Disclaimer: All characters and places belong to Square-Enix, except for one, which is my own character.
A/N: This is unedited, so please forgive any bad writing habits of mine such as repeating the same word in a sentence, putting random commas everywhere, and so on.
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Chapter 2:
Nightmares and Memories
The tall and forbidding building loomed over the little girl as she gazed up at it. Just a little while ago, it had instilled a fear in her that all children living in Midgar had possessed: a fear of Shinra's power, and of its inhumanity. But now, that fear was gone. Since the capture of her parents, she had no fear, because she no longer had anything to lose. Or so she thought.
Methodically, she scanned the building to find a crack in security that might allow her to slip through. It was a freezing winter's day, and she knew that her old and worn clothes could cause suspicion. She had no coat, no hat. Worse than that, it was beginning to snow. If she did not find a way in soon, she would either be caught by a blizzard or a guard.
Then, she saw her opportunity. A crowd of workers hurried towards the building, trying to escape the cold. Even though stern guards ringed the premises, she had to hope that they would not see her through so many people.
Slipping into the crowd, she was relieved to find that many of them had robotic companions- some shaped like cats, some like children. They watched her with bright eyes, but did not question her as she walked normally among them.
The doors opened, and she was inside. Instantly, the workers veered off in all directions. Knowing that the most important things were on the top floors, she walked with a scientist towards a lift. He swiped a card, and as the lift doors slid open, she smiled and walked in. The scientist smiled too, but it was a nasty smile, and somehow smug as well. The girl ignored her pang of unease, and walked out with the scientist to a laboratory.
Then, she recoiled in horror. The lab was filled with disgusting creatures, manifesting in green, bubbling liquid. Some of them even looked like humans. Realising that the professor was still watching her, she tried to smile.
'I think I may have the wrong floor. I'll just try again.' The scientist smiled impossibly wide, and laughed with a voice like a drill.
Deep in her panic, the girl swung around as the lift opened again, revealing a man with strange, red eyes in a bodyguard's uniform, and a woman with thick, light brown hair, dressed as a scientist. Ignoring them, she tried to run towards the open lift, only to find that the man had caught her with a puzzled look on his face. She stared, pleadingly, into his eyes, and he must have seen her fear, because he released her.
By then, it was too late. The lift doors swung shut as she slammed into them, and slowly she turned around, plastering the smile back on her face, desperate to get out of the cursed place. The scientist was laughing harder than ever, now with a needle in his hand.
'Hold her, Vincent!' He commanded. The bodyguard gripped her reluctantly but firmly by the arm as she tried to run, and she struggled uselessly.
'Hojo… do you really have to do this?' He asked quietly as sobs began to rack the girl's body.
'Of course!' the scientist replied. 'After all, her parents responded so well to my formula!' He gestured to the human-like monsters that lay still within the tank. The girl looked at them again and saw, with consuming horror, her mother's bright green eyes, slowly blinking as they examined her. In the next tank, her father's long black hair, tied up in his familiar knot, waved gently in the water.
Yuki opened her eyes and stared up at the cracked, pitted ceiling of her apartment in Edge. Trying to shake the horror out of her mind and get back to a semblance of reality, she swung out of bed and turned on the shower. Waiting for the warm water to come, she looked at herself in the mirror.
She did not have the same eyes as her mother, but she did have her father's hair, long and black. Lifting up the sleeve of the huge shirt she slept in, she could still see the long scar Hojo had left as he sliced the needle down her arm. He could have just given her the anaesthetic the normal way and injected it straight into her arm, but he always did like giving her pain.
After that needle, she had woken to find herself in one of those tanks. For twenty years, she had been imprisoned, ten years old forever, until Lee and his warriors managed to smash the tank that held her. Eventually, they began to believe that the ten-year old was, partially, still human. She had worked for them- stealing or killing Shinra dogs- ever since. It had not been much fun since Shinra had crumbled, so they worked on the Turks instead, as well as being hired to kill dangerous fiends.
There was still pain, though. The treatment she had been put through showed on her body- a dark, painful bruising that spread all over her back and crept over a shoulder. Occasionally it would weep blue-black blood, which she covered in bandages. Yuki knew that she was becoming weaker and weaker- dying slowly of this strange bruising. For now, she ignored the pain and got into the shower.
The shower began to slowly wash away Yuki's terror until she was normal again: expressionless, in control of her emotions.
'Been a while since I had that dream,' she muttered to herself, trying to objectify the nightmare. 'Prob'ly happened because I haven't visited their graves yet.' Quietly, she dressed and left the bare apartment, silent but for the click of the closing door.
Edge was just as she remembered it- broken, smoky and packed with people. She had arrived just yesterday, and already Lee was nagging her about her jobs. As usual, she would ignore him for a while until she felt that she wanted to get out of Edge; then she would do the job, and leave. Besides, the dead needed respect.
The graveyard, wrapped in its own regrets and tragedies, was an oddly peaceful part of Edge. Grass had grown around all the tombstones, each with its own personal touch, their messages a final goodbye from loved ones. Venturing into an old, shaded part of the cemetery, Yuki found her parent's graves, side by side under the destroyed building that rose above them, the sun peeping through its ravaged shell.
She knelt down and brushed aside the clinging moss until her parent's names were clearly revealed.
TSURU SAYAKI,
AGE UNKOWN
FEMALE
YEAR OF DEATH UNKNOWN
DISCOVERED IN A SHIN-RA LABORATORY
R.I.P
TSURU AKENO,
AGE UNKOWN
MALE
YEAR OF DEATH UNKOWN
DISCOVERED IN A SHIN-RA LABORATORY
R.I.P
Yuki shook her head as she gazed at their names. The graves were so impersonal, their messages written by somebody who had never even met her parents. Most likely they had found the names written on the experimental tank. Maybe their gender would still have been obvious.
Gently, Yuki began to dig at the dirt on her mother's grave, just before the bleak headstone. Ignoring the gathering clouds, she pushed the earth aside and found what she was looking for: a note, preserved in a wooden box. It was rough, and faded, but the words were still clear on the page. She had written it just after she was released from her own tank.
Here lies my mother, a beautiful and wise woman who loved with all her heart. Next to her lies my father, a man of honesty and integrity. Both faced undeserved hardship, and I am grateful that they may rest at last in peace.
Her hands had still been clumsy from movement, but the note was not tear-smudged. She had been past crying by then.
She reburied the note, and sat looking peacefully at the graves for a while. Then she slapped her head.
'Oh, I forgot to bring flowers!' she groaned. Then she grinned at the graves. 'Well, you don't really need them, anyway. I'm sure there's a lot where you are. But since I know you're disappointed, I'll bring you some next time. Do you even realise how much money flowers cost, anyway?'
'Who are you talking to?' A small voice asked. Yuki gasped, jumping to her feet in shock. Without even thinking, she realised she had drawn Smoke, and forced herself to sheath it again.
She turned to face a boy, around ten years old, who gazed at her from a pair of graves not far from her own. His reddish-brown hair floated around his head and he faced her with piercing blue eyes. She sensed his gravity and his innocence.
She had never been comfortable around children, especially the ones who had been born without the sorrow of Shinra hanging over their heads. At least this child was older, perhaps easier to talk to.
'My parents,' she explained. 'Who are you visiting?'
'My parents,' he said, with a small smile at the coincidence. Yuki knew that now was the time to say that she was sorry for their deaths, but she thought he had probably heard enough of it, and remained uncomfortably silent.
'They were killed two years ago,' he said, as if sensing her discomfort. 'It's okay now, though. I'm doing alright.'
'Do- do you miss them?'
He shrugged. 'I used to, but now I have lots of people that are like family, so it's not so bad. What about you?'
'When I was your age, I missed them like hell,' she said, forgetting she was speaking to a child. 'Now, though? I'm happy that they're resting. Their lives were so sad, they needed some rest, I think.'
He nodded thoughtfully. Yuki wondered whether he really was a child. He seemed so mature.
'What's your name?' she asked, breaking the peaceful silence.
'Denzel. What's yours?'
'I'm Yuki.' Then she noticed the flowers. 'Wow, white lilies. I'm impressed. How many weeks did you save up to buy those?' Denzel smiled, allowing a touch of pride to creep into his face. 'It didn't take long. I just did some work around the house, and the lady I'm staying with said we could get some. She's really nice.'
'Yeah, that's really generous of her. Anyway, I gotta go. I only just came to town, and I need to find a job.'
'Well, if you want a job, the bar I stay at is advertising for some help.' Denzel called after her. She turned back to him, and saw again the bright, intelligent eyes, the grave face that looked trustingly back at her.
'Can you give me directions? I'll go there now.'
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Thanks for reading! Please review, no matter what you think, I'd like to hear any suggestions, thoughts, etc.