A/N: Short an' sweet, little cliffhanger here, but not to worry, the second chapter is being finished up as we speak. Sountrack? Try "You Complete Me" by Stabbing Westward. Chapter One.
When his blue-green eyes opened for the first time the feeling surrounding him was not unlike what he was feeling right now. It was cold, wet, and clammy.
He trailed a hand along the stone walls of the corridor, they were slick with the green moss that had grown from ages of neglect. Placing a hand at his side to make sure he was carrying his Exeter with him, he breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the cool metal barrel of the shotgun. He had grown so accustomed to having it there on his hip that his body tended to forget wether or not there was anything there and compensate for the weight.
He didn't know how long he had been walking along the corridors nor how far he had come. The complete absence of monsters, spirits, or other baddies led him to believe that where he was was not entirely hostile, but he couldn't shake the feeling of dread that loomed over him.
"Why am I here...?" he pondered out loud, his voice bouncing down the walls of the hallway. To save someone. Yes yes, that much he knew. He was here to bring someone back, someone very close to him. But who?
"IRVINE!"
The decidedly female voice pierced his thoughts as if right on cue, and he looked around to see where the voice had come from.
"Irvine, please help me!"
"S-Selphie?" he stuttered, frozen in place, eyes still darting around.
"Irvine, please help! I-it's got me!"
He began to run. There was only one place the voice would be coming from, and that was straight ahead.
"Selphie, is that you? Hold on, hon, I'm coming!"
"Irvine, no, you don't understand! I can't hold on, it's--it's--oh Hyne, it's crawling up my LEG--"
There was a light up ahead, growing steadily bigger. Irvine stopped in his tracks and backed up a bit. Bigger than it should be. He crouched and threw his arms over his face as it rushed up the hallway and enveloped him--
--and then he fell out of bed.
"What in the name of friggin' fraggin--!?" he hopped up, trying to untangle his legs from the bedsheets.
"Yo, man, shut up already..." came the muffled voice from the bed across the room. An arm snaked it's way out from under the covers and waved itself blindly at him, "It's 3 in the morning."
Irvine glanced at the clock on his bedside. It was, indeed, 3 a.m. And here he was, in his room, recovering from nothing but some nightmare.
"--whoops!" he cried as he tried to climb back onto the mattress but the tangle of linen pulled him back down to the floor. The figure in the other bed made an exasperated noise and rolled back over, putting a pillow over his head. Irvine grinned sheepishly at his disgruntled roomate and, very carefully, made his way over to his bed and sat down on it.
"Talk about some kooky dream," he muttered to himself, running a hand through his long auburn hair--or, at least, trying to. It was horribly matted. "Well, this is just great. Now I'm completely wired--," he sighed, trying to free his hands from the tangled mass on his head.
"--And I can't get my hand out of my HAIR--" after a few more futile attempts at detangle-ment, he just jerked really hard, which seemed to work quite well. Sighing again, he stood, stepping gingerly over the sheets on the floor--last thing he needed right now was the roomate to report him to the headmaster for being inconsiderate, "Might as well take a little walk around the Garden. Maybe seeing all those classrooms'll make me tired again."
Tiptoeing toward the bathroom, he grabbed his vest, chaps, and duster off of a chair nearby. He emerged a few seconds later, hair pulled into some semblance of his usual ponytail, and changed out of the ugly Garden-issue nightclothes. Then, putting on his hat, he flung the door to the dormitory wide open.
"DUDE! Turn out the LIGHT!" came his roommate's wail, and, just out of spite, Irvine began to march down the hallway, leaving the door agape. A muttered curse came, then the door slammed itself shut rather loudly behind his back. Grinning to himself, he clasped his hands behind him and begain sauntering down the halls of Galbadia Garden.
How long had it been now, since he had talked to the others back in Balamb? Too long. Sure, he corresponded with Selphie on a pretty much daily basis, but it had seemed like eons ago that he had talked to Squall, or Zell, or Quistis...
Mmm...Quistis. He smirked to himself. Sure, she would never even think of giving him the time of day, but he was convinced that deep down inside even she couldn't resist the ol' Irvine charm. Okay, sure, fine, Selphie was the one for him, but that doesn't mean he couldn't partake in a little friendly flirting now and then. And he had to admit, Quistis was probably the--for lack of a better word--hottest of all his friends. Why she was still single was beyond him.
And Rinoa? How long had it been since he'd seen her? Man...she was back in Timber with those two goofs, Zone and Watts. Hyne knew what they were doing there, seeing as there was nothing really to resist anymore, but hey, to each his (or, in this case, her) own. No way there would be any flirting there, though. Not if he wanted Squall to royally whup his butt. Even so, he resolved that sooner or later, he'd have to make a personal visit.
But his mind returned to Selphie. Oh, Hyne, he missed her so much. Writing her just wasn't the same as actually being there, being able to talk to her face-to-face, hear her voice, touch her hair. And that smile. He could never see her again for a million years, but that smile was always embedded in his memory. No Guardian Force could ever take that smile away from him...he'd fight for it, as long as he had the will. He'd fight for her, just like Squall would fight for Rinoa, just as Seifer had fought for Edea. He felt odd thinking things like that. The Great Irvine Kinneas, ladies' man extradorinaire, willing to put his own life on the line for that of one young woman. It seemed surreal, like a break from the norm, but it didn't feel bad. It felt like in the end, no matter how bad things got, he'd always have some kind of closure to hold on to, to strive for.
So now he had to see her. He could afford to do it...just take one day off from classes, hop on a train, and ride to Timber, and then from there on to Balamb. It made sense, since Timber was on the way.
That was it, then. "May as well check my mail before I go, though," he thought to himself, stepping into the nearest classroom, "Selphie might have written me back."
Sliding into the chair infront of the terminal, he entered in his student I.D. and password then began to scroll through his e-mail.
"Hmm...let's see here...tuition bills, junk mail, letter from Martine, letters from Gina, Tori, and Morgan..." sighing, he sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. Nothing from Selphie--but what was this? He leaned forward. It was from Squall. That was odd. Frowning, he double clicked the icon, bringing up the new window with Squall's well-typed, however brief, message.
Kinneas:
I don't know when you're going to get this, but you need to come to Balamb as soon as you get this Headmaster has given the okay. There has been a kidnapping, and two people are dead. Quistis, Selphie, and Xu are missing. Hurry.
He read the message once, then twice to make sure that his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. No way this was possible. The girls were kidnapped?
Nuh-uh, something was messed up. The same girls who had been through the end of the world, literally, were not going to let themselves just be dragged off. Exhaling shakily, he tried to get his bearings. Okay, so he'd go to straight to Balamb. He had no clue what would happen once he got there, but he figured Squall would figure something out. He always did.