~~~
He was so thirsty. He wanted it to stop. Someone else was doing it and he was going to take the blame. Why him? What was happening to him? Wasn't this only supposed to be the result of a dark kiss? He hadn't killed. It was something else. Or had he? Perhaps he was delusional. Yes, that was it. He was delusional, dysfunctional. What he needed was sleep. Because the light hurt so much.
~~~
" He's dead," Xu announced. She dropped the limp hand of Irvine Kinneas, and looked away from his mangled and torn torso. Three people in two days. But why did she have to be the one to find the body? Xu had always thought Irvine was a very handsome man, but now his face was...raw pulp. It sickened her and it took all of her strength not to throw up. Now it was only the question of whether he was murdered as well. His body was not found the same way as the other two victims. In fact, he had been pushed, or he had jumped from the balcony from the ballroom.
She heard footsteps behind her and turned around to see a very pale Squall, and it seemed to take all of his effort simply to walk to her.
" Squall, you look terrible!" Xu cried out. Squall gave a limp nod, then slowly walked towards his fallen comrade.
" Cid told me that you found him," Squall said. " I don't know how this happened."
" I never said you did," Xu whispered. Poor Irvine, he had his entire future ahead of him. It was so sad, first the woman he loved died then...
" Maybe he committed suicide," Xu suggested. " After all, Selphie was found about five hours ago."
The pavement was red with his blood that had stopped flowing. His eyes were closed.
" Selphie," Squall muttered." Ellone...now this."
He swayed a bit then steadied himself onto the side of Garden.
" Maybe you shouldn't be here," Xu said, but meant as an order. Then again, she was no longer in charge of Squall. He was commander, ahead of all others. Xu sighed, taking one last look at Irvine before walking away.
Squall remained behind. He was almost mesmerized by the crimson colour of Irvine's blood. So red and thick...but the blood that had died up was darker, almost brown coloured. His eyes stayed on Irvine, even as the emergency unit took him away, to be buried in the cold ground and forgotten.
~~~
" It's as if this person is singling out only us!" Zell told Squall as they all sat together in Squall's dorm room. Squall nodded slowly, but not a single word that Zell said had gone through his head. Just a constant high pitched ringing.
" I'm going crazy..." He muttered. Luckily, no one had heard him. Instead they were all hounding each other on how to stop this creature of darkness. After about fifteen minutes of yelling, they all were silent, staring all Squall for the answer.
" What do you want me to do?" Squall asked angrily. He fell back against his hard pillow and shut his eyes. If only they would all shut up...
" You're the commander for Garden!" Quistis yelled. " I would expect you had come to some resolution!"
" Just kill it," Squall simply said.
" That's not going to work, mainly because we've never seen it and we don't know how to find it," Quistis said calmly. She was beginning to get fed up with Squall's behaviour.
" I know how," The raspy voice turned the three heads towards Rinoa, who hadn't spoken since Irvine's death.
" We leave someone for bait," Said she. " The creature will come and we'll kill it. Then nobody will die. It'll be the way it was." Her eyes lowered to the floor ." The way it was..."
" I agree with Rin," Zell got up and began to shadow box. " That bastard is not gonna live for very long now!"
~~~
The plan should have worked perfectly. Rinoa standing outside of Garden, alone. Or so it seemed. She waited. Quistis waited. Zell waited. But nothing happened. If only they could have seen the future for the minute they had called it a night, Fujin's body had been found by Quistis. Stumbling to her room in a tired daze, she had tripped over something in the dark and fell on the hard floor. When her eyes looked up, the first thing she saw was a hand. A pale hand then the dark cuff of the shirt the Fujin always wore.
Quistis gasped, then struggled not to scream. Pale, like the others. And her eyes were open, almost accusing Quistis for not saving her.
Quistis scrambled up, then ran for her life towards Cid's office. The sun shined on her, the sun, which represented goodness and light. And it burned her eyes.
~~~
" There's no hope," The doctor told Squall as he injected him with the medicine. " All of the students in Garden have no hope."
Squall nodded, although he didn't believe a single word that the doctor had spoken. It may have seemed that Squall himself had lost hope, but he was far from it. He wouldn't stand around and watch as his friends were murdered one by one. In fact, he had seen things at night. While he woke up in the middle of the night, raging with thirst, he had seen it. He had seen a figure emerging from Selphie's room, he had seen Irvine fall from the balcony. He had even seen a figure holding Fujin, who was silent to the end. The unfortunate part was that Squall was too delusional to actually deceiver who was doing all of these killings. The view was always fuzzy, the voice was always morphed. If only he could have been in his right mind when he had witnessed this.
" ...having trouble sleeping. Squall, are you listening to me?" The doctor asked. Squall snapped his attention back on the middle aged man.
" I was saying that you probably will have trouble sleeping and be slightly dehydrated by this. But the dehydration is the best way to rid of the virus."
Squall had no idea what the doctor was talking about but he nodded anyways. He was rolling down his sleeves when Squall noticed that his arm had cuts all over them.
" What the..." Why hadn't he noticed them before. The doctor took one look at the cuts, then dismissed them.
" An after effect," He said.
Squall rolled his jacket sleeves back down and calmly walked out of the infirmary.
~~~
Ellone, Selphie, Irvine and Fujin. But there were so many more. Almost an endless supply. By now they should know what it was. But they were in denial. And their denial towards fantasy was the passageway to their end.
~~~
" Dammit, Leonhart! You're not doing a single thing! Not a single fucking thing!" Seifer yelled, smashing his gunblade on Squall's desk, which fell in two perfect pieces. " I couldn't care less about the cowboy or the messenger girl, but Elly and Fujin? I hope you know how much I want to rip you to pieces right now..." Seifer gritted his teeth and Squall could honestly say he had never seen Seifer this angry before.
" Just calm down," Squall mumbled.
" Calm down? Listen you bastard," Seifer grabbed Squall by the collar and hoisted him up. " If one more person dies, I swear to Hyne I will kill you." With that he threw Squall into his dresser, where the cupboards flew out and all of his belongings fell out.
" Bastard..." Seifer hissed. He was walking out of the room when he noticed something gleaming by his leg on the floor. A small knife, encrusted with blood.