Disclaimer: I like stuff. Like this disclaimer stuff. Isn't it fun to say in so many ways that I don't own Squaresoft's concepts (particularly for the game of Final Fantasy VIII)?
Alternate Fantasy
By Draic
Chapter Sixteen: Forgotten
We were off the open seas.
We had found the place that used to be our home.
But no more; our home had gone somewhere else.
The orphanage was a crumbling ruin. In a way, it had always been a ruin. But now, it seemed so desolate. The wind called through the doorways and nothing stirred.
I hadn't expected to feel so distraught. I suppose I never expected any emotion anymore.
I had hoped that somehow, seeing this place; this home; this haven, that everything would somehow become clear. That I might come to understand everything. Matron. Ellone. Squall.
Squall most of all.
We hadn't talked as we entered the ruins. There were no reminders of what we were supposed to be looking for. We'd given up that pantomime. We knew why we were here. So perhaps we all felt that we'd crossed some sort of barrier through time, and even a word might destroy the illusion of our lives. I could certainly feel the fragility.
We moved through the house as ghosts. No one touched anything. No one felt anything. And each of us came to be alone. Alone, we passed the rotting furniture and beds half-buried in slabs of cold stone. Passed windows bordered by glass shards and sickly-looking moss. It all just passed. And nothing came.
The place was familiar, there was no doubt about that. Every time I turned a corner the memory of the orphanage would interlace with the vision of the ruins. But, try as I might, I could not remember anything new - anything of myself or of the other children who had once shared this ruin with me and made it a home.
And, as I walked down the crumbling staircase to the sea, I finally came to realise that, no matter how long we all sat and talked, some times we would never remember. My whole childhood was gone, and I'd only ever get a faded, torn, and above all shattered portrait to replace it.
Where was the point to all of this? Where was the meaning I had hoped to find? Where was my life?
Not here. No, not here.
There was no point continuing on. Around the corner I would find the same void that I felt here.
I shivered at my own isolation, but made no attempt to warm myself. Instead, I sat on the cold stone stairs and watched the sea.
I'd done the same thing a few days ago, while Balamb was still seaborne. Rinoa had joined me then; had given me some sense of comfort in the end, though I hadn't accepted the gift at the time. But Rinoa would not come now. She had no place here, and so she'd stayed behind while the five of us went to search for ourselves.
And what had I found? Nothing new. Just the same Squall.
And Hyne was I sick of the same old Squall.
I wanted to be the other Squall, I decided. I wanted to be happy, confident, free of pressure, and… loved.
Yes, I wanted to love and be loved… but how could I feel love when I couldn't feel life? How could anyone love a shell with no core, no being, no heart, no past, no purpose?
I jumped up. "Who am I?" I shouted into the roar of the wind and the sea.
I ran, skidding, down the stairs, stumbled across the sand, and dived into the water. The chill caught me by the throat and I convulsed against it, pushing and thrashing away from the cold stone ruins, until a different chill caught me, and I sank.