Ah, word exercise, gotta love it! XD *Rubs hands in glee* Thankyou to all who have taken the time to review this story so far, I really do appreciate it. ^^ Thankyou also to anonymous reviewers, since I can't personally reply to you through e-mail – it doesn't mean that I'm not grateful! ;)
As a little note before kicking off, the following chapter contains reference to names that don't slot into the ff8 world we know, precisely because I made them up on the spot… =P these characters are only quick disposables to help out with the plot and to build up some part of Selphie's past (as imagined by me…), unless people are curious about having some of the story dedicated to explaining their status, to which I will most probably oblige later, time willing. =P
So then… what awaits Selphie in this chapter? A loooooot of running around and pain… sorry girl, but now it's your turn after Squall! ^.^;;;
CHAPTER 4 – First blood:
"Clarendyce… get those… Juniors out of… ughh…"
The words sprinkled with undisguisable pain drifted Selphie's way, by some blind luck not being entirely swept aside by the increasing howling of the overhead wind and also fortunately before Selphie had had a chance to set up a strike. It hardly mattered anyway – Selphie found herself cemented to the spot, as though her heels had chosen that exact moment to bury their roots into the ground directly underneath her. Eyes widening with rising shock, she felt less surprised than if someone had just sunk a fist into her abdomen, or launched a hefty brick to the side of her head.
Clarendyce…! That… name! But… b-but I thought you were…
The figure that had stuttered the sentence and magicked the frighteningly familiar name from the deep recesses of Selphie's memory appeared prostate on the cold hard ground, seemingly not sparked with life, twitching faintly. With some apprehension, Selphie approached the form which embodied all characteristics of lifelessness, fingers still curled around her make-shift weapon, still struggling to comprehend what she now only half thought she had heard. A gnawing curiosity was eating away at Selphie's inner gut as she stood over the sprawled heap inches away from her feet. The garden lights provided only a meagre amount of light to see by; her eyes noted the sheathed weapon by the figure's side and the reflected sheen of dark, seemingly black, messed-up hair. An arm protruded from beneath the person's bulk, and even the darkness clouding Selphie's vision couldn't disguise the apparent ugly wound scarring the limb. "Hey.... you don't look too good actually...." Selphie said nervously. A skimmed glance over the rest of the figure's bulk revealed the unmistakeable sticky gloss of drying blood soaking into ragged material that might have once been classified as clothing…
A clap of thunder resounded through the Heavens, making Selphie start
and interrupting her observations, while a few telltale drops of rain spattered
upon her head. The storm was up and coming and she knew that she couldn't
afford to leave the stranger out in the raw; what if he? she? was close to...to
death?? From far away, another ominous rumbling of thunder approached as though
agreeing with her fearful thoughts.
"Hey.... hey?? Can you hear me??
Can you walk? I can take you to the infirmary but I can't carry you, help me
out here!" Selphie urged, ducking down to the figure's level and lifting a
hand to touch their shoulder… but then a blast of wind brought an explosion of
droplets crashing against Selphie's face as the storm suddenly announced its
arrival with a dramatic roar, pushing her backwards from where she rested on
the base of her toes and she shrieked in protest as the chilling spray bled
instantaneously into her hair, dress and open eyes. Momentarily blinded and
keeled over the concrete with rainwater sluicing over her uncovered limbs,
Selphie's keen ears suddenly picked up on what sounded like a second voice
calling through the storm, the words faint and ethereal in substance yet at the
same time as clear as a tolling bell…
"Marty! Shandra! Stick together!"
!!!
"Oh Hyne!" Selphie cursed in agitated exclamation and half shouting in her astonishment, for she couldn't quite swallow what it was that she had just heard… or rather, who it was that she had just heard…! Coughing away the rainwater that had strayed into her mouth during her initial instinct to gape, Selphie raised her head in time to acknowledge the arrival of three insubstantial forms through the open gate as they cut a weaving passage through the pounding rain, one tall and slender and banked on either side by a small, miserable looking, blob.
"Stop crying! We're at the front gate! It's going to be oka…a.. Shit! Marty…! Marty!! Come back!!"
Selphie yelled in surprise as one of
those fore-mentioned blobs broke away from its posse, its scuttling dash
heralded by the sound of light weighted heels hacking at the ground upon
contact with the hard crumbling stone… the figure closed the distance
separating it and a thoroughly comatose Selphie with remarkable speed that
could only have been boosted by the razor sharp edges of desperate emotion. As
she stared intently at the racing figure, the features of a young boy aged
anywhere between eight and twelve flickered into the realm of visibility, eyes
lit from within with a raging fire of overwhelming trauma and panic and garbed
in attire which was the undoubtedly clear-cut uniform of a SeeD junior. There
was no time for Selphie to properly digest the details – the Junior didn't seem
to have seen Selphie at all, eyes locked firmly at some unspecified point
behind her, and was on the verge of a nasty fall on account of an unwitting
human speed hump. Selphie pushed herself off her palms, stretching out her arms
in a bid to halt the terror flight of the oblivious Junior, but the child, if
even gathering some portion of indication of Selphie's person, made no effort
so slow his wild flight and barrelled into Selphie's open arms without any
check on his speed…
… and with one graceful motion akin
to that of a bounding dance step, passed straight through her form as though
she wasn't there at all, exploding into wayward fragments of fractured colour
which gave the impression of being fastened to invisible string by just as
suddenly re-arranging their pieces into their previous boy-child state on the
opposite side of the soaked, yellow clad SeeD. A clatter of leather soles, and
the boy disappeared down the Garden path, his speed unfazed by the minor
obstacle that had attempted to bar his reckless retreat.
Unfortunately, Selphie was less unfazed, unblinking even as water pooled painfully in the lower alcove of her lids… unable to stir from her outstretched pose for a few moments while the rain continued to beat upon her with a force that would have been capable of knocking smaller statures flat upon the ground.
What. The. HELL… was that.
?!!
"Marty!! MARTY!! It's dangerous in there!! Come back!!" A terrified voice raised in a roar echoed around the empty air, accentuated by an accompaniment of thunderous percussion from behind the clouds that sounded fully capable of splitting the weeping sky in two. Heavy footfalls, a tinkle of belts, the scraping of heels and the rubbing of coarse cloth… two smoky coloured figures beating up the pavement with their speedy movements, the taller practically dragging the smaller through the swimming path in a madcap flight. Selphie jolted herself out of her dumbfounded daze and whirled her head around in time to catch the rapidly fleeing shapes plunging into the foggy curtain of rain and mist clogging the courtyard behind her.
"H-hey! Wait! C-Clarendyce!" Selphie hollered hesitantly, and then with a portion of renewed vigour, but the figures had already slipped out of range of earshot. Without waiting for any further reply, Selphie leapt back on her feet with the agility of a wild cat, a cloak of collected rain water cascading down from her shoulders and scattering themselves to the screaming winds.
If that's who I think it is… things are simply getting WAY too weird to be laughed at…
Selphie surged her feet forward into a break-neck sprint.
I have to know.
Kicking up puddles of run-off and dirty water as her booted heels crashed into the flooding path, Selphie was barely aware of the flecks of mud spraying onto her thoroughly drenched sun dress and bare calves. In between the chaotic jumble of thoughts, disorientation and questions cluttering her frantic mind, Selphie somehow fleetingly found a scrap of energy to spare for wondering if there had ever been a time when she'd felt more soaked to the bone..... her hair had flattened itself in a weighted mass across her forehead and was plastered against her eyelids, rainwater trickled like the cold, roaming fingers of a nightmare down the base of her neck and rivulets were carving icy tracks between the valley of her shoulder blades… The scenery was flashing by like a stretch of silk-screen dyed with a messy assortment of greys, greens and blues… Selphie felt her teeth chattering with each bounce of her stomping stride, while her heart battered away against the ridges of her rib cage to the grinding rhythm of her ragged breath and the soaring blood in the space between her ears. Through the gloom, Selphie registered the approaching murky shape of the stairs, rising like a mocking, towering challenge for her already wearied, battered body. She snatched for the closest railing and hauled herself up the slippery, dribbling steps, shoving her weight upwards against the burning protests of the constricting muscles within her legs. In the distance, as though she was being rewarded for her efforts, came the same faint calls which she was pursuing. The words, although blown apart by the snarling gale, could not be fully deprived of their frantic pitch… Selphie hauled herself up the final steps and, legs reduced to the consistency of eggs done rare, raced towards the source with nervous expectation and an extra boost of speed dredged from the reserves of her final drams of energy.
"Marty… please… it's too late… I-I'm so sorry…" the voice cracked with a punctuated sob.
"M-Marty…? Come out… I'm s-scared…" Childish, girlish, whimper…
Selphie slowed at last, struggling to reel a substantial amount of air into her fluctuating lungs without inhaling a gallon of rainwater in the process. Not taking her eyes off the huddled figures bunched near the base of the final stairs paving the way to the Garden administration, she advanced upon them with carefully placed steps, as though fearing that any sudden movements would effectively startle them away from the plane of the living…
"… Clarrie?" Selphie ventured wonderingly. Her tongue curled around the pet name with heart breaking familiarity… and without wishing it, Selphie felt a painful tug seize hold of her inner emotions which were currently threatening to spill forth from a puncture in her chest in bucket-load proportions.
Clarendyce didn't seem to hear her. The young female Junior in her embrace clutched at her shoulders with an iron grip, evidently infected with the first stirrings of hysteria.
"Clarrie… it's me, Selp…"
"Marty!!"
Her words of introduction knocked cleanly out of the air, Selphie followed the vector of Clarendyce's gaze to the top of the stairs, and could only just make out the hazy outline of the Junior boy standing on the last few steps, illuminated from behind by the glaring burn of electrical orbs lighting the path to the Garden doors.
Wait a sec! Selphie blinked the water away from her weary eyes, squinting hard to deduce whether she was merely suffering from a case of temporary vision impairment… but what she had crucially noticed about the image of Marty did not change.
I… I can see through him… Selphie felt her mouth parting in astonishment as she continued to stare, but as the seconds passed, she knew that it was no trick of the light, rain or mind – the Junior was clearly transparent, his features having taken on the consistency of weak, strained milk as the back light pierced through every inch of his body with a variety of angles and intensity.
A… a ghost?! Selphie could feel herself shaking her head in denial, yet at the same time her feet had adopted an independence of their own and were dragging her physically and emotionally exhausted body towards the apparitions, rather than further away…
"Marty, please… the roof…"
Clarendyce extracted herself from the female Junior long enough for her to stretch an imploring arm towards Marty, who was still yet to remove himself from his elevated concrete perch. The Junior's chin was tucked tightly against his chest, efficiently concealing the expression plastered against his face. It was not enough to disguise the fact that his shoulders were trembling with tiny spasms of movement, as though he were choking back a torrent of tears with mammoth resolve. Scraps of glowing indigo colour broke away from his vibrating frame, the exact shade of the trimmings lining his long sleeved uniform…
"Please don't run. There's no one else there. She's not there anymore, Marty. She's… g-gone… outside. She's waiting for you outside." Clarendyce's tone was coaxing, but the tremors intertwining her words were bluntly baring her lies. "You have to come away from there…"
"I won't! You suck! Milla's not gone!" Marty lifted his head, his boyish voice harsh and frayed around the edges with the force of his scream and eyes flashing with pain and defiance. "You suck! I hate you!"
The sharp, raw words swept through the air and bit into Selphie with the hurtful force of a stinging slap, even though they had not been directed towards her – though she could certainly sympathise. From between her lowered eyelids, her gaze focused on the translucent pair crouching fearfully before her upright form. Near enough to touch. Close enough for comfort. Selphie's heart felt as close to splintering as it was ever going to get, her eyes drinking in the sight of the one SeeD woman that she had never expected to encounter roaming the land of the living ever again. She soberly ticked off the list of all too familiar features – those painfully distinctive almond eyes endowed with the rich cerulean hue of blooming cornflowers… eyes that had been so readily sparked into vivacious animation with the simple gift of laughter… sun streaked chestnut hair pulled back in a primly knotted bun, loose strands stirring in a gentle waltz against the high cheekbones of a lively, oval face… there was simply no mistaking the late Clarendyce who had taken up residence in the Trabia Garden of old.
Selphie slowly lowered herself to her knees in a semi-crouch until her face was level with the trembling SeeD, seized with a powerful wonderment. The swirling rivers racing through the cracks between the pavement stones could be clearly seen through the lucid strands of coloured light wound tightly together in the SeeD-shaped tapestry displayed before Selphie… the strands pulsed mildly in reaction to the disturbance of the pelting rainwater piercing through the image to get through to the ground below, the strands on closer inspection appearing to be constituted of a million different fibres, each containing a miniscule, illuminated spectrum of its very own. The apparition was in all senses an intangible powerhouse of immense generated energy, each line of power interwoven to create the tight semblance of a fully uniformed and outfitted SeeD novice…
"Clarrie? Are you really a ghost?" Selphie said quietly through the rain, though not really expecting a response. None came. It hardly mattered – Selphie could already answer her posed question, and it did nothing to rectify the situation. A brilliant flash of lightning arced through the boiling black clouds overhead, rendering the apparitions insubstantial for a split second as the world was coated with blue and white light.
There's no doubt about it – up close, I can finally tell… this whole she-bang reeks of magic. My channels are going haywire, they're definitely picking up a reaction… cripes, it's making my skin crawl like nothing else… I've always been able to pick up magical energies more easily than the others, but I… this feels strange. I don't know why it feels strange… 'cause at the same time, there's something familiar about it too, like this isn't the first time I've encountered magic like this… fudge, I just don't know what it all means. Like… W-why… Clarrie…? I mean… in her form…?! And… and Marty too? This is getting way too much… dunno how long I can hold out before… before I just… break down and cry all over again…
"The roof!! Marty! Run!!"
"Fudge!" Selphie squawked in surprise, throwing herself back on her heels as the image of Clarendyce abruptly pitched forward with unprecedented violence. On her feet in an almost immediate instance, the apparition bolted up the stairs with rapid leaps and bounds in a wake of flaking remnants of colourful light drifting through the rain like glowing confetti. Selphie, having already been knocked back twice in the course of ten or so minutes, recovered with admirable quickness for anyone in her situation and instinctively followed after, rattling urgently up the saturated steps and bursting over the peak of the staircase in a theatrical, broken cloud of flying raindrops, eyes tracking wildly until th…
The ensuing blast had nothing to do with thunder, and indeed no relevancy at all to the still-raging storm. Selphie wasn't even certain whether the blast had made any manner of impact upon the physical sound waves, for the shuddering, bone shattering sensation that was booming deafeningly within the caverns of her ears felt too unworldly, overwhelming and insanely excruciating to have been whipped up by any old human inspired explosion on the over world. Selphie's lips widened in the shape of a silent gasp as the noise refused to cease, pealing over and over again in a continuous rerun of the explosion's climax… the devastating clamour beat solidly against her inner organs, cleaving roughly through her shivering bones with a soiled and unsharpened edge, ferociously trying to hurl through the fleshy barrier of skin coating her limbs to escape into the atmosphere outside but it was impossible, so hard…!! So loud…. So loud..!!Soloud!! Soloud!soloud!soloud!soloudloudloud……
!!!!!
PAIN!!
A crimson veil of stupefaction filmed over Selphie's wide-eyed stare as her senses seized up with the crushing force of blazing acoustic agony, the core of the sensation building up from the recesses of her abdomen and expanding outwards with multiple, serrated wings into every internal niche of her delicate body. She was unaware of whether she was screaming; the noise echoing through the interior of her ears permitted no acknowledgement of exterior sound. Selphie was consciously aware of her back arching in retort to the torturous sensations scoring a scalding path down the entire length of her spine… consciously aware of her body tilting and then tipping backwards uncontrollably into the vacant embrace of open space. She felt like a vessel of flaming wreckage, lit from within and growing increasingly weightless as the inner fire threatened to reduce her to nothing but an empty, blackened husk… a crunch, and a vague flicker of physical sensation. Another similar crunch, and the world was turning itself over in a blended sphere of driving rain, weeping heavens and running stones… drone-like, Selphie closed her eyes as she spun and rolled down a seemingly endless descent, and then abruptly felt the breath knocked out of her lungs as a very solid force smashed into her body with the overkill expected of a pounding jackhammer biting into a chunk of talc.
Silence, save the rhythm of rain slamming upon rock and hardened dirt.
… voices…?
From somewhere… far away…
???
…h-help…
…………
…?
… colours…?
It's… raining colours…
A face, blurred around the edges, hovering above her form… dressed in familiar apparel…
Selphie's eyes rolled around in her sockets in a daze as she attempted, and failed, to focus.
… can't… you see… the colours…?
She closed her eyes, absorbed in nothing else but the peacefully floating drops of fractured spectrum oozing lazily down the black walls of her unconsciousness.
* * *
To be cont'd! (Duh) ^.~ I must sound like I'm having PMS or something, all these different mood swings in the chapters… @__o;;; I assure you that's not the case…! XD
Coming up next: the outcome to this little drama, more of Squall and the introduction of our favourite instructor, Quistis…