Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII or its characters. It belongs to Square Enix. I do own my original characters and plots, though.
Author's Note: To my readers, thank you all so much. It means so much to me. Anyway, Chapter 6 delves into another flashback. Chapter 7 won't have any flashbacks, though. The first nine lines are in present day, and the rest of the chapter from the horizontal rule on is the past. It answers a few questions from previous chapters, and poses some new ones…but I'm not telling ya'll any more. Just go and read it. Enjoy, everyone.
Chapter 6: MotherCommanding voices and the rustling of feet thundered. Plain gray walls, white uniformed figures, and needles rushed by, blurring her vision. The lethargic beep of a heart monitor pounded in her ears.
"Alright, Miss Sorrows, this might hurt a little…"
"These medications will make you a bit drowsy…"
"Just hold on a little longer, miss…"
"The bleeding won't stop, doctor…"
She was falling…falling…
Falling…into blackness. The stench of ash and burning rubble polluted their noses. Smoke rose from Nibelheim's ruins; their skins were raw and burned, their faces ashen and filthy. The town looked as if it had been bombed. Ares and Aphrodite were huddled together on a clear patch of ground, surrounded on all sides by the embers of softly burning wood. Their little island of hope—their protective sanctuary."Ares, I'm so hungry…"
"Here, sis'…have my bread." Ares brought the sixteen-year-old Aphrodite close, and held his small piece of dark, crusty bread to her lips. He draped his rugged leather cloak over her small, shivering figure, kissing the top of her head.
"N-no, Ares…it's yours…" Aphrodite pushed away the piece of bread, pulling the cloak closer. "Please don't…sacrifice everything for m—"
"You two the Travere survivors?"
The two siblings looked up at the speaker. Two Shin-Ra SOLDIERs in blue uniforms stood before them, and Aphrodite shrunk back in fear. Ares observed them with his piercing blue eyes and nodded.
"Yes, sir," said Ares.
"Come along, then. We are gathering survivors at the Shin-Ra mansion, the only structure that suffered no damages." The SOLDIERs nodded briefly and held our their hands to the Travere siblings.
Aphrodite was about to take the first SOLDIER's hand, but Ares stopped her. She tilted her head in bemusement at her elder brother.
"It's alright, sir. We're not gonna hurt you," the SOLDIER reassured Ares. The second one only nodded in agreement.
Ares still seemed wary, but he allowed him to take his sister's hand. Aphrodite beamed up at the SOLDIER, her freckled face soiled with dirt and ash. She spoke to Ares, but continued to smile at the blue-uniformed fellow, wondering what his face looked like under that SOLDIER mask. "They're here to help us, brother. We'll be alright."
Ares was silent, but Aphrodite could see a sharp solemnity in his eyes. Mother's eyes.
The two Shin-Ra SOLDIERs led the Travere siblings to the only edifice that survived the fire: the Shin-Ra mansion. That was a beautiful dwelling, grander than the Travere mansion itself. Aphrodite admired the iron gold-tipped gates that encircled the structure like a moat as the foursome entered.
Immediately she began to cough from the dusty, thick air of the Entrance Hall. Did anyone ever dust around here…? "Is that it…?" She was astonished. Only two survivors sat, badly injured, on the floor. A nurse was tending to the two men while several other Shin-Ra SOLDIERs stood guard.
"Your names?" the second SOLDIER roused Aphrodite out of her thoughts.
She was about to speak, but Ares became a mouth for two. "Ares Hector de Travere. My sister is Aphrodite Galatea de Travere."
"Those are some long-ass names," Aphrodite heard the first SOLDIER mumble under his breath. How crude and young he sounded! Indeed, he was the one she had smiled at earlier, but he was noticeably less motivated than his partner. "Well, come sit 'ere, then. The nurse'll be with you in a tick."
Aphrodite watched Ares out of the corner of her eye. He looked as if he had just sucked a lemon. He didn't seem to like that SOLDIER. The nurse would be with them in a tick? He couldn't be talking about those terrible pests that occasionally infested the town dogs. Where was the lad from? What slang!
The SOLDIERs sat them down on the floor beside the other two survivors. After close observation through narrowed gray-green eyes, Aphrodite saw that the two young men looked around her age, and both had glowing Mako-blue eyes…one was chocobo-haired, and the other's spiky locks were black.
The nurse tending to the young men scurried away for a few minutes, and Aphrodite, in curiosity, leaned over to speak to them.
"Are you two the only survivors besides us?" She inquired. Ares squeezed her burned shoulder, and the girl yelped like an injured puppy. He apologized, quickly retracting his hand with a regretful frown.
The black-haired one looked up and stared blankly at them for a second. "Yeah… H-hey, aren't you the Traveres?"
Aphrodite nodded, Ares watching with wary eyes. The two SOLDIERs that had led them into the mansion stood nearby, pretending to be oblivious to this tête-à-tête. "Yes…oh! Zack! I remember you!" She grew excited, a wide grin spreading on her ashen face. "You're the shopowner's son!" When the chocobo-haired lad looked up, her eyes enlarged. They were nearly the size of grapefruit. "And Cloud! You guys are alive! I cannot believe it!"
Cloud looked terribly weak—and so did Zack—but the latter seemed a little more vigorous. Ares only watched and listened while he ran a large, rough hand through his disheveled locks. Aphrodite had always admired his hair: light, ash-brown wavy tresses that he usually tied at the nape of his neck. Only now, his hair lung limply above his shoulders, no ponytail in place. She turned towards Zack and Cloud.
"How did you guys survive?" asked Aphrodite, leaning forward in interest. However, a bad burn on her abdomen caused her to retract in pain, and she gritted her teeth.
Zack was about to open his mouth when another voice cut him off.
"Aphrodite and Ares de Travere?"
The two looked up. The nurse, in a simple gray and white uniform, gestured to them. "Come along, you two. The Professor will see you now. Oh, and you two SOLDIERs, accompany us to the laboratory."
Ares and Aphrodite stood up, the former supporting his sister with an arm around her waist. "C'mon, sis."
"Professor…?" Now she was a little suspicious. Wouldn't the nurse tend to their wounds, as she did to Zack and Cloud? Who was this "Professor?" Reluctantly, she and Ares followed after the nurse as she led them up the stairs into the right-hand hallway, the SOLDIERs close by. Zack had nodded with a weak smile at the two, but Cloud had looked worried. He looked as if he wanted to shout something, to warn them, but nothing came out of his mouth. On the other hand, Ares seemed trusting, and that was unusual of him…
"Yes, Professor Hojo, Head of Shin-Ra's Science Department… He is to conduct some tests on you two," said the nurse, and she led Ares and Aphrodite into a small bedroom, opening a hidden door in the wall.
"Tests?" Aphrodite was skeptical. "What kind of tests?"
Ares seemed a bit concerned at her behavior, but he only stroked her curls idly. He smiled. "They probably just want to make sure we're okay. Don't fret, Aphrodite."
The nurse nodded, waving her hands as if to dismiss Aphrodite's question. She smiled as well, ushering them down a hidden, spiraling staircase worn-down through the years. Its wood was rotten, and it looked ready to collapse beneath their feet. "No need to worry, child," she said, skipping a missing step.
Aphrodite was distrustful as the nurse and two SOLDIERs led them through a corridor in a bizarre basement. She stared uneasily at the bones and skulls strewn about the violet floor. This place was like a tomb. It even smelled like one. Before she entered the mansion, she had thought it would be beautiful and…well…pure. She still saw the giant house as pretty in its own way, but now that she set foot into this basement…she begged to differ.
When the five stepped through a door at the very end of the basement corridor, Aphrodite found that they had entered a spacious laboratory and library. A man in a white lab coat swiveled around from his lab-table, and hurried over. "Ah, yes! The special ones. Thank you, nurse."
The nurse nodded, that smile still plastered upon her face. The two SOLDIERs stood silently in the background, moving behind Hojo. Special ones? What did he mean? Aphrodite cocked an eyebrow at Ares, but he only shrugged as the two exchanged glances. "Professor…Hojo?"
"Yes. Come, come. You are of the wealthy Travere family, no?"
Ares opened his mouth to reply, but Hojo cut him off.
'Well, were. Now that there is no fortune for you two to inherit, it is best if I use past tense," Hojo smirked at them, stroking his chin. "You two are of very special, rare blood. Did you two know that?"
Aphrodite wrinkled her nose, confused and vexed at the way Hojo spoke to them. He made her feel two inches tall. Rare, special blood? What was he talking about? She felt rather ordinary, really… She only shook her head; Ares's face, however, tightened.
"What kind of tests do you wish to conduct, Professor?" Ares asked. Aphrodite watched him eye the peculiar medical instruments on Hojo's lab-table. They looked like alien tools.
A dismissive, almost crazy-looking smile dominated Professor Hojo's pale, aged face. "Relax! Come now, girl," he curled his finger at Aphrodite. "You're the youngest, aren't you? Come, lie here on this stretcher."
She reluctantly dragged her feet across the floor towards the stretcher Professor Hojo indicated with his hand. Ares did not object, much to her dismay. This was the one time she wished he would object like he always did. The first SOLDIER—the one who had taken her hand earlier—nodded at her, as if to say, "Don't worry." Well, at least that one cared. "My name is Aphrodite, sir…"
"Yes, yes. Whatever you say, my specimen…I mean, patient," Hojo corrected himself quickly, and he turned his back to the two, fiddling with medical instruments at his lab-table. "Boy, I need you to step out to the hallway for a while. I'll call you in later. Nurse, would you escort him out?"
Ares looked ready to protest, but he grudgingly complied as the nurse began to lead him out of the laboratory. And still that bothersome woman was smiling in her generic way! "…Yes, Professor. And my name is Ares."
Aphrodite watched her brother leave with a look of panic. The door clicked as it locked behind them. Don't leave me, brother! She began to chew on her lower lip as Professor Hojo tinkered with a syringe and red liquid that looked too thin to be blood… Don't leave me with this mad-looking man! She had a very bad feeling about this Hojo character: this malicious man who leered down at her so hungrily… He had called her his specimen…
"P-Professor, w-what's that…?" stammered Aphrodite, her eyes wide with fear at the large syringe that Hojo advanced on her with. A rubber tourniquet and alcohol swab was in his other hand.
"Stop questioning me, girl!" snapped Professor Hojo, and he rubbed the alcohol swab on her arm. He tied the tourniquet around her left arm as if he were wrapping a birthday gift. "Now, keep your mouth shut and don't say a word. This might hurt a little…"
Aphrodite stiffened like a corpse in rigor mortis. Her fists immediately tensed. Going to hurt a little, did he say? Then obviously, it was going to hurt a lot…scientists and doctors never told the truth when it came to pain…
"Don't get so rigid!" Hojo spat at her, and pressed his long, bony fingers along her left arm, searching for a vein. "Clench and unclench your fist, so I can get the vein."
Aphrodite obeyed, chewing her lower lip so hard that she tasted blood. She tried to not stare at the syringe, and instead looked at the SOLDIERs. They looked rather stoic, judging by their masks… Professor Hojo at last found a vein in the crook of her elbow, and he pierced her ashen skin with the colossal syringe.
Aphrodite only squealed a terrified little squeak, and she stared in horror as the thick needle penetrated her skin. The reddish fluid Hojo was injecting at first caused her no pain. But after about a minute or so, a painful sensation tingled in her body.
Her heart pounded at the speed of a sprinting chocobo, her extremities trembled violently… Her hormones raged and her mind raced… Her eyes opening wide…
And Aphrodite began to scream in agony.
Her shrieks echoed off the laboratory walls, and the girl ceased not to shake. Her skin lost any color it might have had, and her eyes were brightly glowing shades of crimson and Mako-blue…they were like eerie lamplights…
"Restrain her!" she only vaguely heard Professor Hojo's command, and he sounded both panicked and excited. His dark eyes were wide as the two Shin-Ra SOLDIERs pinned Aphrodite to the stretcher, the girl wild. Her head tossed and shook just as fiercely as the rest of her body.
What was this pain…?
"Come to me, my child. You belong to me now. You are no longer of the Planet's…"
"LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP! STOP!" Aphrodite, screaming at the peak of her lungs, tried to usher away the wicked voice whispering to her…haunting her…
"I will give you the whole universe, my child, if you obey me…"
Ares wasn't here to save her…
"I will give you everything you want, if you obey my son, Sephiroth…"
She was alone…alone with a mad scientist and two Shin-Ra SOLDIERs…screaming…shaking…dying from this unreal pain…
"You shall serve your mother, Jenova, now…"