Time.
It is amazing how slowly is passes, to one said to be immortal. When the tick of a second on the clock, can seem like hours, and yet... It would not matter. No... Not at all. When years that seems like mere seconds, drift by without so much as a single breath, nothing would seem to matter, would it?
And yet, here I am, without so much as a legacy to carry on the tale of my time, wasting away without ever changing, sitting, sleeping, idly not doing anything to stop myself. Is it that I'm afraid of? Afraid that those demons will come back to haunt me yet again? Just like that time before, when that madman chose to place me here. The bastard I can't---
Vincent looked down to the furious scribbles of handwriting placed upon the crisp and dying parchment before him, his golden colored claw clutching the tiny stub of graphite he had managed to scavenge from what had become his world. A lock of flawless, unchanging ebony hair cascaded down to his chest, just as silky and shimmering as it ever had been, feeling his unchanged features and knowing not even the slightest stubble has risen.
It was sickening.
Had he a mirror, he would be unsurprised to find that even his teeth, every last one of them, were in perfect condition and still a flawless pearly white.
The man spat, his eyes flaring with vehemence at what he knew, what he knew Hojo had done, what he knew he had become.
That one time four years ago was still fresh in his mind. Ahhh, yes… Those were the days. The days when he had earnestly believed there was an escape from this mental prison, hidden deep within the bowels of the mansion, locked away in a secret place unknown to anyone but his keepers.
And never to change… he added the thought with utter disgust, tossing the stub of graphite across the room and letting it shatter to unusable pieces against the stonewall.
As a fury swept over him at his disgust for himself, the table he had used to write upon was now overturned with the pages of the decaying book strewn about the small enclosure, torn to shreds through fury and disgust, those heartfelt words of which he wrote now scattered about the ground…
Chest heaving, ire rising, the change slowly began to take over. The first of a handful of the different degrees of his insanity and blinded rage that would shift and twist him into what he was truly like within.
Vincent snarled, his face no longer his own, but of a monster beyond any words as he shifted. His build, more muscular and hunched, his hideous golden claw disappearing and twisting into sharp bestial claws that took place of nimble fingers. When he turned around a quick and heavy tail whipped round him, knocking away the overturned table and sending it to shatter into innumerable splinters.
The Galian Beast had woken within and the fiery tempered spirit would not cease its existence until sanity regained its position in the mind, and rage had dwindled back down to a more simplistic hatred, both towards self and his captors.
How he loathed them, every last one of them, only at times like these unveiling the true emotion of his soul and of his heart, unmasking the terror from within, letting it explode in a violent flare that radiated his frenzy in a moment that could be endless, but one would never know.
No, no one would ever know… There is no measurement of time in this damned place. I could destroy whatever I can get these claws on for years and Id never know, because nothing ever changes. Nothing! That bastard made it this way. Made it so there was no way to count the time. It could be nightfall and I would never know, because only darkness shrouds this room. Damn him, damn him unto the hells for eternity, although no hell would be sufficient for that bastard…!
A claw slashed against the wall, leaving nothing but duller nails behind, for it was impossible to tell if he had even made an indention.
Snarls; violent and furious, rumbled off the fanged-maw lips of the Galian monstrosity, tail whipping to and fro, destroying whatever and however he chose. Ramming into each wall did no good, for it only caused him to fall back in slight pain, rubbing the aching area before bashing again.
It was useless, his escape, for nothing would do. Nothing ever seemed to do. Whenever the lunatic came to him, Vincent was long asleep, tired from his fit of rage, and unable to condone in the fact that his route to freedom lie just behind the scientist. As the embers that burned brilliantly in his eyes died down, the Galian Beast slumped to the ground against a wall, gulping in large breaths of air that brought his lightly toned chest to rise and fall drastically, the unfitting color fading, his maw reducing to a normal, chiseled jaw-line, and his grotesque golden claw coming back to his left side.
The Galian him had died down, and he slowly returned to normal.
The blurred picture of the world around him filled his peripheral vision; each frayed edge misleading him into thinking there was more, only to find in vain that all that lie beyond was just yet another wall of stone. Hands held limp fists at each side, weakly digging into each palm to bring him back only to fail miserably out of newfound fatigue.
Useless once again, came his constant thoughts, shaking his head with a lunatic chuckle, purring off perfected lips, unburdened by time and the world.
This is what he wants me to do… He wants to watch me wallow in the despair I feel due to my incompetence. I was unable to save her; therefore, I must be the one to suffer…
The thoughts made him laugh through his insanity once more, pushing against the stone behind him, only to weakly stumble over to his coffin on shaking knees.
Ahhh, his coffin. Suppose now would be the time to reminisce upon that.
Perhaps the reason for his sleeping there was that madman's plan to capture the essence of his immortality, his inability to die. Surely that was one of the plausible cases. To hold that one picture that stared back at this wounded soul and mock him, thrusting the image of his impossible death into his face, telling him that no matter how greatly he wished for it or tried, he would never succeed.
And then there was the fact, that perhaps that said madman was doing this to taunt him. Showing him, teasing him with his little box fit for death that seemed to scream to him that he was in fact no longer living. Vincent Valentine was indeed, dead to the world. Or… So Hojo thought. In the minds of those long dead he was still alive, in the heavens and in all the hells. He lived.
But no tangible source of proving his existence… Just a few figments of a lonely man's imagination that could easily be erased from the annals of Shinra and Planet history, as he knew it. A simple flick of the wrist or snap of the fingers was all it would take to prove him wrong.
A glare was issued over to his little box for his sleep and his death all the same.
The latter thought was probably the choice of Hojo, for that sadistic, twisted, maniacal bastard worked like that. He always had.
Starting with Lucriecia and now working with him. Entwining them all in his perfect little plan involving Jenova, himself, and all his little mindless puppets. Oh, yes… Vincent knew how he worked. Perhaps too well in fact.
A smirk traced those dark untainted lips, blurred vision only aiding him enough into finding his living death bed; the velvet lined cherry wood and ebony beckoning for him to rest a bit. Slowly guiding a golden talon over the lid of his form-fitted box, all expression drained from his face as a silent vow stood in his mind:
This box will become your own in due time, Hojo… In due time, it will be your own.
Those strongly felt thoughts fresh in his head, the lid creaked open as the plots twisted into a pleasurable sadism that Vincent rather enjoyed in thinking of. All the ways to kill that man that had taken away his everything, and oh so little time… Guess he would just have to find the secret to his immortality to try every last one…