a chaotic heart
Chapter 17

.

.

He thinks they're going to vanish from his life again. He hopes they will, because he can feel a longing for them that's too potent, too strong, to be safe. So he pushes them away instead. Knows that Bhunivelze can hate, and use, and that they're all pawns in God's big game that he hasn't yet managed to lose. It was always part of his objective to observe the world through human eyes, in a human form.

And now you know how powerless humans can be. But humans are strong as well. The strength that knocked a God off his throne, that defeated the Fal'Cie and changed the past, the present and the future. The strength that also led to hundreds, of not more, avoidable deaths. That had most of the world destroyed, Cocoon destroyed, New Cocoon abandoned up in the sky except for him, the lonely sentinel looking after it on God's whim.

His soul is in too many pieces to be put back together in this life. It's not impossible, if the Saviour could save every living person in the old world and Vanille the dead – but by that point he was neither living nor dead, the only one aside from the Saviour herself that escaped the purification process.

Or rather…I had been purified, by God. I'm just tainted now…with what little scraps of chaos I've put back together…

He laughs, because he sounds like a scarecrow who's gotten the stuffing knocked out of him and he's working to put it back. Fickle stuffing: straw that'll catch fire with sun and glass, let alone a lit match or a torch or bonfire. It's Serah's fault, he thinks, and there's a hint of both affection and blame in that thought. Serah has been telling him about The Wizard of Oz in her last few phone calls.

It had really been a good idea, at first. Something no-one had tried before but hearing those fairytales that not even his experiences in the old world could make him believe possible was…soothing. A dream nightmares couldn't slip into, that Bhunivelze couldn't slip into – but that had turned out to be wrong, if only because it was Serah telling those stories. His parents had caught on to the idea. His mother read him tales from their family collection. His father borrowed tapes from the library so he wasn't listening to lyrics or instrumental music all the time, and it was nice. Relaxing. Fun. A tale he could immerse himself into more deeply than his own tale.

But now, sometimes, he finds himself listening to her voice instead of her tales, his mind wandering to regions he has to snatch it back from and the screams are vibrating in his throat, on his tongue, on his lips – but his mother notices and hangs up the phone before they can escape like the tails of a whip and catch her.

And when it's over and he's back in control, he cries and shakes and mutters, like a litany: 'she shouldn't, she shouldn't.' But she does, and he allows it.

He shouldn't. But he does. Because it's comfortable and that's what he's always looking for: comfort.

.

His feet heal and there's no lasting damage on either sole or the infection that had snuck in. But still, he doesn't leave. His parents are watching, wary, but if he leaves, he won't get to hear more stories and it's a childish thought that's stuck there and he just goes with it. For now, anyway, when Bhunivelze does nothing, can do nothing, because she's so far away.

Until he finds himself wandering one night and dashes back home and barricades himself in with the extension line.

They must tell her, his parents, because she doesn't launch into her tale straight away. Instead, she asks how he is, if he's scared, what he's got against the door (nothing now, though the bookshelf had been there at some point), why his parents can't get in (because he's done something to the lock and he's not quite sure how to reverse it, even if he wanted to and he doesn't) and whose idea it was to have his bedroom on the second floor (the architect's, he supposes? He doesn't really know…). Finally she sighs, and promises to call back in another ten minutes. She does, and they pick up The Wizard of Oz once again…or, rather, she does and he listens silently for the most part, phone on speaker and out of reach so he doesn't have the urge to cradle or crush it.

That afternoon, there's a lot of banging on the other side of his door. Someone trying to break the lock. They don't manage it and he's shrunken on to the opposite wall, curled up in his back and half relieved, half-cursing. And both hungry and thirsty as well. He's had neither thing for over twenty four hours at that point but that's not new either and the dizziness that settles in is always welcome. Another cloud to bury himself within, another blanket to wrap around his frail body and cocoon the imprisoned God along with him.

A hundred and sixty nine years in the ark. And now another sixteen here.

.

He thinks they're trying to actually break the door now. There's an odd drilling noise, anyway. He's still on the bed. Face down on the blankets and they blur as he tries to pull himself up. He gives up. Why bother? He'll be dragged out of bed when he needs to be, and how long has it been, anyway?

I think I take more care of myself when I'm not at home. And he laughs quietly, his body trembling from the effort. His head is still heavy, heavy and crushing the parasitic God with its weight. From the lack of water, probably. If not that, then the lack of fresh air. His windows only open so far.

All the things his parents have done, to try and make him both safe and happy. I'm sorry, Mum, Dad. But I have to fight this.

Because he's already seen the nightmare to its bitter end and he'll flee from it until he outruns it, and that will never happen.

But his mouth and throat are both bone dry and his body too heavy to lift up again and he knows he needs water, and soon.

He also knows it takes more days than two to actually die from dehydration and even longer for food. It's slow, and cruel, and impossible because the human body will be a ravaging beast by then and they'll seek that water or food on all fours without a hint of sense or restraint or compassion. He doesn't know why he knows this, why it's more than just an innocent curiosity but it's not. Death never was just an innocent curiosity and he can only suppose that, at some point in his old life, he researched it quite thoroughly. Death, and time. Both those things he knows more about than the average person. Both of those things dragging along in chains for him.

.

Light suddenly spills into his room. Light like Bhunivelze, swallowing him hole and for a moment he is really there, trapped in the Ark and immobile without a single bond in sight and with that God whispering in his ears…

He doesn't know how long it lasts. But the light dims eventually and he finds himself in a hospital bed once again. His body is still heavy, a prisoner of its own weight moreso than the straps that bind him loosely to the bed. They know. They always know. And here, at least, there's no escape.

At least the God is silent in his mind, exhausted from all that whispering and he remembers none of it: the whispers, yes, but no words. The whispers and that bright light that screams of God.

And the first, and only, voice he hears… it's her and he can never forget or mistake her voice. 'Lightning.' Her name falls off his lips with only long-written memories echoing the title of Saviour after it. That, and…something else. 'So it's almost over. The last thirteen days of the world.'

.

It's Serah's fault. No, not Serah's fault. Not Hope's fault either, whatever he managed to do to the lock in his bedroom that left him without food and water for almost two whole days before the Estheims managed to get someone to break down the door. It's almost laughable, that the rich family who've invested so much in trying to keep their son safe and at home find it backfiring on them…but who can blame them? Who can blame anyone, really, except Bhunivelze?

And now… now she's caved and gone with Serah and Snow to visit the hospital yet again, even though she's sure it'll be no different to the other times.

And yet it is. Eyes that don't seem to even see her stare at her. Grey eyes, because the contacts are back in and no-one's bothered taking them out. Probably not the concern when he's got needles hooked on to both arms and restraints binding ankles and wrists.

But it's not the eyes. Blank eyes are one thing. Even her name, whispered like it is. Like every time she'd stepped foot onto the Ark.

But his words… 'So it's almost over. The last thirteen days of the world.'

Exactly like when she awoke on the Ark.

Are you trying to tell me something, Hope? Or…

'I wasn't talking about the world.'

She remembers that. She remembers. And she'd never had the chance to ask again. 'Hope,' she begins. She knows the answer now. To that question at least. But this. 'What's almost over?'