Trapped, a plainscat paces and paces within its cage. It know nothing of philosophy--this urge for freedom is something inherited, something distilled from the essence of dust and life. Its enemy is the cold steel as much as the one who has put it there--unrelenting, unyielding, incomprehensible. But it does not give up--it does not give up hope because hope is unknown to it, and it does not give up life because life is all it is. Suicide is a notion only humanity has been sick enough to invent.

Caged, we pace the world in anticipation of the day the bars will break. The sky is split asunder, the wind runs free about us. Unchained, unleashed, it is larger than our confinement and more brutal.

What is it in freedom that makes us yearn for such an end?

-

It had all happened in the space of an instant. One moment, Seifer had been investigating the panel--the next, there were cracks spreading through the floor and threatening to dump them all wherever Seifer had fallen.

Quistis and Maiser got everyone back away from the crevice, out of immediate danger--and watched as fully half of the hallway crumbled under its own weight. It didn't take long for it to run its course--soon, the dust had subsided and the ground steadied itself again.

"Get any sensitive equipment back to the entry," Quistis snapped, taking charge as a matter of course once the immediate danger was gone. "There's no telling if this entire area is unstable."

Maiser stepped up to the edge of the crevice as the scientists rushed to obey the order. "What about him?"

"I'll see if he's all right," Quistis said, crouching and sneaking one foot down over the edge. The rubble had fallen into a pile by the edge of the drop, and it might be possible to climb down...

"Careful," Maiser said, taking her arm to help her down. "You sure about this?"

"Well, much as it would probably please Squall, we can't just leave him down there." Quistis picked her way gingerly down the slope, descending until her head was easily below ground level. Maiser watched from above, shining his flashlight down into the shadowed darkness to try to help her pick out a path.

"Watch out, there," he warned, flicking his light over something. "It looks like--watch that, it drops again!"

Quistis discovered it for herself, an instant too late to be helped by Maiser's warning. Her boots slipped, and slid the last few metres to the bottom of the crevice in a rush. She barely managed to land in a crouch, arms spread to regain what little balance she could.

It was cold below the walkway. Cold, and... cavernous.

The crystal was still resonating, and shafts of light pierced the darkness at uneven intervals. The floor was as slick as ice--for all she knew, it was ice. She stood only with great difficulty.

"Trepe!" Maiser's voice echoed oddly off the walls. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," Quistis replied, unhooking her palm light from her belt and switching it on. A quick survey of the area told her what she needed to know--Seifer had fallen near the far end, and was lying on his side against a pile of scree. To all appearances, he was unconscious.

She made her way over gingerly, kneeling down to check him over. He was breathing, and nothing appeared broken--a quick check confirmed that.

As gently as she could, she rolled him onto his back so that she could check his pupils--and froze.

His scar had split open--perfectly along it, as if cut for the first time. Blood flowed liberally from it, coating half of his face.

"...Trepe?"

Maiser's voice jolted her out of her surprise. "Seifer's here, but he's injured," she said. "Can you get some kind of a harness down to us? We can pull him back up the drop."

"I'll see what we have," Maiser called back.

Quistis rocked back on her heels. Ordinarily she would have raised Seifer back to consciousness with a Phoenix Down or a Life spell so that she could have Cured his scar, but Siren was a constant buzz in the back of her mind that told her that this was not the best place to be casting magic. She didn't know what would happen--but with everything she had heard or seen about the Crystal Pillar, she wasn't eager to go against the advice of her GFs.

So, seeing no other option readily available, she dug a cloth and some gauze out of her pack and went to work cleaning and bandaging the wound as neatly as possible. That completed, she sat down and waited.

...and waited.

After what had to be well over fifteen minutes, she stood up and walked back to the drop. "Maiser?" she called.

There was no response.

Quistis frowned. "Can anybody hear me?" she demanded, now expecting no answer. She was alone.

The resonance was still there, humming just along the edges of her perception. There was no other sound in the cavern. Not even the quiet voices of her GFs broke the tedium.

(...wait.)

Quistis put a hand out to the wall, searching the back of her mind for the soft sense of warning that Siren had been putting out until then. There was only silence.

Making a quick judgment, Quistis decided to test out to see if magic was working as it should again. (Something light,) she thought. (Nothing that will damage anything much if it goes awry.)

Glancing at one of the larger rocks that had rolled across the floor, she isolated it in her mind and stretched out her hand. (Float--)

A moment later, she was on the ground as Cerberus screamed ALERT into her mind at maximum volume.

The volume of the resonance had increased to a low rumble, and it could easily be felt through the floor and walls. For all she knew, the world might have been shaking itself apart.

Seifer groaned, eyes flickering open. He stared up at the ceiling, obviously dazed. Quistis scrambled to her feet, intent on moving to help him--

A lance of pain stabbed across the back of her mind, almost bringing her to the floor again. Cerberus's Alert was a stronger force than it had ever been before.

...and it was warning her away from him.