Chapter 8- The Corpse
When you're young your mother tells you not to look at the sun, she always tells you 'Don't look at the sun or you'll go blind' but sometimes you'll risk going blind because you desperately want to see the truth.
Squall walked down the long white corridor of the hospital until he turned and went into a cubicle where a familiar looking patient lay in the hospital bed. As he walked closer to the patient he realised it was one of his colleagues.
"Donna?" Squall said in surprise as he realised who it was.
"Hey Squall," Donna said faintly.
"What happened to you?" Squall asked taking out a needle, injecting the morphine into her arm.
"Haven't you heard about that girl last night?"
"She committed suicide."
Donna nodded her head slightly. "But not before trying to kill me."
"Why did she do that?" Squall asked confused.
"I don't know. She just told me to leave the room for my own safety," Donna started. "I didn't think she met it literally and anyway, I had a job to do. I continued with my work then the bitch tried to kill me."
Squall studied her for a moment. "You're lucky to be alive, you should get some rest," he said standing up as he turned to leave the room. He sighed as he closed the door; the mutant had definitely been troubled. It was a shame he was never able to talk to her, whoever she was.
"Do you ever wonder who she was?"
Squall turned around, startled, to where the voice had come from.
"Perhaps you knew her in the past," Rinoa continued.
"Yeah…what are you doing here?" Squall asked puzzled.
"I heard the news about last night and decided to find you. Seifer said you was at work so I came here, luckily I saw you and followed you here," Rinoa said. "I waited outside here until you came out so I could talk to you."
"I can't talk right now. I'm sorry, but I have to go."
Rinoa looked at Squall disappointed. "Okay, I'll see you around then," she said, turning to leave but a hand gripped around her arm and gently pulled her back.
"I have my lunch break in half an hour, wait in the hospital café for me."
"Okay."
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Do you know who she was?" Rinoa asked.
"No, the paper didn't give out her real name," Squall explained.
Rinoa turned her head to look out the window. There was a quick pause and then Rinoa spoke again. "Do you…want to see her to see if you recognise her?"
Squall studied her for a moment. "What are you saying? We go to the morgue to see if I recognise her?"
Rinoa looked at Squall for a moment and then nodded her head slightly.
"Are you crazy?" Squall said amazed at what he was hearing.
"Maybe, but I doubt the reporters will give out her real name…if they even know it. You're not going to know who she is until you see for yourself. Aren't you just a little curious to find out who she is?"
"Yeah, but-"
"But you'll never know if you knew her if you don't see for yourself and I keep having a strange feeling inside that you will know her."
Squall looked at Rinoa speechless for a moment. "What if we get caught?"
Rinoa gave him a playful hit on the arm. "You work here, remember?"
Squall looked at her one last time before standing from his seat. "You're crazy, you know that? Let's go."
The two of them walked down the corridor of the hospital until they came to a stop outside two double doors.
"This is it," Squall said facing Rinoa.
Rinoa turned to Squall and smiled. "Ready?"
Squall nodded his before opening the double doors and both of them entered.
The room was quite dull with beds spread quite far apart from each other. As Rinoa looked around she could see some of the beds were occupied by the deceased, which sent a shiver up Rinoa's spine. Luckily the bodies were covered with a sheet.
"How are you supposed to know where she is?" Rinoa asked.
"Take a guess."
"There aren't that many bodies, you could look at them."
Squall turned to Rinoa. "Have you ever seen a dead body before?"
"Once…but I don't wanna talk about it," Rinoa said feeling a little creeped out by all the dead bodies that surrounded her.
As Squall looked at the bodies he saw no one familiar, he had about 3 more to look at. He took a step closer to where a body lay, his hands moved upwards and he slowly pulled the sheet to reveal a corpse. As soon as he looked at the face hundreds of long forgotten memories came back to him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The young boy of eight hid nervously in a corner behind a box waiting for his companion to return to him. He dared not to look up to see what was happening in case he was spotted, so he waited pulling himself into a tighter ball away from the rest of the world. He tried to listen to see if he could hear her coming back, to hear her footsteps approaching but he couldn't hear anything due to all the loud noises surrounding him. The sound of gunshots and the screams and shouts of people echoed around the building.
Finally he heard footsteps coming towards where he was. It could be who he was waiting for, but what if it wasn't? Had he been seen? If he had been seen he would probably be killed right. Afraid, he hugged his knees harder and closed his eyes tighter. If he was caught, he wondered if death was painful or perhaps it would feel nice. His mouth went dry as the footsteps quickened and got closer. They stopped right in front of him and he felt the person sit beside him.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and lifted his head to see the person beside him and sighed in relief when he saw who it was.
"Ellone," he said. "I thought you was one of them."
The girl looked at him and smiled sweetly. "Sorry."
She lifted herself up slightly to see over the box, and then ducked back down. "Squall," she whispered. "I'm going to get you out of her but you have to be brave, okay?"
Squall nodded his head.
"Right, you see the corridor down there?" Ellone said pointing it out to him. "When I say so I want you to run as fast as you can down there. At the end of the corridor is a window that leads to the outside. Seifer's going to be waiting for you there, then I'll follow afterwards."
"Why don't we go together?"
"There's more chance of getting caught if we go together," she said, turning back to Squall. "Do you know what you have to do?"
Squall nodded his head a little nervously. Ellone looked over the top of the box. "Follow me," she said standing up. Squall followed behind her until she stopped and looked around again. "Ready?"
"Yes."
She turned to Squall and looked at him for a moment and then looked around once more. "Right Squall…Go!" she shouted.
Squall ran a few steps forward but then stopped and looked back at Ellone. "Don't look back Squall, run!" she shouted again.
The next few moments of his life seemed to be in slow motion, he ran as fast as he could to the end of the corridor, sure enough there was an open window with Seifer stood beside it waiting for Squall. From behind Squall a gunshot echoed around the room, Squall came to a stop, turning to see Ellone lying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
"Ellone," Squall shouted as he saw her body. He began to run back towards to her, but was quickly pulled back by Seifer to safety.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Squall?" Rinoa said looking at Squall a little worried.
Squall snapped back into reality and looked down at the body in silence.
"Is that her?" Rinoa asked.
Squall nodded his head. "I thought she was dead."
Rinoa fell silent not sure of what to say.
"You knew her, didn't you?" Rinoa finally said, feeling a little uncomfortable. She wasn't sure if she regretted coming here or if she was glad that she had come and made Squall see who this 'Autumn Ivers' really was.
Her knees began to feel weak and the world around here started to go blurry. A sharp pain ran through her brain, she held her head in her hands as it became worse. Scared of what was happening to her she looked up to see Squall, but he wasn't there; everything around her had disappeared and she was surrounded by darkness. Her head felt like it could explode when another wave of agonizing pain shot through her, as it did she let out a scream.
Rinoa lifted her head and she was back in the morgue again, but it wasn't all back to normal. Everything was blurry; the room seemed to be spinning from side to side. She could hear lots of voices and footsteps echoing through her head. She could hear two male voices talking and she could just make out what they were saying. Most of it was inaudible due to all the echoing in her head, but she heard the words 'mutant' and 'morgue'. The footsteps continued to sound, getting closer as time passed. Then everything went back to normal and she was back in the morgue again with the blurriness or the voices.
She felt someone's arms wrapped around her and looked up to see Squall looking concerned at her.
"What happened?" Rinoa said, suddenly realising she was sat on the floor. She tried to get back up but another wave of dizziness swept over her and she fell back to the ground again.
"You just collapsed on to the floor," Squall said helping her off the ground. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just felt dizzy, I think." She heard footsteps coming outside the room. "Someone's coming."
"How do you know?" Squall asked.
"What do you mean how do I know? You can hear footsteps coming from outside."
Squall stopped still for a moment listening. "I can't hear anything."
Rinoa looked at Squall confused. The thought did cross her mind that maybe he was going deaf but because the footsteps sounded just outside the door she grabbed Squall, pulling them behind one of the beds, hidden.
They stayed there a few minutes in silence and finally two people entered the morgue. One of them was clearly a doctor, but the other Squall thought was clearly a stranger to the hospital. The doctor led him to the bed in which they had just been stood around.
"This is the mutant," the doctor said, revealing the body.
"Ah yes, I remember her know," the other man started. "Ellone Loire, she was one of the first made."
"You know her well, after all it has been 10 years, Commander Raijin."
"Yeah, I remember her well she was one of the main troublemakers back then, ya know. Thanks for showing me."
"Pleasures all mine, Sir."
The two men turned and left the room and the two climbed out of hiding. "Commander Raijin?" Squall said in thought.
"Do you know him?" Rinoa asked.
"He sounds and looks familiar but I'm not sure how I know him." Squall looked at his watch. "I've got to get back to work in a minute, we should get out of here."
~*~*~*~*~*~
Squall entered his home after a long boring day at work. He entered the living room to find Seifer, Zell and Quistis still putting the pieces together about the suicide. Squall sat down in an armchair.
"Squall, can you remember anyone's name who started with 'El' or something like that?" Seifer asked.
"It's Ellone."
"That's what crossed my mind but you know what happened."
"It is Ellone." Squall said again. "I went in the morgue today and saw her."
Seifer looked at Squall in surprise by two things, first because it was Ellone and second because he went into the morgue to look at the dead body.
"You went into the morgue?" Quistis exclaimed. "Where did you think up that crazy idea?"
"Rinoa," Squall said, but quickly regretted it, realising they didn't know about Rinoa knowing Squall was a mutant.
"Rinoa…does she know you're a mutant?" Seifer asked, a little angry.
"She found out by herself, I never told her."
"Oh, so it's alright for Squall to tell some girl he's just met but do they let me tell the girl in the library? NO!" Zell said, a little annoyed.
"Shut up Zell and anyway he's known Rinoa since he was a kid," Seifer said and then turned to Squall again. "Are you sure she's not going to tell anyway?"
"Positive. This may sound a little strange but she's basically a mutant herself."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know how but she was mutant powers but she's not a mutant," Squall said. "And today in the morgue, she knew someone was coming a few minutes before I could. She said she could hear footsteps when I couldn't."
"Is Rinoa the girl that lives with Selphie?" Quistis asked.
"Yeah," Seifer said. "How could she have mutant powers but not be a mutant?"
Authors note: I'm sooo sorry I haven't updated for ages but school work has been keeping me away from my fic and other personal issues! I'll make it up to you I promise! Thank you to everyone who has reviewed my story so far it really means so much to me! Oh and by the way so no one can get me done for copyright that little piece at the start of this chapter about the sun was kinda taken off this series called Taken. Don't sue! Thanks for reviewing again!
