Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 8, SquareEnix does.
Dominance
Pain. It was a powerful feeling, one that dominated his sense of touch, drowned him. He had felt pain before, intense pain at that; once he had been accidentally shot in the side during a training exercise. That was a white hot intensity, spreading from the wound only to rack his entire body with agony at his every movement.
But even that was slight compared to what he felt now.
Needles, daggers, even swords; no word could accurately describe the stabbing pain he felt. It destroyed his thought, crippled his mind. This was agony beyond agony, beyond description, beyond human conception.
It stopped suddenly, and he gasped in relief, his breath sharp and fast with hesitance, fearing its return.
Squall shifted after a few moments, and slowly; achingly slow, he pulled himself to his feet. There was no more pain, only the memory of it; and that alone was enough to make him grimace at the mere stiffness of his limbs.
It was still dark in his room, not the malicious darkness of before, but just the absence of light. As his mind, no longer hazed with pain, cleared, he remembered the creature. His gaze went immediately to the ceiling and he shivered at the memory of it, crawling down the wall, its massive jaws snapping at his face, and its eyes; Gods, its eyes.
He thought he shivered again when he felt his hands shaking, but Squall realized with dismay that he had never stopped. Suddenly he wanted to leave this room, leave this Garden, with or without Rinoa. The ferocity of the urge choked him with desperation and without thinking he turned and pounded on the door viciously. The metal frame barely even shuddered despite the force he used, and with one battered cry of frustration he slammed his fist one last time into the door and a sharp audible pop was his only reply.
Squall drew his hand back quickly with a curse, cradling the injured limb against his chest.
Shit.
After a few moments he evened his breathing and slowly drew his hand back from his chest. Even with the absence of light he could clearly make out the three fingers on his right hand that stuck out at odd angles, and he cursed again. Carefully he ran his uninjured fingertips across the swollen digits, taking a small, grim satisfaction that it was knuckles, not his fingers that had been displaced. With a determined grimace he popped all three knuckles back into place, this pain was nothing compared to earlier. He flexed his hand cautiously and even smiled, if only slightly, in appreciation for his small medical abilities.
His momentary appreciation was disturbed as a click echoed in the eerily silent room, and it reminded him of a door unlocking. Door. He lunged forward, ripping the door open violently before whatever careless student or guard could attempt to remedy their mistake, and he was surprised to find that no one was there.
Squall stepped out of his room cautiously, glancing down the hallway before allowing himself to relax completely. It was still dark, perhaps very early in the morning, and the hallway was dimly lit. He began to start forward when something at the edge of his vision gleamed, and he paused.
His gunblade was there, propped steadily against the wall beside his door, and he could make no sense of it.
Why would they carelessly leave his gunblade at his door after he attacked the headmaster?
Squall grasped the handle hesitantly before lifting the blade. Immediately, its weight reassured him, and that calm, quiet, cold persona returned with his blade.
He wondered vaguely if this was all some sick joke, and the thought paranoid him enough to glance down the hallway at perhaps his only opposition at this point.
The security camera swiveled lazy, turning in a half circle and pausing for just a moment, before swiveling back. Its simplicity betrayed the complex system of alarms and alerts that would emit should the man watching the monitors decide that a threat was present.
Such as a headmaster assailant…
He watched the camera as it swiveled in his direction and pause; before swiveling away in the opposite direction. He released a breath that he hadn't realized he'd been holding when the sirens didn't blare out their damning scream.
Quickly, with determined strides, he made his way down the hall, stopping only to swipe the camera with his gunblade, destroying it. As he stepped out into the Garden's lobby his determination dissolved, leaving only the panic consumed fear he thought he left behind with the darkness. He stepped back into the dorm area, breathing heavy with fear.
After a moment he peeked back out into the lobby. They were everywhere, those twisting, writhing shadow creatures; and they were…blocking my exit. The weight of the gunblade in his hand reassured him again, and he tightened his grip on its handle.
He had his blade this time, this time it would be they who suffered.
He waited until one drew closer to him, and it almost seemed as if it would pass him. Squall would offer it no such mercy. He stepped forward and the gunblade swung up in a fierce uppercut, the creature screamed, its voice horribly distorted and shrill, and fell. The twisting shadows that made the composition of its body congealed around it and Squall smirked in satisfaction.
Not immune to steel are you bastard?
Several of the creatures had turned his way now and many rushed towards him with inhuman cries like that of their now deceased companion. He met them evenly, slashing and dodging, falling into the calm killing mode that he had trained so long as a SeeD to perfect. He fought his way to the Gardens exit, and there he paused, panting in exhaustion when he had slain the last of them.
He heard the thunder of many footsteps behind him and he turned only to shake his head at the small group of armed SeeD, followed by the headmaster.
"Your late, they're all dead now." He said coldly, earning a sharp, sad grimace from Cid, an expression he had never seen on his face before.
"So it seems…" Cid said gravely, and the small militia aimed their guns at Squall. "Please Squall, just drop the gunblade, I've lost enough lives."
"What the hell are you doing?!" Squall snapped angrily. "I killed those things! Did you not fucking see them?!" He demanded, and a splash of red on the floor to his left caught his eye.
It was a young SeeD, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, and a long vicious slash had laced up her back. Squall exhaled in horror and shook his head.
"Oh, no, no, no…I didn't do that, I killed the creatures that did though." He said sharply, defensively and indicated behind him with his gunblade, a gesture that made the militia tighten a hold on their triggers. "See? You can see their bodies, they're not human!"
"See…" He repeated quietly, as he glanced backwards, and his breath caught in his throat. Red splashed the lobby behind him, and the bodies of SeeDs of various ages dotted the hallway, armed and unarmed alike, all dead.
"I-I….I didn't do that…I…" Squall stammered, his hand shaking, the hand that held the upraised gunblade, covered in gore. The engraved lion on the blade gleamed sinisterly; the slight up turned corners of its muzzle resembled a smirk and Squall dropped the blade. It clattered loudly, echoing in the nearly empty halls of the Garden, as Squall sank to his knees.
The pain came then, the return of that uncomprehendable agony, and his hands closed over his head; where the stabbing sensation there crippled him. A single shot ricocheted off the wall behind him.
"Hold your fire, Damn it! Hold!" Cid yelled sharply, striding to stand in front of Squall.
But Squall didn't hear any of this; through his agony he only heard the dark echo of Ultimecia's laughter in his head and his own scream.
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