Chapter Three
"Wake up, Sephiroth!" a cheerful voice calls to me. I roll over and pull the pillow over my head. I don't want to wake up.
"C'mon, Sephiroth," I can hear the person talking smiling. And if I knew anything, it was a sad smile. Mom was singing a cheerful tune as she pulled open my curtains and opened the window. I finally sat up, still tired from last night. She grinned at me.
"You're growing up more every day."
"I know. You always tell me that," I try to smile, for her. She deserves a smile, I think to myself.
"I wish you'd do something with that mop of hair," she sighs. After ten years without a real haircut, my hair now goes a little past my shoulders. She pulls the hairband out of her own hair and ties mine back. "There. That looks better."
I look at myself in the mirror, but don't really care what I look like. It's not that important.
"I've got your shots here..."
"Mom, do I have to take them?" I whine.
"Yes, dear...it might hurt you if you don't," she sighs sadly and gives me my shots. I always like it better when Mom gives me them instead of Dad. She's a lot more careful and it doesn't hurt as much. "Now, let's go see what he wants..."
"I don't wanna..." I said quickly. "Please, Mom, please don't make me!"
"Sephiroth..."
"Mommy, please don't make me! Please don't make me have to do all that!"
"Sephiroth..."
She's crying now, so I shut up. I hate it when she cries. She takes my hand and leads me down to a room I've come to hate, letting go of me before we go in and Dad says we're weak. He's standing in front of the door to what looks like a normal closet. Only I know it's not a closet.
"We're in phase two of a series of three phases of Mako exposure," Dad says happily into a recorder thing he has. "The first phase took place at birth, the second at age ten, and the third will take place at age sixteen. We're about to proceed with the exposure." He clicks off the tape player and smiles at me. "Ready?"
"No," I frown, feeling braver with Mom standing behind me. I don't know why I feel braver. I know she can't help me.
"Get ready," he says, shoving me into the closet and locking the door. I already feel like I'm choking. I asked Mom what it was called when you felt like you couldn't breathe, and she said it was called suffocation. So I feel like I'm suffocating, I suppose. It's dark in here, and there's no escape. There is no handle on this side of the door. The floor feels funny because it's only a grate that stuff can come through. I can see the glowing green stuff that Dad calls Mako begin to float up and surround me. I try to hold my breath. It makes my head spin and my eyes feel funny, and then I can't feel anything anymore. I hate it and everyone knows it, but nobody cares enough to stop it. The Mako floats up and surrounds me. I try to press into a corner, but the closet is too small. I'm surrounded. I feel like I'm choking on the stuff. I put my face in my shirt, not wanting to breathe it in. It makes my skin feel cold and prickly, my hair feel weird too...I feel tired, and sink down the wall. I can't stay awake any longer. My shirt falls away from my face, and I don't have the energy to put it back over my face. I breathe the stuff in freely, fighting to stay awake. Eventually I fall into a weird type of sleep that doesn't really feel like sleep. What feels like forever later, I wake up, Mom holding me, or at least trying to. I'm not much shorter than she is. She's crying, but that's nothing new. Dad's smiling.
"Ten laps, Sephiroth."
I try my hardest to stand up straight, head hurting as I stumble through the first two. They won't count. They don't count until I start running, so as soon as I feel like I can, I start running, running until Dad says to stop. Ten laps is never enough for him. I always have to do more, so many that my lungs and heart feel like they're about to explode.
I was ten years old.
A/n: The next update will be on the 9th of August…unless I get 15 reviews, and then it'll be like, tomorrow XD However, since that'll never happen, we can just patiently wait until Monday the 9th, yes? - Sephiroth is 16 in the chapters that aren't in italics…did I mention that already?
Hey…I bought a used copy of FF7 at my local Gamestop about a year or two ago for about $9…so I sorta own it…except…it belonged to Squaresoft/Squenix first ;
Thank you for reading, so much!
Xifa