I had been… Frightened, I suppose. Here lay the man who showed me… out there. Who showed me everything. Even if…everything had merely been this little town. Even if it had only been a few hours…

There he had lay, eyes closed, a cold feel floating around him. Body not moving. Face bloody and pale.

Human death.

So…I think I had run.

I cannot remember now…

No…

I am certain I did… for I remember my feet pounding on the ground, to get away from him. From that place. I had fled from that horrid storage room, back to the lab, where I flung myself to the coarse stone floor. Tears burnt my eyes.

Time passed… and everything seemed to stop. The weight of the word 'alone' settled in, and fear over took me at once. I had never been without the Professor. I had never fended for myself. How would I go on?

I remember….eyeing the gun, just inches from my fingertips, with longing. I remember thinking about picking it up, and brining the weapon to my head. I reached out a touched the black thing, weighing the value of my life…

But soon, the tears led me into a deep sleep. One where I dreamt of nothing but the black that my life had suddenly plunged into…

When I awoke…

I found myself somewhere else completely.

In a building I didn't know.

Afraid. Fear had swallowed my heart. It pounded so hard I had bent over on the bed I was laying on.

"Ahhh, my dear diamond. Awake at last."

That voice…It had been…

"You are lucky professor Gast returned to the lab before his leave. He contacted the Shinra at once, and had them deliver you to me. A few more days and I am sure you might have died."

I could feel his hands… stroking my hair. Like…a master stroking a pet…

Like Lucretia to those poor little animals hanging in the basement hall.

Shivers crawled through my body, and my breath became hard and forced.

He looked at me, his blue eyes watching my every move. A smile curled on his lips.

Slowly he stood, going to the other end of the room.

"Ah, such a sad excuse for a room, isn't this?"

I closed my eyes then. Not wishing to see him.

"A small bed, a little table. No books for you to further your education. Nothing for you to practice your strength. It is a cell, merely made over with a few accessories. I must have someone transport you to the scientists quarters, when you are well enough to move."

"I…can…move."

Hojo had laughed.

"I'm sure, my diamond. My gem…Ah, but they were very rough with you."

His feet had made little tapping noses on the tiled flooring. I remember how much I had wished to shut them up. My head… It throbbed with pain.

"So many bruises. What ever could have happened. Why would they ever hurt my dear child." He was back to stroking my hair. I felt my body scream for sleep. For rest. It… liked this treatment. I loathed it. I wished to bite him, but that was a vile thought, for I wished not to touch him at all.

"Sleep, my diamond." Suddenly cold washed over my arm, and a sting (like the many needles poked into me time after time) came. I felt myself fall into a deep sleep again. His voice echoed through my mind.

"Sleep, my diamond. Sleep."

Days passed, slowly, dry. Lucretia brought me books to read, and food every now and then. Hojo would come to me often, cooing things about his precious diamond and his lovely son. How wonderfully the experiments were coming along. How utterly pleased he was that I was here.

He said, once, when I was falling into my sleep, "I am so pleased you are here. Perhaps you can change everything."

And… maybe I had. Soon, I was able to leave my bed, to walk about the room. Hojo took me to the lab, where he showed me where they kept his son. Lucretia wasn't with him. Just an odd looking man, dressed in a lab coat.

"We have called him Sephiroth. Such a wonderful child. Learning as quickly as you, my diamond."

His cold hands took my own, and he pulled me with him, into the glass casing that his small child slept in. I looked down upon the child then, pity in my face. I knew how the boy felt. Caged. Captured. He was lovely, though. More lovely then I, for it appeared that Hojo has taken a special love towards this experiment, and forgotten about me. We stood for moments, him looking down at the child and I… I was lost in the endless confusion that had begun to swim in my mind. Soon though, the Professor snapped out of his trance and turned to me.

"Ah, come diamond. I have had some of my aids come up with a suitable room for you. You shall become my new assistant. You deserve better then that of your experiment days."

How ignorant was I then.

Those days had not past. I was still his experiment…