"The Moribund People"
2
"Borders and Shading"
October 30
Through the haze and the dark, the pain and the nausea, the unconscious perception and rejuvinated senses, the words faded into her ears. They were in complete harmony, and they carried such a sadness in them that, she could not help but feel a teardrop run down her cheek.
"...She took some pain and started again
Started to lose her life before my eyes
A heart that never beats for no-one else..."
"Ugh..." Selphie could let out, when she tried to speak, to ask one of the many questions that had flooded her mind suddenly. Who? How? What? When? But most important of all, where?
The singing voice stopped short, the depth was gone. Now silence took over whatever it was that surrounded them. Selphie... and the stranger in the room.
Her SeeD instincts took over her, her training in Trabia and Balamb, among other things, immediately gave her some information to where she was and in what state. Her thoughts raged on as she felt the ropes binding her. But the knots that she felt were in perfect symmetry. An alignment she knew so well, an alignment she enjoyed just too much. Hogtied. Beneath her was a wooden floor. Her clothes were still intact. Her hair was disheveled and her light makeup was smeared across her face. She wasn't bruised, but her limbs were aching due to inactivity and being tied.
"So, you've come to..."
Selphie moved her head slightly, as much as she could manage to see a pair of black shoes, with square soles and black, classical-cut pants that united with those shoes. The shoes were in a position that made her understand that the owner had probably crossed his legs, or had been sitting on a ledge.
"Who the hell... are you..?" Selphie managed to get out. Her throat was dry, and it was pressuring the words out rather than speaking them.
"You truly don't know..?" the stranger asked in return.
Selphie's ears put some amount of recognition into her mind, but not complete. Something was missing, something that wasn't supposed to be there was there, something was misplaced. She could not quite put her finger on it. Somewhat strange, somewhat foreign to her, but, at the same time, somewhat familiar.
Selphie decided to shift her position, and take a look upwards. By managing to move herself a little, her eyes met the black t-shirt covering the torso of the stranger; the long, black trench coat that covered his body. And upwards, was disheveled, shoulder-length brown hair and two orbs of pure ice; made of helplessness and lack of guidance. Those eyes full of loneliness and pain; two broken windows.
And in between the eyes, rested a scar she knew as well as the style of bondage applied to her.
"Squall!" Selphie gasped, "It's you!"
"Is it?" he asked.
Squall then picked her up, using the ropes, and placed her onto a nearby table. Like an appendege, like a lamp, or a dinner plate. He walked to the window, and then, sat alongside the ledge, looking through the broken window.
"What are you doing, Squall?" Selphie asked, ignoring the feeling rushing back at her, and sheer thrill of being helpless giving her a fresh spike of life; not just her, but her desires as well. "Destroying SeeD wasn't enough? Destroying our lives wasn't enough? Taking away the world as it was wasn't enough? WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?"
"I just want to wake up." Squall said.
Selphie found confusion in her waking thoughts; those that needed to be embraced and those that were excess at that moment. She jumped through the excess, jumped through her aging, jump through her lust, and found rationality. She had to pursue it. She had to ask.
"To wake up?"
"Have you ever had a dream that you were sure it was forever..? A dream from which there is no waking... a dream where you watch yourself, trapped beneath a cage made of the fourth walls, watching yourself do what you are doing, hating yourself for it? Screaming to stop yourself, begging to wake up... never awakening. I am not sure whether this life is a dream, or that other life was one. I felt myself awaken, I felt myself sleep, I felt myself want to sleep. And then, finally, sleep took me. And it didn't release me. I tiptoed the borders and the shading, that blurred line between awakening and sleep. I felt myself sleep. I can't wake up. I see myself there, lying in that dark grave, and I'm screaming at myself, at the top of my lungs. Screaming to me, 'Wake up'. Just... wake up."
"What does all that mean?"
"I am trying to wake up. I can't. I know I'm sleeping. I know this is a dream that I'm trying to make real. And all of you - you, Quistis, Zell, Irvine... all are keeping me from awakening. Guarding the door. The door I'm trying to find. To let myself out. To let myself awaken."
"This isn't a dream, Squall! This is reality! You are not sleeping!"
"Can you show me the fine line between reality and a dream..?" Squall asked, his voice wandering off, lost in a story of its own, "Can you teach me how to drown..?"
"To drown..?"
"Yes, to drown. I'm floating in the dream, refusing to sink down. Refusing to break my wings... If I can drown in reality, maybe I can wake up... maybe this dream - no, this nightmare can end then."
"Squall you... you know if it's a dream or not. You feel it... you-you know it somehow, through and through." Selphie could say, thinking of what could be said to get herself out of his grasp.
He clearly is mad! Insane! Off his head! I must... get out... I have to get out of here!
Selphie felt panic rise to her throat, take her vocal chords and force out a desperate scream; despite herself, she was struggling to shake loose the bonds, to find the ground with her feet in order to get up, to run, to get away and put some distance between herself and this... man... that she didn't know. That she feared that she knew once. That she feared she still knew. However, panic was more destructive than productive to her, with each movement, with each struggle, the bonds were tightening. A sudden feeling of immense claustrophobia came over to her. The walls were approaching each other; the ground rising, the ceiling falling. She couldn't breathe. Her breath was stuck in her throat. It wasn't coming in; nor was it going out. She was losing her life, her vision was blurred until a sharp voice stopped her.
"Stop that..."
Selphie suddenly felt herself exhale; and her entire life escaped with that breath - visions of the past, words of the present and... abstract shapes that may have belonged to the future flooded her mind. She could feel herself being overwhelmed in this war where there were no trenches, no clear sides, no battleground or flags to represent the sides which collided with such intensity that shook her from her head to her toes.
"Squall... let me loose... please..."
"Can you show me the line..? Can you... can you draw me the line?"
"Please..."
"CAN YOU?"
Squall's foot landed on Selphie's head, and Selphie felt her nose collide with the wooden floor, breaking, starting to bleed.
"DRAW ME THIS LINE!"
Squall's foot continued to rise and fall onto her head, all the time, all Selphie could hear was the screams, the sounds of her own head starting to crack. All she could feel was her own teeth breaking one by one, her jaw being dislocated, her nose being punched back, her forehead collapsing, her own pain her own pain her own
The line... it's there...
Selphie was feeling her own skull cracking and her spinal chord slipping away her throat being shattered her own mind collapsing upon itself and he was screaming something that she could not hear or see or feel or taste or touch or smell or take or give or let out and in the end with all the promises and the strength in the world she was just feeling nothing as if that was what it was just nothing
NOTHING
Author's Notes: Yeah, took me forever to write this, I know. But I just want this piece to be special, because it probably is my final FFVIII fanfic. The song Squall is singing (and will continue to sing) is Charon's hit "Little Angel". I chose the song due to its closeness with how Squall saw Rinoa; as an angel. As for the title ofthis chapter, I sought to use the name of an In Flames song, which had the line; "You're so far behind, be my hero; drift away. Save yourself, don't end up zero; coz I look the other way.". Not to get stuck on quotes, but I also used a Static-X quote; sort of. Taken from the song, "Love Dump" . Last but not least, probably, the biggest inspiration came from Dream Theater's song Panic Attack; "All wound up, on the edge, terrified". THE LAST PART OF THE CHAPTER MAY NOT, I REPEAT, MAY NOT BE USED IN ANY WAY.