Tifa's dreams were always of the fire. Sleep best avoided, but it kept them at bay. She did not want to sleep, but could not avoid it. Too much risk. From the point she awoke in the coffin to the point she forced her body back into slumber, she had about an hour before an outbreak. Before something else took over. The metallic coating of her missing hand clenched, metal clicking against metal. Time to explore. Time for a distraction.
Almost no light in the basement of the Shinra mansion, but she no longer needed it. Her red cloak billowed around her shoulders, the hastily assembled garb from cast-offs she was not sure she would like the origin of. Limbs did not ache, stomach did not grumble, her mouth might be dry but no desire for water. Like any other day.
The lock on the door was in need of oil; none within the walls of the mansion and venturing outside ran far too much risk. Tifa shivered. That fake Nibelheim surrounding the older building. Strangers out there; no familiar or friendly faces. She would look of course. For now a check. Hojo might be back.
Could she do what she desired? Her claw clenched again, the anger hot and her wrath building. Taken – still bleeding and delirious – from what might have been her final resting place at the Mount Nibel reactor and brought here underground. Her arm removed and replaced with this claw. Her wound stitched shut – but only after Hojo poured ghosts and ghouls and monsters inside of her. They collective stirred at her thoughts, held at bay for now. But the longer her eyes were open, the more powerful they would become. Until at last they would overwhelm her and one would emerge. An upper floor bedroom damaged the first time. The time after the entrance hall suffered. Tifa stopped trying to escape.
Still the alarming chance Hojo had come and gone again, slipped by during her slumber or while she waiting, fending off the advances of her possession. The lab door swung open at her touch and revealed the familiar scene. Empty. Something at least had happened to her fellow prisoners; Zack and Cloud. Brought here with her but kept separate, trapped in Mako tubes, a supporting tech keeping an eye on them. She had watched from a vantage point, never willing to let word reach Hojo she was awake and mobile.
Or perhaps she should have. Let go and allow the monsters to take control. It could not last at least; the horror of the first attack. Give in once more to the loss of control, but not the loss of consciousness. She experienced everything the demonic form did. Relished in the destruction, violence and death of a guard. She could destroy the research and let the prisoners out. Let this tech die.
No. No control there; too risky. What if the unconscious Zack and Cloud died in the ensuing struggle?
Not a concern any more; they were gone along with the tech. At Hojo's behest or another was unclear and unknowable. No other changes to the room. The library lay deeper into the ground to her left. No signs of any recent habitation; no discarded plates, coffee mugs or litter.
Nothing for her here. Or perhaps not; books and notes. Some might apply to her, the secrets and trickery used to make her as she was. But never enough time. Never long enough to devote to the books, to hide the traces of her presence – and to make it up the stair through the secret door and into the mansion proper. Time was a luxury for someone who seemed to no longer need them. No need to food. No need of drink. Alone five years and with no desire to seek out a lover, a partner, a friend. No urges. No desires save one. And no debilitation beyond a strange exhaustion never satiated.
Tifa ascended to the mansion; too much time underground. Little more than twenty minutes remained. Time enough, but she would have to rush back to the comforting darkness. Evening fell in Nibelheim, the sky shifting to warmer colours, the sun sinking down behind Mount Nibel and plunging the town into shadow. The ghouls nipped at her attention, pulling her focus from the sky, from the mountains and sights of her youth. Whispering dark promises and assurances. Excusing actions not yet taken. If only she would walk out the door and into the town.
She clenched both fist and claw. Always the same. And no assurances she might regain control as she did on the previous occasions. With a sigh, she hurried back down the stairs to her coffin.