Tearing at my Soul
Chapter Two
"Aeris...?"
She didn't look at him... it was almost as if she didn't hear him. But why would she do that? He loved her, she loved him... how could she not hear him? Her head turned slightly, only to look ahead of her... to look at the hallway before her. Then slowly, she stepped forward. Cloud watched, noticing that as her feet left the ground, the flowers that surrounded her burst into ashes, then faded away. His soul jumped... for a split second, almost instinctively, something told him that her frame would meet the same fate as the flowers. To burst into ashes and fly away from his sight, back into nothingness...
"Aeris! Wait!" Cloud cried, running towards the hallway.
She didn't stop walking… it was as if she didn't hear him. Cloud sprinted faster, rounding the corner of the hallway and charging full speed down a very narrow passage. He couldn't lose her; he couldn't let her get away. Something deep within his heart told him that if he lost her this time, if he let her go right here and now, he would never be able to find her again. Was this what he was looking for? The reason he followed the "capturing images of ghosts" rumors so seriously?
Cloud soon discovered that the passage led to another narrow hallway to his right. As he approached it, an invisible force seemed to have stopped him in his tracks. His eyes widened as he looked ahead of him…
Aeris had stopped walking.
His eyes fell down to her feet… the flowers hadn't returned.
When he rose his head, he watched as her finger began to tremble slightly. Aeris lowered her head, then turned it slightly, almost as if to glance over her shoulder. Cloud wanted to move, he wanted to run towards her, place his hands on her shoulders, turn her around and embrace her tightly. But every inch of his body seemed to be paralyzed, freezing him in place against his will.
Slowly... eeriely slowly, her head began to lift. Shivers crawled along Cloud's spine like fleeing spiders. There was something wrong about all of this... the way she moved... her silence... it seemed so soulless...
That's when it hit him. A sharp, piercing pain jolted through him like a sword through the heart. Cloud winced, hissing in pain as the sharpness transformed into an acidic burn. Just as the burning began, a pulse was sent throughout the hallways, in the air, in the walls, everywhere. A tremor in the air that soon began to shake the house as if an earthquake had come. Through wincing eyes, Cloud watched as the tremors shook Aeris's image... yet she didn't lose her balance. She didn't fall or stumble... she was so eerily still. Had Cloud's eyes scanned the hallway, he would've noticed the walls morphing and changing shape and color, from white to charcoal black...
He would've noticed, had he taken his eyes off of her...
Snow...
A gentle, haunting silence filled the atmosphere of this place as the snow softly danced down from the sky. Everything about this place was soulless... not one bit of liveliness. A ridiculously enormous mansion... almost a shrine of some sort. Cloud's eyes lowered from the skies and the rooftops of the buildings onto the scenery before him. At first, he thought he was in a garden of some sort. There were trees and shrubs, dead from the snow of course, and some evidence of past gardening. Then his eyes fell to the far right...
Gravestones...
Thousands of them...
"This place... where am I...?"
The thought nearly terrified him. One moment, he was taking pictures in a house that was supposively haunted. And now he found himself in this place... wherever it was. Inhaling deeply, Cloud began to move forward. There was a large door ahead, leading into this strange place. Maybe somebody lived here, someone who could give him directions back to Corel. He knew Tifa would be angry with him if he just left out of the blue, and Barret certainly wouldn't make matters better.
But a deep, cold feeling within his stomach told him that he was probably mistaken. That there was probably nobody living in this mansion.
Opening the doors, Cloud stepped into the house. The first thing to catch his eye was the several sliding doors subsituting for walls in a small uprised portion of the room. Although they were pushed close together, a few large gaps were placed here and there, allowing him to peer into the blocked off room. No sooner did he step forward, his soul seemed to jump.
A man appeared...
Cloud gazed through the gap between the sliding doors. The man, dressed in traditional ancient kimonos, had his back to him. His head was looking down at the floor... and he seemed to be trembling. Cloud's eyes slid down the man's body, and his heart seemed to skip a beat then and there.
The man was carrying a cleaver...
A cleaver dripping with fresh blood.
Before Cloud had a moment to draw his sword, kick down those sliding doors and confront the man, his figure vanished. He was no longer standing in that room, and it was at that moment when one saying seemed to replay in Cloud's mind.
Be careful what you wish for...
He was disappointed that he didn't get to see the ghosts... now, he was dead certain that he had crossed paths with one. Patting his pantleg, he felt the camera safe in his front pocket. He slipped it out and held onto it tightly as he moved through the hallway around the uprised portion of the room. Another door appeared before him, and without a moment's hesitation, he pushed them open. He had entered a much larger room, filled with more sliding doors, several dressers and wardrobes, even a staircase leading to the next floor. Moving forward, Cloud scanned the room, turning in every direction and allowing his eyes to scan the manor. There seemed to be nothing here... he had to admit, it was a very handsome looking room, but still, the shivers crawled along his spin and that coldness refused to leave the pit of his stomach.
He wasn't supposed to be here... he could feel it.
Then something moved in the cornor of his eye. Whipping around, Cloud's heart pounded at a furious rate. He was almost certain the organ itself would burst out from his chest if this haunted, terrifying feeling didn't end. But his eyes widened and his exhaling breaths were released in uneasy quivers.
A woman was walking down a hallway before him... walking away from him... Aeris...
Instinctively, Cloud sprinted towards the hallway, but came to a stop when her form vanished. That's when another figure was caught in the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he peered over his shoulder, only to whip around with his camera in his hand.
A woman, standing in a tiny room to his left, dressed in traditional burgundy kimonos. Beside her was a little girl...
Cloud took aim with his camera, pushed the button, and the flash flickered throughout the dark room. They seemed to be watching him... appearing to get a glimpse of this stranger... but their eyes were blank. Blank... and dead. They continued to stare at him with those dead eyes until both of their forms vanished. Cloud took a step back, glanced at the camera in his hands, then shook his head to clear his thoughts. His head turned down the hallway... Aeris's figure had disappeared before another door. Perhaps she was leading him somewhere...
He was willing to take that chance. He ran down the hallway, opening the door, leading him into another room. To his right was a large barred window that showed another roomful of hallways and passages. On the otherside was a woman, staring blankly ahead of her.
"Another one..." Cloud whispered, taking aim with the camera and capturing the image of the woman before her figure vanished.
Cloud kept his eyes on the barred window the entire time as he slowly passed through the hallway. He took many twists and turns before finding his way to another door, leading him to another garden. Before him was a tree, surrounded by many impaled red dolls. Several smaller tombstones were on display before the tree as well, and he took notice that a wooden deck surrounded the garden in a rectangular formation. One the smaller sides of the rectangles were hallways leading to other doors. To the side of the rectangle adjacent to him was a large door...
Where her figure appeared again... walking towards it before vanishing.
"Aeris..." he whispered to himself.
Cloud ran across the deck, making his way pass one of the tunnels, when...
"Stay with us... forever..."
Cloud stopped dead in his tracks. His body whipped around, then fell onto the figure of a small girl. He gasped at her appearance... a tiny little girl, possibly no older than Marlene, wearing kimonos much like the others. Long black hair dropped to her knees... and her eyes stared up into his. She gave him the most sinister of smiles which lasted for some time. Even when Cloud took aim with the camera and took her picture, that deadly, evil smile on her face had no altercations. Even when she vanished, her expressions did not change...
Turning away from the tunnel, Cloud approached the doors. It lead him to a hallway that soon made his was to a rather large staircase. But to his right was another hall, leading to many different rooms. Which path did Aeris take... which one was the right path?
His answer came to him as his heart pounded furiously from the shock and terror that had come rushing at him so suddenly. The man from before, the one with the cleaver, had found him. His body had appeared within the hallway, and as his furious eyes narrowed onto Cloud, he began sprinting in his direction with the cleaver raised. Cloud jumped like a frightened cat, his hand reaching for his sword and withdrawing it instinctively. He too, rushed forward and with a powerful swing of the sword managed to slice through the walls of the hallways and passing through the man.
The cleaver man was unharmed... Cloud was not so fortunate.
A loud scream of pain escaped Cloud as a sharp, burning pain struck him in his shoulder. The cleaver man, screaming in rage had brought the blade down on Cloud's shoulder. Cloud fell to the floor, grasping his wound and hissing in pain. The cleaver man leapt back, still gripping his weapon tightly, his furious eyes telling Cloud right away that he was ready to strike again.
"He's a ghost... my sword won't hurt him..." Cloud whispered to himself.
The cleaver man gave yet another roar of anger, then sprinted towards him again. This time, Cloud sprung up to his feet, snatched his sword, then sprinted in the other direction. He found himself running up the stairway, which lead to another door. Rather than bother with the knobs and door handles, Cloud kicked down the door and was sent flying through the air, only to crash onto snow-covered soil. He landed outside, in another garden-type part of the mansion. Turning his head over his shoulder, a wave of relief passed through him when the cleaver man had vanished.
When he looked forward... he saw her again.
Aeris's figure, walking through the garden... making her way towards the doors...
"Wait! Aeris! There's still something... something I need to tell you!"
Cloud's stammering cries went unacknowledged as Aeris's frame once again vanished before his eyes. Wincing slightly from the wound in his shoulder, he slowly rose to his feet, and once again began to run towards the doors. When his hand rested on the handle of the large, steel doors before him, the cold feeling returned and he could hear his heart pounding in his ears. Something bad was behind these doors... he could feel it. He could sense it... but, why would Aeris lead him into something dangerous? He knew she never wanted anything harmful to come to him... maybe she needed his help again. In some way, maybe he needed to help her. If that was the case, he was willing to take on anything that was behind these doors.
But even when the door was creaking open and his figure was stepping into the newest part of the mansion, the fear within his soul did not abandon him. He knew that he was going into a dangerous place...
Another hallway... but this one was different from the others. Many purple floral-printed cloths were hanging from the ceiling, and although there were no windows and the doors were closed, a breeze gushed through the hallways and allowed the cloths to dance in the wind. Cloud didn't move... it was as if he was frozen in place once again, like he had been in the hallway before. He didn't know why he was so relunctant to move... but then his answer came to him once again.
A figure appeared, enwrapped and surrounded by the fluttering and dancing cloths. Soft footsteps echoed throughout the walls of the hallway, and Cloud's eyes focused on what lay before him. At first, all he saw were shadows... all he heard was the wind blowing and footsteps. His heartbeat began to throb in his ears, in his temples, in his veins. Never once did he ever feel so terrified, even when he watched Nibelheim burst into flames or when he and his friends decended into the Northern Crater to defeat Sephiroth and Jenova, he didn't feel as terrifed as he did now. He was in unfamiliar territory... he didn't know how to handle the enemies now.
The footsteps grew louder, and with them, the figure in the shadows began to take shape and color. Shades of black and glowing blue were painted onto the shadowy figure as it approached Cloud.
His eyes widened...
His body began to tremble...
The figure was drawing closer and closer...
Then it vanished.
The creature, the figure in the shadows... whatever it was, it was gone. Cloud was left staring at the flowing cloths and nothing more...
Until it reappeared two inches infront of his body. All he heard was a painful, croaking noise that sounded like a human choking. All he saw was a large, widened, soulless eye...
A gasp escaped from Cloud's lungs as his eyes snapped open. He was now laying on the floor... his eyes gazed at the ceiling. Lifting his head, he noticed that he had been stripped of his clothing. Every inch of him was revealed, save for his abdomin that was covered with a white cloth. His eyes also noticed that his limbs were extended and bent in a strange formation, and although his arms and legs trembled and twitched, an invisible forced seemed to be holding him down. There were no bindings, no ropes or chains to hold him down... and yet, he felt as if he had been tied down or held down.
He blinked once... in that moment, he discovered he was no longer alone in the room.
Four little girls appeared in the room. All four dressed the same as the little girl he saw at the tree. All four of them hauntingly identical to each other. Each with the same dark eyes and ash colored faces. Each carrying the same, sinister, evil smile upon their mouths. But Cloud's eyes widened when he saw what they held in their hands...
Hammers... and spikes...
His heart pounded so loud he thought for sure he heard the beatings echoing throughout the walls. But at the same time, as his heart beat faster and furiously, a dark blue design began to take form. At first, it looked as if he had a light gray rash on his chest and neck... but when he felt his heart beat faster, the rash began to grow. And as it grew, spreading across his pale chest and leading into his arms and legs, it grew darker. It was almost like a cancer... just spreading and expanding to no end.
The four girls circled around him, taking their positions. One girl per limb. In unison, the four knelt down just as the rashes began to cover his face.
Cloud couldn't breathe... he couldn't think... he couldn't move.
He watched as the girls placed the tip of the spikes onto the palms of his hands and ontop of his ankles.
He watched, as the rash began to move towards his eyes.
He watched as the four girls rose their hammers, still firmly gripping the spike in place...
"Someone...somebody... help me..."
He watched as the hammers decended...
"HELP ME!"