Preludes to a Fall – Reawakening
When Hope came to, he didn't recognize the room he was in. He didn't remember what had happened at first either, and then the sound of wind reached his ear, making him snap straight up. He was in a bed, or what looked like one, and alone. Looking around the room, the knowledge that he was missing his jacket, shirt, and tie were distant until he noted them piled in the corner. He took a moment to really gauge his surroundings.
He lay on a cold, hard surface that had had blankets piled on top. He propped both arms behind him to make sitting up easier and looked at the remains of the stone pillar he was resting on. And then he looked behind him, and gasped. The rest of the room – what was left of it, hope thought - faded from his mind as he scrambled out of bed. His socked feet struck stone, and he slowly made his way, in wonder, to the giant crystal throne in the center of it all.
"Light…" He whispered. He hadn't seen her in over ten years, but even in crystal she looked the same. She has such a forlorn expression on her face. That thought brought everything back to him. The top of the ship. Serah. Mog. The wind and the strange buildings. The last thing he remembered was Noel rushing to the edge of the ship. Then black.
"Welcome back." Said a muted voice from behind him. He turned to see Sazh standing against another broken piller with his arms crossed, and behind him almost hiding was Dajh. "You've been asleep for a while."
Glancing behind Sazh, he realized that dawn was just breaking over a new, foreign world. "How long?" He asked.
"Thirteen days - We think." Sazh said, dropping his arms and standing away from the pillar. "We don't really know, but the watches all keep ticking, so..."
The words of the older man confused Hope. Thirteen days… I don't understand. He moved to where his clothing and bags were piled and began to put some of them back on. "Where are we?"
"We aren't." Came a new voice. Buttoning up his shirt, Hope glanced back to see Noel coming up behind Sazh and Dajh, ruffling the small boy's hair as he walked. It was obviously an absent gesture, but it brought a smile to the boy's face. But his words had slowed Hope's actions, making him think of a long suppressed memory. A l'Cie boy with no thoughts of a future.
His hesitation was missed by all in the room, and he continued with his jacket and shoes. "Meaning…" He asked, not to anyone in particular.
A strong note of both pain and anger filled Noel's voice. "Meaning we failed. Meaning I failed. I'm still here because my future was never erased…" He didn't finish the sentence, but Hope knew what it would be. Meaning you caused your own future before you were born. You're stuck in a time loop… Oh Noel.
He finished dressing, but left his satchels where they were. "What do you remember, Hope?" Sazh asked, a note of what sounded almost like fear in his voice. Hope ignored the intonation and sat back on his makeshift pillar-bed to thought about it. "I remember getting to Noel and Serah... … Serah…" He stopped for a moment in thought, regretting that he had not been closer to her. Yet another friend of his, lost.
"I remember Mog… telling us the goddess had died." He amended the sentence before finishing, not wanting to bring up the Moogle's death. "I remember turbulence and wind. And then... well. Nothing." He looked up at Sazh when he said it, noting Noel's attention on him as well.
"Um..." Noel started, sounding very hesitant. "It… it doesn't normally happen to men. But… did… did you see anything unusual?" He asked, the last of it in a rush. It was a potential terror to him that the people he surrounded himself with would continue dying from the eyes of a now dead goddess.
Hope thought about it for a few moments but eventually shook his head. Noel's question had been if he'd seen anything but… it was better to be open with his friends. "Not visions. Not like Serah." He said, giving Hope a look of mild reassurance before turning back to Sazh. "But… it felt… I'm not sure I have a word for it. It felt like meeting someone I've known forever, without there being anyone to meet." He said, confusion writ upon his features and voice.
His friends remained silent. And then they both glanced behind him. To Lightning. He turned as well to look upon her crystal visage, and started. Her eyes were open. She still held the look of eternal sorrow, but her eyes seemed to pin Hope down. Making an involuntary noise, he stood and stepped toward her. He could have sworn that before she'd had a look of sorrowful acceptance, with her eyes closed. Now she looked like the sorrow of the masses were on her shoulders, and yet... angry. Or maybe determined was the right word.
"Hope?" Sazh asked, stepping forward. "You alright?" Then a note of understanding crept in. "First time seeing her again, huh?" He made a humming noise in his throat.
In shock, he whipped his head back to Sazh, then to Noel, and finally back to Light. Her eyes were still open. Neither of the other men had seemed surprised in the least. "I guess I'm just still weak. Thirteen days is a long time to go without sustenance or exercise. Maybe I'm taking things too fast." He said, lifting a hand to his head and seating himself once more. He didn't tell them about seeing things. He blamed it on too much rest and too little of everything else, and then moved on.
He looked to both men once more before voicing his question. "Bhunivelze? The people? Academia? …Vanille and Fang?" His voice lost more life with every new word, hitting a note of expectant bad news on the final three.
The two shared a look before Noel stepped towards him. "Bhunivelze is still in the sky, but it's dark. We've had no contact from the people, and haven't been able to get through, either." He stopped and looked to Hope with a mix of sympathy and something unreadable, almost as if he were willing Hope to move on already. "Academia is mostly gone. The places where Valhalla took over are empty. Places where Academia still runs through have people… but few."
Sazh broke in stating that he imagined it would be the same everywhere. Hope looked from one to the other, ignoring his last question for a moment. "Vanille and Fang?" He asked again, afraid he already knew the answer.
The air was silent for a long moment before Sazh answered. "They're gone." Images of the crystal shattering in that black storm seized Hope. He looked at the floor, too many emotions to list racing and battling each other across his features. Then he looked up. "Broken." He stated.
"No." Sazh answered. There was another period of silence, then a gruff noise from Noel. "We need to just tell him. It's cruel to keep him questioning." Noel looked back to Hope, impatience and irritation in his features.
"They melted. They started to melt about the same time that you lost consciousness. It took five days. We tried everything we could to keep them cold, but it's crystal, not ice. Serah disappeared, and Snow never came back from the coliseum. Now that you know, grieve and move on. We're in my world now, and it only gets worse from here." He turned and left. It was obvious that his failure was getting to him.
Hope stood and turned back to look at Lightning. She still had her eyes open, which he assumed was normal. I must have imagined it the first time. "They're all gone. Our past is gone. Isn't it Sazh?" He asked. He wasn't sure what he was feeling, but it was strangely empty. When he didn't get an answer, he turned around. Sazh was gone, as was Dajh. He pivoted again to look at Lightning and froze in shock once more. She had her eyes closed, the same deep sorrow on her face as the first time he'd looked at her since waking.
The world went black, and he awoke to the same room. He was fully clothed, and Noel stood staring at Lightening a few feet away. A terrible feeling of déjà vu hit Hope, and he sat up clutching his head at the onset of a terrible headache.
Noel turned at the noise and walked to him, grabbing a leather jug off the flagstones near the pillar Hope lay on. "You should drink this. You've been asleep for almost two weeks." As Hope took the jug from Noel, a strong, painful spike of alarm and fear jolted through him, but he couldn't figure out why. He felt like it might be connected to the dream he'd just had, but it was all covered in black clouds; he couldn't remember.
AN: I feel devious. My story has a lot of plot things.