Fragments of Memories
He sees writing flashing again and again before his eyes. Sometimes it is red, and sometimes brown, and sometimes it is pale and faded gold; but it is always the same word, and it is always written in blood.
SEIFER, the writing reads. SEIFER SEIFER SEIFER.
He does not know what the word means.
SEIFER SEIFER SEIFER SEIFER
He does not know what the word means, but he knows that he hates it. He tries turning away, he tries closing his eyes, but the writing burns as brightly as ever in his mind.
(SEIFER)
He sees...
He sees himself as a boy, watching Squall with an almost predatory gaze. The surroundings shift, so that sometimes it seems to be in the Library at Balamb Garden, and sometimes it is as if they are back in the orphanage. At last Squall shifts and looks at him
but
his face is blurred and faded, and he cannot make out his expression (what does it matter, anyway, not like the kid's expression ever changed), and then he turns to look at himself again, and the boy's eyes are narrowed and darkened, and his face is streaked with blood that was not there before.
(SEIFER)
He sees a girl smiling. She tilts her head slightly and rests a hand on his sleeve – he regards her quizzically. She seems familiar.
After a moment, she begins to move her mouth as if speaking to him; but all he can hear is a faint squealing and crackling sound, like the static on a radio. He leans closer, trying to hear, but somehow his arms are suddenly wrapped around her and his eyes are half-closed and they are kissing.
It is the girl who breaks away first, still smiling. She raises a hand, and for a moment it seems to him that she has become Squall, Squall as he looked when they were fighting on the day of the Field Exam.
He wonders, almost idly, why.
(SEIFER)
The girl in blue is standing before him again, but this time she looks more concerned than before. She leans forward, staring intently, and again speaks in static.
He stares at her, confused. She says it again, and this time he can make out a word among the crackling.
"Seifer?"
He thinks, why are you calling me that? He thinks, Seifer is a murderer's name, although he is not sure where the conviction comes from. Seifer is a murderer's name. I'm not a murderer. Why are you calling me that?
He reaches out to touch her hand in reassurance, but his hand passes straight through it.
Shock.
What... are you?
(SEIFER)
He grips the girl's shoulders tightly, steering her forcefully through the ice-encrusted passageway. He is dimly aware of Squall and the others behind him, but his focus is on the girl and on the no-longer-quite-sealed Sorceress in front of them. He hears himself speaking, but the building sound of static drowns out his words and makes them unintelligible.
Squall and his companions stand in frozen horror behind him, and it seems suddenly that he is watching the scene through their eyes.
He watches himself throw the girl violently to the ground. He watches as shifting patches of shadow blossom on her pale skin, and she is rapidly devoured by the growing darkness.
(flash)
He watches himself throw her to the ground, and he watches her form blur and vanish, and he sees himself standing unmoved. The static has reached an unbearable pitch.
He watches himself throw her to the ground, and he sees her curl up as if trying to protect herself from a further blow, and he sees her eyes pleading for mercy, and he sees the blood running over her face and arms and staining her once-blue cardigan and he sees her move to grip the bloodstained rings on her necklace with a blood-soaked hand and
(he sees Squall, bleeding freely from a wound on his forehead. he sees Zell – footage from the surveillance cameras flickering – he sees Zell, battered and bruised and exhausted, fighting innumerable guards as his friends seek a way out of the prison.)
He watches himself throw her to the ground.
He watches himself throw her to the ground.
He watches himself throw her to the ground, and he sees Squall's expression, and he recognises it as the one he wore in the D-District prison – crucified against the wall and entirely at his mercy. Squall never did confess his undying hatred, he realises now. It bothers him more than it should, somehow.
He looks at Squall, now, and he looks at the girl in blue curled terrified on the floor, and he has a vague feeling that perhaps he was not fighting on the side that he should have been on... but he cannot remember what the sides were, or what they were fighting for.
(SEIFER)
He wonders why he cannot remember the name of the girl in blue.
He wonders why he cannot remember his own name.
He wonders, as he stares at Squall, why his rival's features are so blurred – like a memory that he cannot quite recall, but it feels real. He can feel the wind, strong enough to sting his eyes and make his heavy trenchcoat flutter wildly as if it weighs nothing. He can feel the driving rain, soaking his clothes and hair and making him shiver. He can feel acutely the pain of the wound in his forehead, and the roughness of his hand as he wipes the rapidly-welling blood away.
Squall stumbles to his feet, the blurring spreading from his face to the rest of his body, and in a moment his figure has dissolved into nothingness.
He wonders, looking at the spot where Squall was, whether this was where it all began. Whether this – the first time that the two of them actually seriously injured each other – was a prelude to what they were going to go on to do.
He wonders what he went on to do, in the end. It seems strangely difficult to remember.
(SEIFER. SEIFER SEIFER SEIFER SEIFER...)
He sees...
(a name... his own?)
He sees his companions standing over him, looking worried. He sees the stormclouds surging across the sky.
It takes a moment for Seifer to realise where he is, what has happened. He looks up at his friends and tries to say something, but it is as if something is caught in his throat.
Wordlessly, Fuujin pulls him to his feet, and the three of them set off silently across the rain-soaked soil.