From the author of
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine
Phoenix Down.
Phantom Wall Stories: A tale of Sephiroth
Part Beta
Shekhinah
"Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
the vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
when me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
and I the hymn the Brahmin sings." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Brahma)
I came home drunker than a sailor and higher than a kite.
I was telling Misty about the hallway that appeared in the basement, and how the dead general Sephiroth came and visited me last night.
She laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I laughed, too.
It really was a good story, though.
I told her I had everything on tape recorder.
She said that I was beginning to freak her out and that I should stop talking about the whole thing.
But I couldn't help it, I was so drunk and so stoned that I kept pushing the subject further.
At night, the village of Kalm is beautiful, especially to the hazy, messed up mind. Teenagers hung out in knots on street corners, laughing, fighting, and flirting under the midnight sun. Soft yellow streetlights and the eyes on houses emitted inviting conversations. Kalm is a fine and safe city. Nothing evil could ever come to Kalm.
Even the name is peaceful.
My cousin, Misty and I were on our way walking home. The bars were closing. But, we knew that we were safe. The crime rate is so low, people feel fine walking the streets and even dark alleyways in the youngest hours of the morning.
"Fine! If this is such a big fucking deal to you, I'll uh..." She started to loose herself in a spin and started laughing.
We were both so fucked up, the taped conversation of a dead general who tried to destroy the world five years ago sounded hysterical.
"I'll. Fuckit. I'll come to your place and we will listen to that freaky tape of yours. Ok?"
I told her fine, she will see. Then I started laughing.
We walked, or rather, stumbled, to my apartment complex. I unlocked the basement door.
Immediately, I began to sober up. But, she didn't. She just expected to hear some old tape I found of an old man I interviewed for an article for the newspaper or something.
Then, I realized that I couldn't find the light switch.
"Ohmygawd... Where is it? Where is the eff-in' light switch? OW! I think that something just like, scratched, or bit my leg, or somethin'!" Misty giggled.
I couldn't find the light switch, either. I knew exactly where it was supposed to be. It was a rope, which hung from a light bulb, and it was right near the stairway. Boxes crowded underneath the wooden stairs and up the gray stonewall. There were long panels of small dirty windows near a couple of old red sofas. That was where Sephiroth and I talked. Right across from there sat the hallway that was supposed to have appeared last night.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, I'm spendin' my Saturday night crawlin' around some basement complex with my stupid ass cousin!" Misty slightly sobered up and started laughing as she stumbled over a few boxes of torn linens.
"Jesus, I'm goin' home! Christ. This is dumb."
I yelled to her, saying that she shouldn't leave, that I wasn't lying.
But she didn't care, she was laughing as she left.
"Your bein' so stupid and so creepy. I'm outta here. I got better shit to do than to hang around my stupid cousin."
As she stumbled up the stairs, she absent-mindedly slammed the door behind her.
It locked.
...
...
...
I sat there, panicky and frozen...
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Help.
I sat down, and wrapped my arms around my knees.
It didn't help that I got fucked up earlier that night. My mind was spinning in-between alcohol, weed, and fear. Maybe the hallway and the talk with the dead general was a figment of my imagination.
Shadows, spitted and forming dancing within my screams.
I wish these sick, perverted diseases were just in my dreams.
I thought I was going to vomit.
I thought that I was going to vomit and die.
I felt the hallways presence.
It was there. The hallway was there, near the boxes, on the wall,
Across the room.
It was looming over me.
"Really now. You're shaking and sweating. It's cold down here and you are sweating like a horse. And where is your tape recorder?"
I looked up, and there stood the angel.
He came out of the hallway, and stood above me.
His feet never quite touched the ground.
I slowly unlocked my arms, and stood.
My face was glazed in cold sweat. My heart thudded.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He looked around, and slowly slid off his long black coat. Carelessly, he tossed it upon the red sofa.
Then, he sat.
I asked him of he wanted me to turn on the tape recorder as I stumbled, looking around for it.
He said, no.
Not knowing what to do with myself then, I stood back, and wondered why he apportioned to the dilapidated, sweaty, apartment basement. A fallen, wicked angel he is. And to the basement of a poor journalist he continues to haunt.
His eyes follow me.
But they are not eyes.
They are far from human.
But, still, the follow me.
Then, I found the recorder.
I began to belive that none of this was real.
Then, I realized that I had not turned on the light, because I did not find the light switch.
But the light was on. The basement was perfectly lit.
"Let me tell you something. Sit down. No, don't bother with the tape. Sit."
I did as I was told.
I think that I was in shock; the real kind of shock, the physical shock.
Like when your body is in a traumatic state.
His lips parted into a sliver of black. He was still inhumanly, tragically beautiful, like the angel, Lucifer.
"Do you like music?" He asked smoothly. He ran his fingers through the ends of his hair.
I stuttered. I told him that I did.
"What's the matter?" He paused. "Oh, yes, I see. Wait. No. You're not afraid. You're just surprised in seeing me again. Isn't that it? Oh. You thought I was dead. Hm. Hmm... hmmmm!"
He chuckled, and shook his head.
"Stop being such a fool and calm down. Yes, the fact is that I am here..." He
stood up, and paced around the room. Back and forth, back and forth.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
"Idiots. You... you... no, not you. MOST of you are all... IDIOTS. To think... TO THINK that I could be destroyed so easily. No. No. No. Let me re-phrase that." He stopped, paused, and lowered his head.
I thought that he might begin laughing again.
But he did not.
"Do you... hear music?"
I shook my head.
"Music. Music lifts... the SOUL...*O Fortuna, velut luna, statu veribilis, semper crescis, aut decrescis; vita detestabilis, nunc obdurat, et tunc curat ludo mentis anciem, egestatem, porestatem, dissolvit ut glaciem. Sors immanis et inanis rota tu volubilis-"
The angel, Sephiroth, began to sing.
His voice was a perfect tenor's.
But he suddenly stopped in mid sentence and began to laugh.
His laugh was as loud as his song.
It then occurred to me that I did not have the recorder turned on.
"Now... WHERE was I before I sidetracked myself? WHERE is your RECORDER?"
I took the recorder, and heard the button snap down as I pressed it.
As he spoke, he paced back and forth with his sword in hand.
"Oh, oh yes. Gast. My birth."
~
"My... Baby... I want to hold my baby... Where is my baby?" Lucrecia asked as she tossed her head two and fro on the wet pillow.
"Shh... Lucrecia. It will be all right. Do you know what happened to you while you were giving birth?"
"My baby. I want to... to hold my baby..."
"The baby was too large. They had to do an emergency c-section." Vincent explained as he knelt by her side.
But she did not hear him.
Then, she tossed her head once more, and fell asleep.
Vincent Valentine stood. His knees ached. His head ached. His heart ached.
"How is she?" Hojo asked as he stormed in with a flurry of paperwork held together with a clipboard.
"What do you care?" Vincent snapped harshly.
Hojo chortled, and did not reply.
"Out like a light? Whatever. The baby is doing MARVOLUS, much better than I would've anticipated. However, the aging and growing process is a side effect I find absolutely astounding. I never foresaw it. The baby was born only yesterday and can already walk. He looks, acts, and thinks like a healthy one or two year old. Why, by the end of next week I'd say he will already be speaking in full sentences and reading, proving with the proper instruction and influence of course."
Vincent wasn't listening to a word he said, but Hojo carried on.
"In fact, since he is doing so well, we have already commenciated with the Mako injections and the Jenova cloning..."
Vincent's ears pricked up.
"Cloning? Mako injections?!"
"Why, Vincent, didn't you know that this baby was nothing but a gigantic science experiment?"
"I thought we SPOKE about that?"
"Yes, we did, and I choose to ignore your little outburst for the time being. Besides, it's not your body. It is Lucrecia's. And she agreed to loan her body for the greater good of-"
Vincent grabbed the white collar of Hojo's jacket and violently throttled him.
Hojo's glasses slid off of his long beak-like nose, and clattered to the cold floor.
"UNHAND me you BEAST!"
"GIVE LUCRECIA BACK TO ME, GIVE HER BACK!" Tears sputtered out from the corner of Vincent's eyes.
Professor Gast ran in, and tried to pull him off Hojo.
"Vincent! VINCENT! Let him go! Let him GO!"
Professor Gast, who was a little bigger then both of them, pulled Vincent off Hojo. He tore a few seams in Vincent's navy blue jacket.
Hojo cleared his throat, picked up his glasses, and straitened his lab coat.
"Beast. Horrible beast you are. Your temper. Now, if you will excuse me."
Hojo passed a icy glance to Vincent as he left.
Vincent was catching his breath and stood seething with rage.
Gast stroked his light brown beard, not knowing what to say to Vincent.
"YOU shouldn't have let him do it! You shouldn't have encouraged him! YOU SHOULDN'T have helped him!"
"I did what I thought was best. Maybe I was wrong." Gast stuttered and stepped back, hoping Vincent's anger wouldn't find a new direction.
"I thought that we needed clones. We need anwers, Vincent, and since Jenova itself can't speak to us directly, we need to re-create her. That is why we created Sephiroth."
"SEPHIROTH?! You named the baby, SEPHIROTH?! What about a proper name?! HE IS a PERSON, professor! You... you can't go on treating the child as if it were inhuman... SEPHIROTH!? Naming him after your... Hojo's godforsaken obsession with the Tree of Life... and that... that religion! Sephiroth!? What were you THINKING?! Does Lucrecia even know?"
"Yes. She knows. She said it was, 'fitting.'" Gast sighed, and glanced over his shoulder to the girl sound asleep from exhaustion in the bed.
"I... doubt she will pull out of this, Vincent, you were right. You were right. We sacrificed too much for this expiriment."
Vincent nodded, began to sob, and together they walked out of the room.
~
I was calming down. The more he talked, the more at ease I began to feel. The tape stopped right there with a snap.
As it did, Sephiroth immediately stopped, too.
"The tape ended?"
I nodded.
"Then I will end for tonight, too."
I nodded again.
"I will see you tomarrow..." He smirked with sharp teeth.
Then he left, through the hallway that, in my right mind, know that shouldn't exist.
But it does.
*("O Fortune, like the moon, you are changeable, ever waxing and waning. Hateful, life first oppresses, and then sooths as fancy takes it; poverty and power melts them like ice. Fate: monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent-" [Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25. composed by Stravinsky "O Fortuna" (O Fortune)] Translation by Phoenix Down)
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine
Phoenix Down.
Phantom Wall Stories: A tale of Sephiroth
Part Beta
Shekhinah
"Far or forgot to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
the vanished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
when me they fly, I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
and I the hymn the Brahmin sings." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Brahma)
I came home drunker than a sailor and higher than a kite.
I was telling Misty about the hallway that appeared in the basement, and how the dead general Sephiroth came and visited me last night.
She laughed, and laughed, and laughed. I laughed, too.
It really was a good story, though.
I told her I had everything on tape recorder.
She said that I was beginning to freak her out and that I should stop talking about the whole thing.
But I couldn't help it, I was so drunk and so stoned that I kept pushing the subject further.
At night, the village of Kalm is beautiful, especially to the hazy, messed up mind. Teenagers hung out in knots on street corners, laughing, fighting, and flirting under the midnight sun. Soft yellow streetlights and the eyes on houses emitted inviting conversations. Kalm is a fine and safe city. Nothing evil could ever come to Kalm.
Even the name is peaceful.
My cousin, Misty and I were on our way walking home. The bars were closing. But, we knew that we were safe. The crime rate is so low, people feel fine walking the streets and even dark alleyways in the youngest hours of the morning.
"Fine! If this is such a big fucking deal to you, I'll uh..." She started to loose herself in a spin and started laughing.
We were both so fucked up, the taped conversation of a dead general who tried to destroy the world five years ago sounded hysterical.
"I'll. Fuckit. I'll come to your place and we will listen to that freaky tape of yours. Ok?"
I told her fine, she will see. Then I started laughing.
We walked, or rather, stumbled, to my apartment complex. I unlocked the basement door.
Immediately, I began to sober up. But, she didn't. She just expected to hear some old tape I found of an old man I interviewed for an article for the newspaper or something.
Then, I realized that I couldn't find the light switch.
"Ohmygawd... Where is it? Where is the eff-in' light switch? OW! I think that something just like, scratched, or bit my leg, or somethin'!" Misty giggled.
I couldn't find the light switch, either. I knew exactly where it was supposed to be. It was a rope, which hung from a light bulb, and it was right near the stairway. Boxes crowded underneath the wooden stairs and up the gray stonewall. There were long panels of small dirty windows near a couple of old red sofas. That was where Sephiroth and I talked. Right across from there sat the hallway that was supposed to have appeared last night.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ, I'm spendin' my Saturday night crawlin' around some basement complex with my stupid ass cousin!" Misty slightly sobered up and started laughing as she stumbled over a few boxes of torn linens.
"Jesus, I'm goin' home! Christ. This is dumb."
I yelled to her, saying that she shouldn't leave, that I wasn't lying.
But she didn't care, she was laughing as she left.
"Your bein' so stupid and so creepy. I'm outta here. I got better shit to do than to hang around my stupid cousin."
As she stumbled up the stairs, she absent-mindedly slammed the door behind her.
It locked.
...
...
...
I sat there, panicky and frozen...
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Help.
I sat down, and wrapped my arms around my knees.
It didn't help that I got fucked up earlier that night. My mind was spinning in-between alcohol, weed, and fear. Maybe the hallway and the talk with the dead general was a figment of my imagination.
Shadows, spitted and forming dancing within my screams.
I wish these sick, perverted diseases were just in my dreams.
I thought I was going to vomit.
I thought that I was going to vomit and die.
I felt the hallways presence.
It was there. The hallway was there, near the boxes, on the wall,
Across the room.
It was looming over me.
"Really now. You're shaking and sweating. It's cold down here and you are sweating like a horse. And where is your tape recorder?"
I looked up, and there stood the angel.
He came out of the hallway, and stood above me.
His feet never quite touched the ground.
I slowly unlocked my arms, and stood.
My face was glazed in cold sweat. My heart thudded.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
He looked around, and slowly slid off his long black coat. Carelessly, he tossed it upon the red sofa.
Then, he sat.
I asked him of he wanted me to turn on the tape recorder as I stumbled, looking around for it.
He said, no.
Not knowing what to do with myself then, I stood back, and wondered why he apportioned to the dilapidated, sweaty, apartment basement. A fallen, wicked angel he is. And to the basement of a poor journalist he continues to haunt.
His eyes follow me.
But they are not eyes.
They are far from human.
But, still, the follow me.
Then, I found the recorder.
I began to belive that none of this was real.
Then, I realized that I had not turned on the light, because I did not find the light switch.
But the light was on. The basement was perfectly lit.
"Let me tell you something. Sit down. No, don't bother with the tape. Sit."
I did as I was told.
I think that I was in shock; the real kind of shock, the physical shock.
Like when your body is in a traumatic state.
His lips parted into a sliver of black. He was still inhumanly, tragically beautiful, like the angel, Lucifer.
"Do you like music?" He asked smoothly. He ran his fingers through the ends of his hair.
I stuttered. I told him that I did.
"What's the matter?" He paused. "Oh, yes, I see. Wait. No. You're not afraid. You're just surprised in seeing me again. Isn't that it? Oh. You thought I was dead. Hm. Hmm... hmmmm!"
He chuckled, and shook his head.
"Stop being such a fool and calm down. Yes, the fact is that I am here..." He
stood up, and paced around the room. Back and forth, back and forth.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
"Idiots. You... you... no, not you. MOST of you are all... IDIOTS. To think... TO THINK that I could be destroyed so easily. No. No. No. Let me re-phrase that." He stopped, paused, and lowered his head.
I thought that he might begin laughing again.
But he did not.
"Do you... hear music?"
I shook my head.
"Music. Music lifts... the SOUL...*O Fortuna, velut luna, statu veribilis, semper crescis, aut decrescis; vita detestabilis, nunc obdurat, et tunc curat ludo mentis anciem, egestatem, porestatem, dissolvit ut glaciem. Sors immanis et inanis rota tu volubilis-"
The angel, Sephiroth, began to sing.
His voice was a perfect tenor's.
But he suddenly stopped in mid sentence and began to laugh.
His laugh was as loud as his song.
It then occurred to me that I did not have the recorder turned on.
"Now... WHERE was I before I sidetracked myself? WHERE is your RECORDER?"
I took the recorder, and heard the button snap down as I pressed it.
As he spoke, he paced back and forth with his sword in hand.
"Oh, oh yes. Gast. My birth."
~
"My... Baby... I want to hold my baby... Where is my baby?" Lucrecia asked as she tossed her head two and fro on the wet pillow.
"Shh... Lucrecia. It will be all right. Do you know what happened to you while you were giving birth?"
"My baby. I want to... to hold my baby..."
"The baby was too large. They had to do an emergency c-section." Vincent explained as he knelt by her side.
But she did not hear him.
Then, she tossed her head once more, and fell asleep.
Vincent Valentine stood. His knees ached. His head ached. His heart ached.
"How is she?" Hojo asked as he stormed in with a flurry of paperwork held together with a clipboard.
"What do you care?" Vincent snapped harshly.
Hojo chortled, and did not reply.
"Out like a light? Whatever. The baby is doing MARVOLUS, much better than I would've anticipated. However, the aging and growing process is a side effect I find absolutely astounding. I never foresaw it. The baby was born only yesterday and can already walk. He looks, acts, and thinks like a healthy one or two year old. Why, by the end of next week I'd say he will already be speaking in full sentences and reading, proving with the proper instruction and influence of course."
Vincent wasn't listening to a word he said, but Hojo carried on.
"In fact, since he is doing so well, we have already commenciated with the Mako injections and the Jenova cloning..."
Vincent's ears pricked up.
"Cloning? Mako injections?!"
"Why, Vincent, didn't you know that this baby was nothing but a gigantic science experiment?"
"I thought we SPOKE about that?"
"Yes, we did, and I choose to ignore your little outburst for the time being. Besides, it's not your body. It is Lucrecia's. And she agreed to loan her body for the greater good of-"
Vincent grabbed the white collar of Hojo's jacket and violently throttled him.
Hojo's glasses slid off of his long beak-like nose, and clattered to the cold floor.
"UNHAND me you BEAST!"
"GIVE LUCRECIA BACK TO ME, GIVE HER BACK!" Tears sputtered out from the corner of Vincent's eyes.
Professor Gast ran in, and tried to pull him off Hojo.
"Vincent! VINCENT! Let him go! Let him GO!"
Professor Gast, who was a little bigger then both of them, pulled Vincent off Hojo. He tore a few seams in Vincent's navy blue jacket.
Hojo cleared his throat, picked up his glasses, and straitened his lab coat.
"Beast. Horrible beast you are. Your temper. Now, if you will excuse me."
Hojo passed a icy glance to Vincent as he left.
Vincent was catching his breath and stood seething with rage.
Gast stroked his light brown beard, not knowing what to say to Vincent.
"YOU shouldn't have let him do it! You shouldn't have encouraged him! YOU SHOULDN'T have helped him!"
"I did what I thought was best. Maybe I was wrong." Gast stuttered and stepped back, hoping Vincent's anger wouldn't find a new direction.
"I thought that we needed clones. We need anwers, Vincent, and since Jenova itself can't speak to us directly, we need to re-create her. That is why we created Sephiroth."
"SEPHIROTH?! You named the baby, SEPHIROTH?! What about a proper name?! HE IS a PERSON, professor! You... you can't go on treating the child as if it were inhuman... SEPHIROTH!? Naming him after your... Hojo's godforsaken obsession with the Tree of Life... and that... that religion! Sephiroth!? What were you THINKING?! Does Lucrecia even know?"
"Yes. She knows. She said it was, 'fitting.'" Gast sighed, and glanced over his shoulder to the girl sound asleep from exhaustion in the bed.
"I... doubt she will pull out of this, Vincent, you were right. You were right. We sacrificed too much for this expiriment."
Vincent nodded, began to sob, and together they walked out of the room.
~
I was calming down. The more he talked, the more at ease I began to feel. The tape stopped right there with a snap.
As it did, Sephiroth immediately stopped, too.
"The tape ended?"
I nodded.
"Then I will end for tonight, too."
I nodded again.
"I will see you tomarrow..." He smirked with sharp teeth.
Then he left, through the hallway that, in my right mind, know that shouldn't exist.
But it does.
*("O Fortune, like the moon, you are changeable, ever waxing and waning. Hateful, life first oppresses, and then sooths as fancy takes it; poverty and power melts them like ice. Fate: monstrous and empty, you whirling wheel, you are malevolent-" [Carmina Burana: Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi 25. composed by Stravinsky "O Fortuna" (O Fortune)] Translation by Phoenix Down)