head expecting... nothing? He chanced a peek, and saw the ribbons of iridescence passing by him, over him, through him, and converging on the core of the pulsing, which appeared to be growing in size and strength. The whining sound was fast increasing in pitch, stabbing into Tidus's alcohol-dulled mind – he winced, choking a small cry.
Only a few seconds had passed since the bottle had imploded, yet it felt like minutes. Tidus was running back inside the building before he understood why, heart pounding in his head and chest, because the light had been shrinking in on itself...
There was a dulled thudding noise, and Tidus was thrown off his feet. Unsecured objects joined his flight.
He was utterly blinded, seeing only whiteness and spotted afterimages. The air whirling around him felt cool.
He slammed into a wall, shrieking as a third pain was added to the ones in his head and hand, this time tearing across his chest mercilessly. His eyes blurred with tears, and there was fire lancing through his torso. He laid brokenly, limbs askew, vision blackening around the edges. Through the doorway, he could see a huge misshapen shadow standing where the shockwave's epicentre had been, the fog around it cleared in a spherical shape that was quickly being refilled with vapour.
He only had fragments of thoughts left to him. A Fiend. It had to be. He was going to die.
A smaller shadow split away... no... jumped from the arms of the larger, which spoke. Humans? He struggled to stay awake, but his ears were fading in and out with his vision, so he only heard sections of what they said.
"...long distance that...? Remind... never... do that..."
"...Useless statement. If necessary..."
"Still can't... joke, can...?"
"This is the right place. We're... time."
"... Sorry. Hey... exactly whe... –ikk... said!"
"Is that it? Over there?"
A chill ran through him. One of the figures had their arm extended, directly towards where he had fallen. He was squinting now, the feeling all through him ebbing out into numbness. He was falling unconscious, completely aware that he would be at their mercy when he did pass out, but even that knowledge was a lesser concern at the moment. The curter of the two voices was achingly familiar, and desperation demanded he see who it was..! That timbre! It couldn't be...
They drew nearer, hidden momentarily behind the carpet until it was brushed aside. Throat feeling raw, he gasped, and the smaller of the two people rushed to his side in an instant. He wasn't looking at her though, even as she gingerly examined his limbs for damages; his gaze, wide-eyed, was fixed on the man standing in front of him, whom he never believed he'd see again.
"It's you." He croaked in a whisper,
And then darkness mercifully took him, and he knew no more.
The first real chapter is up! YAY!
This is what Tidus is up to. : ) You'll get to see more of him next chapter.
Hope you like it! Comments and critiques are loved.
