Faded Dreams, Falling Like Rain
A Final Fantasy VII Fan Fiction by Sarah Digna Yudlowitz
Dream . . .
Dream of death . . .
Dream of moonlight . . .
Legal Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all of its characters belong to the company of Squaresoft. I do not claim these
characters or the concept of the game for my own. This work is not to be distributed, sold, or posted anywhere without the
consent of its author. Comments and encouragements are always welcomed, as they are a part of the enjoyment of writing
Fan fiction. Please take this into consideration while you read the following fiction.
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Chapter Six
There had been silence for a while, and then there was another flash of blinding white light,
which was followed by the immediate darkness that could be found when I shut my eyes. I could
always escape if I closed my eyes from the light. Everything seemed to turn red and my eyes hurt
intensely, perhaps to signify that I was awake again. I heard laughter in my head, but this time it
was a child's. Something about it struck me as wrong. It was sinister and low, malevolent. When
the darkness faded, I could see the image of a tank. Inside, a naked child that looked to be
around the age of seven or eight floated. The strange liquid's faint green light was oddly
calming as it swept across the babified face. The child, obviously a male despite how feminine
he appeared, slowly opened two large jade-colored eyes that were framed by waist-length hair
the color of an aging man's. These eyes glowed with a light that penetrated through the green
haziness that surrounded him. He sucked in a few careful breaths from a mask of oxygen that
covered the lower portion of his face. Several heartbeats passed (which I could hear were my
own) and then the child's eyes widened. At first he tried to conserve oxygen, that was apparent.
Then, as a minute or two went by, he thrashed about in the hazy liquid until he fell unconscious.
It became apparent that the contents of the tank were being drained as he floated there, his hair
swirling around his head as if it betrayed his motionless form.
More heartbeats thundered in my ears, and I could almost feel the burning in my lungs that
came with lack of air. Stars came before my eyes, blackness closing in once more, but it slowly
receded and an image of a fetus in a mother's womb came to me. There was an oddly disturbing
thing about it, but before I could determine what it was, Jenova's form appeared before me,
headless and trapped within a confinement, labeled as a specimen.
I remember that's what brought me reeling from my conscious-like sleep. I shot up into a sitting
position, drenched in sweat and gasping for air as if I had drowned in the images that came
before me while refusing to awaken fully. Thinking about it now, those images are the clearest
ones that came to me since having Jenova in my system. I still don't know why I got these
images. Perhaps Sephiroth wanted me to remember parts about myself at the time, while still
knowing who he was and why he was connected to Jenova. But I could feel Jenova's presence in
my mind. Maybe they both tried to keep me aware? I did not fully know.
"Hey," a woman's voices started, quiet and calm, "Settle down now. You have a fever." I
couldn't see her, because my eyes were hurting pretty badly. I could, however feel the heat that
burned at my forehead, and although I was very cold, I was sweating. One thing came to my
mind and as soon as it did, it left my lips.
"M-mom?" Instantly, images and some memories of her came to me, but they were short-lived to
be thought upon. The woman, whoever she was, laughed softly and when my vision returned to
me shortly, she pushed me gently into the bed, as if encouraging that I rest.
"No. Lilith," she said, a smile of amusement playing on her lips. I remember being horrified,
staring into her eyes. They were just like his, but slightly darker, and there was something about
them that I couldn't put my finger on. I knew the light that framed them was Makou, but there
was something hidden there that I couldn't determine. Framing her face were the tendrils of
silver hair that he had, yet it was cropped short, slightly hanging down from her face in soft
wisps. She brushed a few strands of her hair back behind an ear and stood to her full height,
looking back toward the end of the room. Two guards stood, slouching against each side of the
door frame. One was polishing a shotgun while the other was staring intently out the window. I
followed his gaze, but only found that outside, piles of garbage resided and nothing more.
"Aiden," she said, raising her voice to a slightly more commanding tone. A medium height man
in the uniform of a first class SOLDIER came into the room, stepping through the doorway
calmly and regarding Lilith with a smirk.
"Something the matter, Lilith dear?" the man asked, eyeing my crumpled form on the bed. His
long red hair, which was tied back into a ponytail, was shocking against the blue that was his
uniform. His green Makou eyes twinkled. He was clearly amused. Lilith gave him a hard look
and gestured back to me with the nod of her head.
"He's like you. A SOLDIER first class, Aiden," Lilith said, smiling slightly this time, but then
looking back at me with a serious expression. "He seems to have Makou Poisoning, as well. He's
been staring upward for quite a while." I remember not understanding those words and looking
questioningly at the woman who introduced herself as Lilith. She seemed sympathetic. The
SOLDIER first class man strode over, standing a few feet away from the foot of the bed and
examining my eyes closely.
". . . Makou Poisoning?" he asked, furrowing his brows and standing upright, only to cross his
arms and study me a bit more. "Did you bathe in the stuff, kid?!" I tried to focus on how I had
gotten sick, closing my eyes and searching for something to say, but the familiar blinding white
light and ringing in my ears followed suit, accompanied by two glowing green Makou eyes and
the sound of laughter. I heard whispering, but it was unintelligible. Whatever was going on, it
was hurting my head pretty damn much and I began to thrash. A pair of hands held me down
that were icy to the touch.
"Damn it! They always do this! Do you have a Tranquilizer, Aiden?" Lilith asked, her voice
coming from above me. It was amazing to me how every time this sort of thing happened, I had
clarity of everything that happened around me. It was as if I were witnessing the pain that
happened to my body, instead of feeling it. I felt incredibly detached from myself, but as soon as
I felt, or rather sensed the prick of a needle, my body tensed, and I became somewhat whole
again, the detached feeling I had been experiencing melting into the lethargy that soon took
over.
I was asleep again, very much aware of it, I must add. My eyes became too heavy when the
needle's fluid spilled into my veins, and then it seemed that I was floating. I was floating away
from everything. And then he was there. He was pacing back and forth before my bed. The room
was empty. His smile was eery, and my blood ran cold when my eyes met with his reptilian orbs.
I almost expected that beneath his gloves, his hands were scale and bone. He seemed a man who
drew energy from the cold and dreary. He enjoyed it when the blood drained from my face.
Could I not even move in my dreams?
And then he came close. Too close. His face was above mine and he brought a finger to his lips.
shhh, he whispered to me. His lips moved once more, making them to seem beautiful and
chiseled from perfect white marble. I could not grasp his words. It seemed that my ears no
longer wished to work. I had never learned to read lips, but I knew the sight of the word "listen"
on them. What did I want to hear from this daemon of Death? There was nothing I wanted more
than to scream, but I felt paralyzed. Again, the word: "Listen" caught me. Again, the blinding
white light and the searing pain that made me feel as if my head were exploding.
I awoke, upon a hard cold surface, and it seemed that I had never closed my eyes at all. Staring
around me in the dark, I saw with heat-sensitive makou eyes in shades of grey. My head was
throbbing. I realized that this was an office, just big enough to fit in a desk, chair, and a
noticeable squeezing in of a few file cabinets, which was the record of the goings-on in Midgar.
I knew there were files in those cabinet drawers of every citizen that had been terminated, and
said to be turned away. How I knew what was in those files, I did not know. To my recollection, I
had never been in such a place, and I had never known of terminating citizens and covering it
up. I stood, rather quickly, giving myself a dizzy spell in the process. All but tearing through the
files, I found a cover page on a notice. I'm glad I had read through it, because now I know that
this is what had happened to Zack. He was killed, and filed in these drawers. His parents
probably still thought him alive. The company probably came to them, telling them that he had
been disgraced, stripped of his title, and thrown back into the rest of the world, far away from
Midgar. Either way, he might as well have been dead, and that very much strikes my heart. The
very coming of the thought into my head makes me feel cruel. But my mind is swimming. It feels
almost too heavy to carry
. . . that's why I'm telling you all of this, Vincent.
I tried the door, but it was of course locked. I heard voices in the far distance, and footsteps
coming in the direction of the cramped office. I nearly panicked, thinking that if I was not
supposed to be here, it could very well mean chastisement, and since this seemed to be a Shinra
building, it was very likely that it involved makou testing. There was nothing else in the world
that I feared more than this procedure. My body knew makou very intimately. My mind knew it
just as well. Ever since being in Hojo's personal experiment, I had been a mess. I was literally
falling over myself, as I am now. I was terrified now, thinking that Hojo was going to take me
back into his experiments.I did the only thing that I could come up with, and that was to hide
behind the desk. It was just in time, too, because a man had just entered the room when I
scrambled beneath the desk. I scarcely had time to look at myself, but I knew something was
definitely not right. I felt like I was in the wrong body, and that may have very well been true.
The man kneeled down beside the desk, peering at me leisurely, calmly. That was you, Vincent. I
had not known it at the time. You were a Turk then, a brooding man who always hid his arm, just
like you are now. And when you kneeled before me as this man of the past, whom I did not know.
The most extraordinary thing happened then. My head snapped forward to look at you, and I felt
my self giving you a penetrating stare.
"This is a call to Hojo." My lips moved as if on their own accord. There was a hard edge to it,
but at the same time, it lacked clear emotion. It was indifferent. My hands moved to my face, and
I found myself unfamiliar and numb, and worst of all, the long soft hair that went down my back
and slipped in front of my face was silver. My eyes widened, the act coinciding with your nod,
and a great look of pity came across your face. A part of me hated that, and a part of me didn't
even care. My lips twisted into a snarl, and I stood . . . too calmly, too unnaturally and I shoved
passed you, walking down the corridor as if my world were full of glory, but I could hear
something else inside of this body screaming so vehemently that I was almost inclined to weep.
***
The world spun before me, in brilliant blues, reds, and purples, so deep and timidly
swirling that I felt that I was spinning from myself. I felt that I didn't care, and that I was
peripheral and metaphorical; unreal. I laughed, waved my fingers before my eyes, and shrugged
off the world. I didn't mind the pain, because I had always known it. It didn't matter anymore. I
was strong as long as I didn't give in to broken bones and black and blue ribs. I laughed it off as
I stared into my peripheral dream, pressing my palms flat against my eyes, and imagined that I
was looking into the velvet nighte. It didn't matter that I was fucked up, that my life was fucked
up.
No one looked at me with concern except the scared shitless cronies in the laboratory
that didn't say a word because I was different, because Hojo was different. When I look at Hojo,
I see a man who is through with abusing himself with his petty cheap thrills, and has moved on
to scientific sadomasochism. I see a man hiding behind Gast, selling himself as intelligent, but
only coming off as a tired olde creep. But I don't have the right to care. I belong to ShinRa.
That's why I'd just rather sit here, pretending to see the stars of the universe, perhaps a
supernova, and gather up just how pissed I am, just to see if I'll run the world some day, scaring
the shit out of ShinRa as their own "creation" gone bad. And I don't think about how cliche it
sounds, because I'm different. I will be known as the man who ripped out President ShinRa's
throat . . . and fed it to prissy boy Rufus's dog.
"I figured that you would be in here." Vincent's pronounced, monotonous voice. I took my
hands away from my eyes, blinked a little to shake off the image of static-like stars, and sat up. I
made sure that the man knew that I wasn't feeling like a friendly chat with a Turk.
"The dead seem to make excellent conversationalists, Vincent. And do you know why that is?"
"No," Vincent said slowly, seeming to be a little confused, and a little uncomfortable under the
harsh white light of the stale room which smelled of potent formaldehyde.
"Because," I hissed, and grinned slowly, "They don't bore you with trivial matters." I gave him
one last glare before I lay back down, humming something I heard coming from Hojo's radio
earlier, when Vincent had been watching with disgust on his face, the Makou Chamber
procedure. I don't know why he cares, but it's pretty apparent he won't tell me why. He's grown
an unmistakable hatred for Hojo. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me. He's either
looking to get into trouble with the government for statutory rape of one of their specimens, or
thinking I'm just as fucked up as he is, and friendship's worth a chance. I wasn't looking for
either pleasant atrocity.
"I see," Vincent said. He didn't leave, like others would have. Either he didn't get the clues I
was leaving him, or he chose to remain there, fully knowing that it would vex me to have
another's company. Someone whom I didn't care for. And in my world, that was everyone but
Gast. Perhaps Vincent wanted to emulate him. But he would never have the same humanity that
Gast did."Will you be ready for the testing later?"
"Hmph, you don't have to ask me whether I'm ready or not, Vincent. Do you think Hojo cares
whether I'm ready or not?" And I sat up again, stood. Vincent was like a toy soldier, standing
there with both arms behind his back, straight as a nail, and expressionless.
"Yes, I know Hojo doesn't, but Gast does, childe."
"What did I tell you about that?! I am not a childe, goddamn it!" And I rushed past Vincent,
cursing to myself as I ran down the empty corridor, even though I knew I was a childe. I just
didn't deserve to be called such. Not with the torture I went through. And then I saw a girl at the
end of the hall, in bland white clothing, as bland as my black clothing. She had Makou green
eyes, and silvered hair that was cut into a bob, and she was holding a doll that had its eyes and
mouth sewn shut.
"Shh," she said, wearily, her sickly voice echoing in the hall. "You'll wake the beast." And she
started to tremble. There were bruises all along her arms, and one was wrapped tightly into a
cast, while her forehead was wrapped in bandages. "The beast that makes us strong, makes us
weak," she rasped, and passed out, her doll hitting the floor and shattering into millions of
pieces.
I looked down at the girl, still in wonderment, and then I closed my eyes, feeling a vision
thrill through my body. I saw a woman with long chestnut colored hair and bright blue eyes
trying to drown a baby that held a porcelain doll in its arms.
