Tifa hovered near more darkness, strangely content in feeling shielded, in how the dark shielded her.
How far had she run? Where was she? Or did she just think she had been running away, was Cloud still sitting there, right behind her back?
She spun around but she saw no golden-haired, glowing boy stubbornly watching her. Panting, she realised she had lost her way. What direction had she come running from?
She shook her head in frustration. Enough. But as she saw the situation she was in...
An old Fear, a dusty, deathly playmate that had been decomposing in the corner of a deserted attic for a number of years which not even Tifa was sure of, an old Fear sprang out at her like out of a Jack-in-the-Box. The long, spindly fingers on its bony hands spread out to welcome her back into its macabre grip. The grimace it wore widened as the hands folded themselves around Tifa's throat.
The very first time Tifa had found this monster living within her, she had been quite young. Her parents had taken her to the Gold Saucer because it was her fifth birthday. Imagine the terror, the inconsolable sorrow of a toddler discovering her parents had vanished off the face of the earth, and she had instead been following a complete stanger, wearing Mom's red skirt! By the time her parents had regained possession of their daughter from a rather confused woman in a red skirt, she had been too upset to be able to enjoy anything else that day. It had felt as if a Fear had pulled her up and down long, brightly illuminated corridors, assuring her that her mommy and daddy would be behind one of the many locked mahogany doors.
Tifa smiled shakily and sat down, wishing there was a wall to rest against. Only being able to sit on a floor of rather lacking materials did get on one's nerves after a while. She had never really given much thought to that day, fifteen years ago. But down (up?) here, in this world where everything seemed to vibrate and burst with life -while all that could be seen was silence -everything normally subconscious to Tifa became startlingly clear and important.
She began to wonder if that ancient Fear of hers had only just come into existence that day at Gold Saucer, or if it had simply come out of its hibernation that day. Because after that.. after that, she remembered it smothering her at least three or four times.
When her mother had died, she had been grief-stricken. What does a young girl do without her mother? The spiderleg fingers of the Fear had curled themselves around the back of her head, tickling her temples. She could remember herself, trying to lose the Fear by walking, simply walking. But the Fear had clamped to her head tighter, and whispered a promise in her ear that it would stay with her. It did -it was there to watch over her during the walk, during the fall, in the coma. She had lived with darkness creeping in at the corners of her eyes.
After she had learned to live without her mother, all had been well until she was invited by Cloud to meet him at the well one night. The moment he had asked her -he had seemed rather nervous about talking to her, but then, Cloud had never been the kind to write a note -she had felt the Fear come scuttling back.
As Cloud spoke to her of his future plans, she had felt the fear clamber up her legs to her back like a sickly chimpansee, where it stretched its fingers and then began to push painfully through the soft skin of her back until its hands were wedged painfully beneath her shoulderblades, gliding, slick with blood and forebearing, towards her heart to clench down.. that was when Tifa had pleaded Cloud to promise her something. The Promise, the Promise, the Promise that defeated the neccessity of the existence of all other promises. His answer, at first hesitant but eventually much more certain, caused the Fear to paralyze and then pull itself out of her, and fall and hit the ground in pieces, skitter away sulkily. He would be there for her.
The promise had kept the Fear entirely away from her for a good two years, until she lost her father and her village to a madman. Despite Cloud's brief presence and rescue, when she had thought she was most certainly going to die within the following ten minutes, the event had so severely shaken her that Fear had felt welcome enough to bring along his friends, Hatred, Vengeance and Panic, and they had a hell of a good time, the four of them running amok in a fifteen-year-old's brain. Reeling from too many blows, the way Zangan took leave of her as soon as he felt certain she was in good hands had only pushed her farther away.
And then she had been alone. Zangan had been the one person she had had left from her normal life, her life past. She hadn't ever seen Cloud again, since he had found her at Sephiroth's mercy. She wondered often where Cloud was, but it brought too many difficulties along to think too deeply of him; the scars had only just formed over the fresh gashes.
As soon as she could, Tifa had forced herself back into normal life again. It had never been like her to revel in her own misery, or enjoy the dazed feeling it let pass over her. But the scorpion tail lodged in her heart remained there, waiting for the next chance to spread its seeds.
Now was the time, it seemed. Tifa's breathing had changed, she found, become uneven and ragged as the Fear tangled itself in her hair, suckled itself like an infant at her breast, feasted on her tears though she had none. Yes, the Fear had returned, simply because the Promise that had shackled most of the Fear down in a dungeon, seven years ago, that Promise had just been altered, remade into an Assurance. He would NOT be there for her now. Not anymore. The shackles had been lifted, and now the Fear, newly freed and strengthened, had returned to taunt her, haunt her, wreck her with the same words -forever the same words..
'You're all alone now, no one is with you,
You're not important now, no one that loves you,
You're going crazy, no one that cares for you,
You're all alone now, it's all your own fault!'
the Fear sang its nursery rhyme, grinning its brown teeth bare at her, swinging rudely off the tip of her mahogany ponytail.
Tifa let out a sigh, the way she always had when trying to convince herself of the stupidity of the whole thing. She tried again.
This whole thing is stupid, she decided.
"This whole thing is stupid," she said, now firmly, and out loud. A porcelain smile cracked on her face.
"I mean, come on, you're thinking of two abstract definitions, 'fear' and 'promise' in capitals! Tifa Lockheart, you are not a character from the House at Pooh Corner. Stop behaving like a retard."
But there was no one there to hear her, and she held her hands up in front of her eyes to make sure she could see them. Tifa didn't want to be blind.
'About that Promise..' Fear whispered in her ear, its foul-smelling breath blowing hot in her neck.
She missed Cloud, badly already. He seemed to keep her sane..
'Too bad you can't return that favor,' the Fear jeered. Her sight grew dim and she wanted to flick Fear and the rising Panic off like annoying lice before they could bore themselves a way into her skull.
Nonetheless, she hung her head, feeling helpless and limp. And though she didn't enjoy this feeling, she accepted it for now.