Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction. The author is receiving no compensation for writing it. Final Fantasy and a related indicia are the property of Square Enix.
Chapter 7: Threads Unravel
"Good morning."
Tidus opened his eyes, and then quickly shielded them from the light coming in from outside. "Wh…what?"
"Time to go."
As his eyes grew accustomed to the light, he was sure he could make out the form before him. It was Auron. Good old gruff, unsent Auron. "Auron? 'Sat you? When'd you get back from the Farplane?"
"What do you know about the Farplane?" Auron replied, puzzled and suspicious. Then he shook his head. "Never mind. Get up. We're leaving."
"Wait, I can't…" Tidus looked down at himself. He was neither strapped to the cot, nor was he wearing the backless hospital gown. He was back in his own clothes again. He surveyed around him, and instead of a sterile white hospital privacy curtain, he was in a makeshift tent. The smell of salt in the air instinctively told him he was somewhere near the ocean.
He looked back up and noticed that Auron had gone from the tent's opening. "Hey…wait!" he shouted, practically falling out of the cot. He scrambled to his feet and rushed out of the tent. Outside stood Auron, Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri, and Rikku, all facing him.
"'Bout time you got up," Rikku scolded. "We were gonna go dump you in the ocean, sleepy-head!"
Tidus blinked at them for a second, and then shook his head. "No, another dream."
"Huh? You have a bad dream?" asked Wakka.
"I'm having one now," Tidus replied, placing his hand on his forehead.
"What are you talking about?" Lulu asked, her voice as exasperated as it often was when she spoke to him.
"Enough of this," Auron interrupted. "We don't have time to waste."
"Yuna waiting," Kimahri added. He started walking away from the camp down a path. Rikku and Lulu followed, but Wakka and Auron stayed behind, waiting for him.
"Wait, aren't we gonna clean up our…" Tidus started, and then looked behind him. The tent was gone. Only a grassy clearing sat in its place. The dirt path under his feet led straight to Wakka and Auron. Sighing, he followed it.
When he passed Auron and Wakka, they turned and walked with him, flanking him. As he walked, he looked at them. Wakka had his eyes intently on him, while Auron looked straight ahead.
"What?" Tidus asked.
"What, what?" Wakka replied
"Why're you looking at me?"
Wakka's expression didn't change. "Gotta make sure you don't get hurt."
"Get hurt?"
"Sorry we had to strap you in," came a voice from the other side, "but it was for your safety." That voice, however, was not Auron's. Tidus turned, and instead of seeing the face-obscuring collar of Auron, he saw the small upturned collar of Doctor Gram.
"Wh-what?" Tidus asked. He looked back to his left, but Wakka was still there, watching him intently. "Wakka? What's going on here?"
"My name's Firden," Wakka replied. "You don' look so good, ya know."
Tidus stopped walking and shook his head. "No, this is just wrong."
Both men stopped immediately and backed up so they were closely flanking him again. Tidus was still reeling. Never existed. I never existed. He noticed his clothes, or lack thereof. He was now back in that ugly, immodest hospital gown. He looked up, but saw he was still on the edge of the campsite, heading for the nearby forest.
"We have to go now, Mr. Tidus," said Gram.
Tidus looked up at Wakka. He still looked the same. Gram, however, looked exactly as he had the last time Tidus had seen him.
"N-no!" he cried out, backing away. His back struck something hard. Looking up, he saw it was a tree, but it felt smooth and cold against his bare back.
"No…" he said, pressing his hands to his face. He sank to his knees, and then to the floor, trying to force his mind to filter Spira out of his current reality.
Or was he still in Spira, and hallucinating about the hospital? He couldn't tell anymore. The sights and smells of Spira and the cold metal feel of the hospital wall and floor both invaded his senses at once.
When he felt hands on his arms, he shook them off with another yelp of, "No!" However, he only cowered a bit, too confused to do much more than draw himself into a fetal position.
Gingerly, but with easy strength, both Gram and Wakka/Firden lifted him up by his arms and led him into another nearby room. Tidus raised his head just enough to see that the room contained a low white bed with an elevated back and arm and leg restraints. He whimpered, but found no fortitude with which to offer any more resistance. There was a cushiony chair next to the bed, and the rest of the room was filled with some sort of cabinets without any apparent doors.
The two men laid Tidus onto the bed, but, to his relief, did not fasten the bindings to his wrists or ankles. Gram sat in the chair, while Wakka/Firden stood closely by.
"How are you feeling?" asked Gram after pulling a small object from an inner coat pocket and placing it on one of the chair's arms.
Tidus sighed and curled into a ball. I don't know how much more I can take. Maybe I should just sleep and dream some more about Spira. He made no audible clues as to his feelings, but Gram obviously interpreted his body language.
"I understand, this has all been very traumatic for you."
"Understand?" Tidus asked. "I don't think so."
"Then make me understand, Tidus."
Tidus exhaled deeply and hung his head. He was beginning to hate telling the story, but he supposed there wasn't any choice at this point. He grudgingly narrated to Gram everything that had happened from Sin's attack on the arena to his passing through the Farplane. While Gram was trying to give an air of warm nonchalance, Tidus could tell the eyes behind the dark glasses were examining him intently.
Gram listened to everything Tidus said, nodding thoughtfully. Tidus, for his part, was getting very tired of telling the same story time and time again. When Auron said, "This is your story," I didn't think I'd have to tell it to every single person in…wherever the hell I am. Still, he had managed to get the telling itself down to a science, and had figured out which details were important and which ones were best left unsaid. He continued, as if reading a script in his own memory.
When he was finished, his mouth and throat felt very dry. He stopped talking and waited for Gram's analysis. When none came, he rolled his tongue to wet his mouth and said, "Well?"
"Well what?" asked Gram in a smooth voice.
"Just tell me I'm crazy and get it over with. Everyone else in the world has."
Gram tilted his head. "Do you think you're crazy?"
That caught him by surprise. Although he was sure he was being judged again, for the first time it didn't feel like it. "I…I…I don't know, anymore."
Offering a slight smile, Gram replied, "There's an old saying: 'The only people who can't be crazy are the ones who think they are.'"
"So I'm not crazy…?"
"I'll be honest with you," Gram said, shifting in his seat. "You seem to be suffering from strong post-traumatic stress, which seems to have manifested itself as hallucinations and even some psychotic episodes."
Tidus rolled his eyes. "In other words…"
"You can get better, but you'll need help."
"What…kind of help?" Tidus narrowed his eyes.
"Full psychoanalysis, not just of the time leading up to, and after, the attack on the Zanarkand stadium, but all the way back to your childhood. Also, a regimen of antipsychotics to help reduce, and possibly eliminate, the hallucinations."
"More talking and drugs, just what I wanted," Tidus muttered bitterly.
Gram raised his hand and twitched a finger. The door opened and the orderly stepped back in. He lifted Tidus off the cot and began leading him out of the room.
When they reached the hallway, Tidus suddenly shouted, "No!" He tried to break away from Firden's grip, but the large man was apparently ready for it. He held the struggling Tidus firmly, as Tidus simply grunted and growled.
"Hold him!"
Tidus felt the prick of a needle in his upper arm, and almost immediately his head began to swim. It did nothing to sap his energy, though, so he continued struggling as the world swirled before his eyes."Tidus!"
He knew that voice.
It was a female voice, but not just any female's. It was one he knew very well.
At once he stopped struggling, and when the orderly whipped him around, he saw materialize the petite face of a pretty brunette, one eye green and the other blue. She was standing a few feet away, staring into his eyes with a furrowed, worried brow. Despite the distance between them, he felt her small, warm hand reach out for the bare skin of his arm.
Around her was a sterile white hallway, but it was shimmering, as if it were made of water. This wasn't the first time she'd appeared to him in this world, but instead of trying to think through the delusion, his drugged brain let it swallow him for the moment. It was better than dealing with the whole of what seemed to be reality, at least at this moment. Choking back tears of frustration as Firden clamped down on both his arms, he croaked, "Yuna."
Yuna stared at him, her face showing more disappointment than surprise. She then glanced at Firden and Gram before turning back to him. Gram was shaking his head, but Yuna persisted. "No, Tidus, it's Celia. Do you remember me?"
Tidus brought a hand to his forehead and drew in a deep breath. He wasn't sure what he could believe anymore, except that he knew he had something that had to be said. Whether Yuna, Celia, or Seymour heard it, he at least had to get it out of his head. "Ok, look, it doesn't matter which one you are, I just need to talk to you. I think I know what's happening."
"You…do?" The voice sounded cautiously hopeful.
Tidus nodded. "Remember the fayth that gave you Bahamut?" His question was answered with a blank stare. Ignoring it, Tidus continued, "Well, he's been messing with my head. He's trying to convince me I never existed, and he's making me hallucinate to think I'm in some warped version of Zanarkand. From the past," he amended, not sure if it would help.
After a hesitation, Yuna/Celia replied, "But you do exist."
"I know!" Tidus exclaimed, giving Yuna/Celia a start. He felt Firden' ham-sized hands still on his rapidly numbing arms, but he ignored them. Instead, he focused whatever nervous energy he had left into speaking as quickly as he could. "I mean, I couldn't be here if I didn't exist. But why is he messing with me like this?"
"I…I don't know," Yuna/Celia replied truthfully. "Is there some way you can make…him…stop?"
"Make him stop?" Tidus squinted at her with utter confusion. "Yuna, he's the one that dreamed me up! I can't stop him!" He'd forced the words out so strongly that spittle formed a slight foam at the corners of his mouth. Firden's grip grew even tighter, and Tidus started to wonder if the orderly planned to tear his arms off.
Yuna/Celia blinked at him. Her mouth moved a few times, but no sound came out.
Tidus shut his eyes tightly and shook his head, trying to wipe his mouth on his shoulders. "No, you're…you said you're Celia. Right. You don't know until you become Yuna. I think."
"Tidus…I…I…" Celia's voice sounded as if she wanted to finish her statement, but she didn't. She simply sighed and hung her head.
"I think it's time to go now."
Tidus looked up at Gram, apparently giving orders to the orderly. However, the doctor's features were slightly different. He had a scar running vertically down his right eye. His glasses, which before were rectangular and clear, were now more oval-shaped and dark. His hair seemed a bit longer, and streaked here and there with gray.
"D-Doctor…Auron?" Tidus asked, his voice almost squeaky with confusion. Something is seriously wrong here. Either that fayth is still messing with me, or I've really gone nuts.
That thought quickened his breath for a moment, but the ever-spreading drugs took it away almost immediately. He lost control of his legs and felt himself slide down the cold wall toward the floor before the large orderly took up his full weight. He heard Celia gasp in surprise, and he slurred, "No…lemme go…"
"Take him to his room," Gram said with Auron's voice, and together he and Firden dragged a barely-struggling Tidus out of the waiting room, leaving behind a highly confused, nearly-at-the-breaking-point Celia.
They pulled him down the hall. Tidus thought it was a different direction from whence they'd come earlier, but the walls continued shimmering and occasionally taking on the colors of a forest, both of which made it hard for him to keep his bearings. He tried to will his arms and legs into resistance, but as far as he could tell, the connection between his brain and his limbs had been severed. "No…have to find him…he's…doing all this…have to find…why…"
As they dragged him down the hall, Tidus spied Voight. Voight, on the other hand, had apparently heard Tidus and the orderlies coming, and had flattened himself against the wall.
"Voight…not crazy…tell them I'm not…"
"Tidus, you need to stay here for a while," came Voight's voice as he gingerly attempted to follow the orderlies. "It's for your own good. We'll… we'll start the season without you."
"Stay back please, sir," said Gram, and Voight stopped following. As he struggled weakly, Tidus saw the man that had been once his friend standing there, in the middle of a shimmering green hallway, staring at him as one would gawk at a circus freak.
A moment later, they dragged him onto a room whose walls, floor, and ceiling were completely covered with some kind of white foam. Tidus stopped trying to force his limbs into motion as he observed the new place to which he'd been taken. His mind growing ever more dull, he wasn't sure whether or not he should be concerned.
Immediately the two men released him and he collapsed onto the cushiony floor. A third then entered carrying a white sack covered with straps. Though he couldn't feel them, he saw his arms being slid into the sack, and then realized that it wasn't a canvas bag.
A…straitjacket…
He considered protesting verbally, but his jaw was just a bit more numb than his thoughts, and he could will neither into action. Instead he just moaned, openmouthed, as his arms were wrapped around him. He heard some mechanical whirring, and the jacket tightened around his tingling body.
Two of the men dragged him into a corner and laid him against the wall. Then all three exited the room, leaving him, paralyzed and tightly bound, in the padded cell. He heard the door slam shut and then click.
I'm in an insane asylum, wearing a straitjacket, in a rubber room, Tidus thought grimly, in a sudden, fleeting moment of clarity. This can't get any worse.
"Hello there."
Tidus couldn't move his eyes. He was barely able to blink, and was stuck looking straight ahead at the opposite wall. But he knew the voice.
"I'd say you're in a bit of a mess," the fayth child continued.
Tidus moaned, half in agreement and half in anger. What are you doing to me? he forced his mind to think.
The fayth stuck his face in front of Tidus', so he could clearly see the knowing smile on the child's face. "Well, I suppose you deserve an explanation now, don't you?"