//By Julie (yaoifantasy) and Wonderful Failure
//rated R for horror, gore, death, and cussing
// yaoi hints
//Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy 8 (not the characters/world/etc) -- I wish, but it just isn't happening. And the movie "Pitch Black" - don't own that either. Just ~borrowing~ for creative out-lets.
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Zell walked out of the ship-skiff, down to where Seifer stood waiting.
"No juice," Zell said with a sigh. "Looks like da ship has been laid-up for years."
Seifer nodded to Zell.
Zell took a step towards Seifer saying "We might be able ta adapt-"
"Shut up!" Seifer snapped, looking away from Zell towards the direction of the far-off crash-site.
Zell held his breath, watching Seifer.
Seifer frowned, turning back to Zell. "Sorry, thought I heard something."
"Like what?" Zell asked.
"...Gun shots," Seifer said plainly, turning to look back in the direction of the crash-site.
~*~
Irvine dragged the heavy body of that Cid-man. The man he'd killed thinking it was Squall. And Cid was a heavy fucker, too.
Getting to the grave-pit, Irvine let go of the body bag, stretching his back, looking down at the tarp that covered the pit. Sighing, he reached down and removed the tarp, about to get started on continuing the grave-digging. But he noticed a small hole only big enough for someone to crawl into near the bottom of the pit, on the wall next to the floor. It was like the dirt caved in almost, but the hole was hallowed.
The hole in the pit-wall looked like it lead into a cavern of some sort.
"Blood hell...?" Irvine frowned down at the hole. It hadn't been there before.
He jumped down into the pit, getting to his knees. Turning on a flashlight, Irvine looked into the hole.
Squall knelt down beside the pit, watching an obvious Irvine slowly crawl into a hole. The bone-dagger was still clutched in Squall's hand.
Inching his way further into the hole, Irvine saw something move. It was seriously dark in there, and suddenly he wasn't so sure that this had been a good idea. But it was too late. All Irvine could do was grab his gun and try to shoot whatever it was attacking him.
Rinoa looked up from her conversation with Stephen. Gun shots. Screaming. Irvine.
Squall?
In a burst of adrenaline, Rinoa took off running, heading straight towards the grave-pit. Stephen and Nida not too far behind.
Yanking the tarp off the gave-pit, Rinoa saw only blood. And the dark hole near the bottom of the pit-wall.
"Irvine!" she cried, eyes frantically searching the pit for a sign of her best friend.
Feeling like she was being watched, Rinoa looked up to the other side of the pit and saw Squall. Squall: kneeling, looking down, bone-weapon in hand. His eyes still covered with the dark-bandanna.
"You bastard," Rinoa muttered under her breath, the dark doll-eyes of hers lighting up with fury.
Squall slowly, cautiously stood, watching Rinoa carefully. Then, quickly, he turned and burst down in a full-out run, heading far from the death-site of Irvine.
Taking a quick glance back, Squall saw Rinoa running after him. Then something hit his legs and he fell forward, hard onto the ground. Something, or someone really, kicked his side, forcing Squall onto his back. Looking up, Squall saw Seifer glaring down at him, baton raised to strike.
Reaching up in a quiet, desperate move, Squall tried to grab the baton from Seifer, but Seifer yanked off Squall's black bandanna.
Bright, blinding light. That was all Squall could see. And then he could make out a vague outline of a human body, Seifer's, looking down at Squall. Then Seifer punched Squall in the face and hit him in the chest with the baton.
"Piece of shit," Seifer growled.
"What did you do to Irvine?!" Rinoa's voice growled.
Squall turned to see the fuzzy, glowing shadow outline of Rinoa glaring down at him. Fuck his eyes hurt from the light.
"What did you do to him?!" Rinoa asked again, this time smacking Squall across the face with the back of her fist.
Zell grabbed a hold of Rinoa, trying to pull her back. "Rin, Rin! Calm down!"
"Somebody just kill him! Just god-damn kill him before he...urgh!" Rinoa was able to kick her foot, nailing Squall smack in the face.
He fell back into the dirt, shaken. Seifer moved quickly, pulling Squall up and shaking his arms behind his back.
~*~
Zell walked into the crashed ship cabin. Squall was chained up again. This time with his arms spread out to either side, his head hanging down as he sat in a dark corner next to the wall.
Zell stared at Squall a moment, a frown on his face, his sapphire eyes sparkling angrily. "So where's da body?"
Squall didn't reply, not even looking up.
Zell breathed, noticing that for the first time Squall didn't have something covering his eyes. And Squall wouldn't look at him.
"Well... do ya wanna tell me 'bout the sounds?" Zell asked, putting a hand on his hip. He cocked his head, trying to look at Squall's darkened face.
Zell sighed, shifting his weight. "Look, ya told Seif ya heard sometin... ...Fine. If ya don't wanna talk ta me, that's fine..." Zell stepped back, frowning at Squall. "But jus so ya know! ... There's a debate right now on whether we should jus leave ya here ta die." Zell started to turn away.
"You mean the whispers?" Squall asked, not moving.
Zell paused his motion, breathing a second, then turning to look at Squall again. He took a step forward, getting closer to Squall then he was before, but not too close. Squall was a psychotic killer, after all.
Zell breathed softly, finally forcing his voice to reply. "What whispers?"
"The ones telling me to go for the sweet-spot," Squall replied, his body still completely frozen. Like ice. "Just to the left of the spine, fourth lumbar down. The abdominal aorta. Metallic taste to it, human blood. Copperish. But if you cut it with peppermint schnapps, that goes away quickly-"
"You wanna shock me wit da truth?!" Zell snapped at Squall, silencing the brunette prisoner.
Squall lifted his head, his eyes closed in the small light of the room. He half-smiled at Zell. "All you people are so scared of me -- an' most days, I'd take that as a compliment... but it ain't me you gotta worry about now."
Zell swallowed, looking at Squall's face. Pale, white skin. Creamy, and that scar between his eyes nearly exactly like Seifer's. Beautiful. But Squall's eyes. Closed. Hidden.
Zell took another step forward. "Show me your eyes," he said in a slightly more desperate voice then he meant to.
"You'd have to come a lot closer for that," Squall said, almost amused.
Zell's lips parted, his eyes locked on the chained brunette. Licking the dry, chapped flesh, Zell took an uncertain step forward, then another, and a third before stopping, still a couple feet from Squall.
"Closer," Squall mused again.
Wiping his hands on his pants, Zell took another step forward. He looked up to Squall's chained arms, wondering briefly what sort of reach Squall had, but he quickly dismissed the notion. He wanted to see Squall's eyes.
A step forward, then another.
Squall jumped up and forward, barely stopping a few inches from where Zell stood.
Grey-blue. Dark. Swirls of storms with no pupils. And a shin, a glimmer, jewel-like, sparkling. Beautiful and dangerous. Hungry, like a starved beast.
Zell's breath was caught in his throat, his face so close to Squall's. He took two careful steps backwards, his sapphire eyes locked with the jewels of Squall's grey-blue spheres. Then Squall turned away from Zell, looking to his left.
Zell turned to see Stephen standing their, smirking at Squall.
"Where the hell can I get eyes like that?" the 12 year old boy asked.
"First ya gotta kill a few people," Squall instructed, looking back at Zell, who quickly meet his gaze.
"'Kay!" Stephen replied eagerly. "I can do it!"
"Then ya gotta be send to a prison," Squall replied, his eyes burning into Zell. And Zell couldn't look away. "Where they tell you you'll never see daylight again."
Zell swallowed hard.
"You dig up a doctor," Squall continued. "Pay him 20 menthol cools to do a surgical shine-job to your eyes.
"So ya can see who's sneaking up on you in the dark?!" Stephen said eagerly.
"Exactly!" Squall replied, turning to smirk at the boy.
"Leave!" Zell snapped at the kid.
Stephen's smile disappeared, frowning at Zell.
"Leave," Zell said softer.
Squall looked from Stephen, back to meet Zell's gaze.
Stephen continued to frown, but he turned and headed out of the cabin.
"Cute kid," Squall said.
Zell just stared at Squall.
"Did I kill a few people?" Squall asked the question for Zell, re-taking his seat in the dark. "Sure. Did I kill Irvine? ... No. You've got the wrong killer."
"He ain't in the hole," Zell said in a harsh tone. "We looked."
"Look deeper," Squall replied.
~*~
Zell bent down looking into the hole that Irvine died in. Turning on a flashlight, see could barely make out a caver about 7 feet into the hole. He swallowed, glancing back at the group of survivors.
Quistis nodded to Zell, a rope in her hand that lead to Zell's belt, attached tightly. Turning to Seifer, Zell took a deep breath.
Seifer tried an encouraging smirk, but it was a failed expression.
Closing his sapphire eyes, Zell shifted his body back to face the hole. Then, his sapphire spheres opening, Zell slowly started to crawl in.
After four feet, Zell's flashlight caught site of a blood, broken flashlight. Irvine's flashlight. Zell quickly turned his gaze to look further down the tight crawlspace, towards the larger cavern. Swallowing, Zell moved past the dead-man's flashlight, entering the open space.
Light entered this cavern through small holes in the roof. Probably from those spiral hill-things that were scattered around this area.
Zell stood tall, his flashlight trailing through the empty space, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Looking up to the spiral-hill funnels, he spoke. "Hallow..."
Something shifted behind Zell, making a skuttering noise. He quickly turned, flashlight drawn light a sword, pointing toward the sound. But nothing. Then... another skuttering noise from behind him again. Turning, Zell tried to make out what it was.
Taking a slow, deliberate step forward, Zell listened to his heavy breath. It was the only sound now. Then that same skuttering noise, closer this time, behind Zell.
He turned, trailing his flashlight along the ground, looking frantically for whatever it was making the noise. And then he saw it. A human lover leg. Only a human lower leg, ripped from the rest of its body. Irvine's body.
"Fuck..." Zell whispered, his breath getting louder. And then, behind the leg's location, Zell saw a shadow move.
"Oh fuck..." Zell said in an airy, near-panic voice. He turned, planning on heading back to the crawlspace to leave, but there was another shadow-creature. More visible.
Zell's entire body froze, his lips dry. There were more. Shadow-creatures. Slithering around in the dark parts of the cavern.
Frantically, Zell jumped up, grabbing a hold of the inside of the hallowed-spiral funnel, bathing in the daylight, the only light in the dark cavern. Pulling himself up, Zell gets his feel onto the narrow side-walls, pushing himself up, desperate to get out of the darkness.
The rope attached to Zell's belt suddenly went taut. Looking down Zell wondered what it caught, then, remembering the beasts, Zell wondered if the shadow-creatures were smart enough to try to pull him back down.
His answer: yes.
Zell slipped slightly, but didn't drop out of the hallowed-spiral hill. Pulling on the rope, Zell tried to force more slack, but it proved useless as he slide down a little further.
"I'm in here!" Zell yelled, his nails digging into the walls. "Here! In here!"
Zell couldn't let go of the wall to release his belt, he'd fall immediately into the shadow-creatures' den. So he continued to yell, but his voice was weakening from fear.
"Here..." Zell forced out, horror clenching his chest. "In here..."
He slipped again.
"Hyne... please," Zell said in a desperate airy voice. Then the side wall of his soon-to-be tomb broke open, the arms of Seifer and Quistis reaching in. Zell jumped into them, letting the two pull him from the hallowed-spiral, into full daylight.
"Give me your god-damned hand," Seifer growled in a low voice.
Seifer and Quistis dragged Zell 10 feet from the spiral-hill.
"I heard you Zell!" Stephen said in a proud voice. "I heard you first!"
"Did you find Irvine?!" Rinoa asked.
"Was it is?!" Stephen asked in an excited voice. "What was down there?!"
Seifer and Quistis let Zell go, leaving the tattooed blonde on his knees to catch his breath.
"Fuck!" Zell cried, moving to lean over with his hand on the dirt. "Oh, fuck!"
"Zell? You okay?" Stephen asked in a concerned voice.
Zell slowly pushed off the ground, still breathing heavily. "It was so fuckin' stupid!" He straighten up to look at the others. "I donno what da fuck is down there... but it got Irvine, and it nearly got meee-" he screamed the last word as his body was flung down, pulling fast back towards the spiral-hill.
Something had a hold of his rope and was pulling him back.
Quistis and Seifer ran quickly, catching Zell before he tumbled down to his certain death.
"Get it off me!" Zell screamed, pulling his body hard against the shadow-creature's tug. "Off! Get it off me!"
Seifer wrapped his arms around Zell's waist, desperately pulling the tattooed blonde forward. Quistis, meanwhile, unsheathed a dagger, moving it quickly to slice away the rope.
Seifer and Zell tumbled forward into the dirt as the rope flung down into the darkness, where waiting shadow-creatures jumped, eager for their meal.
~*~
"Finally found something worse then me, huh?" Squall asked, in an almost amused tone.
"So here's the deal," Seifer replied, looking down at his chained prisoner, his hand on his sheathed gun. "You work without chains, without bit, and without shivs. You do what I say, when I say it."
"For what?" Squall asked, tilting his head to the side, but keeping his eyes out of the light. "The honor of going back to some asshole of a cell? ... Fuck you."
Seifer shifted his weight, his sky-blue eyes locked on Squall. "The truth is... I'm tired a' chasin' you."
Squall looked up, his eyes slightly glittering in the light. "You saying you'd cut me loose?"
Seifer shrugged his shoulder. "I'm figuring ... you could have died in the crash."
Squall's face was blank. Stone as ice, his grey-blue spheres still glittering in the light. "My recommendation: Do me. Don't take the chance that I'll get shiv-happy on your wannabe ass."
"That right?" Seifer replied, a small sneer building on his face.
"Ghost me, Mother Fuck. That's what I would do to you." Squall said, his voice pure ice.
Seifer ripped out his gun and fired at Squall, at Squall's head.
Squall looked blankly at Seifer, then pulled his arms down to his sides. The chain that had held his arms in place now broken because Seifer had shot it.
"I want you to remember this moment," Seifer said in a teacher-voice. "The way it coulda gone and didn't." Taking a step forward, Seifer offered Squall his goggles, the dark goggles that kept out the bright sun-light. "Here."
Squall looked blankly at the goggles, then slowly reached forward. But the he jumped up, snatching Seifer's gun from the blonde's hands. Suddenly, Seifer was staring at his own shotgun's gun-barrels.
"Hey now," Seifer mumbled.
"Fuck you!" Squall snapped, pumping the gun to fire.
Seifer held his hands up, blue-eyes locked with the glittering spheres. "We have a deal?" Seifer asked.
Squall let the idea rearrange in his mind before saying "I want you to remember this moment." He then dropped the gun to land heavily on the floor, ripping his goggles away from Seifer and walking out of the dark-cabin.
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// So sorry this chapter sucked. Few good places (like the end scene with Seifer/Squall here, I like that), but all around, it sucks. I was half-asleep when I wrote it, so... sorry! ... I'll do better next time.
// ~*Julie, xoxo