'Par Un Sourire (By One Smile)

Bonjour Tristesse' (Hello Sadness)

La Vie Immédiate. P Éluad.

Final Fantasy Eight
BY ONE SMILE

JetNoir

Note: Just to say, some may find the following upsetting (although this is rated R!). Just so you know!

CHAPTER FIVE

Cary Grant: "What are you doing in here?"

Audrey Hepburn: "I'm having a nervous breakdown."

Charade

Sometimes I curse this beautiful life that has been given to me. Admittedly, it was hardly perfect – my strange choice in women – but this? Did I really deserve this?

What could I do about it?

I'd been closed down.

Irrevocably discharged.

Stopped.

I first thought was that perhaps the situation would right itself. Then I shook my head and realised that that was hardly the correct ideal. Appeal…no, impossible. It would be thrown straight out.

Damn! Of all the times this had to happen. I looked at the sky as I drove slowly away, towards my small house. That would have to go. Illyana would have to go. I opened the car's window, and decided to listen to some music, and fumbling around randomly for a disk, I fervently wished that the radios of this strange and bizarre world still worked. No communication. Dictators. Wars. Yet, this entire landscape was so beautiful. As if the horrors the world was enduring had just bypassed it completely.

Eyes On Me.

Oh, the irony!

Miss Heartilly's beautiful voice flowed over me, as I continued onwards in my mad struggle, my descent, into an even pettier life.

I ached to paint. I ached to hold Illyana. So what was I now? Nothing.

The word echoed over and over in my mind, showing my failure. Was I really a fool? Really this misguided?

I was soon back, the light streaming over my back as I walked towards my future. What was I going to do? What was I going to tell Illyana?

It seems that Fate had other ideas however, as any and all options were swiftly taken out of my hands.

As I softly opened the door, and walked forwards, I felt something extremely heavy smash over the back of my head, and suddenly I was falling.

Then nothing.

When I awoke, it was to the strange sight of my paintings grouped around a small room, I was incarcerated in, my beautiful and hideous paintings, so with my arms and legs tied to the sturdy metal chair I was sitting in, I could do nothing but watch.

In front of me was Illyana, red streaking her face, and in horror, I realised that the red was blood. Her arms had been scratched viciously, and her purple shift had been ripped.

"Illyana!" I cried, "What's happened? Who did this to you?"

"I did this to me," she screeched, "me, you stupid son of a bitch! They've closed you down haven't you! What did I tell you? If you keep on at this pathetic act, they'll just stop you! You're the only one to blind to see!"

In desperation, her nails reached up to her face, and she slowly scratched her cheek, eyes lit with a dark insanity.

"Illyana!" I cried again, "Stop this! What do you think it will accomplish?"

"The end." Her tone was oddly dull, as for such a passionate women; her words were always full of energy, of life. Now they were dead.

Slowly and deliberately, she knelt, and reaching behind her picked up a match, lit it, and smiling miserably, placed it on the floor.

It was then I smelled the alcohol. Placed in a line on the floor…and smothering my paintings. The beautiful fire sprang out, and kissed the first painting I ever created, and moved like a disease to the circle around us.

"It's the greatest hurt I could think of darling," she said, "the worst thing that could ever happen to you." I was close to weeping, but then – as if this twisted story could get any worse – I saw the gun. A piece of metal created for violence, she slowly raised it at my head, but she didn't stop there. She continued until it pointed at her head. Placing it in her mouth, her eyes locked on mine, and I saw the insane fire that fuelled her had gone out.

Then she winked.

Then she pulled the trigger.

I cried out, as all my emotions surged towards the surface, as I saw this terrified woman's skull explode in a disgusting cloud of red mush. Blood and brains plastered the wall behind her, a macabre remnant to a life that had eventually meant nothing.

I screamed a single word…for it was all I could do.

Finally, slowly, before the flickering flames met my bound feet, the inevitable happened.

I woke up.

"NO!"


Note: Please keep reading, as the Epilogue is to come!

Disclaimer: All the characters are copyright to Square Enix; and the story to me. This story has been written on the understanding that you may read it and print it out; but you may not pass it off as your own, hire it out, or sell it for money. You also may not put it on your own or any other web page without my express written permission. Thankyou!

JetNoir