Attenuation of Souls
Squall pulled into the tiny parking lot of the seedy tool shop. His new car clashed with the scenery. Graffiti-streaked buildings, crushed paper cups blowing on the cracked asphalt and then there was a BMW. It slightly scratched the general image of poverty that was displayed throughout the area but the driver didn't show the least bit of pride in his newfound wealth. In fact, he was more than furious to be here, not district-wise but here, near a parental unit he had tried so hard to forget.
He slammed the door, his rage taking a physical form so he would better control his words when it would come time. He paced around, glaring at the shop in contempt. Why couldn't Kiros understand that this was pure torture? The young man leaned on the car's side and sighed. Finally, pulling himself together, he began striding towards the entrance. Squall yanked on the glass door, provoking a ringing tone to accompany his entry and made a beeline for the counter.
Laguna was doing crossword puzzles, sitting on a tiny stool by the cash. He was in such deep concentration that he didn't even notice Squall standing a few feet away, "What's a six letter word for dim-witted?" He muttered to himself.
"Stupid." Squall snapped, very irate, "Busy day, I see …"
Laguna gawked at his son as if his presence was a blessing, "Wow! Squall!" He tried to get off the stool but, in his anxiousness, he slipped off the edge and collided with the floor. Rubbing his sore rear, he got up and managed a smile. Squall rolled his eyes but Laguna took no heed, "Oh gosh! Wow! How've you been doing?"
Squall remembered Ellone's words and they helped him answer pleasantly, or as pleasantly as Squall Leonhart could get, "I've been fine." It was a curt answer that Laguna couldn't be satisfied with. The father made big gestures to encourage his son to go on, "I'm doing fine, everything's great." Squall's irritability was nearly peaking.
Laguna's face fell at his son's lack of talent for social activities. At an attempt to make good conversation, the aspiring father threw out the worst topic he could have possibly thought of, "So how's you're little girlfriend?"
"My little girlfriend?" Squall asked in a mixture of shock, anger and annoyance.
Laguna smiled sheepishly, "You know, the one that was a couple of months older than you … erm, I think … Rina was her name? Reneya? Rhin … ah … I can't remember."
"Rinoa." Squall corrected, now in a very foul mood, "And how the hell do you know about her in the first place? I don't recall calling or introducing you to her." The words were said between clenched teeth and Laguna couldn't help feel he had said something terribly, terribly wrong. His feelings were fact.
"Well, uhm … I … asked Ellone how you were doing a couple of months ago and she mentioned … Rinoa … and so … I … asked her more questions. She seems really nice though, your mother would be proud, really. Don't think I'm meddling in your affairs, I really didn't do it purposely, I swear." Laguna didn't seem to realize he was rambling.
"Don't …" Squall silenced him, "Don't come up with stupid excuses, just stay out of my shit. Quit trying to act like the omnipresent father because you aren't. You … were never there and so don't try to weasel your way into that place now because I'll save you some time and tell you it won't work. Stop it."
Laguna nodded solemnly, "Ok, I understand, I'm sorry. I was just worried about you. You never call and never drop by so, you know, when Ellone comes down here, I like to hear about you too. But I won't do it again, I'm sorry." The father averted his son's eyes and remained silent.
Squall spoke again hesitantly, feeling slightly guilty for his outburst, "Speaking of Ellone, where is she? I came here to know if you had her phone number, address or anything."
"Oh, right … of course." Laguna stuttered getting out a pad of paper and a pen. He jot down a cellphone number, an e-mail address and a residential address that he pulled out from his memory bank, "You should be able to reach her at all those places, no problem. She … doesn't check her e-mail very often though so you best try her cellphone." He ripped the paper from the pad and handed it to his son.
"Thank you." The words were forced from his throat as he accepted the bit of information. He tucked the note in his jean pocket. "I have to go, bye." The words were awkward. Squall had never learnt how to speak to his father unless it was to yell at him or argue with him.
Laguna smile forcefully and nodded, "Ok. Take care.""Yeah." Squall turned and mumbled, hopeful that his father wouldn't hear, "You take care too."
RINOA DIALED SELPHIE'S phone number hesitantly, looking down on the tiny piece of paper occasionally making sure of the numbers. The dial tone took over and she drummed her fingers on her desk impatiently. "Hello?" Selphie's cheery voice piped up from the other end.
"Hey Selph." She greeted as happily as her current mood allowed, "How're you?"
"Pretty good, pretty good …" A cacophony of noises were lively and loud in the background, "I'm downtown, want to meet me anywhere?" Sirens, honking and angry pedestrians nearly muffled her voice entirely.
"I wish I could but things are pretty busy." Rinoa explained sighing in desperation at the papers that were spread out over her workspace, "Though coffee sounds really good right about now." The nail on her index finger scratched her cheek in a pondering manner and she added, "Ah, to Hell with this … where are you?"
Selphie gave her directions to the nearest coffee shop, usually not too crowded where they could discuss without being bothered by the buzz of the other customers. It was near the end of the afternoon, where a few sparsely occupied tables were the choice location for hushed conversations. "So, what's up?" Selphie asked over the rim of her cappuccino.
Rinoa had decided to go with a cold orange juice in case the caffeine completely shot her nerves, sending her into a third degree anxiety seizure. "Nothing exceedingly fun and interesting … well, at least, nothing worth mentioning. You?"
Selphie shrugged and took another sip from the mug, "It's the city of Deling, plenty of things are new but I just don't give a shit." She smiled wryly and caught Rinoa's gaze, "So … you must have called me for a reason. You don't look like the type who likes to idly chat about stupid things …"
An amused expression spread across Rinoa's gorgeous facial features, "I'm not, you're right … I have a request … well, more on the favor side but anyways. Does Viktor Lynch ring a bell?" Her glass of orange juice was tossed from palm to palm, a habit she had picked up from Squall that replaced her usual nervous fidgeting.
Selphie looked up to the ceiling in a grand silence of thought, "Pff, yeah … vaguely, way in the distance. Zell isn't too fond of him so we steer clear. Well, we try to avoid DeGracia territory in general and by doing so we don't meet up with Lynch very often. Why?"
"Well, a friend dropped a few pointers on him. Since he's located on forbidden territory, it's a shame to say, but I could use him. My fath-" She caught herself, her eyes going wide with confusion at what she was about to let slip, "I mean, DeGracia knows of our alliance so he won't let it go by that you're smuggling narcotics for me."
Selphie flinched and dragged her fingertips along the rim of the cup, "Were you about to say 'My father'?" She asked nonchalantly, her emerald eyes piercing through the cocoa brown ones, searching for the truth, the lies."No." Rinoa replied, a bit too loudly, staring defiantly at Selphie, "Hell no." She repeated for good measure, a little more quietly this time but she knew Selphie was skeptical. To avoid further cross-examinations, she skipped to a new topic, arousing Selphie's curiosity even more, "Anyways, back to Lynch … I need to know where his front is … where he is most of the time, that way I can send someone in to negotiate. We've met before but he doesn't like me very much so … it'd be preferable if we just remain at a distance."
"Of course." Selphie played along, her mind still back with DeGracia and his connection with Rinoa Heartilly, "Well, I can't say that I know but I could get back to you. I've got my ways of digging deeper so it shouldn't be a problem. I'll phone you if I catch onto anything concrete."
Rinoa smiled thankfully, "I appreciate it."HIS STEPS THUNDERED down the echoing, white hallways. His eyes glued to the number on the paper, 319. Squall stopped at a wooden apartment door, the label matching the number on the paper he had received from Laguna. "She had better be home." He thought bitterly and he knocked twice. The echo of the simple rap at the door boomed through the empty hall, "Christ, that's creepy."
A short brunette answered the door and glared at him reproachfully, "How did you get my address and since when are you interested? Hmm?" She questioned him, holding the door partially open so he wouldn't allow himself in.
"Well, hi to you too, Ellone, it's wonderful to see you're so happy to see me again since I've no intention of begging for your forgiveness. On the other hand, I've carefully pondered about what you said, I mean, screamed to me this morning. I've considered the others around me and I've decided that maybe I do need a little change in attitude and that mother wasn't entirely responsible for my shitty behavior to this day. I've also decided to speak to Rinoa Heartilly again because, as you stated, she owes me many answers to the questions swarming in my thick skull." His voice was monotonous and mocking, "As you may have already concluded, you've succeeded in making a big change in my meaningless life as I've already taken some contact with a parental unit."
"Laguna?" Ellone asked, her eyes lighting up in surprise, suddenly pleased with her brother's sudden change of heart, "That's wonderful, Squall, what did you two talk about?"
Squall rolled his eyes in irritation, "I was in and out of the tool shop, I only went to ask where you were at because I still need to talk to you. Since you stormed out last time, I didn't really catch your address."
"Poo." Her face fell but she swung the door open, inviting him in, "I was expecting to hear all about your father and son conversations. It would have been so sweet and adorable on your part. But, I suppose I shouldn't have expected such a dramatic change since you'll probably never speak to him like that."
"No, you're right, I'll probably never have a father-son conversation, as you call them." He strode into the apartment and took a seat at the kitchen table, "But I didn't come to discuss him, I came to discuss her. Where is she?"
"No, no, no, no!" The good-natured sister reprimanded, "You shouldn't do things like that. Have you no sense of excitement? I can't believe you! No imagination whatsoever! Look, I'll admit she probably won't allow her secretary to slot you into her timetable. You've got to make her come to you, it's like a game of hunting."
Squall looked nothing short of annoyed, "Of course, why would it be that simple? She's a fucking woman! Thanks for the wake-up call, Elle, much appreciated! So, should I send her a bouquet of roses with a little card stating, 'Hey sweetheart, long time no see, want to have a cup of coffee sometime?' I think I like that idea, gimme the name of a good florist."
"Oh, you're one for humor today." She smiled and sat down opposite of him, "You could try 'Flowers For Heart' down Trigger street. It's a lovely little greenhouse-ish place with a cute arrangement of-"
"Sarcasm, sarcasm!" Squall snapped irritably at his sister, glaring, "I'm not sending her a bouquet of freaking flowers! So tell me now, what am I suppose to do to get an appointment with her? Jump through hoops, wag my tail, play dead and roll over?"
"Lovely imagery … wagging your tail. Simply lovely." She smirked and he groaned in disbelief at her interpretation of his statement, "I'm just telling you that she probably wants to try and avoid you right now. Don't take it in a bad way …"
"What's to be taken in a bad way? The girl doesn't want to see my face! How can I be hurt by that?" Satire was spouting from his mouth like a geyser from the earth's crust. "Fine, I'll figure something out. As for you, I still need a favor of you. What newspaper do you belong to? Please tell me it's not the 'Daily Post'."
"Now, why would I go work for someone who hates my little brother with a fiery passion? Of course I don't work for Seifer Almasy." Ellone smiled and bit her lip, "I work for 'Deling Gazette'. Why the sudden interest? Not like you ever cared before. I'm surprised you even remembered I was a journalist."
Squall ignored her cries of pity completely, "Ok, I'll be giving you some good shit to write about soon so keep your pencil poised. If I've learnt one thing since coming to Deling city it's that the streets are a chessboard and it's up to you to move the pieces. I'm about to kill a couple of pawns before moving on to the rest."RINOA HEARTILLY WASHED down two more aspirins with a glass of water, staring at her figure in the bathroom mirror disbelievingly. The bottle of painkillers was nearing its end and it had only been one day. This was beginning to be abnormal. Sign number one of a beginning addiction. It was the last thing she needed at the moment but she didn't have time to reconsider it or prevent it, for that matter.
"It's been a hard day." A futile attempt at a pathetic excuse, "I think this was a simple act of survival." Well it was, her head would have exploded without them. In the safety of her confined apartment, she was at ease. There was no one; she basked in the serenity of solitude in complete bliss. Alone. Funny how she took refuge within something she feared so much. Perhaps it was simply acceptance that this was the way she would be spending the remainder of her days.
"Days, not years, not months. Days." She felt her eyes prickle with salty tears, "Fuck, that's depressing." The girl caught her tears before they had a chance to fall. Restlessness was growing, slowly, surely. A tumor of darkness swelled inside of her, day by day, robbing her of strength, of will, of life. She interpreted it as punishment. A penalty for screwing up all the chances ever dished out at her.
Squall Leonhart was gone. Figment of him remained, in her shattered heart. Broken by her own hands. Rinoa could close her eyes and swear she still felt his fingertips, his lips, his entity. Imagination. The only thing that remained, the only thing that she had left to keep herself sane.
Sitting on the couch, staring at a dark television screen she cried, hugging her knees like the child she still was. Her eyes closed painfully with two rivers of hurt coursing down her cheeks. The headache was getting worse. Rinoa engrossed herself in her thoughts, fading the line between reality and fiction. Her only refuge.
JAMES CARAWAY HAD spent an entire day in council with fellow congressmen so needless to say, he was quite content in the blissful, sanctifying silence of his penthouse apartment with his second wife gone out for the week to Timber. It was near twilight when he poured himself a glass of champagne.
He sat in a leather armchair by a beautiful picture window that overlooked the center of the city of Deling, alive with streetlights and midnight clubs. Near the chair was a polished, rosewood end table with intricate carvings at the legs. Mr. James Caraway II unlatched the wooden box of the Cohiba Siglo VI cigars and took one between his index and forefinger, a pensive look in his dark, ebony eyes.
Caraway closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He was a well-built man, tall but not lanky. Gray and white streaked his raven hair, a man of good age. Mid-fifties, but his form certainly didn't let it show. He was as healthy as a newly recruited soldier but no one knew quite why. Since his wife died, he had a notorious reputation for drinking like a fish and smoking like a chimney. He ate rarely, when he did it was little. Though many still owed him respect for the wise decisions he managed to make under states of intoxication.
However, when his daughter left, his career flattened to a deadline. The council had little choice but to keep him as a member. He did, after all, run most of Deling and the city had never been so prosperous. Decaying, rotting with crime and hard-bitten delinquents, but the economy skyrocketed. The stocks had never been so high, the markets never so big. Why change?
His gaze shifted around the room and lingered solemnly on the Steinway piano in the corner of the extensive living area. Its keys glinted in the silver of the moon, the ebony color pronouncing its richness. The piano had belonged to Julia Heartilly and her widowed husband could not bear parting with it. He would have offered it to his daughter, had they been on better terms.
Admiring that graceful instrument, he could reminisce without being bothered. It was still fresh in his memory, his wife's delicate fingers summoning each note with musical perfection, the by-product was a melodious, soothing tune that echoed through the manor, when they still lived there. His daughter, a little goddess even at that age, with a radiant smile observing, learning. He wondered if she remembered how to play.
It was all too beautiful back then. The little disagreements between father and daughter seemed so child-like, so unimportant compared to the silences that had ballooned up between the two of them over the past few years. He loved his daughter, but at the same time a roused anger boiled him over when he heard her rebellious, mocking voice on the phone. A certain animosity grew in unison with the number of drugs she imported each month. His daughter, his baby girl meddling with such crude things. Though he was mostly to blame, an absent father lingering in the shadows.
His presence worsened at the departure of his wife. Caraway was a man of business and children certainly wasn't his forte. Especially those who were peaking adolescence. Instead of mending their differences he drifted further and further away until some were certain he couldn't give a rat's tail if his daughter went missing or if she was found hanging in her closet in total desperation.
It was all lies. What would anyone understand of his life in fatherhood? His daughter answered to no one except his wife and now she was six feet under, cold and dead in a coffin. Any attempts at discipline on his part were ignored, or mocked by her. What would an inexperienced, single father do with an impossible child at the brink of young adulthood? Soon she would start dating, making out in the backseats of cars, smoking, drinking, fucking. How the hell was he supposed to handle that?
Was he supposed to give her 'the talk'? She would have probably laughed in his face. She was the farthest thing from naïve, though it was hard for the others to believe. Rinoa Heartilly openly swore and cursed in front of her father, sometimes purposely, just to get his veins pumping a bit faster, just to push him to the utmost limit.
He knew she snuck out of her room every goddamn night, he knew of the states she came back in, as a father he knew of the boys she hung around with. And in truth, he wished he didn't. Tormented by the consequences of her actions, he was a prisoner to the inability to act. "If only … if only you hadn't went away …" Caraway spoke grievously to the piano, the symbol of his deceased wife. "If only you could have stayed, if only for a little while. I know it's selfish of my part to let you linger in sufferance …"
He quickly wiped away a stray tear from his eye. "If only you had taught me … how to be a little more like you, maybe our daughter would still be at an Ivy League school, maybe she would have a chance at a more stable life. Maybe she wouldn't be dealing with thugs. She's falling, Julia … and I don't know why. Irvine won't tell me, and she hardly speaks to me, or rather, I'm too proud to let her know I care. But she's falling … and I can't catch her."
THE RINGING IN her head wouldn't go away. Her brain was pounding within her skull, her fingertips tingled and shook incessantly. It had never been this bad before. Her heart raced against her will, breaths were quick and shallow. It was as if her lungs had shrunk, leaving her with an immensely tight pain in her chest. What was this? Impending death looming over, a shadow across her face, waiting for the opportune moment?
"I'm going crazy." Rinoa whispered hoarsely to herself, clutching her shaking hand to her chest in agony. Tears of fear trickled from her eyes, she hugged her knees and closed her eyes, trying to calm down. "Ok, one thing at a time … just … one … thing …"
But she wasn't listening to herself, "Viktor Lynch … Selphie's going to be calling me soon, I never signed those papers for Irvine … what if Trepe's planning something right now? Squall … oh, shit … whatever happened to those blueprints I was studying, I have to go back to the office. It hurts … Squall … is Nick really one of my father's henchmen keeping an eye out for me? Where's Squall … oh God … it hurts."Too many thoughts, not enough gray matter to digest it all. It was too much. She couldn't keep up with her heart, her thoughts, blood was rushing through her too fast, too much oxygen, too little space in her lungs, too much, too little. Rinoa whimpered and choked on a sob. "I'm going to die, shit … I'm dying." The darkness of her room seemed to make her even more nervous, "I can't see … where's … the switch … I'm dying."
A burst of silver burned her eyes and she began to feel a little lightheaded. She couldn't go back to sleep, the nightmares would come again. Her eyes unfocused and focused back rapidly and repeatedly. Sweat poured from her hairline, down to her chin, mixing in with the tears. "What the hell is this?" Her mouth was sandpaper. Everything was happening to fast. Had she just heard someone come into her apartment?
No, hallucinations … only hallucinations. She repeated this to herself over and over until she seemed to calm a bit but the prickling feeling remained. The tightness in her chest didn't leave her. Why was this happening to her?
She clasped her hands to her ears and let out an anguished scream, shutting her eyes tightly. Incoherent thoughts raced through her head, only one could be deciphered, "I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm really dying."
Please review.
Important Note: Rinoa isn't really dying … she's just having a really bad panic attack. For those who haven't figured it out, she actually suffers from anxiety. Which would explain her headaches and irritability in the mornings. Actually, in chapter 5, there were hints that she had anxiety … a) Couldn't handle speed in a very dramatic way b) Thoughts of dying c)Insomnia. It just got worse, and don't worry … I have a feeling she'll be just fine.
