FINAL FANTASY VIII: VIGIL OF THE FATES

By PeterEliot (egmont76@hotmail.com)

23. CONFUSION

Something is scraping my cheek.

That's my first thought as I come to.  Next I am aware of the carpet pressed against my face, and the rhythmic roar of the running train.  Groggily I pick myself up and rub my sore face, where the carpet has left tooth marks.  Zell and Selphie are sprawled where I saw them last.  Panic grips me at their sight.  I move to check their pulse, but quickly find it unnecessary.  Their easy, regular breathing is plain, as is Zell's snore.  They are quite sound asleep.

"Hey, wake up," I say, shaking Zell by the shoulder.

"Five more minutes," comes the reply, automatic as an answering machine.

I grab a half-filled cup of juice on the night table and pour it over his head.  Zell springs up with a cry and a gurgle.  I move on to Selphie.  "Selphie.  Selphie, get up."

"God, did you have to do that?" Zell groans, frantically wiping off the dripping liquid.  Groove marks from the carpet checker his face like window panes.

Selphie stretches her arms and yawns.  "Good morning...," she mumbles, and then catches herself.  "Wait a second, why am I here...?"

"Don't you remember?" I ask.  "You collapsed on the couch..."

"Huh?  Oh, my gosh!" she cries, turning crimson.  "Guys, I'm so sorry!  I didn't meant to crash in your cabin like that.  I'm kind of weak with alcohol..."  Then she catches herself again.  "Waitasec—I didn't get drunk last night!"

"If you say so."

"What the hell happened, Squall?" Zell asks, standing up.  "I remember passing out right after she did..."

"What?  You did, too?"

"He did," I confirm.  "And so did I, immediately after you two."

We are wordless for a long minute, and regard one another in turn.

"...Sabotage?" Selphie ventures hesitantly.

Zell folds his arms with a thoughtful frown.  "How?  We didn't eat or drink anything we didn't bring ourselves...  Sleeping gas, maybe?"

I shake my head.  "My GF's should have protected me from something like that."

"Maybe your GF's were goofing off."

"We weren't hurt, so whoever did this wasn't after our lives...  Oh!" Selphie cries, eyes widening.  "Squall, the orders!"

I dash to my bag and retrieve the envelope containing the Garden's orders.  Everything is the way I left it.  The sealed envelope hasn't been touched, either.

"If they weren't after us, and they weren't after the documents, what the hell did they want?" Zell says.

"Check your luggage and see if anything is missing.  Selphie, see about your cabin, too."

Fifteen minutes later, we have failed to detect anything out of the ordinary.  We reassemble in the men's cabin.

"The culprit has to be on the train still, right?" Selphie says.  "As I understand there is no stopping point between Balamb and Timber."

"He might have found a way to hop off," Zell opines.  "We were out for five full hours.  Who knows what might've happened during all that time?"

"It didn't feel like five hours," she replies.  "I feel like I've slept for days."

Oddly enough, that's my sentiment exactly.

"Not that it was unpleasant, though.  I had this spectacular dream..."

I had a dream too.  It wasn't pleasant, however. 

I dreamt that I was a moron...

But then come the sudden knocks on the door, and as one we tense up.

"Yes?" I call out without approaching the door.

"Just letting you know, sir, that we are arriving at Timber in one hour."

"Right.  Thank you."

"There will be an announcement at thirty minutes to arrival."

The attendant's footfalls fade away outside.  I make a decision and rise to my feet.  "I'm going to persuade him to let me look at the passenger manifest," I address the team.  "Zell, stay here and watch the cabin until I'm back.  Selphie, you return to your cabin and do the same.  Pack your things and get ready to go."

"Persuade, huh?" Zell says, a knowing grin at his mouth.  "Maybe you should let me do this bit.  Me and my fists can be pretty persuasive to wimpy train attendants—"

"Stay in the cabin, Zell."

"All right...  Boy, I do hate sitting and wondering.  Just what the hell's going on anyway?  All three of us passing out together on our first mission?"

"Maybe we've been possessed," Selphie giggles.

I freeze in the doorway.  Images come rushing back, and as I turn back to the girl I can almost picture the burly, drunken harpooner in the blue and white uniform, a bottle in hand.  "What did you say?"

"Hmm?  Oh, nothing."

"Nothing?"

Whenever you say it's nothing...

"Yeah, I was just—," she laughs, looking uncharacteristically self-conscious.  "It's just something silly I heard somebody say in my dream."

And before I am able to recover from that startling statement, Zell steps in and throws her the question I would have asked next.  "A dream?  Like, when?"

"Just now, when I was... uh, out.  What's wrong, guys?  You're both looking strange all of a sudden."

"Uh, I...," I begin, and then stop.  No.  No way.  It's insane.  But I have to say it.  "...I heard the same thing in my dream.  Just now.  When I was... out."

"You are shitting me!"  The words, almost a screech, are from Zell.  "But that's impossible!  I mean, I—"

"How do you mean?" interrupts a bewildered Selphie.  "You're not saying you heard it, too!"

"Well, I didn't exactly hear it," he stammers.  "But I dreamt that I said it.  Uh, when I was out."

"You said it?" I echo.

"Yeah.  I dreamt that I was this big G-Army soldier, and I got really drunk at a bar, in the dream that is—"

"Ward!" Selphie and I cry out together.  We look at each other the next moment, to say, again in one voice— "How do you know?"

Mouth hanging open, Zell tries to speak and succeeds only in issuing empty gurgles and gasps for a minute.  "No way," he finally whispers.  "No f__king way."

"Guys," declares Selphie, "I'm really, really freaked out right now."

Oddly enough, that's my sentiment exactly.

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