This is no longer my territory, but the passing eons have done little to change it. Unashamedly dank and rotting it stands the test of life, like so many of the places I ran headlong into rather than stay another day with Hojo. A single-decker bus yields the only light, oil-lamps flaring behind smoked glass, chasing the sprinting shadows. One shadow, I'm sure, it moved fast….. darting swiftly for whatever cover it could find. I don't judge this place, or any of its kind. These locales, if you will, taught me all I know about becoming a ghost. And consequentially, how to catch one. It had to be a man, the way the nothingness gripped it tight, calling out in shapes not unlike a shoulder, an arm, a readied knife. I took a step back and watched it slink away, into a murky shaft, a metal recess in a crumbling wall. My feet might have touched the festering ground twice, but no more than that before I was staring at the black ellipse as it swallowed the mordant shadow. Why am I following a nameless shape? I don't know…for the challenge, I guess. Or maybe because he moved like one of mine.
I made the mistake of pressing my palm against the edge of the tube, balancing so that I might peer inside. Had I not noticed how precisely those edges had been manually refined I could have lost my hand, my own weight gently pushing muscle through the razor-sharp garrotte. I whispered some expression of pained surprise, and it was heard. A laugh chased it back at me. He's watching, the little motherfucker. Wherever he is. Probing for a place to land, I thrust my boot into the hole. Following it with the other, I found space to at least crouch until my vision acclimatised. I lurched forward onto my hands when a soft hovering thing blew cold, fetid air down the back of my neck. Cotton laundry, suspended from the curved ceiling on a six foot fishing wire, but not wet at all, and still stinking of fear and hot sweat.
Darkness gradually fades, at first a single pixel of clarity in the murk and then hundreds. I saw a TV, a trophy shelf, even a couple of books. Beneath my feet was the submissive fabric of a well-used bed. It looked almost like home. Not mine, but somebody's, somebody who was not a clone all their life. Like I said, one of mine. Turned, poisoned, and finally succumbing to the fate I will continue to elude; being sent utterly fuckwitted by years of hearing and seeing more than your 'average' human being.
"Fine, don't show yourself", I growled, more concerned with the framed snapshot gathering moss on the damp metal floor. It looked like a generic class photo, but I recognised every face. The Academy, we called it. The place where they train SOLDIER, and first-term Turks. I was there, at the back, next to Rude.
A spiked flash of onyx hair obscured the faces around it. Reuben grinned from the centre of the front row. Goddamn glory hog, I remember him now. I sure won't mind killing him. Our unit would all meet after class or training exercises or whatever, and I was always the guy in the corner, face buried in coffee steam, making the occasional wisecrack before retreating back behind my hair and trying to get sober before Rude noticed. Rude is like a brother, in many ways, and we disliked a select few with fraternal consistency. Greatly admired, and rightly so, his physical prowess was unmatched, and for a beefcake he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. Shame I gotta lop it off for him.
"You know me, don't you?" came the slow, exhausted voice, the mind behind it struggling to control the shake in its tone.
"No. I remember you though."
"Reno…." I know that voice. It's preaching at me, trying to dismiss my words. And it knows it will fail.
"Zach"
By the time I'd answered him there was a gun muzzle thrust at the spot I imagined his temple to be, inside his veil of cautious shade. I was spot on. He winced, cracked lips hauling themselves into a bitter grin. His was Titan, behemoth of earthly spheres, master of quake and landslide. The tectonic god belonged to him and he to it forever, the elemental ether branded on his skin as apparent as a tattoo to another of his kind. I hate him so, because he's beautiful. I wanted him so sincerely all those months at the Academy. I never told him, of course, and now he stands before me shivering despite the bundle of blankets hunched about his shoulders.
Kill him. It is the kindest thing you can do.
"Re-", he caught himself within the space of a withering cough and faced me, "Sinclair. Do it. I can't resist you like this"
Even after all this time has passed he still thinks he can give the orders. Again he commanded me,
"Do it"
I never broke his gaze, unwilling or unable to stand down.
"Fuck you. Disappear". I gestured toward the entrance of the tunnel with the limp 1911, as defiant as I've ever been.
With that, he nodded lop-sidedly, so swiftly and imperceptibly that if I hadn't known his mannerisms by heart I would have missed it. He dived past me and out of the mouth of the iron beast he called home. I was becoming more and more convinced that this was just an out-of-commission sewage vent. But Reuben was long gone. Another reconnaissance mission complete, at least by Shinra standards.
I made the mistake of pressing my palm against the edge of the tube, balancing so that I might peer inside. Had I not noticed how precisely those edges had been manually refined I could have lost my hand, my own weight gently pushing muscle through the razor-sharp garrotte. I whispered some expression of pained surprise, and it was heard. A laugh chased it back at me. He's watching, the little motherfucker. Wherever he is. Probing for a place to land, I thrust my boot into the hole. Following it with the other, I found space to at least crouch until my vision acclimatised. I lurched forward onto my hands when a soft hovering thing blew cold, fetid air down the back of my neck. Cotton laundry, suspended from the curved ceiling on a six foot fishing wire, but not wet at all, and still stinking of fear and hot sweat.
Darkness gradually fades, at first a single pixel of clarity in the murk and then hundreds. I saw a TV, a trophy shelf, even a couple of books. Beneath my feet was the submissive fabric of a well-used bed. It looked almost like home. Not mine, but somebody's, somebody who was not a clone all their life. Like I said, one of mine. Turned, poisoned, and finally succumbing to the fate I will continue to elude; being sent utterly fuckwitted by years of hearing and seeing more than your 'average' human being.
"Fine, don't show yourself", I growled, more concerned with the framed snapshot gathering moss on the damp metal floor. It looked like a generic class photo, but I recognised every face. The Academy, we called it. The place where they train SOLDIER, and first-term Turks. I was there, at the back, next to Rude.
A spiked flash of onyx hair obscured the faces around it. Reuben grinned from the centre of the front row. Goddamn glory hog, I remember him now. I sure won't mind killing him. Our unit would all meet after class or training exercises or whatever, and I was always the guy in the corner, face buried in coffee steam, making the occasional wisecrack before retreating back behind my hair and trying to get sober before Rude noticed. Rude is like a brother, in many ways, and we disliked a select few with fraternal consistency. Greatly admired, and rightly so, his physical prowess was unmatched, and for a beefcake he had a pretty good head on his shoulders. Shame I gotta lop it off for him.
"You know me, don't you?" came the slow, exhausted voice, the mind behind it struggling to control the shake in its tone.
"No. I remember you though."
"Reno…." I know that voice. It's preaching at me, trying to dismiss my words. And it knows it will fail.
"Zach"
By the time I'd answered him there was a gun muzzle thrust at the spot I imagined his temple to be, inside his veil of cautious shade. I was spot on. He winced, cracked lips hauling themselves into a bitter grin. His was Titan, behemoth of earthly spheres, master of quake and landslide. The tectonic god belonged to him and he to it forever, the elemental ether branded on his skin as apparent as a tattoo to another of his kind. I hate him so, because he's beautiful. I wanted him so sincerely all those months at the Academy. I never told him, of course, and now he stands before me shivering despite the bundle of blankets hunched about his shoulders.
Kill him. It is the kindest thing you can do.
"Re-", he caught himself within the space of a withering cough and faced me, "Sinclair. Do it. I can't resist you like this"
Even after all this time has passed he still thinks he can give the orders. Again he commanded me,
"Do it"
I never broke his gaze, unwilling or unable to stand down.
"Fuck you. Disappear". I gestured toward the entrance of the tunnel with the limp 1911, as defiant as I've ever been.
With that, he nodded lop-sidedly, so swiftly and imperceptibly that if I hadn't known his mannerisms by heart I would have missed it. He dived past me and out of the mouth of the iron beast he called home. I was becoming more and more convinced that this was just an out-of-commission sewage vent. But Reuben was long gone. Another reconnaissance mission complete, at least by Shinra standards.