The tunnels inside Mount Nibel wound. They wound and coiled and spun and twisted - like a spiders web that had been crafted from one hell of a messed up arachnid. One that only knew structure as well as it knew sanity. The tunnels dipped down, and then back up again in a useless wavy pattern. They took unnecessary curves that could only be leading in wide, arching circles. And as Teioh navigated these tunnels with Marlene's cold, silver eyes burning holes in the back of his neck, he believed that you had to be careful making your way around this place. These tunnels wound. Wound, coiled, spun and twisted - and if you weren't careful, your mind would wind with them.
Unless his mind had already made the decision to jump off the sanity bridge. After all, hadn't he seen his father back there? His dead father, lying on the ground but very much alive. Hadn't he spoken to him? Hadn't the thing called him by name?
It was these questions that simultaneously wound through Teioh's head as his legs wound their way through the tunnels. Tunnels. That's what he thought of them as now. At first, he was thinking of them as hallways, but that was too nice (and too sane) of a word for them. These were tunnels all right. And they seemingly knew no end.
But Marlene knew an end, and it was her cold, stern hand on his shoulder that brought them both to the end of their journey. A door hung off to the right side of the tunnel, sticking out like a white board in wooden fence. It seemed to loom over his shoulder and snicker at him. This door was different than the one that had him locked in his room before. Even different than the one that the ma… the thing came tumbling out of before claiming to be his father. This door was more… normal. Tall, white and it even had a doorknob that didn't look like it's been dragged through the dirt for most its life.
It was this door that loomed over his shoulder. This door that snickered at him, mocking his small figure beneath its large, white frame. And it was this door that Marlene gripped its handle before pushing it back on its hinges - causing it to sway backwards and disappear around the edge of the doorway.
She gestured him inside, never breaking her lifeless, relentless gaze that made him feel ten sorts of depressed all at once. He stepped inside…
…and into a hospital?
At first glance, yes, it was a hospital room. The walls were all white here, matching the door. The only reason he knew the walls were white immediately was because of the blinding bright lights that lined the ceiling - long, fluorescent tubes placed in carved out rectangles that ran at regular intervals from the front of the room to the back. The lights probably weren't that bright, but in contrast with the rest of what he'd seen - dark, gloomy, and damp - it was like stepping into the inside of the sun.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust. When his pupils were the appropriate size, the rest of the details of the room came into view. Tall medical chairs in the center of the room, small white cots in the back left corner, tables and more tables of assorted things lined the entire right wall - watched over carefully by rows of glass cabinets above them. A big machine hunkered down at the far end of the room which sat calmly, but looked waiting and ready, like some sleeping monster with one eye open. Along the left wall, and most importantly (Teioh realized after his eyes fell that way last), were three men in white robes almost identical to the black ones he'd seen on everyone else. Their hoods hung far over their heads, but their mouths and chins were showing. Showing clean-shaven, shit-eating grins that were sickeningly pleased to have a new "patient" in their presence.
Teioh stepped into the hospital room just as Marlene's hand fell on his shoulder to nudge him along. He didn't like that hand touching him. It wasn't hers, and it didn't belong. On him or her.
All three of the white-robed men walked to meet him halfway, one of them slightly ahead of the other two. This is the one that put up his hands in a stop gesture, to which Teioh obeyed, and then began to speak.
"Welcome son."
"Don't you ever call me that." He spit out quickly. A sudden warm wash of anger fell over him. No one was going to call him son ever again. The man- the thing in the hallway reminded him of that. To this response, he saw a smile peak out from behind the mans shadowed face.
"Your peace is almost here, friend. You won't be a product of evil for much longer." The man spoke slowly and calmly, and the way he casually let these words roll off his tongue frightened Teioh a bit. Only a bit - and he wouldn't dare let it show.
"You're gonna kill me, don't bother with the lectures if that's what you're planning. I won't listen or care resulting in a massive waste of time on both our parts."
To this, the man smiled again. A kind of warm, inviting smile. The kind your friendly neighbor gives you if you catch eyes heading out in the morning. The kind a teacher gives a student when he's done good, or the kind two friends have when sharing an inside joke. That was what Teioh felt the smile was like. Like there was some inside joke that he wasn't in on, and beneath the warm exterior of the smile, all the coldness and insanity of the man was waiting to burst out like a pot full of boiling water.
The man gestured and within seconds, Teioh was being led by both arms to one of the chairs in the middle of the room by the two other robed men. Next, he was shoved into the seat of it and two leather straps were buckled over his wrists securing him to the chair. He tugged at each one gently with no real purpose. He knew they would have no give - no weakness. Not in a place like this where restriction and control seemed to be such an intricate part of the plan.
He didn't know what the hell these people were going to do to him, and quite frankly at that point, he didn't care. They had brainwashed Marlene, just like the sisters. His two friends were caught and possibly dead already. Escape through these tunnels was about as likely as winning a Chocobo race on foot - and even if he did escape, how long would his freedom last? How long before Rex Arinthone came raining fire and brimstone down to find him after what they'd pulled?
And than there was Cloud. A shimmer of hope in this whole mess. A chance that not everything had gone to shit. But where in the hell was he? Packed up his bags and ran home to hermit island for all Teioh knew. Or dead in a gutter somewhere - which, upon second thought, seemed more likely. He'd looked into Cloud's eyes when he'd explained why he was helping them. There was old age, maybe a bit senility, but behind that was honesty and passion. Cloud wanted to help, he really did. Even if he did kick the bucket, Teioh had to give him that.
A strange sight pulled Teioh from his minds wandering thoughts. Directly across from him, the two robed men were strapping Marlene into a different chair.
What the hell?
They pulled the straps tight as she continued to stare blankly ahead of herself into nothing.
"Hey." Teioh called over to them. "What are you doing?" His arms suddenly pulled up - but the straps over his wrists gave no leeway. They didn't answer him. Didn't even acknowledge him. "Hey!" He repeated, feeling that warm wash of anger take its second spill. "What the hell are you doing to her!?"
And then he watched in curiosity as the men pushed her head down, and he began to feel more helpless than he ever had. He yanked forward in his seat, but it was no use. The third robed man walked over to the back of the chair and stared down at her (neck?) for a few seconds.
"What's going on!? What are you doing!?" Teioh repeated, growing more and more frustrated as he was ignored yet again.
The man leaned in with two hands carefully dangling in front of his face. Teioh watched this helplessly. The mans robe completely hid his face now, and he began to look more like a monster than a man at all. His hands outstretched fingers found their way to the back of her head. No. The backs of… her ears?
Teioh frowned in confusion. Suddenly, a small sound reminiscent of tape being quickly ripped off something filled the room, echoing off the four walls like a tennis ball being thrown around. Teioh watched. He watched as the robed man carried two small rectangles that looked like computer chips away towards a desk to his right. He watched as the other two men followed. He watched as Marlene's body began to stir. And he watched as she slowly lifted her head… and her two eyes - her two real eyes - met his.
"Marlene?" Teioh cried out in half wonder, half joy. "Marlene!?"
A small sound escaped her lips like she had just woken up, and then she took a deep gasp of breath, tilting her head up and arching her back as much as the chair would allow it.
"Marlene." He called in a small voice one last time, fearful that what he'd seen had just been a hopeful trick his mind played instead of a reality.
She lowered her face.
And Teioh let out a deep sigh of relief. It was her.
"Teioh…" She said, struggling to speak. "What… where are you?"
Teioh smiled. She was bit disoriented, but she knew his name - and that was a good thing. A damn good thing. She was going to be OK.
And that's when it hit him. How could he have been foolish enough to thing they were using some sort of brainwashing technique? Or that they could simply make people go nuts with a simple alarm. Their method wasn't anywhere near as mysterious, or as long-term, thankfully. It was simple technology. Probably conjured up by some disgruntled Shinra nerd, fresh off the Science Department. Some sort of mini-radio that messed with your brainwaves or something when sent off close enough to your head. Somewhere close to your head, but that wasn't visible for any curious party like himself to pluck off. Somewhere like the backs of your ears.
"Son of a bitch…" Teioh muttered under his breath.
"What?" Marlene asked, now beginning to come to her senses.
Marlene's confused, innocent 'What?' sent off another shockwave in his head. Yea, so what Teioh, you solved the mystery of the silver-eyed crazies. Now you just have to get the hell out of here with the girl and we can roll credits.
And suddenly that hopeless, careless feeling fell off him - and he felt about twenty pounds lighter. He had a reason to fight now. A reason to keep on going. And only two little leather straps and three not-so-little robed men stood in his way.
He suddenly began pulling and twisting his arms, trying desperately to break free. Marlene stared at him, still looking a bit lost. He shoved his body this way and that way. He tried standing up and using his legs to push out of the straps. He yanked and pulled and ripped until it felt like his arm was going to pull out of its socket.
No dice.
Restriction and control were too important in a place like this to have some weak straps.
"Teioh, what the hell's going on. You're scaring me." Marlene said, suddenly testing (although not nearly as frantically) her bonds.
"Marlene, I don't know what you remember and what you don't." Teioh said taking deep breaths to catch his wind. "But right now, we're waist deep in trouble and we're sinking fast." He motioned with his head towards the three robed men to his right, who were gathering together looking something over at a table.
Marlene said nothing, but shook her head in recognition. She had a frightened face on, and Teioh saw she knew what was going on.
At that moment, the door to the medical room swung open. Marlene glanced over Teioh's shoulder, which prompted him to quickly strain his neck and back to see behind himself as well.
A black-robe stood in the doorway.
"We're taking the damned down to the feeding pit. Do they need medical clearance?" He said - his voice deep, yet somehow sharp.
"No." One of the white-robes answered, glancing over his shoulder.
"Shots?"
"No."
The black-robe nodded and then made a gesture to someone in the tunnel. Teioh watched as another black-robe walked past. Followed by the three sisters with their silvery eyes, who where then followed by two familiar faces.
"Putter! Loeb!" Teioh cried out. They both shot a look into the room. "It's behind their ears! It's behind their god damn ears!" But by that time, they had both already been pushed along by two more black-robes, and the door was closed.
Teioh spun around in his chair and took deep breaths. He wasn't sure if they heard him, but it was damn good to see them alive.
The damned.
The word shot into his head like a bullet.
Feeding pit.
It hurt his head to even put the two saying together. It hurt his heart. He looked over to Marlene and saw the same concern in her face. He knew it was a long shot, but it was a chance. They might have heard him. They might be able to get free. They might be able to get back here and save him and Marlene before the white-robe got to inject them with the syringe filled with black liquid he now held in his hands.
---
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"Behind their ears?" Putter muttered to Loeb as they marched down the tunnel. "What does that mean?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Loeb answered, keeping his voice low. Putter gave him a confused frown, to which Loeb replied by nodding his head backwards gesturing to the black robed men behind them. Putter glanced back and returned with one eyebrow raised.
"Huh?"
"Why do you think they wear those hooded robes? It's to hide their ears." Loeb explained. Putter opened his mouth a bit and began nodding. "I don't know what the hell they could be hiding, but that has to be it. Maybe it's an off switch or something."
Putter laughed, but the possibility wasn't too farfetched. After all, these guys did act like robots. They marched and gestured… spoke only when necessary… moved in a funny sort of way, like their legs didn't quite work so good anymore.
"So… do we make a move?" Putter questioned, lowering his voice even more than before.
"No. Not yet at least. Regardless if we know a secret about them or not, we're still outnumbered."
"Outnumbered?" Putter repeated giving his friend a strange, amused look. "Since when do you stack the odds?"
"Hey, Teioh ain't around. Someone has to think rationally."
"Great," Putter replied. "With you on rationality duty, does that make me the reckless one?"
"No, of course not. You're still the pudgy one." Loeb answered, shooting Putter a playful grin. Putter sighed.
"Still making fat jokes right to the end, huh old friend?"
"The end?"
Putter said nothing to that. He only watched his feet as they carried him forwards. Loeb shook his head.
"It ain't the end Ol' Plump One. It ain't the end till the victory music sounds." He said confidently. It was a chocobo race reference, and one Putter didn't get due to the fact that (mostly because of his size) he never raced chocobo.
Talking helped pass the time (which neither of them knew was a good thing or a bad thing), and they now came to a sharp turn in the tunnel which gave way to a very large circular room - much like the one they'd been told their lives were useless in a while ago. Except this room didn't have a great big podium in its center. Instead, there was a large metal square cut into the floor. At each corner of the square, a large, heavy-looking chain ran from it up to the ceiling where it hooked around a steel gear before running diagonally down to the corners of the room. The floor of the metal square was grating, and below you could see a seemingly endless black pit. A faint smell of something nasty carried up through that grate and squeezed into every inch of air in the room. Something like wet hair, or old meat. Maybe a bit of both.
On the far end of the square, a white-robe stood with a small book in his hands. He smiled at them and beckoned the black-robes to move them forward. They did, and eventually they - along with the sisters - were standing smack dab in the middle of the square. The five black-robes took stances around the perimeter of it, carefully lining themselves up so they were a good inch or so back from the grating itself.
Loeb spun his head in both directions with untrusting eyes. He watched as they all folded their hands in front of themselves and lowered their heads. Opportunity was knocking again. His hands carefully dug their way into the back of his pants and searched for the small lighter he had stealthily stolen from the podium man during their… collision.
The white-robe with the book opened it up to a page and began reading. He read in a language neither Loeb or Putter had heard before. It was full of strange sounds and weird phrasings. The white-robe moved his free hand about while he did this.
Loeb's fingers found the lighter, and quickly - but carefully - slid it out. He fondled with it for a moment before getting the correct hold on it.
Now, the white-robe stopped reading and closed the book. Instead, he began singing - still in that strange language that Putter was pretty sure had been made up by these nuts.
"I hope that's not the victory music." Putter said.
Loeb flicked the lighter. No good. Again. Nothing but a small spark.
And then the whole room seemed to shift, like the entire mountain just had a hiccup. Only it wasn't the room that moved, it was the metal square they were standing on. The sound of heavy chain rubbing against steel filled everyone's ears - and then they were moving. Descending.
Loeb flicked the lighter again. This time the spark caught and a small flame burned silently behind his back. He positioned it as best he could under the ropes that bound his wrists.
The white-robe was singing even louder now, fighting to make his voice powerful over the loud sound of the chains.
"Oh rational one… I think we might be in trouble here." Putter said nervously.
Loeb cursed under his breath as he waited impatiently for the rope to catch fire. He began to pull his wrists apart as hard as he could, ready to break the singed rope as soon as it weakened enough. He glanced up to see that the floor was now waist high.
"Loeb, seriously." Putter said. He began pulling at his own bonds frantically. The sisters stood calmly staring at nothing.
The man continued to sing, his voice now taking on a strange echo in the small square of ground that they were descending into.
Loeb pulled as hard as he could… and the ropes snapped, falling to the grating below - singed a dark black in the middle. He yanked his arms around to his front and got ready to take action.
Only now the floor was neck high, and as he stared furiously at the white-robe who was still singing methodically, the last light of the room above slowly raised above his eyes, dropping them all into the shadows of the mountain. He looked around in a circle at the black-robes who stood at every side. They watched silently and stilly - like giant black statues, and he could only think; This is what it would look like if you were buried alive.
"Damn it!" He yelled, kicking into the ascending wall to his right.
Loeb got Putter free, and then the two of them stood in darkness as the platform slowly descended and the mans voice, along with the sound of the chains running along the gears, began to fade away like the fade-out at the end of a song. With each passing moment the rotting stench from below became more and more pungent, and the temperature seemed to decline a degree for every second they were descending.
Putter looked up. He saw the small square of light shrinking back at ground level, and couldn't help to think of looking up a chimney. It brought him back to his childhood; like he was looking into a tunnel to the past. He remembered one particularly curious night many years ago, when he had snuck down into the living room of his house to investigate a strange noise he heard lying in his bed, dreaming about becoming the planets first, fat, Chocobo racing champion. He still carried that dream as he crept down the stairs - tightly clutching a red, fuzz, blanket and a small flashlight that fit snugly in his tiny - but plump - fingers. Sneaking up to investigate that pesky chimney in the middle of the night… what an adventurer he had been. He remembered aiming the little flashlight all the way up to the top, where the dark, blue, sky laid over the hole like a door. A whiff of cool night air rushed down to meet his face, and just at that moment his cat had leaped off the kitchen table and landed on an old board in the floor that banged every time you stepped on it. He had jumped much higher than anyone would believe he did when he told the story later on, and could swear he almost jumped straight out of that chimney. In reality, he had hopped up quite a bit, and then slammed his head into the brick foundation of the chimneys fireplace - knocking him out cold. When he awoke to his mother hovering above him in tears, crying for 'Her baby' to wake up, he couldn't remember for the life of him what had happened.
Until the next night, when he headed downstairs for a drink of water, and froze dead in front of the fireplace. He heard the cold air whispering from it - as if calling him. Before he knew what he was doing, his feet were carrying him towards it. He still didn't remember what'd happened the night before, but knew it was something bad. Something that terrified him. The next thing he knew, he was staring down the barrel of the chimney-gun again, breathing in the cold air as it wrapped its hand around him. And suddenly, it came back to him ten fold; the fear from the night before. He shrieked in terror as something near the top of the chimney moved, sending him tumbling backwards before tripping over the lip of the rug and landing on his large ass.
It was worst feeling he had ever felt, staring up into that chimney and seeing that… thing move - but now, standing here inside the mountain, being lowered to god-knows-where, he felt worse. Much worse. And for a moment - only a brief, fleeting moment - his eyes watched as the thing from his chimney all those years ago darted past the hole at the top.
"Hey man, you OK?" Loeb called out in the dark.
"Huh?" Putter replied a bit spacey.
"You trying to take my arm off?"
Putter realized he had suddenly reach out and squeezed Loeb's arm. He quickly let go and flushed a bright red, which - fortunately for him - no one could see in the black of the hole they were in.
"We're going to be fine. Whatever it is down there, we can handle it. Right? I mean come on! We've been through worse."
"Much worse." Putter added as he shook his head free of his nostalgic trance. He wasn't sure if he believed himself, but it felt good to say it anyway.
"Right. So what can they possibly throw at us that's gonna top those goons at the Gold Saucer? The ones that almost tossed us straight to Corel, you remember?"
Putter laughed at this before saying; "Yea, we showed them guys, huh?"
"Showed them? That one big one cried!"
The both laughed at that.
"How bout those Shinra at Junon a couple years ago?" Putter asked, still laughing a bit.
"Oh man. You were drunk, I was only fourteen, and neither of us knew a damn thing about-
"Surfing." They both said at the same time before cracking up.
"Man, but did they buy that or what?" Putter asked, holding his side which had begun to ache a bit from laughing.
"Yea… they sure did."
The laughter lingered on for a bit before fading out like the sounds from above, and then they both sat in silence the rest of the way - both of them cherishing their memories, and hoping they would make it out of this to live out some more.
The tunnel finally ended about two minutes later. The surrounding walls of the tunnel did not slowly taper off; they cut off sharply at right angles that made up the ceiling of the room below.
What a room it was. Actually, it wasn't much of a room at all. It was a sea of black that stretched out for what could have been miles in every direction. The cramped, thick, air of the tunnel was immediately dissipated - replaced with a vast, cool, wind that seemed to be dancing wildly in every direction. Even that, however, did nothing to mask the smell, which had seemed bad in the room above and worse in the tunnel on the way down. Here in the actual room, it was damn-near nauseating.
The metal square plopped onto the ground below with a soft thud, momentarily buckling everyone's knees. There was a strange crackling noise from beneath their feet as the square settled in, and then there was silence.
Just as Loeb was about to comment on how empty this "room" was, a low, humming noise kicked in from about twenty feet above them. He looked up to see four, faint eyes staring at him from each corner of the tunnel they had came through.
No. On second look, they weren't eyes, but lights - slowly waking up like those at a sports stadium.
In another handful of seconds, they were wide-awake. Four circles of bright, white dotted the corners of the tunnel above; Each of them casting a wide beam of light down at the five prisoners below. Loeb squinted and reflexively threw up a hand to shield himself from their all-seeing-stare.
"Gees!" Putter cried out as he shielded his eyes as well. "What are they gonna do? Melt us to death over the course of a year!?"
Both their eyes slowly adjusted to the lights, and they now stood side-by-side in the middle of the square. The lights bounced off the metal grating, giving off a soft glow that lit up about six-feet-or-so around them. In that six feet was a sight that horrified them.
"Shit." Was all Loeb could utter as he began circling around to confirm what he saw was in fact on all sides of the square. It was.
Bones. Some bare - some not-so-bare. They huddled around the metal floor like the crowd at a football game. They jabbed and stuck the air randomly, raising at least a foot off the floor in some piles. Amidst them were torn pieces of fabric which once lived as clothes, but now rotted as rags. Garbage and debris filled any unoccupied nook and cranny of the bone crowd. A gold watch lay hanging from the eye socket of a skull. A thick, leather, boot with tiny nips in it was hanging from the end of a long, decaying leg bone. The remains of a hand jabbed up through the grating of the square at one corner, looking like a zombie trying to escape his grave.
"We're standing on the damn things man! We're freaking standing on them!" Putter exclaimed in horror as he threw his hands up. He was looking down beneath the grating at the dirty white sea of bones they were only two inches above.
Loeb didn't need to be told this. He was currently riding out his own sickening feeling. He grabbed at the sides of his head, which seemed to pulse rapidly beneath his fingers. His stomach was doing loops. For one terrified moment, he thought he was going to throw up on this little square of metal they had - adding more disgust to the whole situation. Luckily, he was able to beat it back down by widening his eyes and taking a deep breath.
The worse part of all this was the stench, which at ground-level, became unbearable.
"What the hell is that!" Putter cried out, pinching his nose. "Bones don't smell. Do they? It's not like theirs enough meat left on them to rot."
From somewhere deep in the area they were in, a high, shrill, noise cut the air like a streak of lightning. It was quick and sharp, and it echoed several times before the silence returned.
Putter and Loeb exchanged worried looks.
"That sounded like a chocobo." Loeb said, unintentionally whispering. Putter nodded, not breaking his stare. "Like some pissed-off chocobo." Putter nodded again. That's when Loeb noticed a small glowing square on his cheek. He squinted at it. It was very-slightly moving.
"What are you looking at?" Putter whispered nervously.
Loeb got close to the square, and upon noticing it was actually reflected light, turned his head to trace the line it came from.
The line led directly to the back of the youngest sisters head. Behind her ear, actually.
"Loeb?" Putter questioned.
"Son of a gun." Loeb said absentmindedly. He began heading towards Mindy.
"Yo! What's going on!?" Putter demanded.
"Behind their ears!" Loeb answered. "Behind their ears!"
"Have you lost your mind?"
"No! Look!"
Loeb gestured Putter over, and when he came he pointed at the back of the small, blondes, ear. On it was a small square of metal - like a super-small version of the one they were standing on. There was a dim red light glowing from beneath its edges.
"What is that?" Putter asked.
"Hell if I know, but I'd be a fool not to find out." And with those words, Loeb reached out and peeled off the little square. It felt and sounded like nothing more than a strong band-aid coming off.
Mindy instantly collapsed to the floor and her small body began twitching uncontrollably.
"What did you do!?" Putter yelled, kneeling down beside her and trying to get a hold of her shoulders. Loeb looked down at her in shock. Some of it was because of what had happened, but the rest was because every time his eyes met hers, he saw that one of them had returned to normal while the other had not.
Mindy continued to twitch and shake, rolling around on the grate, pulling at her hair, trying to scream, but only little sounds were coming out.
"Her other ear! Check her other ear!" Loeb commanded, now back in reality. Putter managed to get a hold on her shoulders and tilted her to her side. Sure enough, another little square was there. He quickly ripped it off.
She stopped moving. Completely.
"Now what did you do!?" Loeb shouted.
Before Putter could answer, Mindy shot up taking in a deep gasp of breath. Her head smashed into Putters, which sent the pudgy one to his ass. She stared forward with a face of shock, sharply taking long breaths. Her wide, blue eyes stared into the blackness.
Putter got up and stood in front of her on her right. Loeb was at her left. They stared down at her in curious wonder - waiting to see what would happen next.
She coughed and than slowly raised her head to meet their stares. She looked confusedly back and forth between them.
"Mindy?" Putter said cautiously. The small blonde squinted at him.
"Uncle Freddie?" She asked confusedly.
A smile cracked on Loebs face. He turned to see the same one on Putter. They were going to be OK. All of them.
Another high-pitched shriek came howling from the blackness around them - this one seeming closer than the last.
They'd be OK… but for how long, he wasn't sure.
Something wicked was coming their way.
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