Darkness Reigns in No Child's Heart

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Severe chill was beginning to steal the feeling from his arm entirely. But the little creature would not obey him, despite his screaming. They stayed crouched on the floor, screaming at each other, neither one giving up an inch.

Something heavy and cloaked suddenly swooped down just behind his head. He ignored it, hugging the little devil to his chest tightly, feeling it started to rip through his clothing and reach into his soul..but he didn't care, so long as he could be with Ansem in some way, shape, or form, even if it meant something akin to death.

Stars exploded with the blast that followed, ringing so close to his ear that he was deafened for the next several seconds as well as blind. He fell against the grating gems, his arms raised to shield his head from the flying, glowing sparks of debris that fell around him.

The spots of bright light slowly dissipated, the blurred, unfocused blob of color next to him slowly defining itself with lines. The woman who crouched next to him was oddly familiar... his head was still ringing from the explosion, but his eyes focused on that light that floated in midair, as though uncertain of which direction to go. He knew what it was as he saw it, gleaming spiritual energy - that which fused with the Planet, the Lifestreams its veins, raging rapids of freed souls to be reborn.

Suddenly the light flickered and turned, streaking away like a sparkler held aloft by an invisible string. Sephiroth's gulp of air was choked in a cry of despair as it vanished around a bend in the tunnel. When he found his lungs could work again, he struggled to his feet and chased after it. Kiriel's arm snatched his arm, and without thinking he responded violently, swinging his fist back with such force that when it struck, it jarred his arm up to his shoulder, and sent her sprawling several feet across the floor, tumbling over and over and laying still.

She had responded in time to least lessen the blow. Blacked out, Sephiroth thought as he turned to continue the chase. But the light.. it was long gone. It had vanished with his hope. And his chest felt... suddenly empty with despair.

Kiriel coughed, groaning as she raised herself to her knees.

Sephiroth tried hard to contain his rage... Behind his eyes, a migraine was beginning to burn. He stepped forward again to kick her, his hands clenching tightly as they could in their numbed state. He managed to halt before he did any more harm, and tense his body as he snarled, his tone taut and restrained. "You idiot... brat... BUFFOON... you've just lost his spirit and NOW I have *no* idea where to locate it!! If you hadn't blasted that Heartless to bits, I would have had it by now!! I was *this* close to it--"

"Yes," Kiriel choked, standing up and backing away from him, toward the tunnel. "And it was close to *you*... if I hadn't have stopped you, it would have burrowed into YOU and stolen your soul as well!!" She met his flaring gaze and stood together for several seconds, staring at each other intensely... before Sephiroth's own eyes dropped, shockingly, to stare at Ansem's body in despair. He was still lying on the floor where he'd left him. He wouldn't be able to carry him with him for the rest of the trip now...would he?

"There's a way we can find him," Kiriel said suddenly, her voice sounding far-off and dazed. "I know a way. Let's go sit by Ansem." She walked past him toward Ansem, followed by a curious, distraught Sephiroth.

Together they sat, legs folded, beside his body. Sephiroth's leg throbbed in raging agony for every movement he made it do, but the pain was chilled under the cold of his despair.

"Take his hand," Kiriel commanded of him. "We'll get him back. That little Heartless wouldn't be able to overpower your love for Ansem. He can't hold onto something as good as that. And *his* love for *you* will lead him back to you. To his own body."

Sephiroth began to snap something back, how dare she assume this, when he saw her hand clutching the strange sword at her side with such strength he thought she might have been holding onto a piece of driftwood in an awful storm at sea. But she did not notice his gaze, just stared at him until he did as she had instructed.

Ansem's hand felt frozen to the touch. He could barely feel the gentle throb of his still-beating heart, even as it beat emptily, meaninglessly. Obligated to beat, it drummed on doggedly. Then Kiriel's fingers closed over the wrist of the opposite hand. He waited for another order... hope flickering, then dying on the precipice no rebirth as she stared blankly toward his face.

What did she expect him to do? Irritated, he began to idly stroke Ansem's unresponsive hand with his thumb, holding onto it tightly. It seemed to soothe him that way; what else could he do?

Sephiroth... I'm here. I'm right here.

"What--" He jerked his head up, focusing on Ansem's face. His eyes were now closed, as though in sleep, his mouth a grim silent line that gave no hint that they had ever spoken. "Where?"

Here... In here...

He brought his hand up to his face. He did not understand. "Here...?" He bit his tongue. Where is 'here'?

I haven't gone. The Heartless didn't take me. I'm still here.

"Ansem..." Sephiroth opened his eyes and stared into the face beneath him. "Ansem?"

Pounding and skipping. Faster, his heart went. Was it his own? Or Ansem's?

And why was his hand losing its steel-trap grip on Ansem's? He looked, seeing that his flesh was slowly becoming transparent. He stared, open-mouthed, before the mysterious glow that enveloped the translucent flesh. Everything about Ansem took on a soft glow, which grew stronger until he was glowing nearly as brightly as the stones of the cavern.

And the glow vanished while Sephiroth struggled to clutch at the luminous form, this thing that was not Ansem anymore. Now the glow was gone. Everything was gone, and his hand felt warmth trickling back into the fine layers of his flesh. He saw that Kiriel was blinking repeatedly, reaching up to rub her eyes and stare around her as though she didn't remember being here.

"Where's Ansem?"

Sephiroth looked at her blankly and replied in a soft, emotionless voice. "That's something I would like to know."

~~~~~~~

Guilt tormented him for the rest of the night. His chest felt as though someone had mercilessly woken him from a beautiful dream and torn a torpid crater where his heart had been. No matter how he tried to fill it, whether it be with hope, with courage, with the satisfaction that he had done his best, the hole simply grew larger and larger, impossible to mask.

Kiriel seemed confused by what taken place. She remained unaware of Ansem's whereabouts or how she had blacked out and ended up sitting quite comfortable on the ground in front of Sephiroth. The unexplainable always seemed to agitate her, but from the look of dreadful shadows on his face, she chose wisely to keep her questions to herself.

The rest of the night dragged on slowly. Kiriel went back to sleep, the sword she wielded in battle kept closely at her side. The silver-haired man would not sleep.

~~~~~~~

The smoke rolled up into the sky, roiling mountains of black clouds choked off the sunlight. Below the clouds the temperature was unbearable, below-zero. The streets were empty; the houses were unlit; shadows reigned supreme in the corners of the broad city.

The charred smokestacks of the industrial sector strangled the life out of everything that pushed up through the lifeless earth. Pumping poison into the air, staying alive was a daily chore which all were bound.

Spots of yellow and brown snuck along the narrow wall between the factory and a residential structure. They moved swiftly, side by side, two small clinging dots that fled before the shadows that bubbled underneath them, pooling themselves into the awful shapes of the spirit stealers.

Their footsteps sounded louder than their pounding hearts. Slipping underneath the rotted remains of a fence meant to keep intruders out, they ventured beyond and dashed quickly, hand-in-hand, across the yard until they reached the door. They both stopped against it, slamming with a dull metallic thud. It came open when they worked the rusted handle and at last they pushed inside into the warm light beyond.

"Shut that light off," one of the twins hissed, and the other obliged, turning off a gas lamp that hovered by the door. Their hands found each other again, and they crept along the silent corridor into the lower bowels of the warehouse. They found themselves in the familiar, comforting surroundings of their hideout.

Small, pale faces began to reveal themselves within the shadows of their den. These faces belonged to other children, their whispers collecting trickling from one corner of the room to the next, like droplets of water on a still pool.

"Be quiet," the previous twin said. He released his brother's hand and stepped into the middle of the couches, reaching blindly to turn up the gas lamp in the center of the crate which served as their table. The children gathered around, some of them scrawny, and others well-nourished. All of them had pale, dirt-smudged faces and ratty clothes.

The twins emptied their packs, revealing their prizes: four cans of food, a small bag of beans, and a battery-powered radio.

"There," he said as he turned on the radio. A thin empty hiss filled the air. "This way, we'll know what's going on... if somebody gets on the radio and updates people." The elder twin stood back, folding his arms over his chest. His hair was a faded, bleached blonde that could very nearly pass for white. His eyes were two different hues: one was sky blue and the other golden-brown. He wore a simple, faded yellow leather vest over a black, snug-fitting tank top. Torn jeans covered his legs, and well-used boots on his feet.

"What are you all standing around for? We've got that boiler to fix, don't we? Get to it!!"

The children dispersed, quit their staring, and scuttled off to their duties.

"Dion," his brother said as he sank into the couch next to him. "They've got to eat soon. Don't you think we ought to give them a rest?"

Dion's expression of authority fell into one of downright weariness. "I can't stand this waiting... I wish I had the power to fight these spirit stealers... they killed our parents. We have to survive somehow. That means we've gotta work. This ain't fun and games anymore."

Dion's brother Vax patted his arm as he sighed. While Dion's left eye was golden-brown, Vax's right eye was also golden-brown. It was as though in the womb, they had once shared the same body but were split in twine and given their own respective limbs. This oddity was unique, for although they were also twins, they were easily told apart by their eyes.

Vax wore a brown leather coat, black jeans, boots, and a high-collar, sleeveless black tank top. His attire differed drastically from his brother's, taking a liking to the darker, more gothic styles.

Their parents died quickly after the emergence of the spiritstealers, being among the first to be victimized. After that, the twins took shelter in this warehouse. Its sheltered walls protected them from the demons, which could go anywhere they pleased. Yet it was the aura of this place that seemed to keep the demons away.

"We're never gonna stop them...but we'll have to wait for help," Vax answered finally. "Somehow there's got to be someone who can kill them."

Vax was the one who provided the hope that Dion couldn't see. Although darker, he was less intimidating than Dion and often gave light and comedy where there was none. At night, when they could hear the distant wails of the demons in the night, ululating their ceaseless hunter, Vax would try his best to blot them out by organizing short skits and having everyone watch at night to distract them from the always present, distant screams.

Tonight it wouldn't be so. They had to stay up in the first floor and keep watch, just in case. To tend their signal machine, in case someone - anyone - might be on the wire, listening for survivors.

Later that night, after they were satisfied that everyone had had their equal share, Dion climbed up to the tower that topped the warehouse roof. From there, they could see much of their surroundings - the smokestacks in the distance, the mountains beyond, the neat, even rows of houses that marked the residential houses.

The only residents in those homes now were ghosts, empty of life, sitting or laying down wherever they had been.

One of those houses is mine... I wonder which one? Dion pondered this, staring across the rooftops, huddling inside his coat, for the winter air was chilly when you were sitting down. They all look so drab... So empty.

The focus of this city was the tallest tower. It was a monument of a man time had forgotten, a man time had etched into their history and their culture always. He was the first to have discovered the electric current - energy, that which defined the very essence of living.

"I wonder who that man was... nobody remembers his name..." Vax was already there in their tower, and caught where his gaze went. The smoke-congested air made it difficult to make out the dark, indistinct shadow of a man neither of them remembered.

Dion caught his brother's hand again. He felt comfort in the smooth feel of his brother's skin - the other part of himself that made him whole. Vax...you've always been more than a brother, more than a friend to me... but I don't know if I can tell you that.

In spite of common belief, their kinship did not mean they were exactly the same. One needed the other for the qualities that the one lacked. Without each other, there were a half-painted portrait, an unfinished ballad. Their relationship stretched far beyond the simple term 'brother' - that they shared the same parents and almost exact genes did not mean they shared the same mind.

"Who cares? He's dead now, whoever he is. It doesn't matter who he was now," Dion said almost too sharply. Vax pulled his hand free, and it vanished within the folds of the blankets he had brought up with him.

"You're right... I'm sorry. I guess I'm just trying to think of something else." A gust of wind carried nearly arctic windchill around their faces. Dion crouched his lanky body beside Vax's, huddling beside him as they stared at the megaphone set-up connected to an adjacent tower several yards away. For minutes, they were poised near the megaphone like vultures, ready to lunge at any sign of sound. The wind vanished, leaving the air still and cruel.

Eventually Dion sat down, risking the chill of the metal catwalk material beneath him. He wished he could hold onto his hand again. But the air was too harsh against their cold skin. His hat was barely enough to keep his face from freezing. He reached to touch his shoulder, but found that Vax's fingers once again tangled with his again, pulled across and into the coccoon of blankets, keeping them both warm.

"There, not so cold anymore, huh?" Vax said cheerfully. It was a special gift that Vax could be perfectly content, no matter what the circumstances, and still Dion marveled at how he could seem so happy. His smile was a comfort, sent warm chills down his back that the chill could not penetrate.

"Thanks," he mumbled, and smiled softly, before something caught his eye. It was the sound that caught his attention first, a soft keening wail in the distance. He swiveled his head toward it, and saw a glimmer of light, weaving unsteadily back and forth between the curling smoke from the factories.

"What is that?...it's coming toward us!!"

"Catch it!"

"I got it--!!" Vax lunged to his feet, discarding his blankets, reaching up to snatch the light. A glimmering gem, sailing through the air. He jumped like a baseball player catching a homerun ball. The gem smacked into the palm of his hand, Dion saw his fingers close around it. But he had overextended his reach, was starting to fall backwards against the questionable bar that kept people from falling off.