"How are you doing?" Selphie asked Tessa as she closed the bathroom door. Tessa was sitting on the toilet, shivering. "Are you okay?"
Selphie turned over a bucket and sat on it. There was a clean washcloth sitting on top of a clean towel inside the shower. Zell had clearly been about to take a shower when she had knocked on his door.
"I'm sure he won't mind," Selphie said as she leaned over and grabbed the cloth from the bottom of the shower. She stood up and made the three-step walk to the sink. She turned on the hot water and soaked the cloth. After shutting the water off and wringing out the cloth, Selphie sat back down on the bucket and grabbed Tessa's face. She made to wipe of a large patch of blood from Tessa's chin, but the younger girl jerked away.
"I'm sorry," Tessa said in a brittle whisper.
"Hey, there's no need to be sorry, you kicked that guy's ass!" Selphie tried to say cheerfully. She reached out and wiped a blood smear from Tessa's forehead.
"But I killed him!" Tessa said loudly in a horrified voice. "And I didn't save the SeeD!"
"Hey, we can't save everybody," Selphie said as she wiped another blood spot from Tessa's face. Then she grabbed Tessa's left hand and began to scrub it with the cloth. "Besides, you did save me."
"Selphie?" Zell said in an unsure tone as he knocked on the other side of the door. "Irvine's here, he wants to see you."
"Excuse me," Selphie said as she slapped the cloth into Tessa's bloody hands and walked out of the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and Tessa soon heard muffled voices emanating through the wood.
Tessa shook her head, the fog shrouding her mind lifting away. She stood up, the cooling cloth still in her grasp. Standing up, she walked over to the mirror and stared long and hard at herself.
My god, she thought as she touched her blood-drenched face. She gasped when she saw that her hands were completely covered with blood as well. Need to know what's going on.
Dropping the cloth in the sink, Tessa turned away from the mirror and grabbed the doorknob. She opened the door and walked out in all of her bloody glory. Selphie and Zell turned around to look at her, but Irvine merely tipped his hat.
"How are you, Lil Lady?" he asked. Tessa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. "Are you still scared?"
"Shut the hell up!" Tessa exploded. She pushed Selphie and Zell out of her way so that she could look right in his face. "I'm not your Little Missy, Lady, or anything else, you stupid man. You are nothing to me, and that's all you'll ever be. So just shut up and leave me the hell alone!"
Tessa pushed Irvine with all of her strength and he fell backward, tripping over some magazines and landing on the bed. The angry woman stood over him for a few seconds, her nostrils flared, and then she turned away and opened the door to the hallway.
She walked down the surprisingly empty hallway until she reached the commons. She looked down one long walkway to her left and another to her right. She knew that if she took either they would circle around to the lobby, but she wanted to go to the cafeteria.
Trying to remember the way, Tessa turned left. She rubbed at her hands, trying to get some of the blood to come off when she saw the doorway leading to the garage.
"Shit!" Tessa yelled loudly. She turned around and ran back the way she had come, again passing the dorms. By the time she got back to the cafeteria hallway, it was full of bodies trying to push through and see the carnage.
"Move it, let me through!" Tessa yelled, though no one listened. She grabbed a couple of girls in student uniforms and pushed them out of her way. Moving with the seething mass, she slowly made her way to the forefront of the crowd.
Standing in front of the doors and keeping out the students and SeeDs alike were Raijin and Fujin. Tessa tried to catch their attention, but they had their hands full with everyone else.
"Hey, hey, make way!" an authoritative voice rang out, one that Tessa recognized. She turned around and saw Seifer striding through the crowd, followed by Headmaster Cid and another young man.
The young man was wearing black jeans and a white t-shirt. Over the shirt he was wearing a black leather jacket and on his hands and feet he wore black leather gloves and boots. On his left ring finger was a ring with a monster on it that Tessa was sure she had seen before. It didn't take the gunblade in the same hand to alert her as to who he was, though. She was staring at Squall Leonhart.
Raijin and Fujin pushed open the doors and the two men strode through. The doors swung shut on their backs and Tessa was again awestruck. She had just seen the SeeD that had saved the world from Ultimecia. For a moment, she had even forgotten why she was even trying to get into the cafeteria.
Again the doors opened and Seifer stepped out and started talking to Raijin, but Tessa couldn't hear what he was saying over the murmurs of everyone else. Fujin looked over the crowd and saw Tessa standing there, still covered in blood. She leaned over and tapped on Seifer's shoulder and pointed at Tessa.
Seifer narrowed his eyes and walked over to Tessa, who held her breath out of nerves. "Are you the medic?"
"Yes," Tessa said weakly.
"Where is Selphie Tilmitt, the SeeD that was present during the incident?"
"In the dorms," Tessa answered him as truthfully as she could.
"Which dorm?" Seifer asked, irritated.
"I don't remember," she said as she stared at her feet.
"Figures," Seifer said angrily. "Get in there, the Headmaster and his Golden-Boy want to see you."
"Yes, Sir," Tessa said as she walked past him and to the swinging doors. She was pushing through them as Seifer yelled at her.
"Oh, and thanks for helping. You were so useful," he shouted sarcastically. Tessa stopped momentarily and closed her eyes. She shook her head, opened her eyes, and continued on her way.
The two bodies lay exactly where she had seen them last. The woman in the white coat had the Headmaster pulled aside and was talking to him when Tessa walked in. She didn't find out what it was about, though, because when Cid saw her he broke away from the conversation and approached the nervous young student.
His eyes were wide in shock, which Tessa attributed to the conditions of their meeting. "Miss Matleo, it was you?" he said in a shocked tone. "You performed the procedure on Mr. Rush?"
"Who?" Tessa asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Our unfortunate victim," Cid said with a gesture to the dead SeeD. Though he was speaking to her, he was avoiding her eyes. Tessa began wringing her hands.
"Yes, sir, I attempted an emergency tracheotomy, but it failed. I had neither the equipment nor the expertise to do the procedure accurately," Tessa said with a touch of regret in her voice.
"Why?" Cid asked, looking past her and at the doors that kept the curious mass of people out of the cafeteria.
"It was a split-second decision. If we had attempted to move him there would have been more, possibly irreparable, damage. And if we had waited for this Dr. Kadowaki to show up, he would have suffocated on his blood, which was pulling in his larynx," Tessa said as she listed off what she could remember.
"Raijin told me that the killer went after Selphie Tilmitt, a trained SeeD, but that you pushed her out of the way and struck him, causing his death. Why would you, a student, get between a SeeD and an attacker?" Cid asked as he continued to stare at the doors.
"Well, Sir, I had noticed Selphie holding nunchuks earlier and guessed that she had received her training with them. However, when she was targeted she did not have her nunchuks on her, so I did what I thought was best."
"Yes, well, I'll take these factors into consideration," Cid said. Tessa raised both her eyebrows in shock at the Headmaster's words.
"Consideration of what?" Tessa asked.
"Oh, it's nothing to concern yourself with," Cid said as he waved her off. Tessa stepped aside and the woman in the white coat stepped up to him.
Tessa looked around and saw Squall leaning against a pillar, half-obscured by a potted plant. Tessa walked over to the body of the attacker and knelt next to it. She felt the neck, and when she reached the bumps she knew that she was right in her earlier thoughts.
I broke his neck! She thought. But that's not plausible; I know I'm not that strong.
There was a bad stench emanating from the body that she hadn't noticed before. It was incredibly strong and made her eyes water. She set both hands on his face, which was oddly cold. Not this soon, she thought. His body should still be warm.
She moved his face and looked on both sides, not sure what she was looking for. Then she moved her gaze down to his hands, which were badly scratched. She lifted one and pushed the sleeve of the red windbreaker jacket he was wearing off of his arm. She saw only more scratches, so she let it fall. Then she lifted the other hand, which was also scratched, and pushed the sleeve back on this one. Then she found something that caught her eye.
The arm was covered in scratches, just like the other one, but there was a small sore on it that seemed to have grown infected with something that she hadn't seen in her three years of study medicine at Lotia Garden. Yet, as diseased as it was, Tessa recognized the wound. It was very similar to the one she had just treated. The attacker had been bitten too, just not to the same degree.
Tessa looked back at the man's face and made to close his eyes when she noticed something odd about them. They weren't a normal colour like blue or brown; these eyes were red. Tessa bit her lip and stared at the eyes for what seemed like hours, but only have been seconds. Then the eyes moved and focused on her, and the mouth began to move in a biting fashion.
"Aaah!" Tessa screamed at the top of her lungs, catching the attention of everyone else in the cafeteria. She jerked her hand away from the cadaver's face and scooted away from the body. Within a second Squall was at her side, looking at her face, but she was still staring at the moving head.
"What is it?" he asked in a deep voice, brushing a lock of red hair from her face.
Tessa couldn't speak, she just pointed at the head, which was still moving about. "Headmaster!" Squall yelled. "Dr. Kadowaki!"
Cid and the woman in the white coat rushed over to where Squall and Tessa were, and they too stared with horrified looks at the scene before them.
"What's going on?" Tessa asked Cid, but he looked at Dr. Kadowaki. "What is this?"
"Any ideas, Doctor?" Cid asked the woman in the white coat.
"I've never seen this before," Dr. Kadowaki said as she took off her glasses, wiped them on her coat, and put them back on. She had a disappointed look on her face, like she had been expecting to find the head still like it should have been. "I've never even read about it."
"Sir, we heard a scream and…" a man's voice said. Tessa turned around and saw Seifer rush into the room, followed by Selphie. "Wait, what's so interesting about a dead body?"
Squall stood up and moved so that the new arrivals could see what was occurring. Seifer merely narrowed his eyes, but Selphie turned away and began to puke on the floor.
"What the hell is that?" Seifer asked as he raised his right hand and pointed at the head. "Is this some kind of a joke?"
"It's no joke, we don't know what it is," Squall said as he lifted he his gunblade. He laid the dull side of it against his shoulder.
In the confusion, Tessa slipped away and crawled to the nearby body of the SeeD known as Rush. She looked over his wound, wiping away the blood so that she could better see the damage. It was hard to tell where he had been bitten and Tessa had cut away the skin, but when she delved deeper she found that the area where the vocal cords had been ripped out by the attacker's teeth was already showing severe signs of infection.
Tessa stood up and wiped her hands on her pants, smearing them even further with blood that had begun to coagulate. She started to walk away when she a groaning sound from behind her. She whipped around and saw the SeeD slowly climbing to his feet.
She was too stunned to think and everyone else was still staring, transfixed, at the other body whose head was missing. Forget that! She thought. There's a whole dead body moving right here!
Tessa looked around and saw Selphie's nunchuks lying behind the SeeD. She ran and dove past it, hitting the ground and rolling. She swept her leg under his, knocking him back down. He grabbed her leg and tried to bite her, but she kept kicking at his head.
Struggling to reach the nunchuks that were at her fingertips, and not get bitten in the process, Tessa let out a shriek that caught the attention of everyone else in the room. The adults stood gaping, and Seifer joined Selphie in her puking party, but Squall leaped into action. He kicked the dead SeeD in the ribs, but it was ineffective.
Tessa kicked the SeeD's head again and stretched her fingers out to the nunchuks. Squall lifted his gunblade and drove it into the lower back of the SeeD, but it didn't even slow the SeeD down. Tessa's fingers finally made contact with one of the nuchuku and she rolled it to where she could get a grip.
Kicking again, Tessa lashed out with the nunchuk, but only hit her own leg instead of the thing clutching at her leg. Squall pulled his gunblade out of the SeeD and struck again, this time hitting one of the arms of the dead SeeD. The gunblade slid right through the arm, separating it completely from the body.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the arm that housed the hand grasping onto Tessa's leg with inhuman strength. Tessa kicked again but missed, instead striking the hand. This gave the SeeD and opening to go after her leg. It bit down but only got a mouthful of the pants. Tessa kicked again, this time as hard as she could, and pushed the SeeD's head back, tearing a large patch of her pants out.
The SeeD spat out the pants and if it weren't for the fact that Tessa was holding his head back with her foot, he would surely have bitten her. Then, in a flash, the SeeD's head rolled off his body and onto Tessa's chest. She grabbed it by the hair and threw it at the wall, a trail of blood falling onto the floor after it.
"Here," Squall said, offering Tessa a hand. She ignored it and kicked the now-limp body off. She climbed to her feet and unsteadily stood.
After regaining her sense of balance, Tessa walked over to the decapitated head that lay against a wall, a surprisingly large pool of blood spilling from it. She grabbed it by the hair and lifted it up. She held the dead face up to her own pale one. Then she turned the head to face the rest of the cafeteria, it lips moving silently and its mouth clearly trying to bite Tessa. Its eyes were a vivid red and they were rapidly moving from person to person.
Tessa cleared her throat and tried to speak in a strong voice, though she knew she wasn't being very convincing. "Would someone please tell me just what the fuck is going on here?"