If I smile and don't believe
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream
Don't try to fix me I'm not broken
Hello
I am the lie living for you so you can hide
Don't cry.
Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping-
Hello I'm still here
All that's left of yesterday.
-Evanecence, "Hello"
I open the door.
Now there's a space to be filled, a duty that I must preform, a time and a place, between here and now and then. The door is creaks and is heavy as if for an invalid. An invalid who has been invalidated. No exit. This was what happened, that day. It's going to be all right, I prayed. I said it in my head. Oh let it. Let him be just like the others. Let it be all right. Just this once and I would do anything. What I thought I do do for him or whoever was listening was of any use or even intrest I'll never know. Maybe the strange boy had some kind of plan for me. It seemed everyone had a plan for me except myself. As for me, I was only running. Running away, away.
I don't want to be telling this story.
I don't have to. I don't have to say anything. I don't have to tell anything, to myself, to anyone else. I could just keep running. But I'm so tired. I could just stop, then, peacefully. Just sit down here. I could withdraw. They could never get me out. Not as far down as I am. It's impossible. Why fight? That wil never do.
The door is open. I must go through, or shut it forever.
And I walked through. Just like so long ago...
Dragon green eyes.
The same face that had flashed before.
He didn't move, or react in any way to me being there. The darkness threw his lean, handsome face into shadow, but didn't mask those glowing eyes. I sit across from him in the tiny small cramped cell. I hope that the shock isn't too easy to read from my face. Part of me hopes any emotion is still able to show on my face. I remember I spoke first, trying to calm myself.
"Sephiroth?"
He nodded once, slowly, a fine silver brow arching as though I were an annoyance.
"My name is Alexiel.."
I shuddered. It was the first time I'd given my name to one of them.
I think I was surprised to see a human. People said he was a monster. He was not a monster. I needed perspective. I would find none here.
"Sephiroth, I'm here to ask you a few questions. Would you mind?"
He half-smirked and nodded, a strand of silver hair falling into his features.
I lick my lips nervously, my mind racing for what I have to say. It is very difficult. I am here, in this moment, and it is not where I want to be. But that's where I am, and there's no escaping it. He smelled like leather and power. "Your world...was destroyed by the Heartless. Is that how you came?"
Again that wolfish grin. "No. I was already dead."
Whew. That's a relief. I know how to deal with crazy people.
He must have guessed something of my thoughts, because he drew back, his eyes flashing emerald.
He surprised me then. "You do not have the look of a psychiatrist," he said.
"I have trouble remembering the way I look." I answered frankly. "And you're right- I'm not. I have no reason for being here."
"Then why are you, in fact, here?"
"Because I have no choice." The answer came as a shock to my ears. I remember a time when I had freedom. I remember a time where if anything in my life did not work out, it was because I had the wrong attitude. Everything that went on in life was thought to be due to some positive or negative thought inside your head. If you don't like it, change it, was what we said.
Sephiroth smirked. "A pawn, then?"
How dare he think he had the upper hand, here? "I ask the questions." I said flatly. But still it haunted my mind. It's strange to remember how i used to think, as if everything were available to us, no boundaries, free to shape and form as we would our lives. I was like that. I did that too.
"Why-why are you here?" I asked weakly.
He looked straight into my eyes. "It's good to be God." he replied.
I wait for him to eleborate on this, but he doesn't. I am tired of theis Cheshire cat game. "What do you mean?" I ask.
"You cannot cheat nature," he says. He is showing off to me. He is demonstrating his mastery of the world. He's breaking the rules and giving them the finger, getting away with it. To watch him is intoxicating. Perhaps he had reached that state where he felt he was indispensable and could do anything, anything at all. He was a General, after all. "Nature demands a certain variety. It stands to reason, it's part of the natural order of things. Order must have chaos, destruction is the only thing that can breed creation."
"What are you trying to say?" I demand. "That being trapped like this is my nature?!"
"Unless you conrol it. Unless you control nature." His voice lowers. "Unless you are chosen."
"What are you getting at?" I ask.
A flash, and his face is inches from mine. I feel his breath on my skin and my heart pounds in my chest. "They have offered me freedom," he says. "What have they offered you?"
I hear a voice inside my head. Is it his? Is it my own?
Release me... I came up through the roar and confusion. I was like surf boiling. I can remember feeling quite calm. Calm, for a measure that would cost me my life. I felt like screaming. My scream only came out as a whisper.
"Yes." He smiled like rusted nails. He held out one hand The future in my hand. The future in his hand. The ancient gesture was both an offering and an invitation, to come forward, into the darkness. There was nothing in his gloved hand. It was empty. It might have been full of the future. I did not know. I could not see. I could not fight.
"Let's get you out of here."
I feel ridiculously happy.