"Mind Fields"
Chapter Three:"Shape Shifters"After The Scarlet Trio's song was over, the bar had started to grow vacant, with more and more people leaving every passing minute. Squall found himself not drinking anything, although he was dying of thirst.
"Mind if I sit?" came a feeble, little girl voice that sounded too familiar to Squall.
"I do not own the space around me." He said.
"You do, but what do you do with it?"
"Who are you," Squall demanded, ",speaking like you found me?"
"I did; and you're the one I wish to connect with."
Squall turned around to face the stranger.
His eyes opened wide when he saw the face of her. It was a teenager girl, wearing a light yellow blouse on top of bright blue jeans, and sneakers to match the colours of both. Her fingernails were polished with pink nail polish.
Around her eyes, was a pale blue make-up, and other than that, her face was clean...
...The face that belonged to Selphie Tilmitt, was clean.
"Who are you?" Squall demanded.
"I am Joy
I am the feeling inside
When you play with your new toys...
I'm a void
Created when Sorrow hides
When her aftertaste is destroyed..."
"What is this place, does this bar have a name?" Squall demanded.
"It's called 'The Obscure Vision'."
"Can you tell me my real name?" he demanded.
"Just listen- for we have a short session!"
Squall was taken aback by her response. He was certain that, his real name was long forgotten... He started to search his mind for more information, but Joy's words stopped him;
"Listen to me, Lion
Do you wish to figure out what Deusapois is?
Then set your eyes to Zion
Pray to a long forgotten god to see your foolishness..."
He looked into her eyes with confusion. What did religion have to do with it? His only God was... Ayreona.
"My only God, is my second and only love;
Don't tell me she's not whom I believe her to be!" Squall said
"If she's your darling, why did she stay above,
While you sunk low, trying to decide who to be!?"
"I am not trying to decide-"
"Then you're trying to hide it!"
"I'm not trying to hide-"
"Then you're trying to lay beside it!"
"I'm not trying to lay beside-"
"Then you're trying to stay outside it!"
"I'm not trying to stay outside-"
"Then you're trying to decay inside it!"
Squall was pinned onto the chair with her last comment.
"I am not doing such a thing, you're wrong!" he said.
Joy replied, "Then why am I feeling an uneasy breath in your lungs?"
"I am not uneasy- Just stop trying to make me!"
"You don't know me- Stop trying to break me..."
Squall smiled to Joy, licked his lips with a taste of the violence fetish.
"I just broke your smile, smashed your essence!"
"Do you take pleasure in my pain?" Joy asked, hanging her head.
"You're a total stranger- I only know your absence!"
"So I guess, you never felt me in your veins!"
They sat next to each other on the bar stand, neither saying a word, for a short while. Squall looked at her face, which was...
...Broken.
Her nose was bleeding, her eyes were gone, her lips were cut, shards of mirrors stuck out of her cheeks. She parted her bloodstained, disfigured lips to speak to Squall with the most disgusting voice that carried the tone of a broken, barren hope;
"So you wish to see this face-
This expression
One that you wish to embrace?
This circumsision
Will result only in a DISSECTION
ONLY TOO HARD TO REPLACE!!!"
Her scream felt a tender, but harsh touch sliding down on his forhead, ripping the decayed stitches of his scar apart.
When blood slid down onto his eyes, Squall could feel a gentle, but harsh breath on his face. He then felt a bony hand press against his throat, the spider-like fingers entwining around his neck.
Squall faced a stranger in front of him, standing in Joy's place. A man. This man had strands of colourful hair moving down in rasta style; the colours of the strands being red, steel gray, black, electric blue, electric orange, electric yellow. His eyes were coloured in a hateful crimson. His face was pale, paler than the usual pale colour Squall had seen in anyone. He was wearing a torn suit, his tie was hanging loose with the shape of a slipknot on his neck. He had a goatee, which started out as white, then slowly turned to a crimson red, and blood was dripping off it. He bare his teeth; or rather, his bloodstained, razor-shaped fangs.
His fingernails scratched the skin on Squall's neck, making him gasp in pain.
Who is he!?
The question was answered by a low-bass growl;
"I AM RAGE
I AM THE FLAMES BURNING HIGH
DEEP INSIDE
I'M THE CAGE
YOU ARE INSIDE BEFORE YOU DIE
SLEEP OUTSIDE
OF THIS STAGE
YOU CAN'T PLAY THE GAME-SO DON'T EVEN TRY!!!
JUST LET ME HELP YOU DIE!!!"
"Let me go; you psychotic bastard!"
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME- DO I LOOK LIKE I NEED A LABEL!?"
"You're choking me..." Squall said, "You gotta act nicer!"
"YOU CAN'T COMMAND ME- YOU ARE JUST NOT THAT ABLE!!!"
"Can you just... Leave... My... vicinity?"
Squall felt Rage's fingers get off his throat, and he fell down onto the surface, as the fresh air rushed to his lungs. He choked and started to cough, as Rage took a bar chair and smashed it onto Squall's back. Squall shouted in pain, and instinctively, curled up.
"DO YOU REALLY SUBMIT TO ALL THE THINGS I SAID, BOY!?
IF I WISHED YOU JOY-
IT WOULD BE HERE IN A SNAP, BOY!!
BUT THIS LITTLE TOY-
GIVES ME THE STRENGTH TO BITCHSLAP YOU WITH THE TRUTH, BOY!!!
WHEN YOUR ENEMY, TURNED TO YOURSELF
WHEN YOU HAVE BECOME THE ENEMY, BOY, WERE YOU IN AGONY!
BUT PAIN CANNOT SAVE YOU NOW-
I WILL DRAG YOU SIX FEET UNDERGROUND, BOY!!!"
Squall felt his body crushed underneath his blows, his bones were breaking, his skin was breaking- falling apart like porcelain... His blood was flowing down gray- his thoughts were reminding him of the colour red.
"Stop!" Squall begged to Rage.
A voice interrupted the merciless blows, and came through Squall's mind, loud and clear.
"Don't pain him as so- he cannot resist because he doesn't know
The meaning of the word,
Since he let it grow...
You have to let it go..." it was Sorrow, speaking half to Squall, half to Rage.
Rage let out a growl that deafened everything else around him, broke the glasses and spilled out glass shards everywhere, while the contents of the bottles and glasses stood as they were; liquid but still standing.
Squall felt Pain all over him. Then, he heard a faint whsiper coming from him that came through all the darkness around him; and even drowned the cries of Rage.
"I am Pain,
Do you not remember me,
I'm a product of you; for you love her.
In disdain,
Please, just remember me,
I won't ask for more; you're a good lover!
However-
Don't wait for me to drown Rage
Rage drowns me,
And he can strangle Sorrow- leaving you no tomorro-" Pain cried out in pain, and Squall felt him fall by his side.
"HOW DARE YOU!? I AM ABOVE YOU-
YOU ARE JUST A CHILD, LITTLE CHILD! OBEY,
YOU CANNOT SEE THROUGH!!! YOU CANNOT STRAY!!!"
"Enough..." came a soft voice. Squall managed to turn around, and tried to stabilize the world that had turned upside down, with his eyes half-blind.
He couldn't see until he saw a pair of bare, beautiful feet standing right next to his eyes. When he traced the feet upwards, he saw an elegant yet pale skin cover up two legs, that which went up to reveal a girl with raven hair and brown eyes, wearing a long, blue trenchcoat, and black denim jeans to the bottom.
"But who are you? Why did you save me?" Squall demanded, not recognizing the face.
"I am Love,
I now stand above
And I am here to thank you for all the warmth you gave me."
The air around Squall was silent. The Scarlet bar was silent; as if it had never been as loud as it was seconds ago.