Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VIII
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013. Twisted
An oath.
They said he'd made an oath to me, once.
When I woke up in a room pulsating orange and crystal blue lights, with the smell of chemicals and that peculiar aseptic smell of hospitals stinging my tender nostrils, and my back acutely aware of quite how hard the bed was, they told me he'd made an oath when I first collapsed.
"He never left your side." Selphie said as she watched Irvine pass me a cup of water. Even her hair seemed to be drooping. Quistis didn't meet my eyes. Irvine handed me the water and that peculiar look of a frightened doe was in his eyes. Zell sat quietly asleep in the corner. And Squall, he was nowhere to be found. 'He never left your side', she said. That was a comfortable lie.
They told me he made an oath that he would see me cured, revived, and by his side.
"Then his oath was fulfilled." I told them, puzzled, and raring to move. My body felt renewed after a few minutes, I felt more fit and powerful than ever before.
Then they told me.
It is funny, therefore, that all these years later I sit at his side. There are blue and orange lights faintly pulsing all around. A chemical smell, one that is peculiar to the aseptic quality of hospitals, which bothers my nose. The seat feels rigid under me, and the cotton sheets are lumpy, pilled with time. He is not waking up.
Unlike last time, he isn't waking up. It was he who made the vow then - and yet now I make much the same vow. I won't leave his side, not until he is cured. Selphie sits on one side of the room, her long hair lies flat and duller than it had once been. Irvine sits on the other, pointedly conversing with Zell. Zell's face fell quiet long ago, and now he looks at the ex-marksman with stoicism. Quistis sits with Seifer, and reads. No one wants to raise their voice. No one wants to break the spell over the room. The feeling that, if anyone snaps the near silence then it will break the illusion.
At the end of Squall's bed lies a small sheet of paper affixed to a metal clipboard, scribbled over in messy handwriting. We all know what it says. No one moved to check it.
The steady beeps of the heart monitor keep me sane. Or perhaps they invite my madness. I check his face over and over for signs of life, signs of movement. Nothing.
Laguna had not come. SeeD continued as usual. Edea and Cid sent a small card, with a secretary's handwriting.
It is a cold world, and twisted. Distorted into a place of death and misery and pain.
If we had left Ultimecia in power, would it be better? It was something I often wondered. If time had not fractured as we scrambled away, if we had left fate up to the gods instead of challenging it ourselves, would we now be happier? I am unsure, but I cannot help but be bitter as I wonder.
It is a twisted world, I think, as I look disgustedly out of the grimy window to the grey sky, and reach for the metal clipboard.
Quistis lets out a small gasp, and Selphie shoots a nasty glare at Irvine, and the rings he's wearing. Petulant children, in this miserable world.
And there it is, as I had expected. The word I expected to see, written in scrawled doctor's ink-
The indecipherable word.
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