Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VIII, nor do I happen to be Thom Yorke. Don't mistake me for claiming I am somehow someone I am not. As for the actual suing . . . I have no money in the first place. Those are candy wrappers in my pockets, not gold nuggets . . .
Fool's Gold
By giggleplex
Chapter 2: In Limbo
I got a message I can't read
Another message I can't read
I'm on your side
Nowhere to hide
Trapdoors that open
I spiral down
You're living in a fantasy world
- Radiohead "In Limbo"
Once again the doom proved true. The demise proved sweet.
Even guerilla warfare could not counteract the might of the greatest army on the earth.
The Wanderer winced as hail swept over his body in thick white sheets of storm. Each piece stung like a bee sting on his bare arms, and made him feel very vulnerable in the muck. His old rusty sword was sheathed and dormant on his back, and his chief concern at the time was to avoid being seen.
It was beginning to become routine. A fight here or there, then a paralyzing fear that gripped his soul with enough force to drag him to the sidelines. He was a coward, but he hadn't died yet.
Gritting his teeth, his knees sloshed in the mud as he attempted to flit further into the camouflage of the bushes. Dripping leaves tickled his face. The hail was still relentless. His hair dripped with the moisture, and his scarf could do little to avoid the droplets that moved through his bangs as if they were dark, sopping icicles.
—Drip—
His eyes darted between leaves and those slippery icicles. Everything shook with each careful lunge forward. The hail swung forward in sheets for a few moments, and his eyelashes mashed shut to cut out the ice pelting down on his face. Then there was a feeling of sudden respite—
--Drip—
--And he nearly lost his footing at the sudden burp of machine-gun fire, very close to his position. He clutched his helmet. The peeling paint tickled his calluses and his sword hung, useless, at his side—
--Drip—
He looked up again. It could have been just the leaves. It could have been the hail. It could have been him; in any case, the world was shaking. He could just make out something along the edges of his vision—
--Drip—
--It was a man. Despite the mud, he was unfazed by uneven footing. Instead, he advanced predatorily to a Galbadian soldier, who was on his back and trying to scuttle away. The soldier slipped on the slush left by the hail, but his struggle was silent—
--Drip—
--Towering over him, the obvious victor continued to advance, slowly. A great blade that looked sharp enough to cut determination winked toward the Wanderer, as if bidding him a "thank you" or a "welcome to the show." It took Wanderer a moment to realize that there was a trigger under the harsh leather glove. Is that a gunblade is that who I think—
--Drip—
--it is. He was. Suspended in wet soggy glory, his threadbare coat heavy and dripping, as his eyes shined under hair that had been pushed from his face. The hand that was not holding onto the impressive blade at his side swept over his forehead and splattered water that caught the last traces of sun in a flurry of reflecting sparkle—
--Drip—
--He said something, but the man in the mud replied only with halting his struggle. He looked up confused at the vision of someone who seemed more than anyone, for the predator's face was anything but predatory. He looked a bit lost, a bit sad. He dropped the wicked gunblade and let it fall to the ground in a muddy splash—
--Drip—
--Wanderer suddenly spotted another to the scene. The third man crept up behind the standing one, holding his sword with calculated concern and solemnity. The other two did not spot him, but instead stared at each other as if caught in a web spun by time—
--Drip—
--He wanted to scream, to avoid the situation which most certainly would arise, but his throat worked too late. The third man raised his sword—
--Drip—
"YOU FOOL!"
--And slashed violently through the other man's back, in one neat textbook stroke, all with the concern and precision of a watercolor brush on dry, white paper. Then, as if the stroke had ruined the painting, red blossomed up like panic and the figure fell like the paper had been crumbled and carelessly tossed into the nearest receptacle—
--Drip—
--The two unharmed soldiers hurried away after only a second of contemplation for the hero they had slain. The hail faded away, enough that the Wanderer could hear his own voice that he had felt for minutes, centuries.
"FOOL!" he cried, bounding forward and for once uncaring of his own well-being "You DAMN fool!"
Drip.
There was no sarcastic comment. No glare. Just the sight of brown world turning slowly into red as he watched the blood sweep through the slush, through the rocks, through the severed pieces of grass, to circle his own knees that were stuck in the same puddle. The blood was somehow beautiful and terrible at the same time.
"You're a damn fool." Wanderer whispered. His bloodshot eyes were wide, and his own lip began to tremble. He could admit for only a split second in his life, that he was afraid.
Drip . . .
Something touched his shoulder.
He jumped up immediately, eyes wide, hands wide, widened stance and ready for just about anything to come up and kill him. His heart pounded double time, and his countenance was wild and anything but reasonable.
"Sir?" the nurse squeaked, bracing her back on the wall only because she couldn't back up any farther.
Wanderer's wild eyes slackened along with his shoulders when he realized where he was. The smell of sanitation was bitter, but the overwhelming presence of white was somehow peaceful.
"Sir?" she tried again. He jolted from his thoughts once more.
"Yes?" his voice was rougher and more gravelly than he expected.
"The doctor would like to see you about the man you brought in. Are you sure you are not hurt yourself?"
She looked sideways at him. Her pink dress was finely pressed and matched the pristine hat in the middle of her neat auburn hair. Even if he was hurt under the dried mud and grime, he would feel guilty about bothering her. It was like if he touched her in that moment, with her bliss and ignorance, he would somehow infect her with the same haunted feeling he felt in his gut.
He shook his head.
"Alright, suit yourself." She spun on her heel and led him down the blue and white tiles.
His cap was still in his hand as he entered the curtained hospital room. He had taken it off because it seemed somehow inappropriate to wear it in such a place, even if there was nothing home-like or welcoming about it.
A balding head swung up at his entrance. The man was so thin that his white coat seemed many sizes too big for him, and his spindly legs posed awkwardly under faded brown trousers. He stood over the pale figure on the hospital bed with a clipboard and an inscrutable expression.
Wanderer pointedly avoided looking at the shadow of the man he had spoken to before the last time he slept. It had been two days since that evening. He looked away because he was secretly afraid of seeing himself on that lumpy hospital bed.
"Are you the one who brought him in here?"
The Wanderer just stared at him, as if daring to deny his right to be there.
The man in the white coat sighed, and ran a hand through his nonexistent blonde hair.
"My name is Doctor Primrose. What exactly is your relationship with this man?"
"We were comrades."
The doctor stared.
"You should have taken off your uniform before you came here," he intoned vaguely "if the Galbadians—"
"Even the Galbadians aren't heartless enough to overtake a hospital while trying to locate some would-be rebels."
"I suppose your right." The doctor sighed again and looked back to his patient. "Do you even know who you've brought here?"
The Wanderer frowned. The doctor made it sound as if he should.
The silence passed for a negative.
"You've tried to save Seifer Almasy." The doctor said softly, still not meeting eye-contact "He attempted the assassination of PresidentVinzer Deling. He was the Sorceress' Knight. He is also one of the most wanted men in all of Galbadia."
The Wanderer's eyes narrowed.
"You aren't planning to turn him in are you?" his body was slipping back into a defensive position of it's own accord.
The doctor threw up his hands in astonishment, and turned back to the Wanderer.
"I'm no bounty hunter!" he cried in defense "I just thought you ought to know . . . or something."
The Wanderer was not amused.
"What something?" he gritted out.
The doctor averted his eyes to his clip-board, as his lips pursed in a thin line. He soon adopted a thoughtful position with his teeth between his teeth and his shoulders shifting in the rhythm of deep calming breaths. His mouth opened as if to answer, but it closed again.
"Your . . . friend took a very damaging blow." He said instead.
"Is that some sort of disclaimer?"
"No."
Wanderer was beginning to feel a deep mistrust for all doctors. He had a feeling this episode would ruin the rest of his experiences with them.
Doctor Primrose finally wiped off a bead of sweat from his forehead.
"Look, I really don't have the time to be here." He said, frankly finally "But this is somewhat of a . . . special case."
Wanderer was silent. He could feel the dried mud begin to flake to the floor as he shifted his weight to the other soggy boot.
"That blow would have killed any normal man. I'd like you to know that first of all—it's truly amazing that he survived such a blow to his spinal chord. The only thing I could hypothesize, and I confirmed this through a couple of scans, is the concentrated present of magic present in his bloodstream. It has exponentially increased his body's ability to regenerate itself.
"But still, this really isn't enough. If anything he will be severely paralyzed the rest of his life, if the infection from his recent surgery doesn't prove to kill him—which is doubtful, if I dare say so myself."
"So there's a good chance he'll wake up." Wanderer sniffed his running nose, and wiped a grimy hand over his nose briefly. He stared at the clip-board too.
"It's not that easy," the doctor finally looked up, his blonde brows furrowed and shiny head blinking under the fluorescent lighting.
Wanderer met his eyes with an eyebrow raised and his patience thin.
"That's not the half of what's keeping Seifer Almasy in this hospital."
"Don't call him that," he corrected the doctor "you make him sound as if he's not worthy to be thought as a human."
"Fine. Whatever. The point is your friend should have woken up hours ago and he has not."
The Wanderer said nothing.
"I took the liberty of doing a few scans on him and found some interesting results." He flipped up a few pages of his clip-board and offered a view to the other man "You see this? It's a scan of his brain. The red means there is a great deal of activity present in the hippocampus as well as the amygdala. The gray areas around here, where it usually is red, suggest that his cognition has definitely decreased since the accident."
"Well what does that mean?"
"I don't know what it means, I'm not the owner of this brain. I can only hypothesize. What I think is that this man is caught in his memories for some reason. Perhaps the magic that is now sustaining his body was previously present in his conscious mind, and as it is draining from him at an alarming rate, he must be in some sort of backlash shock. I can only guess, as I have never seen this before in my life . . . "
"So what does this mean for him?" Wanderer pressed. He was beginning to feel a tingle in his stomach, that felt suspiciously like nervousness.
The doctor whirled at him, nostrils flaring.
"I don't know!"
The Wanderer matched his glare.
"I have no idea what is going to happen to him! Even if he does heal, he won't wake up. We don't know how to treat this, and such a dramatic change in the patterns of brain activity probably mean that he will never, ever wake up again. But a nurse could have told you that. I'm the head neurologist in this hospital, and I came here without the intent of pity or hope or whatever the hell you are expecting. I was wondering if you'd mind if I run some experiments on him, as this truly is a very rare case, unlike anything—"
"Get out."
The Wanderer finally snapped out of his own shock, and drew his own full height to the playing field. He was a frightening sight with his hardened clothing, flaking mud and narrow eyes. The doctor took one look at him and let out a trail of breath from his own bubble of anger.
Without cowering or looking back, he stormed out of the room. The Wanderer stared at the flap and the handful of nurses that passed by without looking.
Suddenly, he threw himself down on a nearby plastic chair and curled his hands through his hair like claws. His head hung.
There was something very tricky and disturbing about the incident. Everything about it was wrong.
I shouldn't have to make such a decision. The Wanderer thought to himself. It should never have turned out this way.
But it was much less nerves of making a decision that could destroy another man's life, he had certainly done his share of destruction in the past, it was more the complete and utter unfairness of it all.
Here was a man who had changed. Was changed. He freely admitted his sins and even spoke of dreams to repentance so that he may become a better soul someday. Despite inaction, he had already changed for the better.
A worthy end to such a hero would be a gallant end in a brave battle. Or in contrast a happy ending, where he would that woman of his dreams again and woo her with his new ways. One or the other.
Reality was too cruel. This was not an ending worthy of a hero.
This . . . this defied all justice, all of the poetic justice that even a jaded man like him, somehow, still believed.
He should have died, or succeeded. He confessed! This was not how it was supposed to be. He was not supposed to be trapped in some sort of synthetic limbo, caught between magic and technology, alone and very forgotten.
Wanderer felt like destroying the room, or destroying God for such cruelty. Perhaps he would have done both, if he had the tools to do so.
He himself was undeserving of anything, but this man . . . there was something about him. He only sought redemption, and achieving such a selfless sense of apology to the world—it was a work worthy of some sort of saint. A saint! Not a sickly flaxen mannequin in a vegetative state.
The Wanderer turned slowly to gaze upon a bleached out face, swallowed by a bleached out pillow. They had cleaned him, and put him in a speckled blue hospital gown for doubtless sanitation reasons. It did not suit him.
The symphony of heart monitors, blood transfusions, and the suckling of an IV was slowly becoming cacophony.
Wanderer's breathing slowed, and the hospital sounds blended into one world that did not stray behind his eyelids when he closed them. He became separate. Dead-tired and suffering from post-traumatic stress, he wasn't ready to handle all of this . . .
He opened his eyes.
The Fool's face did not change, but Wanderer could have sworn he had seen his lip twitch. He wondered if he really was conscious of something, anything. Then he frowned and reflected what it would be like to be stuck in magic-induced memories.
Just what was he dreaming about . . . ?
He was losing touch with himself.
All he could think about was her.
FLASH. He was young, he was crying.
FLASH.
He hadn't wanted to be there. It was far from home, and he thought he loved home, despite what "home" entailed.
The woman with the kind eyes took him with a smile, but a sad one. Seifer was sure he was the reason, but she had been looking at the broken bottles and the rattling of wooden boards, when she visited him.
Well if he wasn't good enough for her, he thought, she could just leave. He hadn't anything to prove.
But she did not leave. Come with me, Seifer, she said, I'm going to take you home.
His father had died the week before, but he would never admit to how helpless he was in that shack, in the desert. She had to drag him from that place, even though he hated it.
He hated being helpless even more. But that was also exactly how he felt in front of the only partially-interested scrutiny of a handful of other children. They were amusing themselves in the courtyard of a house by the sea. It looked like a rich person's house to Seifer. His father always hated rich people.
That small face was set in a certain scowl as he gazed around the courtyard. There were flowers everywhere, and bumblebees too. There weren't much of either in the desert.
His eyes immediately transfixed on two blonde boys off to the side. One was sitting back, his face split in a wide, continuous cry as his eyes narrowed to leaking slits. The noise made Seifer angrier about the entire ordeal. His father hated it when people cried. Seifer learned to hate it too.
The other was kneeling next to the first boy, and was rubbing his back as if to comfort him. Seifer frowned. The crying boy would always be a baby if he just got a pat on the back for being one! What he needed was a slap in the face.
The dark woman with the kind smile and the long dress placed her hands on Seifer's shoulders, steering him to the group. He drug his feet stubbornly.
As they drew closer, the crying boy wobbled up as tears still swept down his face.
"MATRON!"
He tottered over to the dark woman's side, and buried his damp and dirty face into her skirt. She took one hand away from Seifer's shoulders, and gently brushed the crying boy's hair from his face.
"Cheer up, Zell, and meet your new brother." She said softly.
He responded by sobbing even louder. Seifer's lip curled in distaste.
She sighed, but smiled as she gazed down on the bright blonde head buried in her skirt.
"This is Seifer." She tried again.
He still didn't look up.
With another sigh, she managed to shuffle both Seifer and Zell nearer to the clearing. Four pairs of wide eyes looked up to greet them.
One belonged to a skinny, brown-haired boy who was holding a stuffed moogle just out of reach for a smaller brown-haired girl to reach. She had stopped her jumping and desperate attempts to reach it, and watched Seifer with large green eyes.
Another boy with blue-gray eyes looked over him with a frown. He was pulling out daisies and letting them fall from his grasp, but his entire posture seemed disinterested.
The other blonde boy was still kneeling. His eyes bore into him with a gaze unlike any other child he had met—they calculated him as if he were a particular math problem. Cropped golden hair teased around the edges of a pointed nose. Thin lips pursed into a straight line.
"I told you there were plenty of other children to play with." The matron laughed sweetly.
Seifer tore his concentration from that blue gaze. It reminded him too much of the sea, and he didn't like it.
"I don' hang around BABIES."
She frowned at his statement, but thought better of correcting his impoliteness. He had suffered a long journey and was far away from home, after all.
"Well, Quistis is older than you." She said pointedly.
The blue-eyed boy rose from his knees and made his way over to the awkward trio. He still stared at Seifer, as if wondering his purpose or if he required batteries.
Seifer looked him up and down; from his dirty yellow sneakers to his shapeless brown, coarsely-knit, pullover sweater.
"Quistis." He said boldly and with much bravado "That sounds like a girls' name."
The other boy's fine blonde eyebrows knitted together as he placed his hands on his hips.
"I AM a girl."
FLASH.
Quistis . . .
He could have sworn he smelled fresh linen and antiseptic
Author'sNotes -I was hoping to get a little farther than that, but the chapter was already agonizingly long. The next chapter probably won't be out quite as quickly, and at the same time, this story is going slower than I had thought. It might be longer than I expected, and hopefully that will be a good thing to whoever is reading this. Oh, and in case you were wondering, I am not a doctor and know little about brains and hospitals (I actually have a very bad phobia of hospitals). I'm sorry if I screwed that scene up . . . keep in mind it's based off of a fantasy video game.
In the meantime, I really would like to thank all of you who reviewed with as much gratitude as I can manage. You're awesome! You made me write fast!
Hopefully those of you who reviewed still enjoy where this is going. Again, tell me what you think, if you would be so kind :D For those of you who did not review, hopefully you like it better this time around.
In any case, I'm vegetarian and reviews are a great source of essential amino acids as well as happy feelings, and are completely devoid of animal products. Feed me!
Thank you!
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