02. Breath; Footfall [the only sound in the world]

[ monsters ]

Tick…tick…tick…

In the daylight, the Red Room might have looked comfortable and inviting. Aerith had nothing against the color red. She liked it. Traverse Town never had a day, though. It didn't exist. There was lamplight, which was fine, although it did cast heavy shadows. They made the red accents black and dark like drying blood.

Everything of late tended to make her think of blood. She had seen quite a bit of it in the past couple days. Being so macabre all the time was beginning to make her feel sick, but she couldn't shake the greasy visions from her eyes when she closed them.

Sixty eight, sixty nine, seventy, seventy one, seventy two, seventy three…

Aerith lay in bed, trying to count herself to sleep. The mattress was so large she couldn't touch both sides at once without rolling over. She was flat on her back, staring up at the canopy that cloaked the frame. The fabric swayed in the dank breeze that drifted in from the underground waterway. The smell made her want to vomit, but the air felt nice on the itching skin that kept pestering her mind awake. The burns wouldn't leave her alone. She was sure she was going to dry up, leaving behind nothing but a shriveled, burned husk of flesh.

She continued to wheeze out her breaths as if she were a corpse from the smoke that still clogged her lungs. Otherwise, the room was silent. It made her think of tombs. She imagined a man dressed in the room's red velvet curtains, imprisoned in a coffin under her bed. He would have red eyes that stared at the bottom of the lid, and long fingernails poised upon the wood.

Skritch skritch.

Aerith stopped breathing.

Skritch skritch.

That sound was only something she heard in her head now. It shouldn't have been so close to the window, clear and real. She couldn't even move to shove her head under her pillow. She tightened every bit of her body and lay like a plank under the covers. Maybe if she tried hard enough she could melt into the bed frame.

Shthump shthumpshthumpshthumpdadump

Her heart was pounding like a machine gun, letting all in the vicinity know that she was a living, fleshy thing ripe for the picking by toothy monsters with claws. No. No. No-no-no-no-no it couldn't be. Not here. Not in their safe haven.

Skritch.

It had followed them. Snuck onto the ship, hiding in a corpse? Who had lost their heart? Was it the young man in the other room? He was much too weak to fend off the darkness, she knew it. Yuffie wouldn't have, would she? She was so loud and every inch of her was coiled to spring and fight. Please let it not be someone she knew, come back from the dead to guilt her out of living.

The night continued to breathe like murder.

She felt as insignificant as a rag in a gutter. Utterly and hopelessly defenseless. Her dry lips were too stiff and had long forgotten the spells that had kept her safe once upon a life. She wondered if she'd even be able to scream when the claws finally found her and began to rip her apart like tissue paper. Why was she still so alive and aware of them scratching at the window, creeping under the bed, hanging from the unseen corners, staring at her with big, gaping eyes.

Heavy footsteps hit the floorboards and sent the shadows scattering. Aerith blinked her way out of her thoughts as she heard through the thin walls of the hotel the sound of someone walking. Something that was very human was making its way into the adjoining room. It was enough to make her feel able to carefully sink back into herself. The door between the two rooms was cracked open a bit, and when the lamp in the Green Room was turned on it cast a stream of yellow light through the opening.

There was a rustling of thick paper bags.

"Good to see you're still alive," said a voice, deep and solid. "I'm gonna have to rip that ship apart and sell the pieces to keep paying for this shit so you might as well suck it up and make some kind of effort to get better."

Aerith sat up, peeling the bed sheets from her legs. She padded barefoot across the floor, her dirty pink dress flapping around her knees, and cautiously slid in next to the doorframe.

The green room seemed much warmer with the dim lamp on the dresser illuminating the space. There was the man who was saving their lives, who smelled horrid and had a face that could frighten the life out of babies. His impossibly large hands were planted firmly on his hips and his worn face sternly watched their patient, who lay on the only bed in the room.

The pilot looked up before Aerith could make up her mind and decide if she was going to say hello or go back to bed. All they could do was to stare at each other.

His eyes were very blue.

Aerith curled her fingers nervously against the wood of the door. A heavy sigh broke from his lips.

"Christ, you look like a ghost."

Unable to breathe for a moment, Aerith pressed her finger to her wrist to see if there was still a pulse. She twisted her mouth to frown at him. He scowled back, ten times worse.

"Have you done anything for those cuts yet?" he grouched.

Aerith looked down at her limbs, dumbly, like she was just noticing the things.

The man went over to the bags on the table and took out a few colorful bottles, studying the labels. He approached her, blocking out the lamplight like a giant, and offered two of them.

"This one's aseptic for the cuts and the other's a crème that'll help the burns." Aerith took them, not knowing what else to do with her hands. "You know we have our own bathroom?"

She shook her head. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at a door on the other side of the room.

"Blue Room, right through there."

He tore his gaze from hers, leaving her a little bit colder. He turned from her to drop himself into a sturdy wooden chair and sigh, loudly. The thump made the floor shake.

He smelled of fresh tobacco smoke and soap.

Aerith suddenly had the sneaking suspicion that she had scared him, creeping around the doorway like that and watching him while he was unaware. She had seen her face in the mirror, all hollowed out and smudged with bruises, and knew it didn't look exactly pretty.

"Th-thank you," Aerith croaked, her voice was cracked and swollen but it was still there, wonderfully and palpably there.

The man just grunted. He was rubbing his forehead with the tips of his rough fingers. There were deep creases furrowed into his skin and a thicket of stubble on his jaw threatening to grow into a beard. He looked as old as Aerith felt.

"Can't just leave you here," he muttered, more to himself than anything. "Not with him…you…Christ, just get back in bed, all right?"

Aerith pretended to be very interested in the bottle of burn crème and not at all aware of how glassy the captain's eyes had become. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she turned and crept back into her room. She hoped she wouldn't hear him sob.

Back in bed, the tube she took and squeezed into her hands, rubbing the cold salve over her arms and legs, massaging it into her flaking skin. When she was done, she carefully arranged herself over the covers. The wind in the room raised the few hairs that were left on her arms. She could hear him in the other room, the wood creaking under his boots as he moved about. He would be there, she realized, even if the sun wasn't. He would be there, in the other room, just a wall away, to hear her scream if the darkness took her.