Come.
Come closer.
He was out in the woods again, scouring the wildlands, the circles of the routes he took drawing closer and closer to the reactor, to where he knew he ultimately had to go.
Had to, but didn't really want to.
No, of course not. But it was something that could not be helped.
Something had to be done.
He could not evade that place forever.
He had encountered more and more beasts on his trips to the forrest these past few weeks, dogsters and other things too, things he'd never seen before, things he couldn't even begin to give a name to. He saw more and more of them on his now almost daily excursions.
They had not attacked him once, had actually kept their distance. Had watched his walks with alert red eyes. Had not shown any sign of hostility, any sign that they were planning to go back to attacking the villagers.
Still, they were there.
More and more beasts. More and more mutated. More and more of them reeking of mako, of the sweet slurry substance that made his heart speed up and his senses go into overdrive.
The last mako shot had done him almost any good. Had infact almost killed him. Had left him feeling drained and weak and vulnerable.
He'd been planning to end it then. To take the shot and leave for the forrest to bring it all to end before his children would be born, before Lightning would become his wife even. Well, his body's reaction to that last mako shot, it had thwarted his plans, had put it all on hold. Now his wife was heavily pregnant, their kids were almost born and still, he hadn't set foot into that damned reactor.
Maybe he should have gone there straight from the beginning. Back when he'd still had a chance, a chance to succeed.
Why had he stalled, why had he hesitated?
General Sephiroth Crescent didn't know. Could not remember.
But one thing he knew for sure.
He had become week. In every way imaginable.
In the end professor Hojo had been right. His feelings for Lightning had become his weekness. They really had.
Still, it wasn't something he would have wanted to trade. Not for anything in the world.
Stepping over sticks and stones, over brambles and weeds and dried up scrub, he looked up into the sky. There were no birds here chirping in this part of the forrest, no crickets chirring in the knee high weeds, no insects humming in the bushes.
The once proud palm trees had grown dreary, their once lush green leaves were brown, shrivelled up, dying.
The deathline around the reactor was expanding. Had been doing so for quite some time, Sephiroth was aware.
And it's growth was accelerating.
Something had to be done about it, he was aware, should have been done a long time ago. Sould be done soon.
He had to end this before the it would swallow up the forest, before it had a chance to spread to the village, before more and more beast would come, before there would be another large scale attack, and come it would. It was a fact not a fear.
The monsters wouldn't stay away forever. That much he was sure of. But there was more.
He had to end this before his kids were born and as long as he still had enough strenght in him, before the lack of mako was driving him to an insane weak mass. He owed that much to Lightning, owed it to their kids. He had gotten them all into that mess in the first place. And he would keep them safe from whatever it was that was lurking in that forrest.
Yes, something had to be done and soon. He know that better than anybody else possibly could.
Still. No matter how often he came closer to the treeline, no matter how strong the pull that was trying to lure him inside, closer to the reactor, there was something about the whole thing that creeped him out to no end, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, but upset him to no end, all his instincts telling him to stay away to back off to get away as far as possible.
It left him standing rooted to the spot, skin shivering in goosebumps, heart racing crazily against his ribcage whenever he came to close to it, whenever it came to finally crossing that deathline.
Continuing down his uncharted path, it was a few minutes later that the reactor came into sight.
An enourmous steel monstrosity, covered in dead brown twines, reaching up to the top of the highest trees, it was staring at it for what had to be the millionsth time that Sephiroth wondered why nobody had found it yet.
It was not eactly subtle and it was not exactly hard to find.
Surely rangers must have passed by, hunters, trappers, hikers. Still. He had found no record of it, not on any map, not in any book or writings, there had not been a single mention of it and he had searched every available record imaginable.
Maybe to normal people the reactor was repellent.
It was carefully that he walked forward now, was with a decisively planned stop that he halted at the treeline. The line of no return. The invisible line were the trees had stopped to grow, where the last few bushed vanished and the grass receded to give way to dead plain gravel.
Come closer...
Just one more step...
It is your fate..
What are you waiting for...
It's your destiny…
Come..
You can't defy your fate...
The voices in his head going into overdirve, General Sephiroth Crescent took a tiny step back.
Those voices... They always got louder near the reactor, became more urgent, more persuasive, more convincing, harder to resist really, acted up full force when he was right infront of it.
It is your purpose...
The urge to move forward was almost irresistable.
Still, his feet stayed planted savely on his side of the treeline.
Come...
Come closer...
Standing there in front of it, infront of the reactor, his final destination, no matter how often he had come after his final mako shot, Sephiroth found he couldn't bring himself to enter, couldn't even cut past those last few scrubs of vegetation. Couldn't enter the ring of death as he had come ot call it.
No. He had to get back to Lightning. Back to his family.
Couldn't give in to the voices in his head, couldn't let himself get trapped.
Because a trap it had to be. What else?
Come. Closer.
No. He had to go.
Now.
Turning around he quickly made back into the undergrowth of dying trees and bushes.
It had been like this for the last couple of days. He had come there close, stared at it but never crossed the death line, had always gotten cold feet.
Somehow Sephiroth couldn't help but feel ashamed of himself.
For the first time in his life he shied away from batttle, shied away from duty, from obligation, from responsibility and it wasn't just because of his new found weakness either.
He had always charged into a fight head first Masamune blazing, had looked forwards to it really, had never much thought about any of the consequences, of the danger. When he had been in battle nothing else had been real, nothing else had been important.
It had been what he'd been made fore, was his purpose, his expertice, his fate.
Things were different now though. And big style too.
For the first time in his life he was scared. For the first time in his life he had more to loose than just his pittiful existence.
What horrors would Lightning have to endure if one day he didn't come back. If he' d left her alone like this to raise their kids all by herself. He had promised her to be there, had promised her to help her giving birth, and he had promised so much more. He had promised to be with her in sickness and in health, in good times and bad times, had done so with his wedding vow.
Maybe Genesis was right. Maybe he should gather a cavalry. Maybe he should have done that a long time ago. Maybe he didn't have to face this fight alone.
Reluctant to admit it as he was, Genesis and his fire matera had proven a powerful ally against the jenova spawn. Maybe he could be of use again. And Zack and Angeal... Well, they were not exactly useless either.
This is your battle... A voice in his head pointed out readily.
Not theirs.
Never their's.
They were right again of course, had always been.
What if someone got hurt, got killed. Could he really take responsibility for that? Would he even want to?
You know what is waiting there in side... You might push it to the back of your mind, you might hide it, deny it, but deep inside you know.
You always have.
The voice was right again.
The fight was going to be messy.
What if someone got hurt?
He couldn't take resposibility for that, wouldn't be able to do so in the first place, would not be able to live with it.
Not anymore.
No. A one man show it would be. Clean and quick, concise. He would go in. Do what needed to be done. End it. And get out again. A clean cut.
Yes. This way would be best. This way he would do it.
One day.
Some day in the furture.
Not today. Not tomorrow.
It was another sunny afternoon in winter and Claire Crecent was lounging on the couch of her living room. She was on the climax of her pregnancy, was heavier than she ever thought she possibly could be, was lazy and sluggish and fat.
Still. She was no fool.
Sephiroth had been gone almost every day now. Had been gone for hours on end. Had been gone without telling anyone where to, not even people at the station, not Genesis or Angeal and Lightning couldn't help but feel uneasy.
More and more beast had been seen in the forests again, dogsters of course, but other creatures too, cerature's she had never seen before and definitely hadn't had a name for.
And Sephiroth was gone longer and longer, more and more often.
Monster hunting and patrolling he had told her, but he hadn't been with anyone from the station. She had checked, and there never was blood on his clothes those days, his hands, his hair. No blood, no saliva, no monster juices.
There was dirt on his boots though, mud really, earth and grime, and twigs and leaves in his hair and sometimes on his coat.
Angeal and Genesis had been busy roaming the forests too, ridding them of the beasts and they had come back to the station tired, drenched in body fluids as expected. Everyone in the guardian corps had been, except for Sephiroth and of course Zack, whom Lebreau had made promise not to do anything dangerous and for a moment there Lightning thought she should have done that too.
No that it would have made any diffference, she conceded at an aftethought.
The silver haired first class would have done what he wanted regardlessly.
Still. It was devastating. The fact that he was leaving her alone now that she was so close to giving birth and for extended periods of time too.
Hadn't he promised her that he'd be with her?
Hadn't he promised to be there for her, for their newborn kids?
How was he supposed to do that if he was out in the forrests?!
'I'm going out on mission.' the silver haired first class announced as donning his cloak and adjusting his smooth black leather gloves he made towards the front door.
Lightning only closed her eyes.
There. He was doing it again.
He was leaving her again. Was leaving her alone to do Etro knew what. He didn't even tell her.
Taking one deep calming breath, she quickly made to bite back tears.
She could go into labour any moment. Her kids could arrive now any day. He had promised to bet here. To be there for her. Why was he doing this to her? Why now?!
The whole affair, it made Claire Crescent's heart ache to no end.
'Do you have to? I mean... Do you really?' Lightning looked up at him with huge blue puppy eyes that would have rivaled Zack´s.
Having managed to heave herself off from the couch, she had made over to the hall as fast as she possibly could, had managed to reach him just as he had reached out for the door.
It made Sephiroth stare back at her with tortured mako eyes.
'Claire... I haven´t been out all day.' he tried to explain.
'Somebody´s gotta watch out. Somebody's goota take care...'
'Take care of what?' Lightning interrupted.
Her eyes had gone from puppy to spanish inquisition in the matter of moments.
Still there was worry in them, concern.
'I... I don´t know.' he husband answered hesitantly.
'The forest. The city. The beasts...'
'The forest does well without you. And so does the city. There haven´t been any dogster attacks in weeks.' Claire Crescent reasoned.
'They might be there, okay. But they have not caused any harm. They have not attacked. They have become harmless.'
She was right.
The silver haired first class looked away.
There had been more and more dogsters. More and more unnamed beast gathering in the forests all around Bodhum. Still. Nothing had happened yet. There had not been a single sighting in the village, not even the tiniest of attacks, no casualties. No anything.
It was exactly that that scared him to no end.
'Come on... Stay with us. It´s fine. Everything´s fine without you.' Claire Cresecent urged, reaching out to touch his arm.
'It can wait.'
The silver haired man in front of her giving a defeated sigh, it was with great inner turmoil that he shook his head and pulled away, turned for the door.
If only it were true.
Lightning had no idea what she was talking about of course, had no idea what was going on.
If only he could tell her...
He should tell her, he was aware. Should have told her a long time ago.
Still, he couldn't bring herself to do it. Couldn't bring himself to endanger her and it was exactly what telling her would mean.
There simply was no chance she would just relax back and let him do the work, no way she was going to let him do this thing alone. And he couldn't ever take her with him, pregnancy or not, could not ever risk her to even coming close to the reactor, couldn't risk whatever he would find inside to harm her.
Because yes. He had his suspicions about what he would find in there and he wouldn´t want her anywhere even close to it if he was only remotely close to the truth.
And there simply was no way of keeping her away once she knew it too.
No way of making her stay out of it.
No way of keeping her safe.
He was running out of mako again, he was aware. For real this time. And he had to do this before he'd run out completey.
He had to keep his family save.
Lightning and his kids would never be safe as long as whatever dwelled there still roamed free.
He had to end this. For his family.
'There's still something i gotta take care of.' he said as he stopped to look back at her.
'I´ll be back as soon as I can.'
And it was with those few final words that he left into the humid summer breeze.
Watching her husband descend down the driveway Mrs. Claire Crescent gave a devastated sigh.
What was going on with him?
Where was he going off to all the time?
There was nothing that required his attention out there. No more monsters on the streets, no more dogsters in Bodhum. And he was not slaying monsters either. That much she knew for sure.
What was he up to then? What was this all about?
Was it that he was bored? Bored with her? Bored with this situation, with their unborn children, with their house?
Bored already?
No. That coudln't be either. It had to be something else. That just so wasn't him...
She knew him. Knew that something was wrong. Had been wrong with him for weeks. Months maybe. She had blamed it on the pregnancy. The babies. The wedding. The new house. The mako withdrawals. The nightmares. His ptsd. Whatever. But somehow she couldn´t overcome that sinking feling in her chest that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
There were those times where she found him staring at the wall, out the window, down the road. Staring at nothing really. Where he seemed to listen. Seemed to listen to some weird inner voice only he could hear. Seemed to lose all connection with reality until she snapped at him, tugged at his arm, kissed his cheek.
It was weird really. And worrying. The way he´d look at her sometimes as if something horrible was about to happen. As if he wanted to tell her something but couldn´t. As if he were scared. Yes. General Sephiroth Crescent was scared. But scared of what?
There´d been a time when she´d thought the world would tremble at his predator stare. That everyone would kneel at his feet in awe and that there wasn´t an enemy he wouldn´t be able to behead with a single blow of his precious Masamune. Never would she have thought General Sephiroth Crescent scared of any fucking thing. But now. Now she knew better. General Sephiroth Crescent was scared shitless and it freaked her out to no end.
What would a man like him be scared of?
Claire Cresecent didn't know.
Looking back over her shoulder to check that he had gone, she stepped up to the front door and quickly donned her cloak.
Pregnancy or not, if he wasn't going to tell her where he was going, she would have to find out for herself. And it was closing the door behind her with a tiny thud, that she made after him.
The hike to Sephiroth's hiding place had not been easy for her. Carrrying almost double her usual weight, with her back aching like mad and her being chronically feeling out of breath to begin with, it had taken her several breaks and resting places to reach the clearing the man who was her husband had finally had settled in.
The man from her dreams had taken down the main road and vanished into a cospe of trees, gone from her sight before Lightning had managed to catch up and she had been left to trace down his almost non existstend tracks.
A few times she had thought she'd lost his trail entirely, that she wouldn't be bale to pick it up again even if her life depended on it and it was before an hours had passed that she realised following him had been a really stupid idea.
She was not Claire Farron, first class soldier extraordinaire.
She was a pregnant woman in her last trimester.
She was fat and weak and clumsy. She hadn't left the house for weeks. Her body was nothing like it used to be and it was with the realisation of that slowly downing on her that she had succesffully gotten herself lost.
She knew how to get back to the village sure, but she seemed to have lost her husband's trail entirely had found herself in a dimlit cospe of tightly growing trees.
It was walking over to a fallen tree that she let her body sink down, allowed herself a little rest. She felt tired, felt worn, felt drained.
She hadn't been prepaired for this, hadn't known where Sephiroth's trail would take her or how far and she hadn't brought any proviant.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She should at least have brought some water.
Her arms coming up to wrap around her ever growing belly, she gave a small tentative sigh.
Maybe she should have stayed at home, on her cozy couch, with the fridge only a few steps away...
Yes. She definitely should have.
But what exactly was Sephiroth doing in those woods? And so deep in too?
He hadn't been looking for mosters.
He had set off at a quick pace, had ventured in there with a direction, a specific destination set in his mind.
If only she knew where to...
It was only then that Lightning realized how quiet the forrest had become.
Suddenly there were no birds to hear singing, no crickets, even the rustling of the trees had stopped as if there were no breeze at all.
It made her skin erupt in goosebumps.
This was just like the time when they had hunted down those beasts.
Those giant jenova spawn beasts.
No, no, no, it couldn't be.
A tiny rustle of loose dead leaves behind her made her spin around in panic, but it wasn't a giant jenova spwan monster that she faced, it wasn't even Sephiroth.
It was a pack of dogsters. And a pack of heavily mutated ones two.
A threeheaded alpha leading at their front, a pack of at least fifty monsters, she found them suddenly standing only a few meters away from her, inch long teeth protruding from their open mouths and meancing red eyes staring at her intently.
The sigh of them made Lightning freeze.
She hadn't brought Blaze Edge, hadn't brought a single weapon, hadn't even thought of it.
Not that it would have done her any good. She was in no state to fight.
One of the beast in front her gave a shrill bloodcurdling growl and it made Claire Crescent almost shit her pants.
She was going to die here in this clearing. She really was. And so were her kids.
Her arms wrapping around her baby belly protectively she simply stood there rooted to the spot, stared at the things in front of her.
It was all so wrong, was all so twisted.
There were not supposed to be a lot of monsters in the woods anymore. There had been no more attacks. Sure, there had been sightings. Occasional sightings, Genesis, Angeal and the rest of the guardian corps and neighbourhood watch had dealt with. But not in this great numbers. Not to this extend.
The attacks had stopped with the vanishing of the giant beasts they had slayn in those forests and the dogsters had gone back to where they'd come from, it was only sporadically that they were seen these days, or were they?
They weren't. They stood right in front of her. The biggest pack there'd ever been. Ready to rip her to pieces.
Suddenly it all made sense.
Stay away from the forest, Sephiroth had said, had made her promise even.
If only she had listened to him.
The biggest one of the dogsters moving forward, tasting the air for the scent of prey, it gave another bone chilling growl, before it made to approach her.
There was nothing she could do.
She had no weapon on her, no way of defense.
And there was no running away either.
With her clumsy legs and excess weight, there was no outrunning them, was not a chance she wouldn't stumble, wouldn't fall right on top of her children.
There was nothing to do really.
She could only embrace death.
The dogster coming closer still, time seeming to go into slow motion, suddenly it was only centimeters away from her and Lightning couldn't bring herself to move.
It's shaggy head moving forward, she found the dripping snout digging into her pockets, felt it sniff her out, saw the others moving closer too as looking up at her, it took a step closer still, made to gently lick her skin.
It made Claire Crescent's heart stop beating entirely.
The sloppy wet tongue, soft and gentle on her hand, she could feel the steely cold of it's razor blade sharp teeth grazing the topmost layers of her skin.
Still. At a lick it stayed.
The anticipated tearing, ripping, chewing. None of it ever came.
The other dogsters crowding all around her, they extended their heads too, made to sniff her clothes, nestled themselves against her legs.
Suddenly they were only dogs.
Big ugly mutated dogs, greeting their owner and looking for a treat.
It freaked Ligtning out to no end.
The biggest dogster still busy with her hand, she carefully reached out with the other, made to gently pat it's head.
It made the thing infront her give a weird content purr.
It seemed happy though, kept coming back for more, and so did the others, eager to be patted on their heads and backs and paws, some of them lifted up for her like well trained dogs eager for a treat.
She didn't know how long she stood there entertaining the pack of beast around her as if her life depended on it. Well. Her life depended on it actually.
She had to keep them happy, had to keep them in a good mood lest they decided she was better use as prey.
It was after quite some time of patting and playing fetch with fallen twigs that finally the threeheaded alpha dogster stepped up to her.
It's seven big red eyes staring up at her knowingly, Lightning felt her body shiver.
There was an intelligence shining in them she had not expected, not even from a dog.
It was a cold kind of calculation, the kind of predatory killer stare, Lightning only knew from one source in existence.
Sephiroth.
It creeped her out to no end.
The alpha dogster coming closer still, it bared it's inchlong teeth at her, opened one of it's three mouths to close it around her wrist, tugged at her arm softly as if to try and show her something.
Claire Crescent complied.
What else was she to do?
With her hand cought in the dripping wet fangs of a giant bloodthirsty beast, she didn't have a lot of options. Still. Her fear seemed gone. And gone completely.
There was some kind of mutual understanding between the two of them, some weird kind of connection. And she knew the beast was leading her, was leading her to Sephiroth.
General Sephiroth Crescent sat in his usual spot. A smooth dark rock under a huge old oak tree overlooking the reactor clearing. His lookout post. The place he´d sat keeping watch for the past few days.
It stood right at the edge of the treeline, where the small thicket ceased to rough barren ground. Nothing wanted to grow close to the reactor it seemed and Sephiroth hadn´t yet pushed further either. Ignoring the voices in his head, urging him closer all the time, he had carefully stuck to the forest side of the invisible line that seemed to seperate the reactor and the remaining woods.
It was as if the ground was tainted. Evil. All life drained from it and sucked into the reactor, processed into energy. Energy for what?
The silver haired man swallowed audibly.
But it wasn´t only that. Was it? No. It definitely wasn't. There was more to this site than a simple abandoned mako reactor. Sephiroth knew. Was aware. And it was for this very reason that he kept coming back to this place. To make sure that whatever was in there stayed in there for good.
And so far it did. Everytime he came back he was scared to find something else, something more, something new. And everytime he came back, nothing was out of the ordinary.
It was a trap of course. It had to be. Whatever was in there waited. Bided it's time, laying low. Waiting for him to make the first move.
He wasn´t stupid enough to risk it.
There´d been times in his life when he´d have charged in there guns blazing. But these times were long past. He was older now, more mature. Wary. Weak. He had something to lose now. More than just his pittiful life. His family needed him. Lightning needed him. And he wasn´t as strong as he once used to be.
No. He really wasn't.
He was weak. Too weak to fight. Too weak to win.
So this was what he´d been doing for weeks instead of fighting, instead of making plans. He had just sat there. Watching. A silent observer staring at a pile of steel and concrete. Waiting. Contemplating. Unable to face his fears.
He knew he´d have to go inside eventually. One day he would. One day he would have to. But no matter how often he thouhgt it through he couldn't bring himself to do it.
No. He simply couldn't. Not today. Maybe tomorrow... Or the day after. That was what he told himself, every single day.
It had been a stupid idea of course. Coming back to the reactor again. Nothing good had ever come from it, certainly no solution, and nothing good would ever come.
It was a waste of time really, a waste of opportunity. He should have stayed at home.
Lightning was right. She needed him with her. She was about to have her kids and he had promised her to be there. What was he doing here, sitting in the woods?!
The voices in his head reaching a peak, General Sephiroth Crescent quickly shook his head. A pittyful attempt at chasing them off, he knew.
A low pleading wail droning in the background. A high pitched scream here and then. And that eerie alien voice, urging him to come. To come closer.
He'd been hearing voices for a long time now. Had heard them ever since he was a child. Voices urging him to rip, to tear, to kill... He'd gotten used to them somehow. Had arranged himself with them, had let them take control whenever there'd been need for them to do so. He'd learned to live with them. Had accepted them as part of him. But this now, this was different, something else entirely. Never had the voices been so obtrusive, so persuasive, so clear. It was as if they'd actually grown a body of their own, weren't coming from his own head anymore but from somewhere else entirely. Were foreign, wer strange, and alien. Still, familiar all the same.
Nowhere were they more bothersome than they were here, right in this very clearing.
And they seemed to grow worse and worse every day. Tried to guide him, to lure him, to trick him, to scare him, threatened to consume him, made him forget what was important, made him even forget about Lightning, made him forget their bond, left him fiddling for it really, struggling to pick it up again all his way back to the village, somehow seemed to overpower it, to interfere with it.
It was a dangerous thing. Coming back to them, coming so close. He was aware. But what was he to do?
Behind you! One of the voices screamed and the silver haired first class spun around, Masamune drawn at the ready.
His eyes scanning the woods behind him, the once proud warrior felt fear creeping into his bones again. Felt helpless.
There was nothing there of course. There never was.
He was getting paranoid on top of everything else.
Great.
Vanishing his blade with a swift motion of his left hand, General Sephiroth Crescent left his look out post and melted back into the woods. He'd better get back to Bodhum. Back to Lightning. Back to his family.
Claire Crescent slowly released a long held breath.
For a moment there she'd thought he´d sensed her. For a moment there he´d been looking in the direction of her hiding place concealed by some dead bushes where the alpha dogster had released her, just to turn away and instantly start moving into the opposite direction as if scared something would leap at him any moment.
Looking after her husband's retreating back she watched the man of her dreams vanish in the undergrowth.
What was going on with him?
What had he been doing here all day?
Was this where he´d been to all the times he´d been gone?!
And there she'd thought he was having an affair or something...
Come to me.
Lightning snaped out of her musings.
Had somebody spoken?!
Looking around the clearing, she monitored the vicinity.
There was noone there.
Just the giganting ruins of a building overgrown with brown dried ranks of decaying vegetation rising up in front of her.
COME TO ME!
There it was again. That voice. Louder now. So loud it almost hurt. Talking, as if close beside her, around her, in her.
It made goosebumps appear on her neck, made her fingers tremble, made her blood run cold.
That voice... It had been talking from inside her.
How was that even possible?!
'Who... Who are you?' Claire Farron demanded carefully.
Suddenly she was down on the gound, clutching her belly, body shaken by contractions of a force she hadn´t known til then. Her head split by a high pitched scream, her inner eye blinded by a fierce white light. A weird greenish sheen. And then. Darkness.
Panting on the forest ground, fighting for breath, for composure, for sanity really, it was slowly and with difficulty, that Claire Farron came back to her senses.
She was lying on the hard rough forest ground, was lying on her back. She had been lucky she hadn't landed on her belly. Still...
Come.
Come to me.
It wasn´t an invitation.
It was a command.
Staggering to her feet clumsily, Claire Farron followed. Followed an inexplicable pull luring her towards the reactor, luring her inside.
Moving forwards she crossed the treeline to step onto the dead dry ground. Tiny skulls and skeletons of birds, rodents and small deer cracked beneath her feet.
That strange foreign pull, it seemed to be getting stronger and stronger with every step she took.
Come...
Obediently she kept walking.
It was as though her legs were walking by themselves, were walked by someone else really. As though her body was manouvred by some kind of higher power. Some secret entity pulling the strings of her useless limbs and it was without opposition, without fight that she let the voice inside her guide her, let it guide her through the heavy entrance doors of the montrous building rising up before her.
It was dark inside. Darker then she had thought. The building seemed abandoned. The stony floor covered in layers of dust, the lights seemed to have gone out years ago. Still. There was an eerie greenish glow coming from the end of one corridor, leading to the deeper levels.
It reminded her of the mission in the bunker where they had once been sent to obtain a materia to be jumped at by a huge mechanical killer machine. The one where Sephiroth had sent her back to the top to face their foe alone. The one where he had barely managed to escape himself.
Oh.. What was she doing here?
She had to be insane.
She should have gone back home, should have followed Sephiroth, should have called out to him even.
Still. She was here.
Come...
Come closer.
Drawn to the eerie greenish light like a moth to a flame, the pink haired female ventured further. One tiny step after the other she carefully made her way through the corridor and down a set of stairs.
She was not inside an abundoned bunker Lightning realised. No. She knew that light, that weird greenish sheen. Would recognize it anywhere she went. It was the light emitted by mako.
She was in an abandoned mako reactor. She had to be.
But for some reason the reactor was still working, the lifestream still refining.
The light was bright enough to light her path once she reached to bottom of the stairs, but only just. Merely a feeble greenish glow coming from a set of tanks built against the walls of the chamber she emerged in. It had to be the control room. But somehow there were no control panels there.
Her belly gave another two uncomfortable thuds.
'It´s okay... It´s okay... We´re safe... It´s fine.' the pink haired female reassured her babies, reassured herself.
It was okay. There was noone there. Just an abandoned building. Nothing more. She´d been to mako reactors for years. It´d been part of her job. There was no reason to be scared. She´d just check out the source of the light. Make sure that thing was shut down properly. Then return to the village. No big deal. Except...
Come.
Come closer.
The voice inside her head disturbing her inner dialogue, Lightning directed her gaze at the tanks in front of her, carefully obeyed, as she took a few steps closer.
Peering into the next best tank, she waited for the haze inside to clear.
There was a shape inside. A creature. Like a small baby dog but odly deformed and with two extra heads sprouting from it´s back and it's seven legs sticking out at weird angels that would never allow for it to walk.
It was a pittiful thing to watch.
Tearing her eyes away from the disturbing sight, Lightning slowly continued to the next tank.
It held another dog. A little bigger this time, more evolved. It had a strange scaly hide and misbuilt heads sticking out of the sides of it´s belly. There were no legs at all. Just enourmously long fangs sticking out of what Lightning took as it's back.
It was a rather disturbing sight.
The third tank held a dog like thing as well. This one was almost grown to full-size. Almost looked like the beasts roaming Bodhum.
Was this where the dogsters came from?
Was this where all this shit had begun?!
Come.
Come closer.
Shifting her gaze away from the dogsters, Lightning´s attention was drawn to the sligtly raised platform and the inbuilt glass pane at the far and of the room, that served as the control room's observation platform.
Looking through it and into the reactor's heart, Lightning found the expected reator machinery gone. There were no screens, no pumps, no valves, no gauges.
In their stead there was a set of stairs. A set of stairs, leading up to a pedestral. A pedestral with a tank on top.
COME!
COME CLOSER!
The voice in her head louder and more prominent than ever, Claire Crescent looked at it curiously.
Was this the source of all those voices?
What was going on?
There was only one way to find out...
It was only a few moments later that she had passed through the maintainance doors, that she had crossed the slightly swaying metal walkway, the mako simmering in the depths beneath her.
Yes... This reactor definitely was still working, had not been shut down for good. If only she could find the valves, or some kind of control panel...
Maybe up there by the that tank.
COME!
Her belly throbbing somewhat uncomfortably, it was clutching it rather tightly that the pink haired woman ascended, climbed, obeyed.
The pull to follow was incredibly strong now. Was practically irresistable.
Making up the stairs, Lightning reached the tank on top there panting.
Somehow she was more exhausted than she would have thought.
Well... She was a pregnant woman after all.
Just a little closer.
Claire Farron obeyed.
Stepping up to the glass pane of the tank before her she shyly peered inside, slowly brought her fingers to the glass.
'AHHHRHRRGGGGHH!'
There was a high pitched scream, a blinding white light, and suddenly the figure in the tank lurched forward, silvery hair flying madly, fingers clawing at the glass pane, slitted red eye staring at her menacingly.
And then, silence.
The woman in the tank infront her didn´t move. Didn´t talk. Didn´t stare at her with her terrifying blood red eye. Instead she hung there lifelessly. Just a body floating in a tank. A body that reminded her a lot of somebody she knew.
Lightning´s belly contracted painfully this time. It made herself bend forward, arms coming up to grasp her middle.
What was going on here?
What was this place exactly?
Why was she here?
What the fuck was happening to her?
Was she going mad? Was she insane?!
Was she hallucinating?
Was this all a dream?
It had to be...
The unexpected sound of movement somewhere close behind her made her mind snap back to the present, made her brain go into fighting mode.
She was back in an upright position in no time. Still she kept her arms above her belly protectively.
What was that? A dogster? Two? Or Something worse?
Whatever kind of beast was hiding out there, she wouldn´t let it hurt her children. Wouldn´t let it come too close. Squinting her eyes to make out a shape in the darkness, she carefully turned her back to the tank.
There it was. Movement again. Somewhere to her right. And then...
'Oh... What do we have here...'
An eerie high pitched male voice coming from the darkness.
'My pretty precious specimen...'
There was another jolt of pain from her belly and suddenly liquid trickled down Claire Crescent's tighs.
Shit!
Her water had broken.
'I´ve been dying to meet you, my dear.' the eerie voice said, before it broke into a manic laughter.
'HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!'