He sucked in breath, in and out, in and out, carefully regulating it as he waited for the gates in front of him to open. Despite himself, he was looking forward to this. Despite the obvious intention towards his eventual demise, he wanted to prove them wrong. He wanted to be the first one to Play the Game and survive. More than anything else, he wanted the freedom that was promised upon the completion of the Game.

He scratched an itch on his stomach and stared at the metal gates ahead of him.

The room he was in was relatively small, around the same size as his dormitory room in Garden and a little bigger than his current cell. It had a high ceiling and bare, white washed walls. Other than a camera in one corner and a small circular white light in the ceiling, there was nothing besides him in it. It was a little different from what he had been expecting - given the stories of those who survived their stages, he was expecting a metal box with rusting grates on the floor and perhaps a flickering blue light attached to a low ceiling. Perhaps there would even be a streak of blood on one of the walls, evidence of a past Player's untimely demise. But instead, aside from the polished aluminium floor, he thought it looked a little like his doctor's waiting room – minus the chairs.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and wished he had a cigarette. Waiting was what he hated the most about life threatening situations. It was boring for a start and it implied he had nothing else better to do than wait for death to find him. At least the cigarette would give him something to do with his hands.

At long last the light above the gates turned from red to green. He walked forward to take the handle of one gate and pushed it open. He came immediately into a circular room with a door on the opposite side. Seifer felt his eyebrow beginning to rise, and stopped it where it was – it would do him no good to be cocky about it; the place was designed to kill people after all. He walked into the centre of the room and looked around. The gates clicked ominously shut behind him.

The room was a lot darker than the previous one. It was a lot bigger and painted dark grey with one tiny light in the ceiling. Seifer looked around. Wasn't there supposed to be a camera around here somewhere? Maybe he could get out that way in the future. A bit of digging, a few broken nails, and voila – the other side of the divide was waiting. What was that saying? People in glass houses shouldn't toss rocks?

He looked into the corners but found nothing. No cameras, no glass houses and certainly no rocks. Shrugging in half-hearted disappointment, he strode across to the other door and pushed it wide.

"With all due respect, Sir, I don't think it is impossible, or even unlikely, that Seifer was possessed by the Sorceress while fighting in the war. It is very unlike him to conduct such offenses against the authorities. His loyalties to his comrades and his friends would not have allowed him to betray-"

"Ms. Trepe, might I remind you that it was Seifer who gave you such grief in your classes throughout the duration of your Instruction."

"Yes, but Sir-"

"And it was Seifer who ignored all orders on the SeeD examination, failed and nearly dragged all his fellow cadets to their deaths?"

"He did not-"

"Seifer Almasy was the same cadet who then – not days after his failed exam – went AWOL from the Garden and chased a team of trained SeeDs over the country and into the hands of the Sorceress out of mere jealousy."

"Sir! These things are all true events which happened, but not a single person was hurt on the account of Seifer Almasy up until the point of his possession. And I think you will find I was the only Instructor to ever have even the smallest shred of control over him. There would have been far more casualties on our side had he not ignored the orders which were given, and it was not jealousy which drove him to follow the team of 'newly passed' SeeDs to the place at which the Sorceress happened to be, but it was in fact loyalty and concern for old friends and comrades. He was a better fighter and was better trained than any of the SeeD you sent on that mission! If he had only been-"

"Do not question the people I put on my missions, Ms. Trepe, or you may find yourself falling out of favour with the higher authorities."

"Sorry sir, but while I might be out of line, you are simply wrong. Seifer Almasy was more than qualified to be a SeeD, his intelligence was best suited to the field and had you only passed him in the first place, he would not have felt the need to rush off and abandon a position you seemed bent on not letting him have, to help out friends he knew would need help. Leonhart might have been a good SeeD in the exam, but he was under experienced and such a mission would have called for-"

"He was all the client could afford. A more experienced SeeD would be more expensive."

"Then you should have just said no!"

"Don't you dare start telling me how to run my organisation, Quistis! This is a business, and as such we must cater to the clients. The mission would have gone off without a hitch had Seifer Almasy not interfered. If you would like someone to blame for the loss of your teaching post, your friends and what I am beginning to think of as your love interest, you can blame the son of a bitch himself! Now get the hell out of my office before I break the only things left keeping you standing!"

"Yes, Sir."

He swatted at a mosquito as it buzzed by his ear. God he hated these things. The room was filled with them and not much else. There were the little kind that lived by the sea, droning away the humid, sunny hours looking for fresh blood to suck, and then there were the big kind, foot ball sized and struggling around on the floor. If he hadn't been trying his best not to retain his blood pressure, he might have felt sorry for the great fat things, but as it was the huge shining eyes and slightly gelatinous body mass were making him feel sick instead.

So far, there hadn't been much of a challenge presented by the Game, aside from wandering down empty corridors and into rooms of questionable contents, he hadn't found anything that could really do him any great bodily injury. It was slightly disconcerting. There was no doubt that the place was meant to be a maze and he assumed he would have to undertake a task at some point along the road, but he meant to avoid that wherever possible. Damn, he could do with a cigarette.

Another mosquito buzzed nearby and he lashed out, smearing it across the wall. He was surprised there weren't more bug splats than this, if he got the chance he wanted to crush them all. He thought back to his Garden days as he walked further into the long room. They seemed quite nice compared to this. This was confusing and tricky and he hated being confused. It made him feel dumb and he hated feeling dumb. Garden had been easy to understand and easy to please. Compared to this never-ending maze of white walls and metal flooring, Garden was positively techno-coloured! And wasn't that a depressing thought.

Kicking a fat mosquito out of his way, Seifer reached the far wall. It was bare, with nothing on it, not even a door.

"Well fuck a duck." He muttered, turning round to scope the rest of the room. Other than mosquitoes, there was nothing else there but the door at the other end. "Yet another dead end."

He flapped at one of the tiny winged basterds as he stormed back to the door and wrenched it open. But it wasn't a white hallway that greeted him this time, and it certainly wasn't the white hallway he had closed the door on before.

Seifer frowned at the vegetation that hung over the door. It was a hanging vine of some sort, with big green leafs in a heart shape clinging to thin, wispy tendrils. Poison Jack. The vines themselves were not poisonous in the slightest, but the leaves were covered in an acid like compound that melted the fats in the body and allowed the plant to absorb them and grow. It was one of the many tools the Garden had used in defending itself over the years and to Seifer's experienced eye, unmistakeable in colour and shape. The room beyond the door was positively smothered in the stuff.

"Evidence of a rich and abundant food supply." He said. The biggest trouble with Poison Jack was that it had a life of its own. And that wasn't to say it grew everywhere. It meant it was alive and kicking and well enough able to hunt you down and hold you still while it dissolved and absorbed you – all of you.

"Just my fucking luck." Seifer said, turning back to the room full of mosquitoes. "Get bitten and bleed to death in here, or get dissolved and absorbed out there! Oh choices, choices..."

A/N: Blast... If any of this is in the wrong order or makes absolutely zilch amount of sense, please tell me and I'll try my best to do all this again :(