Hope remembered he thought it was the end of the world when he watched his mother plummet to the darkened depths of the Hanging Edge.

How small his despair seemed back then compared to this day.

He opened his eyes, sat up, and promptly hurled out his insides. Even as the remains of his dinner from the night before sloshed onto the pebbly sand, Hope couldn't help the sickening twisted feeling knotted into his stomach. The rancid taste of stomach acid plastered the inside of his seemingly dry mouth. Masses of confused thoughts floundered in his head, fighting to fit together into something that would make sense. Serah…Guardian Corps…Cie'th crystals…Lightning…

Lightning.

If it wasn't for her, none of this would be happening. Hope couldn't help the bitterness churning in his heart as he thought about the stolid yet caring ex-soldier he once called his friend. If only she could see him now. A pathetic, shriveled monster being swallowed by his own guilt. Surely this wasn't what Lightning wanted him to become. But she was the reason for all this in the first place.

Hope managed to get on his knees, but he felt so weak that he fell over onto his hands, still coughing and hacking. I just killed a bunch of people…I killed…

He had no idea that he had anything left to throw up. But Hope continued to vomit, his mind lost in the dizziness of the day's events. It was only eight in the morning, and already it had to be one of the worst days of his life.

Finally gaining control of himself, Hope lifted his head to look around. The beach was small and rocky, with sparse vegetation lining the shore solemnly like a funeral procession. The sky somehow looked bleaker, and Hope could swear he could hear the whispers of fal'Cie in the rough breeze. What was he going to do now? Only willpower had propelled him this far from New Bodhum; he doubted he had the strength to swim all the way back. The untamed wild of Gran Pulse was just a hard and painful way to die, especially if someone's alone.

"Sergeant Estheim."

Hope couldn't bear to turn around. He detected the steely edge in that familiar voice, one that used to laugh with him and taunt him to no end. Back then, it had been a friendly voice, one that Hope had looked forward to hearing after dusk. Now, it only washed fresh waves of shame over him. (1)"Devon," he said quietly.

He heard the Guardian Corps soldier jump down onto the beach and could sense the fury radiating off of him. "So this is what became of our prestigious virtuoso," he snarled mockingly. "A piece of useless crap."

"What do you want, Devon?"

"What do you think?" Hope could imagine Devon pacing behind him to match the sound of his boots scraping the the rocky shore. He forced himself not to turn around, just to avoid Devon's face. "You murdered my sister, and then took off. And do you think I'm okay with that? Did you realize you ran away from GC? You're AWOL. Once you return to GC, you're getting a dishonorable discharge. Just what you deserve for breaking the Code of Conduct and fleeing like a coward."

"You dare call me a coward?" Hope fought to keep his voice steady, but it was already shaking with quiet rage.

"What else can I call you?" the soldier provoked. "You're not worthy of being called a sergeant. Hell, you don't deserve to call yourself a soldier. Look at those crystals lining your arm. You know what you are? I know your kind."

Hope didn't need any reminder. He had enough of the name calling. "A monster. I know."

"Not just a monster. You're Possessed, Estheim. Lost in your own frustration, tainted by the power of the fal'Cie." The barrel of a gun prodded Hope's back, right behind his heart. "My father had been a Possessed. Escaped the l'Cie curse, but was eaten up by the remnants of his magic. He was trapped in the melancholy of my mother's death, and grew angrier each day. He mutated into a half-Cie'th, like you are being mutated right now."

Hope felt the gun dig into his skin. He didn't say a word. But the rage continued to crawl up his spine and curled his hands into fists.

"My father mindlessly killed and destroyed, unable to control the Cie'th side of him. The horrible thing about Possessed people is that part of their humanity still remains. Even as they destroy, they still suffer the guilt of their doing. My father died a Possessed, withered to ashes and reduced to nothing once his soul could no longer take the pain." Devon's voice faltered. "No one mourned him. Not even me. He was too deep in his own insanity for any of us to feel sorry for him."

Hope didn't want to hear any of it. He'd give anything to make him stop.

"Eva was my only family left. And you took her away from me. With the same curse that took away the father I once loved. " The gun seemed to tremble as Devon spoke. "There's no hope for the Possessed. No hope for you."

The sound of a cocked pistol. "Goodbye, Sergeant."

Those were the last words Devon ever spoke. Before Hope knew what had happened, the soldier was lying on the beach, his body twisted horribly out of shape and his neck cracked in half. The pistol lay inches from his wretched hand, still loaded with the bullet intended for Hope's heart.

"Damn, not again!" Hope quickly backed away from the corpse. Devon's glassy eyes were sightless, staring light years away from the planet. They'd never come back to Pulse, never have to hatefully gaze at Hope again.

Hope knew he had no control over his cold-blooded actions anymore. Another force took over when he lost his temper. I really am Possessed. A monster…

A blinding white light flashed behind his eyes. The burning pain returned once more. Hope began to writhe and howl as the crystals slowly crawled down his back and curled around his abdomen. The searing pain seemed to have hit his core, as Hope's vision blacked out and his ears filled with the screeches of his own voice.

Don't even try to resist. You're growing weaker as the darkness still consumes you. What's the point of fighting it?

Something large was rising out of his crystal shoulder blade. Hope let out an agonized wail that shook the ground and sent flocks the wyverns to the high skies. A single magnificent wing and spread, cracking away the rocky skin that once concealed it. Silvery crystals coated the mutated structure as it began to swipe the air clumsily.

There really is no hope left for you. Why bother denying it? It's not going to do you any good anyway.

Nothing left for you but the promise of despair.

Hope stumbled to his feet and began to run nowhere in particular. Even though he knew he couldn't run from this darkness eating away at him, he still ran. He couldn't think of anything else to do. He stumbled through the dense undergrowth that seemed to claw at him, opening inviting him to just let go and fall into an abyss of nothingness. Monsters seemed to fear him, since even the most ferocious and vile-looking behemoths shrank away at Hope's craze presence. His crystal wing batted wildly as he ran, almost like a flag warning Gran Pulse that he was an uncontrollable demon.

There's no point in fighting the chaos raging in your heart.

Chaos…the matter that makes up a person's heart. But what was it doing to him? Hope could see a dark smoke begin to cloud his vision. It seemed to be coming from deeper within the valleys he was stumbling through. And for some reason, Hope felt the urge to follow it. It was almost like he was attracted to darkness…

Like a moth is attracted by light. Irresistible, even when you don't want it.

The chaos grew denser as Hope approached its source, still clouded by his anguish. A crumbling stone monument was radiating darkness, and he could barely make out the inscription blurred by chaos. But he knew that the writing was Etro script. This was a monument to Etro.

An indistinct image seemed to reaching out to him as he fell to his knees, chaos seeming to weaken him and dig deeper into his mind. Her wavy pink hair and azure eyes were still recognizable in the wisps of chaos concealing much of her. "Lightning…help me…"

Your mind is no longer your own. Your will is chained to the will of Chaos, the beginning and end of humanity.

Her lips moved to the eerie voice, as if she were speaking them. Hope groaned at the biting pain of the crystals still spreading over his body. "Who are you…?"

Your deadliest salvation, your strongest weakness. Your mind is no longer your own. You cannot fight it.

And at that moment, a hammer seemed to crack down into his mind, shattering his sanity to millions of pieces. He was a monster, with no control over right or wrong, his humanity smashed. He was programmed for only one thing; destruction. And he couldn't do anything about it.

Lightning faded out of his vision, almost smirking at him. He roared and reached out for her, but she was gone. It seemed that in that moment, his last light of hope had flickered out.

Hallucinations crashed over his ravaged mind like relentless waves. His mother, Snow, Serah, Sazh…they were there, but not there. All their presence brought was despair. The Cie'th magic was growing ever stronger, the crystal buried deep in his left wrist burning like a terrible fire that would not calm. He clung to his last piece of sanity as best he could, but it was just too much.

There was nothing but pure chaos in his heart.

All he could do now is pray. Pray for an end to this nightmare. This nightmare that he would not accept as reality.

The last shard of his sanity escaped him in the form of a single teardrop.

(1) Devon, you may recall, is the younger brother of Eva, a Guardian Corps soldier that Hope had injured earlier in the story.

A/N: If my previous hints at what was happening to Hope wasn't clear enough, here's the explanation.

Hope's anger and sadness is acting up his old l'Cie magic, but it had somehow mixed with Chaos somewhere along the line. He's turning into a Possessed, which is my term for a half-Cie'th half-human. The bad part is that they act like Cie'th, but they still have a small bit of humanity in them so they suffer the guilt of killing innocent people. And now, Hope's a full-blown Possessed.

I know, how could I torture Hope like this? But he's always been overly emotional, yes?

Oh, and did anyone get my reference with the wing?