Final Fantasy VII: Patiently Waiting
Chapter 3 written by Vincent Noble Valentine...
Quick Author's note: You know it's funny. Some years ago when I wrote this story but never continued I said and I quote, 'I ain't a goth' Ironic isn't it that as of last September and since then I have been a 'goth' or a man that loves alternative nights. I guess you could say back then I didn't believe I was one or more or less refused to believe that that sort of image was me. The point to knowing yourself really is to accept who and what you are, even though at times you yourself may never really know but subconciously your body does.
And since then I've accepted who I am, I'm known as Noble to whose who know me however that is my middle name. The guy people call a 'goth' or an alternative that goes out and hangs around with other goths and enjoys every minute of it. I've also come to terms that I am a loner as well as goth and still keep myself to myself, hardly speak much and enjoy the peace of silence. Looking back on the story I should have continued it, but with much time and experience that I've spent away I think this story doesn't do justice to Vincent's character, perhaps I have explained him a little out of character thus far. So as of now and with corrections to the previous chapters I WILL continue. Sorry that it's been so long to those who have wished to see more chapters, my life just got busy, I apologize.
Goodbye's never were easy. It was just always harder saying goodbye to those that felt like family. It's not like your saying goodbye and see you tommorrow, but it feels like the final goodbye when it seems like your going to go your own seperate ways and never see them again. It's the kind that make you think that one day you see your friends living their lives peacefully and the next your hear from people close to you that they wind up in hospital and at a critical level were any action the doctor makes could prove fatal for the patient.
How humans must hate times like those, when you say goodbye knowing and feeling in all certainty that it isn't the last goodbye, just a simple one as if saying 'goodnight, i'll see you in the morning'. But then again I already know what a final goodbye feels like, it happened 30 years ago and never in my tormented life did I want to see it again.
It feels like one of those moments when your girlfriend dumps you, literally ripping your heart out from your chest and she takes it with her. Leaving you a cold and devastated man. I've got to admit it hurts a whole lot worse when she's taken your beating heart and offers it and her 'love' to another. Only for her to trample on it further and then to toss it aside as if to say the past and the 'heart' was worthless. How do you explain that? Gutting, bitter, shock, remorse and devastation.
Yeah that's how it feels, but think of it as if going to a good friend's funeral and you heard them pass away and you stand there, looking like your features were etched in stone, cold and blank. And you look down at the grave of your friend and you mourn like they do and you try everything in your power not to cry, but no matter how much you want to stop yourself...you can't. Simply because your crying not because of the memories of this person, you mourn, you cry when you know that you never even got a chance to say goodbye...and even if you say it, the other side isn't going to reply.
Like I said, saying Goodbye was never easy.
2 days had already passed and I find myself here, at Lucrecia's Waterfall. Alone, solemn and silent. I had no words for such a place of beauty, words are never needed when one mourns. Words are only ever needed when it comes to conversation, but then at times when conversation becomes pointless so do words.
But words speak in other volumes. They speak silently showing people what they can't hear but what they can plainly see by body language. If anyone who didn't know me, saw me right now. They think I would be a man who was just silent and kept himself to himself but then again, they would be right...
But for those who do know of me, that being a scarse few. If they were here with me to mourn for my beloved, they could see in my eyes alone the volumes that they speak. The amount of pain and guilt I feel just for this one person who was no longer with us. Even now as she sleeps the eternal sleep I feel this ache in my heart that will never go away, this feeling that won't fleet away or budge. It stays eched in stone like it was carved by a knife to forever remain as a mark on my tormented soul.
For 31 years I mourned like this and never once prayed for it to go away. This sin that I've carried for so long still remains with me like a puppy on a leash, that you hold onto protectively. I've protected it, nourished it and it kept it with me as a firm reminder of the choices I made that affected my life. That with every decision a man makes can prove it equally fatal as well as good. I let the one I loved the most die...and I did nothing to stop it...this is my sin...
But it was also my motivation when I re-awakened. It was the driving force of this sin that pushed me towards vengeance and redemption only to finally let her memory rest in peace.
But in doing this I find myself feeling more empty than usual, the strands of humanity that I lay claim to within me cannot fully express the remorse or guilt any normal man should be feeling when trying to say goodbye to someone that was important in your life. All I can do is just stand there on the marble fashioned floor of her shrine and repeat her name like a mantra in my head over and over again, barely hoping that if I dared whisper it, she would come to me like she were a dream brought to reality.
However these are thoughts, hopes for a man who dreams endlessly. These are dreams and hopes for mortal men who believe everything will come to them if they wish it hard enough. But I'm not a mortal man, I can barely even call myself human with all the lives I've taken and the sins of the world that I carry on my shoulders. I can't even see myself being welcomed to the heavenly gates of paradise with open arms. I know where I'm going when I die and I deserve it all...
How much, dearest Lucrecia that I wish that I could forget it all. Shrug it all off like peeling off a leech that sticks to your skin sucking out your life's blood. I want so much to move on and to forget. I want to forget it all, the pain...the sin, the torment that I feel responsible for and I just want to go to sleep again and wake up like it was a new day and whatever happened yesterday was like nothing. But I can't...
I can't because I am responsible. I was irresponsible for letting you go, I was foolish to believe that whatever happiness you had found in Hojo was true and the 2nd biggest mistake I made was letting them actually go through with all that experimentation, letting them use you as if you were nothing more then a common lab rat for 'Jenova'. How could I have ever made myself believe that what Hojo was doing to you and your unborn child was 'right?' When deep down I knew no matter how much you wanted this to better the Jenova Project all in the personal name and goal of science was wrong.
But I could not persuade you otherwise, you were stubborn and adament about your research. You would let nothing stop you, regardless of my concern or even how I felt about you. You knew it all and threw caution aside and...you went through with it and I was still too foolish to let you. How could I not be? I never would have harmed a single hair on your head, let alone force you to stop doing what you wanted to do. It was your choice and I accepted it.
And now look what has happened...
Your son lost his mind and tried to destroy the planet in hopes of becoming a god, but myself and several others stopped that all from ever happening with the cost of his own life, the only way to save us all. Both Hojo and ShinRA have both long ceased living and my vengeance and redemption to you have been paid in full. But with the death's of Jenova and Sephiroth both...now you also are gone...after all these many years believing that you were dead I find you only to lose you all over again...
Vincent was well aware of all of this even before his light feet touched the marble floor to her waterfall, he had suspected as much soon after Sephiroth's defeat prior to his returning to this sacred place also. Deep down there was such a connection between Vincent and Lucrecia, perhaps in terms of the Jenova cells running through both their veins or perhaps to higher more spirtual level, a bond that he shared with her on a personal level but a bond that was never truly returned, much like his unconditional love for her.
Suffice to say the ex-Turk handled his gut instinct and feelings well amongst the others. A man like him was always good at hiding his feelings. 30 years inside a coffin with nothing more than personal guilt and your own demons ravaging your body and nightmares as you slept as one of the ungrateful dead would do that to such a person. Whatever Vincent considered human about himself had long since been dead ever since Professor Hojo shot him in the chest and experimented on his body. His humanity was taken from him in such a humilating and degrading way that there was surely no way of reversing what was done. There was no scientist on this earth that could possibly match the skill or the madness that Hojo possessed, furthermore nor would Vincent allow anyone as such to tamper with his body ever again.
That ordeal had long since passed and even if Vincent had given the slightest consideration in seeking help in reversing the process done to his ageless body, it would be no use. There was no doubt in the gunman's mind that he couldn't be returned to his former self, not with all the years he slept, allowing the mako and Jenova cells to fully bond to him on a cellure level. Time had grasped onto it's only victim who could never age and wither away like the rest of humanity, he was forever damned to remain with his youthful appearance for as long as he dared choose to live.
Like his lost love Lucreica he too had become another experiment to the professor's perverse infatuation to the Jenova Project. But now that was in the past, Hojo and any or all creations spawned from his madness were all gone, only Vincent remained and he had no intention of ending his own life. The very thought of doing such an action would soil his vow to Lucrecia: To live, to choose a new start at life and that was only going to happen once he had finished his final act: burning the ShrinRA mansion to the ground.
That ill mannered place harboured all those twisted years of Hojo's research and his obsession over Jenova. If it continued to remain standing Hojo's memory would live on. All his hidden secrets would continue to remain in a world that the gunslinger believed did not need another madman to jeopardize it. This planet was already injured enough as it was and would still continue to heal it's injured wound.
Kneeling at what he professed to being her 'sacred alter' he places 2 red roses at what he deemed her resting place, letting his human hand linger on the cold marble floor for a few minutes as if feeling the place he last saw her stand at and with eyes unblinking he stands looking down at where the roses were. Closing his eyes finally he bows his head solemnly, his lips moving slowly as he recited a small prayer, wishing that she rests in peace before collecting his thoughts and with a swift turn he makes his way out of the Waterfall whispering her name...
Author's note: Once again my sincerest apologizes for not updating the story, but I'm back and I will continue it until it is completed. Review if you wish, all feedback is welcome. I listened to Evanescence- My immortal while writing this chapter, if no one has heard this song I recommend anyone out there to download it, it in a way explains much of Vincent's pain as well as his character and his love for a lost one.
Recommended Mp3 of the day: Evanescence- My Immortal
Signed Vincent Noble Valentine...
