From the author of
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine
Phoenix Down.
Part Iota
Keter
"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." (Confucius)
It took me a while to find my camera.
I knew that I had one from back in my college days, a good one with fresh film, and everything.
It was one of those uh- Polaroid things, the picture spat out immediately after taking them. It just took a second after it spat out to develop.
I hadn't gone to the office in days.
I'm sure they figured that I was either dead in the gutter, or quit. There were a lot of messages on my machine; I wasn't about to check them.
Again, I'm not sure what time it was, what month it was, what day it was, fuck, I don't even know what year it is anymore.
I walked down from my apartment and toward the basement, armed with the camera, film, and the multiple tapes I had of Sephiroth's and mine conversations.
I was going to do it; I was going to document for sure that Sephiroth had returned.
Not only that he has returned, but also he was talking about his mysterious past.
Not just to anyone, but to me.
Down I went, into the basement.
The tiered sun of the anonymous day slid in through the panel of ground level windows.
I plucked the string of the single bulb light.
It paused, coughed, and then flickered on.
I took a deep breath...
There, like it has been before, was the hallway.
The drawings from a few days previous have for the most part, vanished.
A few of the larger ones remained.
The panel drawings that featured me were still there, alongside the steps that lead on.
They were the ones that creeped me the most.
They were the ones that to any logical mind, would tell you that Sephiroth was looking to find a human body to encompass.
He was looking to come back, was my suspicions.
Just like the thin voice with the narrow red eyes said days before.
I aimed the camera towards the hallway as I walked in.
I kept shooting.
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
The pictures tumbled to the floor like lost doves without wings.
Then, I turned and took photos of the drawings.
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
"What are you doing?"
I aimed my camera at Sephiroth as he walked in through the long, black, cold, hallway that seemed to have stretched for miles.
The hallway seemed agitated.
It seemed to breathe, and grow, and the more I took pictures, the more of the basement it seemed to swallow.
"WHAT are you DOING?!"
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
I said to Sephiroth, that I was just acting as a journalist, that's all.
"Hm. Well, good luck."
It then occurred to me that it was daylight out a moment ago, and now it seems the light was gone.
The photos were not coming out well.
I don't think that I ever saw Sephiroth, or the hallway, when it was light out.
I stopped shooting, and picked up a photo. I waved it in the air until the image appeared.
Sephiroth made himself at home, as he usually does, on the old red sofas.
The photos of the wall sketches seemed to be blurry, as if there was poor lighting.
The photos of the hallway looked like it was not a hallway, but instead a long black, misty tunnel...
The photos of Sephiroth...
They looked like they were pictures of me goofing off, as if I was holding the camera, and pointed it at my face, then snapped it.
There was an odd light in the background in each of them.
I dropped those pictures.
I pointed the camera at Sephiroth again.
He was sitting on the sofa; he wasn't even looking at me.
The picture spat out, I took it, waved it in the air, and looked at it.
It was a photo of me, sitting on the sofa, and looked as if I took the picture. There was a strange light in the background.
"Give it up." Sephiroth said finally.
I was getting frustrated.
"Just give IT UP! Get over here. Get that tape recorder. Save the photo taking for your job."
I said nothing, and did what I was told.
Like always, there was a fresh tape in the recorder.
I didn't want to do this anymore.
We were too much the same...
And I didn't like that.
~
Sephiroth spent many, many years in SOLDIER before he was a general.
For the most part, the transition was easy.
He loved life as a soldier.
He was given something to believe in, something and someone to fight for.
He was given an opportunity to develop a skill that he loved- his fighting.
He was a master at hand-to-hand, and was a developing master in sword-skill.
Now, he just needed a situation to prove himself, and become a real master.
Maybe even a real hero.
Maybe people will then respect him, and look up to him, to honor and remember him, like he always wanted.
Singing was just a hobby.
Being a general will get you somewhere.
Sephiroth wanted, deeply, to be a hero.
The kind of guy that mothers tell stories to their young ones at night.
"Don't worry, baby, if the boogie-man comes, just call for Sephiroth, he will come save you." "Then, honorable-general-Sephiroth came on his noble steed, and saved the princess and the world from destruction..."
Save the world from destruction...
Yeah...
He and the guys went, on weekends, to a nightclub.
There, they could relax, and for just a moment, forget about being a SOLDIER.
When Sephiroth was really drunk, he'd get up and sing.
Even when he was shit-faced-drunk, according to most people, he sounded fantastic.
But, he just told them to piss off, and then he would laugh.
The nightclub was called, "The Phantom Wall Room."
"Hey, Seph?"
"What?"
"Pass me the jug of beer, would ya?"
"If you don't spill it all over yourself."
"I... won't! I'm-not-that-drunk."
"Yeah, right."
Sephiroth pushed the jug of beer over to Marty. Marty was like him, a third class SOLDIER. Next year, if they prove themselves, they would be promoted to second class. Marty and Zack were his closest friends.
He was the responsible, mature one of the group.
(That means he never got as fuck-faced as everyone else on a weekly basis.)
"Zack...?"
"Huh?"
"Zack!"
"What!"
"So, eh, how's things with you and that- girl?" Sephiroth asked slightly curiously with a wry grin. Sometimes when Zack was completely gone- he'd talk explicitly about his sex life with Aeris.
Everyone thought it was funny.
It was Sephiroth's turn to ask.
"Oh, uh-" Zack laughed out loud spilling some of his vodka and tonic all over his left pant leg.
"Shit, you know what she wanted last time I saw her?"
The men laughed. Sometimes Zack made stuff up about his sex life with Aeris, sometimes he didn't. Everything is hilarious when you are with the guys, at a nightclub, talking loudly, and drinking.
Every conversation was usually about sex, though.
Sephiroth glanced over his shoulder.
He caught the eye of a woman.
He shook his head.
Zack said something stupid, but he didn't pay attention.
Marty ordered more beer.
The performance tonight wasn't bad. Sephiroth knew that if he had a few more drinks, that he would be drunk enough to get up and sing.
He wasn't really in the mood, tonight, though.
"Hey, Seph! You goin- up- hic- t'night, or you still dry!? Have another-" Marty pushed a shot of something clear in his direction. Sephiroth shook his head.
"Not tonight."
"Awwww!"
"Nope. Not tonight. Don't feel like it, really." Sephiroth slid off his barstool. He felt like going for a night walk, maybe sober up- and loose the slight buzz.
The boys didn't miss him. They forgot almost immediately after he walked out and another round was ordered.
As he walked out of the nightclub, knots of people stood around the dim doorway.
Some if them were pushers, a couple of them were hookers looking for lonely soldiers. One huge man with a twisted dark face was a bouncer.
Sephiroth passed them all. He figured that he might as well just go strait back to camp and get some sleep.
He felt especially lonely that night for some reason.
"Hey! Hey, wait up!"
Sephiroth walked on. He didn't think that the woman's voice was directed at him.
The moon was a white slice against the navy blue sky. Sand was speckled around the horizon making up the tiny crystal stars. The air was crisp and chilled his lips and fingertips.
"I said, HEY!"
Sephiroth turned around.
A woman in a tight black shirt was catching her breath. Her red jacket was sliding off her shoulders. She was balancing-badly- on her high-heeled shoes.
Her dark brown curly hair was all messed up from trying to catch up to him.
"Hey... uh-" She began as she fixed her jacket.
"Hi?" He asked, slightly bemused, and slightly off-sandish. He was hoping that she wasn't a hooker looking for something. He wasn't the type. He's heard stories...
"Listen, I'm not- I' not that kinda guy. Look for someone else..."
The woman looked confused, and lightly offended.
Sephiroth walked on.
"HEY!"
"What, I mean, listen, lady, I was trying to be NICE... but my friend Marty might be looking- listen- he's in the bar- you can't miss him, bright red-"
"JESUS! I'm not a hooker! My friend just wanted me to give you her NUMBER! She saw you at the bar, and thought you were kinda cute. Just give her a RING will ya? She's got long light brown hair, and brown eyes. She said you looked at her."
"Oh." He felt himself turn red.
The woman gave him a slip of note, and walked away.
He took the number, but never called. Zack said he was crazy and said that she was hot and was looking at him all night.
The following week, he forgot completely about her. It was a Saturday night, and Sephiroth and his friends were again at "The Phantom Wall Room." They were planning on getting fuck-faced that night.
Just as Sephiroth, Marty, Zack, and a few other soldiers were on their third round of drinks, a group of young, single women walked into the bar.
One of them, Sephiroth recognized.
"Zack," Sephiroth tapped Zack's shoulder and whispered.
"That's HER, the one who gave me the number."
"So go talk to her." Zack grunted back.
"Who?!" Marty butted in.
"Seph's goin' on about some chick he met last week. I guess she just walked in, but Seph's a chicken."
"Oh." Marty said.
Sephiroth contorted his face.
"I'm not a CHICKEN, for chrissakes! I just don't know which one the number belong-"
The girl caught his eye again.
The longhaired girl, with brown eyes.
The woman ducked her head, smiled, and began to talk to her friends.
Some of the other girls glanced at him, giggled, and continued talking.
"Go- fuckin'talk-to-her!" Marty slapped his shoulder, and drunkenly encouraged, "Or I will!"
"Yeah, just go, for god's sakes," Zack said coldly, "Your acting like a fool."
Sephiroth nodded, took another shot, and walked over to the group of women.
They all looked up. There was about seven of them.
"You never called her!" The one in the tight shirt blurted out, breaking the pause.
"Never got a chance to." He tried to act cool, and suave. He was nervous as hell. He felt arms sweat, and his face turn pink.
He tried to smile.
The woman dropped her head into her folded arms on the table.
"You guys are embarrassing me!" She choked. The group of women laughed.
"Go-on, SOLDIER-boy, go buy Katrina a drink!"
Sephiroth felt himself nearly vomit in drunken nervousness. He felt the drinks he had slosh around in his stomach and in his head. The world seemed to spin-but-Katrina- (was that her name?) was very... very beautiful.
At least she was under the dim lights and around three and a half drinks.
They sat up at the bar together. The room was loud, busy, and dark. People were elbowing his shoulders as he sat at the stool. Katrina seemed quiet, and relatively shy.
"Want anythin'" The bar tender asked as he approached them.
"Strawberry daiquiris." She answered.
"Same." Seph answered after a pause. He couldn't think of anything else.
"So... what's your name?" She asked. Her eyes were brown... big and brown. She had a smattering of small freckles on her nose.
"Sephiroth."
"Interesting name."
"Uh, and you?"
"What?" She asked as the daiquiris arrived.
"What's your name?"
"Katrina. Katrina Cyrinski. Listen, uhm, I'm sorry about my friends, I'm just a little nervous, you know? I never really go to bars, or anything, and I never really ask any guys out, but, I bet you already have a girlfriend, and everything, and I bet I'm really just being stupid, so- if you don't want me here, I'll just go back to my table, ok?"
Sephiroth paused, and blinked, and wondered if, for a moment, she breathed at all in that whole sentence.
He smiled.
She blushed, and thought that she was acting dumb.
An Autobiography of Vincent Valentine
Phoenix Down.
Part Iota
Keter
"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change." (Confucius)
It took me a while to find my camera.
I knew that I had one from back in my college days, a good one with fresh film, and everything.
It was one of those uh- Polaroid things, the picture spat out immediately after taking them. It just took a second after it spat out to develop.
I hadn't gone to the office in days.
I'm sure they figured that I was either dead in the gutter, or quit. There were a lot of messages on my machine; I wasn't about to check them.
Again, I'm not sure what time it was, what month it was, what day it was, fuck, I don't even know what year it is anymore.
I walked down from my apartment and toward the basement, armed with the camera, film, and the multiple tapes I had of Sephiroth's and mine conversations.
I was going to do it; I was going to document for sure that Sephiroth had returned.
Not only that he has returned, but also he was talking about his mysterious past.
Not just to anyone, but to me.
Down I went, into the basement.
The tiered sun of the anonymous day slid in through the panel of ground level windows.
I plucked the string of the single bulb light.
It paused, coughed, and then flickered on.
I took a deep breath...
There, like it has been before, was the hallway.
The drawings from a few days previous have for the most part, vanished.
A few of the larger ones remained.
The panel drawings that featured me were still there, alongside the steps that lead on.
They were the ones that creeped me the most.
They were the ones that to any logical mind, would tell you that Sephiroth was looking to find a human body to encompass.
He was looking to come back, was my suspicions.
Just like the thin voice with the narrow red eyes said days before.
I aimed the camera towards the hallway as I walked in.
I kept shooting.
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
The pictures tumbled to the floor like lost doves without wings.
Then, I turned and took photos of the drawings.
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
"What are you doing?"
I aimed my camera at Sephiroth as he walked in through the long, black, cold, hallway that seemed to have stretched for miles.
The hallway seemed agitated.
It seemed to breathe, and grow, and the more I took pictures, the more of the basement it seemed to swallow.
"WHAT are you DOING?!"
Click
Click
Click
Click
Click
I said to Sephiroth, that I was just acting as a journalist, that's all.
"Hm. Well, good luck."
It then occurred to me that it was daylight out a moment ago, and now it seems the light was gone.
The photos were not coming out well.
I don't think that I ever saw Sephiroth, or the hallway, when it was light out.
I stopped shooting, and picked up a photo. I waved it in the air until the image appeared.
Sephiroth made himself at home, as he usually does, on the old red sofas.
The photos of the wall sketches seemed to be blurry, as if there was poor lighting.
The photos of the hallway looked like it was not a hallway, but instead a long black, misty tunnel...
The photos of Sephiroth...
They looked like they were pictures of me goofing off, as if I was holding the camera, and pointed it at my face, then snapped it.
There was an odd light in the background in each of them.
I dropped those pictures.
I pointed the camera at Sephiroth again.
He was sitting on the sofa; he wasn't even looking at me.
The picture spat out, I took it, waved it in the air, and looked at it.
It was a photo of me, sitting on the sofa, and looked as if I took the picture. There was a strange light in the background.
"Give it up." Sephiroth said finally.
I was getting frustrated.
"Just give IT UP! Get over here. Get that tape recorder. Save the photo taking for your job."
I said nothing, and did what I was told.
Like always, there was a fresh tape in the recorder.
I didn't want to do this anymore.
We were too much the same...
And I didn't like that.
~
Sephiroth spent many, many years in SOLDIER before he was a general.
For the most part, the transition was easy.
He loved life as a soldier.
He was given something to believe in, something and someone to fight for.
He was given an opportunity to develop a skill that he loved- his fighting.
He was a master at hand-to-hand, and was a developing master in sword-skill.
Now, he just needed a situation to prove himself, and become a real master.
Maybe even a real hero.
Maybe people will then respect him, and look up to him, to honor and remember him, like he always wanted.
Singing was just a hobby.
Being a general will get you somewhere.
Sephiroth wanted, deeply, to be a hero.
The kind of guy that mothers tell stories to their young ones at night.
"Don't worry, baby, if the boogie-man comes, just call for Sephiroth, he will come save you." "Then, honorable-general-Sephiroth came on his noble steed, and saved the princess and the world from destruction..."
Save the world from destruction...
Yeah...
He and the guys went, on weekends, to a nightclub.
There, they could relax, and for just a moment, forget about being a SOLDIER.
When Sephiroth was really drunk, he'd get up and sing.
Even when he was shit-faced-drunk, according to most people, he sounded fantastic.
But, he just told them to piss off, and then he would laugh.
The nightclub was called, "The Phantom Wall Room."
"Hey, Seph?"
"What?"
"Pass me the jug of beer, would ya?"
"If you don't spill it all over yourself."
"I... won't! I'm-not-that-drunk."
"Yeah, right."
Sephiroth pushed the jug of beer over to Marty. Marty was like him, a third class SOLDIER. Next year, if they prove themselves, they would be promoted to second class. Marty and Zack were his closest friends.
He was the responsible, mature one of the group.
(That means he never got as fuck-faced as everyone else on a weekly basis.)
"Zack...?"
"Huh?"
"Zack!"
"What!"
"So, eh, how's things with you and that- girl?" Sephiroth asked slightly curiously with a wry grin. Sometimes when Zack was completely gone- he'd talk explicitly about his sex life with Aeris.
Everyone thought it was funny.
It was Sephiroth's turn to ask.
"Oh, uh-" Zack laughed out loud spilling some of his vodka and tonic all over his left pant leg.
"Shit, you know what she wanted last time I saw her?"
The men laughed. Sometimes Zack made stuff up about his sex life with Aeris, sometimes he didn't. Everything is hilarious when you are with the guys, at a nightclub, talking loudly, and drinking.
Every conversation was usually about sex, though.
Sephiroth glanced over his shoulder.
He caught the eye of a woman.
He shook his head.
Zack said something stupid, but he didn't pay attention.
Marty ordered more beer.
The performance tonight wasn't bad. Sephiroth knew that if he had a few more drinks, that he would be drunk enough to get up and sing.
He wasn't really in the mood, tonight, though.
"Hey, Seph! You goin- up- hic- t'night, or you still dry!? Have another-" Marty pushed a shot of something clear in his direction. Sephiroth shook his head.
"Not tonight."
"Awwww!"
"Nope. Not tonight. Don't feel like it, really." Sephiroth slid off his barstool. He felt like going for a night walk, maybe sober up- and loose the slight buzz.
The boys didn't miss him. They forgot almost immediately after he walked out and another round was ordered.
As he walked out of the nightclub, knots of people stood around the dim doorway.
Some if them were pushers, a couple of them were hookers looking for lonely soldiers. One huge man with a twisted dark face was a bouncer.
Sephiroth passed them all. He figured that he might as well just go strait back to camp and get some sleep.
He felt especially lonely that night for some reason.
"Hey! Hey, wait up!"
Sephiroth walked on. He didn't think that the woman's voice was directed at him.
The moon was a white slice against the navy blue sky. Sand was speckled around the horizon making up the tiny crystal stars. The air was crisp and chilled his lips and fingertips.
"I said, HEY!"
Sephiroth turned around.
A woman in a tight black shirt was catching her breath. Her red jacket was sliding off her shoulders. She was balancing-badly- on her high-heeled shoes.
Her dark brown curly hair was all messed up from trying to catch up to him.
"Hey... uh-" She began as she fixed her jacket.
"Hi?" He asked, slightly bemused, and slightly off-sandish. He was hoping that she wasn't a hooker looking for something. He wasn't the type. He's heard stories...
"Listen, I'm not- I' not that kinda guy. Look for someone else..."
The woman looked confused, and lightly offended.
Sephiroth walked on.
"HEY!"
"What, I mean, listen, lady, I was trying to be NICE... but my friend Marty might be looking- listen- he's in the bar- you can't miss him, bright red-"
"JESUS! I'm not a hooker! My friend just wanted me to give you her NUMBER! She saw you at the bar, and thought you were kinda cute. Just give her a RING will ya? She's got long light brown hair, and brown eyes. She said you looked at her."
"Oh." He felt himself turn red.
The woman gave him a slip of note, and walked away.
He took the number, but never called. Zack said he was crazy and said that she was hot and was looking at him all night.
The following week, he forgot completely about her. It was a Saturday night, and Sephiroth and his friends were again at "The Phantom Wall Room." They were planning on getting fuck-faced that night.
Just as Sephiroth, Marty, Zack, and a few other soldiers were on their third round of drinks, a group of young, single women walked into the bar.
One of them, Sephiroth recognized.
"Zack," Sephiroth tapped Zack's shoulder and whispered.
"That's HER, the one who gave me the number."
"So go talk to her." Zack grunted back.
"Who?!" Marty butted in.
"Seph's goin' on about some chick he met last week. I guess she just walked in, but Seph's a chicken."
"Oh." Marty said.
Sephiroth contorted his face.
"I'm not a CHICKEN, for chrissakes! I just don't know which one the number belong-"
The girl caught his eye again.
The longhaired girl, with brown eyes.
The woman ducked her head, smiled, and began to talk to her friends.
Some of the other girls glanced at him, giggled, and continued talking.
"Go- fuckin'talk-to-her!" Marty slapped his shoulder, and drunkenly encouraged, "Or I will!"
"Yeah, just go, for god's sakes," Zack said coldly, "Your acting like a fool."
Sephiroth nodded, took another shot, and walked over to the group of women.
They all looked up. There was about seven of them.
"You never called her!" The one in the tight shirt blurted out, breaking the pause.
"Never got a chance to." He tried to act cool, and suave. He was nervous as hell. He felt arms sweat, and his face turn pink.
He tried to smile.
The woman dropped her head into her folded arms on the table.
"You guys are embarrassing me!" She choked. The group of women laughed.
"Go-on, SOLDIER-boy, go buy Katrina a drink!"
Sephiroth felt himself nearly vomit in drunken nervousness. He felt the drinks he had slosh around in his stomach and in his head. The world seemed to spin-but-Katrina- (was that her name?) was very... very beautiful.
At least she was under the dim lights and around three and a half drinks.
They sat up at the bar together. The room was loud, busy, and dark. People were elbowing his shoulders as he sat at the stool. Katrina seemed quiet, and relatively shy.
"Want anythin'" The bar tender asked as he approached them.
"Strawberry daiquiris." She answered.
"Same." Seph answered after a pause. He couldn't think of anything else.
"So... what's your name?" She asked. Her eyes were brown... big and brown. She had a smattering of small freckles on her nose.
"Sephiroth."
"Interesting name."
"Uh, and you?"
"What?" She asked as the daiquiris arrived.
"What's your name?"
"Katrina. Katrina Cyrinski. Listen, uhm, I'm sorry about my friends, I'm just a little nervous, you know? I never really go to bars, or anything, and I never really ask any guys out, but, I bet you already have a girlfriend, and everything, and I bet I'm really just being stupid, so- if you don't want me here, I'll just go back to my table, ok?"
Sephiroth paused, and blinked, and wondered if, for a moment, she breathed at all in that whole sentence.
He smiled.
She blushed, and thought that she was acting dumb.