"The Moribund People"
6
"Dial 595-Escape"
November 3
...That was when Irvine stepped up. From the corner he had hid in; from his hiding place. He straightened his cowboy hat, and cocked the hammer of his Exeter backwards. His steps started to echo. Step by step by step, he approached Squall Leonhart... or what this man once was in his mind. Now, his green eyes only saw a broken man; the edge of sanity and the core of insanity; all placed together in this black creature... this hollow shell of a man who still carried a gunblade alongside with him.
"Squall!" he called out.
Squall's head turned towards Irvine. Slowly, the strands of his hair gave way for his eyes. Irvine shivered as they made eye-contact through the darkness. His face; contorted in fear, loss, agony and sorrow, revealed a pair of ice-blue eyes... standing in their sockets like the sphere mirrors; broken, shattered to pieces. The mind behind it was no more; it was consumed and destroyed. Utterly and completely.
"Irvine..?" Squall asked, his voice tearing through the rain.
"It's me... It's just you and me now."
"I guess, that's true."
A lightning lit up the Garden very briefly, the blinding light causing Irvine to lose sight of Squall for a split second. When the light faded, Irvine's eyes saw the smile on his lips.
And the gun, now separated from the blade, in his hand.
"Do you want to live..?" Squall asked, his eyes growing hazy and distant.
"What?" Irvine asked, in blind confusion.
"If you want to live, pick up your phone, and dial 595 - ESCAPE. That's the only way, Irvine. Get away before I can find you and destroy you."
"No." Irvine refused.
"Did it not come clearly? Did I not make myself clear to you? Run, or die. The choice, is yours."
Irvine watched him, and saw himself. A vigilante, a lonely soldier. Both with guns; ready to go off, and pointing at each other. They were very much alike. But the denial he had bred inside of himself, stood up for the acceptance of their fates, and their positions.
A war inside themselves.
"Pull the trigger." Squall snickered, suddenly.
The warm silence was shattered to pieces.
"What?" Irvine responded.
"Come on, pull it! What's the matter? Your balls fell short?"
"I don't want to kill you..."
"That's too bad."
"Is it?"
"Yeah..."
Squall's arm suddenly relaxed and his arm lowered itself; removing the crossair from Irvine's face. Irvine found enough courage to sigh in relief.
"...cause, after all the shit Selphie pulled with Zell, I thought you, of all people would want your reward for their deaths. You know..."
"What... are you talking about?"
"Oh, you don't know? Oh come on, Irv; have a heart. You are really that much of a stranger to the more extremes? Like, say, BDSM?"
"What?"
"Yeah. Selphie found out that she was a sub; as in, submissive. And Zell, well... hell, he turned out to be a dom, as in, dominative. They both enjoyed the ropes and the whips; and the more rough action after."
"That's not true..."
"Check their rooms, will ya? But, no matter now. You see, we are one in the same."
"You..."
"Yeah... like me, you don't have the love of your life in life anymore."
Irvine felt anger erupt in him; like a devilish flame, it set ablaze his mind, and took over his senses. His face started to burn; and his finger tightened on the trigger.
"THAT WAS YOU!" Irvine screamed.
The gunshot blasted apart within the darkness, and the bullet tore through the air; swirling, and bouncing off the raindrops that collided with it. With determination, the bullet entered Irvine's right shoulder blade, and the impact made him take a shabby step backwards; trying to hold onto his balance, and to tolerate the pain that had exploded all across his arm.
Squall's calm, serene, and intensely superior smile started to come at Irvine; he saw that smile close in, as Squall was now closing in the distance between them with great haste. Irvine tried to lift his gun; but there wasn't enough space between them to take a shot. Uselessly, he continued that motion until Squall's hand gripped the back of his head, throwing the hat off it. Squall's free hand punched away Irvine's rifle, and Irvine found the barrel of Squall's gun in his mouth.
"Hello, Irvy!" Squall squeaked in a perfect imitiation of Selphie's voice; "Remember me? I'm your little whore!" Squall's snarl was as vicious as the gun in Irvine's mouth; "I broke her skull to pieces; shattered that beautiful face before I noticed that all that filth that filled her up was making her what she was! Her endless feed on passion and lust brought her to a point where she could not have fucking seen what I had in mind for her! And you! You with you stupid fucking thoughts and blindness in every aspect showed me the way you all ignored my true love for the pain it brought; YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
Another gunshot blasted apart his words; taking the echoes away.
Squall waited until the convulsions ceased. Then, he let the shattered skull of Irvine down; and watched it hit the floor, uselessly. The large hole that had been opened from the inside, revealed pieces of his jaw, his shattered spine, bits of his brain and blood and broken skin. His eyes, were still open with fear. His body was now being cleaned by the rain.
Squall opened up his arms to the sides; as if he was inviting something to embrace him. And then, he screamed the name he had kept inside of himself for so long.
"QUISTIS!"