Hello, wonderful readers! To promote reading and love of literacy, I have typed this next chapter of "The Search for Avonej"! Actually, I am practicing in a fun way for my future career, which will hopefully be as a game designer. Anyway, I think this chapter will shock you, so please read and review! Seriously, you will probably have never felt so sorry for Yazoo in your life! All ideas are welcome and will be given credit to the giver if used! Thank you for reading! I have so far written fifteen chapters and am not quite done! Whoohoo!
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy or anything in it.
Chapter 10: Tragedy
Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . "Aaaaaaaaa!! Eeeeaaaaa!!" Yazoo screams as soon as he awakens, greeted by excruciating pain, as his body jerks and spasms. He hears footsteps and then feels a syringe poke into his left arm as he opens his eyes. As he turns his face to look at the source of the syringe, he sees a doctor next to him. His pain settles as the doctor pulls it out.
"There. That'll help the pain," the doctor tells him, a pleasant tone in his voice. Yazoo gasps, wanting to say something, but does not have the strength to do so. The doctor looks at him sympathetically. "Every thing's okay now. You're at the hospital. We'll take good care of you."
"That's right," says a familiar voice. Yazoo looks over to his right and sees Loz standing next to him. Loz pushes Yazoo's bangs out of his eyes and dries the tears from where he had been screaming and crying. "Don't worry about a thing."
"Would you like to see Kadaj?" the doctor asks him. Yazoo looks at him and nods. The doctor pulls back the curtain behind him, revealing Kadaj lying in the hospital bed behind it, bandaged up around his torso. Yazoo gasps.
"I'm sorry, Yazoo," Kadaj tells him sadly, seeing the bandages all over Yazoo. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you."
"W-what . . . happ . . .end?" Yazoo groans.
"He broke three ribs and got cut pretty badly. In a few weeks, though, he'll be fine," the doctor assures.
"I'm okay, Yazoo. Don't worry," Kadaj smiles.
Cloud enters the room and walks over to Yazoo, since he sees that he is now awake. The doctor steps back to let him next to him.
"How are you feeling Yazoo?" Cloud asks him.
"M . . . my butt hurts.
"I'm sure it does," Cloud sighs. "Well, do you need anything?"
" . . . Something to drink would be nice," he answers.
"What do you want?"
"Um, some strawberry juice, please."
Cloud leaves the room and comes back about five minutes later. He sets it on the table next to Yazoo's bed so that he can reach it and steps back.
"Thank you," Yazoo says. Yazoo sits up and gets a drink, and then sets the cup back on the table. Afterward, he tries to reposition himself in the bed to be more comfortable. As he tries to move his torso more to the middle, he finds that he is unable to move his bottom and upper legs.
"I-I CAN'T MOVE!! I CAN'T MOVE!!" Yazoo screeches while sobbing again. "IT WON'T MOVE!!"
"Calm down, Yazoo," Loz tells him.
"I CAN'T MOVE!! I CAN'T MOVE!!" he continues while flailing his arms madly. "WHY CAN'T I MOVE?!"
Kadaj looks over at him in horror. Cloud, upset, leaves the room. Kadaj watches him and sees that he is about to cry, so, feeling despairfully, he bites his lower lip and looks away, also unable to bear it.
"I CAN'T MOVE!! I CAN'T MOVE MY LEGS!!"
"Please calm down! We've done everything we can!" the doctor shouts so that he can be heard over Yazoo.
"NO!! I CAN'T MOVE!!"
"You get to have a cool wheelchair now! Now you can drive it around! It'll be fun! And you can get any color you want!"
"I DON'T WANT ONE!! I DON'T WANT A WHEELCHAIR!! I WANNA WALK!!"
"Stop it, Yazoo! You should be thanking him, not yelling at him!" Loz yells, angry. "If it weren't for him, you'd bled to death!"
Yazoo stops screaming and the doctor sighs. "I know this must be hard on you, Yazoo, but there's nothing we can do. Your . . . rump is too damaged to fix. I'm sorry."
Yazoo grieves, so Loz hugs him closely and cries with him. "I'm sorry, Yazoo. I'm so sorry," Loz says softly while he gently rocks Yazoo.
One hour later, Cloud, Tifa, and Marlene walk into the room. Marlene runs over to Yazoo's bedside and sits on it next to him.
"Are you gonna be okay?" Marlene asks worriedly.
". . . Yeah," he answers.
"That's good," she smiles, though sadness is showing through her eyes. "When you come home, how about we color some more and bake another cake together?"
"I'd like that," Yazoo smiles gently.
"Um, Marlene," Tifa says. Marlene moves away from the bed and watches by Cloud. Tifa comes closer to Yazoo and opens a book so that he can see it. "I know you're upset right now, but it's important that you pick a wheelchair now so that you'll have it as soon as you can leave here, okay?" She points to a section on page 114. "You can have any of these that you like. They're all the same, just different colors. Yazoo looks carefully, and then points to a lime green one. "The green one? Okay." She takes the book away and walks over to Kadaj. "And how are you doing?"
"Nnn . . . I'm alright. It hurts a bit, but . . ." he grumbles, having just waken up when everyone came to see Yazoo.
"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you all to leave." the doctor says as he enters the room with some equipment. "It's time for me to check out Yazoo again and make sure everything is okay."
Three days later, Yazoo awakens in his hospital bed and sleepily glances around the room. He sees Loz standing a few feet away drinking something until he spots Yazoo. He smiles and walks up to him.
"Good morning, Yazoo," Loz says happily. "Are you exciting that you're going home today?"
"Mmm," Yazoo groans sleepily, and then closes his eyes as if to go back to sleep.
"What's wrong, Yazoo?"
"I don't feel good."
"Aw, you're just weak. Come on. Let me get you outta that hospital gown so we can go home."
Loz takes Yazoo's gown off of him and begins putting his normal clothes back on him. Yazoo moans as Loz pulls his pants up on him. "My legs feel numb."
"Yeah, probably because you haven't moved them in so long," Loz explains. "Well, at least you can use your knees down, though."
After Yazoo has on all of his clothes, he begins to whimper. Thinking that he may have just bumped one of his many deep wounds, Loz sits down in a chair next to the bed and waits for Cloud.
"Nn . . . ! Nngh! Ah!!" Yazoo groans. "Ow!! Ah!!"
"Yazoo?" Loz asks, worried.
"OWWWW!! AAAAOOOWWW!!"
Loz runs out of the room and Kadaj awakens on the other side of the curtain. "Yazoo? Are you okay?"
Loz and the doctor enter the room and the doctor hurries over to Yazoo with a syringe. He pulls it out and sticks the syringe in one of the few places left and puts a bandage over it. Yazoo's pain lessens, but not by much.
"I NEED MORE!!" Yazoo screams "IT HURTS!! MAKE IT STOOOOOP!!"
"I'm sorry. I can't give you anymore. It's unhealthy for you to have so much drugs in your system," the doctor apologizes.
"There's nothing else that can be done? He's in so much pain . . . ," Loz says, watching Yazoo sob.
"I'm afraid not. I'm sending some medicine home for you to give him every hour and you can put peroxide on his cuts now, but that's all I can do. Any more will make him very sick.
"AAAAAOOOOWWW!! AAAAAAAAAOW!!" Yazoo continues. "IT FEELS LIKE . . . !! MY WHOLE BODY IS . . . !! BURSTING INSIDE!!"
The doctor gently turns Yazoo over on his stomach, so Yazoo immediatley reaches his arms back and starts grabbing himself there, as if it will stop the pain.
Cloud runs into the room, seeming frightened by the screaming. "Why is it hurting so much?!"
"Because now he's experiencing the horrors of being conscious with hardly any drugs," the doctor answers solemnly.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! BIG BROTHER!! AAAAAAAAH!!" he continues, his upper body spasming, and screaming and crying so much that he is beginning to suffocate.
"Please! There must be something you can do!" Loz pleads. "He can't just stay like this!"
The doctor sadly watches as Yazoo continues to scream in anguish, and then looks back to his syringe. "Well, perhaps a bit more . . . ," he gives in. He gives Yazoo a little bit more, causing Yazoo to whimper and jerk. "Now he absolutely cannot have anymore for an hour. He needs off of these drugs."
"Nnnng!! Owww!!" Yazoo cries.
"Why does it hurt so much?" Cloud asks the doctor.
"Because he's such a mess and has such a complication there from being hit so badly, not to mention his terrible wounds," he replies. "It won't always be this bad, though.
"Ah!! Aaaa!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooowwwwwwwwww!!" Yazoo screams.
"Yazoo?!" Loz yells, scared.
Yazoo begins huffing and sweating as if he had just run a marathon, and then his upper body goes limp as it hits the pillow and he is quiet except for his wheezing.
"Yazoo . . .?" Cloud asks, both relieved and worried at the same time.
"I'm . . . okay now," Yazoo gasps weakly.
"Take it easy now, okay?" Cloud tells him. "We're going home in just a few minutes.
"Yeah! And then you can be in your nice 'n comfy bed!" Kadaj yells from the other side of the curtain. Cloud pulls it back so that they can see each other. "And I guess I'll be right next ot you for a while," he continues, gesturing to his bandages around his ribs.
Yazoo smiles softly, but then frowns again. "Big Brother? What are we going to do about our mission?" he questions as the doctor leaves the room. "I can't . . . walk anymore."
Cloud is devastated. He knows that he has to keep up the search for Jenova cells, but it will break Yazoo's heart to know he cannot come. "I guess . . . maybe we can bring you sometimes. On our less dangerous destinations."
"Aw, you don't need to be doing all that fightin' anyway!" Loz adds, playing with a strand of Yazoo's hair that is lying against his pale face. "You need to find something you're better at. Like . . . cooking! And dusting!"
"But . . . I want to fight, too," Yazoo informs, depressed.
"Yazoo, you can't! Besides, is that really fun for you? You're not meant to fight. You're much too delicate for that."
Kadaj makes an angry expression at Loz, mad that he would say that to Yazoo right now. Loz ignores him and gently takes Yazo by the hand, putting his hand where Yazoo can see it. "See your hand? Now look at mine," he instructs, showing his own hand as well. "See how mine is big and strong? That's because I'm a fighter. And see how yours is long and slender? That's because you should do something that needs those hands."
"Loz, leave him alone!" Cloud yells angrily.
"No, he's right, Big Brother," Yazoo sulks. "I should have seen that sooner. I'm the weakest of us. And . . . look at me. If I were meant to fight, then I wouldn't be lying here in this kind of shape."
"That's not true, Yazoo. You just need some training," Kadaj disagrees.
"How am I supposed to train in a wheelchair?! " Yazoo yells, beginning to boil up. "How am I supposed to do anything?! I'm worthless! Helpless!"
"Don't be mad. Lot's of people are in wheelchairs and still go on living. It'll just take some time," Loz assures.
"No!! I don't want a wheelchair! I don't want one!!" he continues, about to cry again.
"Who does?!" Kadaj asks.
The door opens and Tifa walks inside pushing an empty lime-green wheelchair with Yazoo's sitting pillow in the seat. Marlene walks in behind her. Yazoo looks over at it and continues.
"Get that thing away from me! I don't want it!"
"Then how do you plan to get around?!" Cloud argues.
"I can walk! I can!" he protests. "Turn me over, Loz!"
Loz turns him back over onto his back and backs up. Yazoo lifts his legs with his hands and moves them toward the edge of the bed, but the movement causes pain to surge through him. He gets his feet on the floor and pushes himself to a standing position by pushing against the bed, but his legs collapse and he falls into Loz's arms and sobs into them. Loz hugs him for a short moment, and then sets him on the edge of the bed.
Marlene walks up to Yazoo and looks up at his teary face. "Yazoo, why are you so sad? Don't you like your wheelchair?" she questions sadly.
Yazoo whipes some tears from his eyes and looks down at her. "No."
"But isn't this the one you wanted?"
"Yeah, but . . . I want to walk," he sniffs.
"Don't cry, Yazoo. Maybe someday you can. Then we can . . . well . . .," she says, causing Yazoo to look at her questioningly. "It won't matter! Because we can do the same stuff if you're in a wheelchair! Like blow bubbles, catch butterflies, play basketball . . . !"
"Oh, Marlene!" Yazoo exclaims, hugging her tightly while crying. "Why couldn't I see that before? I can still live!" he says happily. "Thank you."
So did you like it or was it too sad or boring? I really wanted to try to break peoples' hearts, so did I succeed? Fret not! Things will work out for Yazoo in chapter 12! Until then, I need some help with chapter 11! I never could really decide on what to put, exactly. I want it to be about Yazoo living while in a wheelchair and something else, too. I do not really know anyone who uses one, so this will be a bit of a challenge for me. Any help is appreciated! Please help, wonderful readers! Oh, and did this chapter surprise you? Make you feel VERY sorry for Yazoo? Just curious on my writting skills. Later!