Chapter 3Have Mercy on the Cowards

It was a painfully slow trip.

The journey from Albrook to Tzen would have taken a couple days regardless, but the security measures they were taking dragged it on for nearly a week. Rather than following the obvious route directly north, they skirted the eastern edge of the continent, giving the ominous tower a wide berth.

It was a bizarre experience; the large mountain ranges that had once broken up the land in this area had been completely leveled, and even at such a far distance, the tower was still visible on the horizon. Locke wondered what it looked like up close, but his curiosity would not be bringing him near it any time soon.

"Situated in the exact spot that the Imperial Castle once stood, in Vector," said one of the men, who had noticed Locke staring intently at the distant structure.

"How is it that the mountains just… disappeared?" he asked.

"On the day the world cracked, the Light of Judgment rained down upon this entire area. Back in Albrook, we watched as it sliced clean through the mountains right before our eyes. It was so loud – so many explosions! I thought I'd go deaf from the sound. Then all of a sudden, debris from every direction – rocks and trees, chunks of buildings and even bodies – began flying toward the Capital, clustering together and forming a great tower. It was difficult to see because of all the ash in the air, but a few weeks later, when the dust began to settle, it was as though the land had flattened itself to bow before the Lord's Tower." He leaned back and watched for Locke's reaction, but it was probably not the kind he'd been expecting.

Locke's face had subtly twisted into a look of disgust. "And has anyone seen this Lord?" He was beginning to get aggravated with the way in which everyone referred to the destructor of the world.

"Well, no, but surely you're not suggesting that the tower is empty?" the man said somewhat accusingly.

"Of course not; there's obviously someone there." But not God. "But why deify him? Has he commanded you to worship him?"

His companion was now losing his patience with these ignorant questions. "What man can wield the power to ruin the entire world? We don't need a spoken command to realize that if we oppose him, he strikes us down!"

They rode in silence for the next few hours.

- x - x - x -

At long last they neared Tzen. The drivers calculated that their convoy was about an hour outside the city, but their feelings of relief quickly dissipated as the clouds began to darken overhead. In a matter of minutes, it was as though night had fallen. The chocobos slowed their pace as the men pulled over to decide the best course of action.

"We're nearly there – might as well keep at it rather than wait out here for the storm! We're too vulnerable!" voiced one of the men.

Others disagreed. "No, we should stop and ready ourselves! The storm is coming too quickly!"

There wasn't much time to argue after all, as a blinding white soon light filled the sky, and the calm silence was viciously broken by the sounds of terrible explosions. The light swept in a beam past them, tearing the earth apart and setting the surrounding vegetation ablaze. The men dove to the ground in a feeble instinctual attempt to protect themselves from the danger at hand. The chocobos were knocked off balance and took the carts to the ground with them. As Locke pulled himself out of a heap of scattered food and medicines, he looked to the southwest. Was this a warning shot? Was Kefka angry they were bringing aid to a suffering town, as Mae had feared?

But as swiftly as it had come, it was all over. Everyone stood up cautiously, amazed to be alive and with only superficial injuries. One of the carts, however, had been completely smashed by the force by which it had been thrown back. Without missing a beat, the men began to gather up the supplies that had spilled out and rearrange everything back into the remaining carts. An older man hopped onto the back of the now-cartless chocobo, as there was now considerably less room inside the vehicles.

"That is what happens when you defy the Lord," mumbled Locke's traveling companion.

- x - x - x -

There was no doubt that the destructive beam had been aimed for Tzen, so the convoy rushed through the last leg of their journey as quickly as they could. They arrived in about half the time they had estimated it would take, and their haste was rewarded by a horrifying sight.

A huge gash had literally cut the city in two. Every building, tree, or person in its path had been incinerated. Houses closest to the wound crumbled as flames razed them to the ground. Tortured weeping and moaning rang out from all directions.

The men dismounted their carriages and stared at the carnage in silence. The body of a young woman lay sprawled on the ground before them, burned and bloodied. Sections of flesh on her face and arms had been melted away, exposing the skeleton underneath. One of the men began to retch.

The seasoned, older man who had ridden the chocobo stepped forward and signaled the others to follow. No point in staring; these people need help. Get to work, were his unspoken instructions. They took a collective deep breath and set out to find any survivors that still had a chance.

Toting a backpack filled with medical supplies – and with little idea how to properly use them – Locke swiftly walked in one direction, trying to keep his composure. Those injured cried out even louder when they saw a healthy man who could possibly help them, and Locke was suddenly overwhelmed with anxiety. He couldn't help everyone! There were only eight who had come from Albrook, and he had not expected to have to do emergency relief when they arrived. He wasn't a doctor. He could use potions and elixers and bandage a wound, but even his former magic – weak though it had ever been – was gone. He cursed himself for being so obtuse – why had it been so hard for him to learn spells, when it practically came natural to some like Edgar and Sabin? And Celes… there had been times when she even outperformed Terra. So many of his friends had excelled with Magicite in hand, but he'd never felt like such a failure as he did in this moment, when a bit of skill in magic could be used to save lives.

The wailing of a little girl – no more than four or five, covered in ash and blood – grounded his wandering thoughts. There were no guardians in sight. Locke rushed over to her to see if she was injured and quickly discovered the reason for her lack of supervision.

She was standing next to the corpse of a man whose legs were missing and face had been blasted to obscurity. Most of his body was blackened.

"Daaaaaddyyyyyyyy!" she screamed again and again, her voice rasping.

Locke stood gaping for a moment, eyes wide and slack jawed. It was a nightmare come to life, except that he was expected to react consciously. No mysterious dream-force was there to move his limbs for him or tell him what to say.

"Are… are you hurt?" he asked stupidly to the girl, his breath now coming in sharp bursts. Her reply was to continue screaming.

He could see that her left arm hung limply at her side and was purple from bruises. It was clearly broken. Though his mind shrieked reminders that he knew how to set a broken bone, it was as though his body was suddenly paralyzed. He finally forced himself to drop his satchel to the ground and opened it, hoping to find something that might be of use, but his hands were trembling so violently that anything he picked out immediately slipped from his grasp.

He looked back at the girl and reached out to her. "C-come away from there," he coaxed, finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.

The girl let out another terrible wail and backed away from him, tripping over some debris. She fell to the ground and screamed ever louder.

Locke began to cough violently; he felt like he was suffocating. Smoke from the nearby burning buildings was wafting into his lungs and stinging his eyes. All he could see when he looked around were more mutilated bodies, dead or barely ticking. From the rubble behind him there was an arm reaching out, patches of flesh missing, just as he'd seen on the woman at the edge of the town. As he stumbled to his feet, he choked again and suddenly he was vomiting. He dropped to his knees once more and tried to crawl away, childishly thinking there could be some escape. Nearly blinded by all the smoke and ash, he couldn't see where he was throwing his hands, and he recoiled in horror when he felt something moist and slippery beneath his palm. Another body was trapped beneath the debris, only its head protruding, but it had been smashed by the falling rocks and its contents were spilling out onto the ground.

This is insane!

His mind reeled. Scrambling upright, he faltered forward, deeper into town, but no further away from the carnage.

He couldn't save these people. Most of them were already dead or taking their last breaths. Even those with less grievous of injuries would find no comfort by his hands.

Up ahead, a woman paced frantically outside of a collapsing house. She tore at her long blonde hair in frustration and anxiety, and suddenly Locke's heart skipped a beat. Could that be…?

"Celes?" he called weakly, picking up his pace.

She turned toward him. It was not her.

"Please help me!" she cried, her voice a cackle of desperation. "My son is trapped inside the house!"

At that moment, one of the other men from Albrook approached the scene. He was a rather burly man, confident and strong. He had surely already saved plenty of people in the time that Locke spent cowering and running away. Locke suddenly felt very ashamed at the way he looked; covered in filth and other people's blood, telltale streaks cutting through the ash on his face, and of course, no supply pack on his back. That had been left on the ground back by the girl and her charred father.

"Locke, give me a hand!" the man shouted, instantly springing into action by pulling debris from around the front door. Numb, but determined now to contribute something useful, Locke lumbered over and awkwardly grasped a fallen support beam. It wouldn't budge. He cursed, frustrated with his withered muscles for what seemed like the hundredth time.

His companion had begun ramming the door with his shoulder. Locke could see that the frame was bent and that the roof above it had collapsed in – rubble was most likely blocking the other side, making it impossible to get through this entrance. Suddenly, a flicker of instinct finally kicked in and Locke began to visually scour the building, looking for another opening. He quickly spotted a gap in the wall to his left, though it was above his head, presumably leading to a room on the second floor.

"There!" he shouted and coughed, pointing up at it. "We can get in through that hole!"

The larger man grunted and said, "You'll have to go in alone. I can lift you up there, but even if I climbed up myself I wouldn't be able to fit through."

Locke tried to mask the nervousness on his face. "R-right. Go on, then." The man bent down and held his hands out for Locke to step up. He grabbed the man's broad shoulders to steady himself, and with one swift motion he was hoisted into the air. He scrambled to grab hold of the edges of the gap, but they crumbled on contact. Nearly slipping down, the man down below called out words of encouragement.

"Come on! Get in there!" Well, it seemed more like a command.

Locke put his strength to the test and pulled his body through the portal just as a new wave of smoke billowed out of the opening.

He succumbed to another fit of terrible coughing, and he pulled a dirty cloth from his back pocket to tie around his nose and mouth. The smoke was so thick he had to crawl along the floor, lest he be completely enveloped in the toxic clouds.

"Is anyone in here?" he called and coughed again. He wished he'd at least learned the boy's name before going in. "Let me know where you are! I'm coming to get you out!" He decided he'd have to limit these outbursts to a minimum, as every time he opened his mouth he inhaled a disgusting mouthful of dust and ash. His voice was so muffled and lost in the roar of the fire he doubted anyone would be able to hear him anyhow.

It was nearly impossible to see much farther than a few feet in front of him, and he wondered how he would ever find this boy. He spotted a staircase leading to the first floor, and he gratefully slithered down it, avoiding gaps and a burning piece of wood. It was much clearer downstairs, which allowed him to stand upright.

"Hello?" he called again. "Is anyone here?" He dashed from room to room, becoming increasingly worried at the support beams and chunks of ceiling that continued to crash to the ground around him, bringing with them the flames from the floor above.

"Hello? Answer me!" he cried, coughing violently and rubbing his eyes. They stung badly, and the heat inside the house was becoming unbearable.

Then, in the corner of one room, he saw what looked to be a small shoe. Approaching, he then noticed the foot that belonged to it.

It was sticking out from beneath a heavy, fallen ceiling beam. Locke's heart pounded. He dropped to his knees and peered around the debris. There was an arm, and there was a tuft of hair poking though as well. Flinging the smaller splinters out of the way, he unearthed a grisly sight.

The boy was lying on his back, pinned down unceremoniously by a heavy wooden beam. Blood obscured the part of his face that was visible from beneath the log so that it was difficult to make out the details of the damage. Willing himself strength, Locke shakily hoisted the heavy mass off the small boy's body and rolled it aside.

It was immediately clear that the boy was dead. His chest had been split open by the beam's sharp edge, and his face was completely smashed in.

Partly due to the ghastly display before him, but intensified by the toxic smoke all around, Locke could feel himself growing faint. A rush of awful questions flooded his mind. Should I leave him? What mother deserves to see her child in this state? But if I return without him, she'll want to keep looking, perhaps hoping he's still alive…

Reluctantly, he decided he must fulfill his mission: he had found the boy; now it was his duty to bring him out. He deserved a proper grave anyway.

Locke gingerly slipped his hands under the boy's body, cringing at the feeling of his limp, dead weight. He looked around – the house was deteriorating as rapidly as the fires were spreading. There was no way he could get back up to the second floor now; he'd have to find another way out.

He ran toward the front door but it was indeed blocked, and Locke had no time to clear it away. Flames prevented him from getting anywhere near the windows. Frantically, he strained to think of a plan, but just then one corner of the house caved in on itself. Without hesitation, he scrambled toward the wreckage, barely avoiding falling debris, and dove out to the street, twisting his ankle upon landing. He clutched the little boy's corpse to his chest.

The young mother ran over to him as he picked himself off the ground, shielding the boy's wounds from her sight.

"My baby!" she cried, extending her arms.

Locke coughed and hesitated, unsure of what to do.

"Miss…" he began, breaking into yet another coughing fit. "I'm sorry, he's…"

A look of horror spread across her face.

"My son! Give me my son!" she shrieked, clawing at Locke's arms. Locke looked over at the man who'd lifted him into the house for support, but he was focused on trying to calm the young woman.

"Give him to me!" she screamed again, so resembling an enraged and rabid animal.

Locke cautiously lifted the boy away from his chest, knowing exactly what was to come.

The woman had the boy halfway in her arms when she saw his damaged face. She began to scream so shrilly that Locke's ears began to hurt, and he moved to take hold of the child as his mother nearly dropped him out of shock. The strong man grasped the woman from behind to keep her from flailing so wildly.

As she continued to wail, two of the other men from Albrook rushed to see what all the commotion was about. The sight before them was self-explanatory. A tall, blond man roughly Locke's age swung his satchel around and extracted a vial of orange liquid. The burly man held the woman tightly as the other forced the mixture into her mouth. She sputtered and coughed, and struggled even harder, screaming, "No! You won't kill me too!" But in a matter of moments, the shrieking silenced, her muscles relaxed, and she went limp.

"Tranquilizer," said the blond man as if to answer an unspoken question. "All my syringes are broken."

Locke gazed down at the boy in his arms. In all his adult years, he had spent rather little time with children. By his mid-teens there weren't too many kids in his small village, aside from a few newborns and toddlers, maybe, and he was always busy fulfilling his own interests. Once he left town for good and met up with Edgar and Arvis and the other Returners, he was fairly set in the path his life was taking – which no longer seemed to include 'settling down' of any sort. But in this moment he felt an odd and maybe inappropriate sort of nostalgia. He couldn't help but think – if she… if she'd lived… he would probably have had a child of his own by now.

Why did it always have to come back to death?

He thought it some vague, macabre allusion appropriate to his own life story as he pressed the child against his chest, blood and innards spilling out onto his own body.

A strange calmness – or perhaps it was more a numbness – took over his whole being.

The dead wife he never married; the dead son he never fathered.

His face contorted, and, not caring that the other men were staring, Locke closed his eyes and silently wept, still cradling the little corpse.

- x - x - x -

There would be no rest for them that night. Other townsfolk lucky enough to live farther from the center of the attack had come to their aid, helping the volunteers from Albrook to put out fires and tend to the injured. The original seven, who had been planning this trip for a while, had trained themselves in medicine in preparation. Locke, however, being a last-minute addition to their crew, had no such practice aside from the crude tricks he had learned on his own past adventures. As there was little time for bumbling apprentices, he had been assigned to help extinguish the fires and pull bodies from the debris while the other men worked as healers. As dawn approached, many of the fires had been controlled, and now Locke had been given a new task: digging graves.

Sweat trickled liberally down his face as he drove his shovel into the ground, lifting away dirt and repeating the motions again and again. There were a few others helping him, and it was clear he was not alone in his exhaustion. So many had died, they didn't have the time to dig proper graves for each and every one. Worse, the bodies were so horribly mutilated that most couldn't be identified, and it was indecent to leave them out any longer than they needed to be. Locke and the other citizens of Tzen worked to dig long, shallow graves, in which they set seven or eight bodies before covering them back up. They had been at it for hours; their fourth mass grave was about halfway done.

Locke paused to rest, leaning on the shovel stuck in the ground and resting his head on his arms. He closed his eyes, but whenever he did he saw vivid images of all the mangled bodies he'd buried. Even after dealing with the carnage for so many hours, it never made it any less difficult to stomach. There were countless others who had ended up like the little girl's father, charred nearly to ash and unrecognizable. Many were missing limbs, and even more common still were those whose flesh and muscle had been melted away, exposing the bones underneath. Never in his life had Locke ever imagined such horror could even be possible.

The hours dragged on and on until finally Locke could push his body no further. His shovel clattered to the ground as he collapsed, nearly rolling into the grave himself. The others rushed to drag him out and it was decided that perhaps it was time for everyone to rest a while. The sun was nearly set, and tonight there were fewer burning buildings to give them light by which to work.

- x - x - x -

A rotting stench filled his nostrils. Looking down, Locke could see the reason for his difficulty in movement: he was buried up to his thighs in bird carcasses. Large birds, too, and some mere skeletons. He picked up one skull and studied it closely. He wondered why it didn't have a beak.

He hadn't seen it move, but he was certain that the pain shooting through his hand just then was because the skull had bitten him. He tossed it away and started to run, his legs suddenly freed.

He ran until he felt it was okay to slow his pace. In the meantime, he walked through familiar terrain – the path between Narshe and Figaro Castle – always so beautiful when the world was green and growing. Leaving the mining lands, that first long pass southward never failed to steal his breath on every journey through. The mountains on either side framed a pristine glacial valley, dotted with trees but largely clear; long and winding where a river once flowed many years before he was even around to witness it. The rolling plains thereafter held an appeal of their own – tall grasses dancing into infinity. He always followed the sun and stars carefully to keep to his path – though he wouldn't have minded getting lost there, his duties to the Returners kept him on schedule. The cool forest was next, often quiet and solemn. It boasted the brightest greens he had ever seen in his life.

Locke felt an overwhelming sense of calm just then. He watched the light shimmer through the leaves and onto the forest floor, and at that moment he knew he should not go further, lest the magic disappear. And yet, sadly, his legs carried him beyond the trees. Instead of the expected desert sands, his feet then met solid dirt, in a place where the air smelled like ash and death and the sky was always dark.

It was time to start digging again. Locke slaved for hours longer, hunched over a shovel, throwing dirt over his shoulders. He was angry that no one was helping him. Slice, stomp, pry, heave – over and over and over again. He dug a hole so deep and wide it began to look like a cave. When he looked up, he couldn't even see the sky. But he knew he mustn't stop digging, so he continued to bash his shovel against the hard rock below his feet, while nothing so much as fractured anymore.

From above, a figure fell gracefully. The crack and crash that resonated when she landed, however, made his bones tremble. He stepped around carefully, searching for the one who had fallen, but he could find nothing and no one. So he dropped to his knees and began to claw at the ground with his bare hands. His fingernails splintered against the rocks. Yet he eventually broke through.

A woman's smooth face framed by creamy black hair appeared under the debris. She looked to be asleep, but the sight of her made Locke nearly cry. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead a voice rang incessantly through his mind. He continued to dig her out of the grave, his hands moving automatically and frantically. After a time – which seemed instantaneous somehow – he looked down at himself to find he was elbow-deep in blood. But the sight elicited no reaction; he simply reached into the wound he had created and lifted out a small child.

The scenario seemed familiar somehow but presently he couldn't place it. He sat on the ground with the weight of Rachel's child in his arms, until he felt a prickling on his shoulders. A bird with bat-like wings perched upon him and looked him in the eye. Then it swooped down to steal his treasure, and the suddenness with which he threw his body forward caused him to awaken from him nightmare.

Suffocating heat was the first thing to greet him. Locke rolled to his side and sat over the edge of the bed, noticing his clothes were completely soaked with sweat. His long hair stuck to his neck and forehead, and he tried to rub the moisture away with his arms, but they were sweaty too. From the window, he could see that light was beginning to break on the horizon, but the sky these days glowed a deep burgundy at dawn, and the sight did nothing to settle him. Looking around, he could see that he was in an unfamiliar room, and sleeping in another bed nearby was one of his fellow gravediggers.

Locke stood and walked toward the door, quietly exiting the room and then the house. It was slightly cooler outside, and he pulled off his shirt so that the breeze could soothe his bare skin. He was trembling, visions of his nightmare still terribly vivid in his mind. Looking at his hands, he half expected them to be covered in blood, but they were clean.

He felt paranoid, manic. Death was following him like a vulture in the sky – and not just death, but horrible, gruesome bloodshed. Deep in the rational part of his mind, he knew he was not the one responsible for any of this, but the dream had set him over the edge. He was scared. He was ashamed. He wanted to hide himself from the place the world had become and fade away alone. The lands he had loved like the beautiful Narshe Valley were gone. His friends were all gone. And he was useless in this ruined world.

His legs brought him to the place where the carriages were parked. He found the knapsack filled with supplies from Mae and pulled out a new set of clothes. Making sure that no one was around, he stripped off his sweaty outfit, poured a canteen of water over his head, and, rubbing himself partially dry, dressed himself in the clean clothes. Then he walked over to the nearby pavilion where the chocobos were being kept and picked the lock on one of the stable doors. The sleepy bird thankfully made little noise as he led it outside and over to the carriages. He slipped his now-stained leather vest around his arms, tied the daggers and the little pouch of herbs to his belt, grabbed his supply bag and hopped on the chocobo's back.

Knowing full well how cowardly his actions were, he spurred the chocobo into motion and rode away from the city without daring to look back. Somehow he had convinced himself that the constant mental torture this place was subjecting him to would justify his running away, but in the back of his mind he knew he would soon be consumed with guilt over this hasty decision.

But it wasn't fair, was it? He had stumbled upon this unfortunate situation, an unknowing outsider expected to help when he had problems of his own to deal with.

Of course, there were hundreds, probably thousands of others staying behind to offer their aid. Certainly they were having nightmares too – these were their neighbors, their families! And yet he was the only one fleeing.

They hadn't risked their lives to fight the Empire before the Collapse! They weren't on the Floating Continent; they didn't witness the things he'd seen up there!

But did that really make him more important? Was he above doing the dirty work?

Fury welled up inside him, bubbling in his stomach and rising to his throat like bile. He was angry at himself, angry at the late Empire and Kefka, angry at the world. Angry that this evil had to exist to bring out his shortcomings.

And then he didn't care what he was doing. He sped south along the shoreline through the night, and the next day, until it was night again and he reached the bridge the convoy had passed on its way to Tzen. He slowed the chocobo to a trot as they crossed it, and paused momentarily when they reached the other side. Left or right? he wondered.

It didn't really matter; he had no idea where he was or to where either direction led. After the bird had had a chance to rest, he kicked it back into a run and headed south, following the narrow, snaking strip of land for miles and miles until at last he spotted a small settlement in the distance.


Chapter title taken from: Coheed and Cambria - "No World for Tomorrow"