Vision in the form of freeze frames blurred and distorted with motion. The world was passing like a stream all around and there was nothing sturdy to grasp, everything slipping by before Siege could make sense of it. Ee wasn't sure how long it lasted but it felt like an eternity of being thrown around, lurching this way and that. sometimes voices would come to em as if through water dull, and echoing, formless. So that no one word could be made out the meaning diluted, ees only clue to the things being said being the pace and tone of the voices. Something like a bandage was placed over ees eyes by a blurred figure in white, ee tried to turn ees head away, but someone held em still.

There were voices calling, but ee could place no meaning to the sounds when ees mind was this foggy. Wind swept at ees clothes and hair, uncomfortably cool and blustery. But this was short lived, and ee was moved by some means to a place sheltered from the wind. The multitude of voices and sounds around em ebbed away, following a heavy metallic clang that reverberated off what must be walls. There where left only a few that spoke in intimate tones, and the pinging sound of some machine.

Ee comprehended a child's crying, that drew em from a lapse in ees tenuous consciousness. After hearing it for a while, ee was able to distinguish it from a low rawer that ee realized was the sound of an aircraft in flight. They, at least one other child, emself, and a few adults were in a plane. The discovery was unnerving, where exactly were they going, and to what end?

Siege couldn't be sure where the other child's sobbing was coming from, as the bandage still covered ees eyes, and the space they were in was ecoy. But it was also small as far as ee could discern. And ee reached out a hand rough still with dried blood, to seek out the one crying. Ee felt a smaller hand rough and trembling like ees own, clutch it near instantly.

The next time ee came to the hand in ees had vanished, instead something like a mask was being fitted over ees mouth and nose. Ee found too that ee could see once more, tho still from one eye only.

Ee was lying on a minimally padded stretcher bed, it took up most of the space in the plane. At ees foot end were double doors, to make loading someone in to this craft easy and quick. There in ees peripheral vision to ees left, two white coated figures occupied a fold down bench against the wall. One of them was examining the limb of a third child sized figure. The other leaned over Siege with something slippery and warm to be applied to ees skin. Skin that Siege felt like ee was barely a part off any longer, it occurred to em that maybe this was a mercy.

Based on the acrid smell of the mixture being applied to ees face, neck, and shoulder. Ee guessed loosely that it could be mako and elixir. The figure treating em produced what looked like a purple bottle of something, and then ee felt a cool sensation in ees right eye. An eyedrop, ee realized when ee tasted the sharp tang of the stuff draining through ees sinuses and down the back of ees throat. A second drop of the stuff was applied to ees left eye while the person in the white coat held ees lids open, this time ee saw the process like ee hadn't been able to through ees right eye, causing em to flinch.

Siege didn't recall falling asleep, but the next thing ee knew after being jostled awake ee was hearing bird calls. Though not the ones native to Kalm, or Midgar, or even Junon. There was a crunch of gravel under several sets of shoes. Ee felt like ee was churning in perpetual nauseating motion. And ee was surrounded by white figures that wobbled in ees vision like mirages, as if seen through heat coming off of a hot road. They had arrived at the destination supposedly and were being moved from the plane to somewhere else, ee could see the building like an estate or hospital coming in to view.

There was a rhythmic dripping sound, and a damp oppressive smell pervaded the new space ee found ee woke up to. It was difficult to define sleep from waking, but during the times that felt more like sleep ee was pursued by a foreboding…something. Ee would wake in to ees semi existence with a start, heart wrestling in ess chest and lungs heaving, tears wet in ees eyelashes. A phantom booming sound echoing until it was gone into the distance. These sensations were joined by those of vertigo and falling. Like one experiences in dreams, caught in a loop of tipping over the balance point, and bracing for impact.

There were hands with thin poky fingers positioning ees arms, legs, and head, and securing them in place tightly. Startled by this ee tried to budge in the grip of these restraints, but they would not give. And ees body would barely even respond.

There was a muffled clanking sound to this place too. It seemed to be everywhere, a mechanical heart beat in the walls.

Voices wavered between too close and clear, and distant and unintelligible. "If he doesn't survive then good riddance really, it would be a waste of materi…" But the voice was lost in a threadbare cry as pain lanced bone deep through ees head. Sweat had broken out all over ees trembling form, surely there was a limit to enduring? Ee's teeth chattered, ees restraints burned with friction when ee had something left to fight them. And when ee was so far beyond exhausted, ee's muscles cramped and refused to struggle any longer against ees bonds. Despite ees feverish panic that propelled ees heart into painful palpitations. But the worst of it, the center of the agony was ees head and right eye. Searing heat, mingled with the smell of cooking meat, stabbing pain connected with bone, a whirring drill sound thrummed in ees skull. Ee could hear emself in a detached way screaming and crying, muffled by gauze in ees mouth. A head rush swooped over em and ee blacked out.

Warm liquid was repeatedly poured over ees face, it drained into a grate under em. Siege could hear it trickling and smell it, the same concoction of mako and elixir the figures in white had used before, The liquid filled ees mouth making it hard to breath and tasting like water that had had leaf mulch in it, causing em to cough and spit trying not to be drowned by the stuff.

After days of this something that was almost true consciousness came to em at last.

Ee opened ees left eye with surprising ease. But there was residual shooting pain behind the right one, which ee could not open being taped closed, and which ee would not have risked opening if ee could have.

The space ee found emself in was dimly lit by desk lamps illuminating work spaces, some for papers, others were metal beds like the one ee emself lay on. There were freestanding bookshelves too. The only other source of light aside from the lamps, where two large glass cylinder shaped tanks filled with mako. The liquid's eerie glow filtering through the glass, rippling when the occasional burst of bubbles would float to the top out of view. Against the wall, there were pipes and panels littered with gauges, dials, tubes, and buttons. The propose those might serve Siege couldn't decipher, but ee guessed it might have to do with regulating the tanks of mako, seeing that the thick hose like cables connected the mako tanks to the panels.

Voices from another room to the right of a closed door, and across a hall lined with book shelves reached em. One of the voices was watery and crooning, there was a note of condescension in it. This voice seemed to be doing most of the talking despite extended pauses. Siege vaguely decided ee founded this voice irritating.

The owner of this voice emerged from this adjacent room. Back lit in the hall, dressed in a white coat. Facing away still, he talked a moment longer to the others remaining in the room he had come from. Shortly he came over to Siege, hardly looking at em as he administered something via a shot that Siege did not have the strength to resist.

An angel? Was ees first impression of this individual. Siege recognized him, ee felt like ee'd seen him recently, but it was hard to say. The memory eluded ees mental fingers, spiriting away each time ee thought ee had it.

The man had black wispy hair pulled back in a low tail, several strands escaping. His figure was craned over, like he spent more time looking down his nose then anything else. And he clasped his hands behind his back while he watched unspeakingly as Siege again slipped into that murky sleep. But even as waking left em, the memory came back to em with a phantom booming sound. The man in white stood in Kalm's ruin before a destroyed church, flanked by an infantryman with a rifle, and a SOLDIER.

The next time ee came around, ee was being handled not with any care as those doing the handling pushed em upright and back against something cold, binding em there.

Ee tugged defiantly at the restraints already around ees forearms, biceps, and neck. The bonds strained and creaked, but did not give. However, in the effort ee had kicked out. There was a cry as one of the coats was thrown far back by the forc of the kick, over one of the metal tables across the room. It shocked Siege as much as the one who had been kicked. Both to have some control over ees body back, and to have dealt such a strong blow when until this point ee'd been hardly able to move under ees own power.

A greater commotion broke out after this, there were more coated people coming in and out of focus pressing up against em with their hands and EMR's to force em back. Shouts for assistance rang out, aggravated complaining, yelps of pain when ees knee or boot connected with a chin, nose, or ribs as they attempted to strap ees legs in.

Then they were backing away, some puffing with the exertion. Others clutching their ribs, or their face from which blood gushed onto pristine white coats. This second group were largely cursing and muttering, but the rest looked relieved or triumphant. Siege watched them as they watched em, even as the glass door of what ee now recognized as one of the glass stasis tanks slid between them. Ee felt it seeping into ees boots first, through the broad stitched seems, warm almost hot liquid. Looking down as best as ee could manage, ee saw the green iridescent stuff pooling around ees feet, ankles, calves, up to ees knees know.

"Mako." Ee identified the stuff. The mako creeped up ees chest and neck reaching ees chin. The fumes coming off the mako, smelling of tar, rotting leaves, and rain had ees head spinning. Ee held ees chin up as long as e could but the stuff quickly overtook ees tightly pressed lips, and ees nose.

Ee squeezed ees eyes closed, and thrashed against ees restraints until ee had become light headed. Without the strength to resist any longer, ee relinquished involuntarily. The Mako rushed into ees lungs, ee hacked painfully for several minutes. Then the wiring of whatever motor was pumping the mako into the space ee inhabited stopped. Leaving the silence, warmth, and whatever chemical reaction was happening to became a sort of unwanted sedative.

Those that had been watching were patting each other on the back, or tending to broken bones and dispersing, leaving the room emptied. Siege was glad of it, this constant observation, on top of the uncertainty not knowing what was being done to em or why, was it's own kind of horror. When whatever this was was over, ee'd find out what this all meant. Why Kalm had been destroyed, why emself and it seemed at least one other had been brought here.

But would ee make it out of this? A bitter but silent sob forced its way passed the growing lump in ees throat, only to die in the mako. Gaia someone had to save em right? But who and how? Were Trader or Swayer even alive still? They could be dead, killed days ago during the bombing of Kalm, or have meet with a similar fate as emself.

Ee wasn't important or special in any regard, ee could very well die here and that would be the end of it. No one would come for em. Ee suddenly felt ees meager thirteen years, ee'd never been so helpless or alone.

There was no way to keep track of time, the lighting in this place was always the same. More often than not ee was merely semi-conscious. It was a mercy to escape and laps into true unconsciousness, but that brought with it a fear of its own. Ee was sure that every time ee surfaced from oblivion into delirium, that ee came back a little less, that ee left a little more behind each time, that ees edges were becoming more and more afraid. Ees vision doubled, tripled, quadrupled, each time, until Siege was looking through a kaleidoscope. Ees waking was becoming shorter and shorter, with longer intervals of that strange sleep. Like fragments of time had been cut away, leaving dreamlessness whispering. Gaia and these thoughts were all a part of it, paranoia, an intense anxiety, restlessness all of these plagued em to the point of exhaustion.

Ee heard something, a distant rumble over the soft bubbling of mako, and Spencer song like sound that prolonged contact with mako could have one hearing. The rumbling though was a new sound, real more substantial than anything ee'd heard in awhile. It seemed to defining ees edges for the first time in too long, giving form to ees almost formless existence. Ee strained ees ears to hear it.

And there it was, with it raised voices and the sharp sounds of gunfire. A few of the angels, or rather people in white ee reminded emself, fled into the room from the door to the left of the hall, only to be gunned down. There killers striding in after them. Siege know them by their uniforms! These were the activist group ee'd been supplying.

Heart racing like a wild chocobo, ee pulled against ees restraints, desperate to alert these familiar people to ees presence.

A lanky young man not much older than emself that Siege had never seen before, presumably in charge of the operation gave the go ahead. The small group broke formation to search the rooms. While their lanky leader talked on his handset.

Siege shifted about, bruising emself on ees bonds, and calling noiselessly. At last a familiar dark face turned up towards em from going through some papers left out on a table.

The man came forward right away, hurrying despite his limp and calling one of the others over. He slapped his palm against the glass door and called. "Hold on, we're breaking you out!"