Chapter 107 - A Place Called Home
September, 2002
It should be embarrassing to say but Sephiroth hides himself in the foliage and waits until he can be still. It should be embarrassing that he holds himself back as he hears Zack sprinting down the path looking for him. It should be embarrassing but he doesn't care. Sephiroth lays against a rock, struggling to breathe. His eyes are wide and raw as he watches the sunset. The sky filters from red to purple to black as the sun sinks out of view. The mountain's edges look like teeth against the sky. Night sounds creep out, the insects and animals making their appearance in the scenery.
They leave him alone.
No one touches him.
There is no one left to do it.
Everything is too heavy to pick up. His heart tightens in his chest on occasion. The thing that Genesis stirred up reawakens without meaning or cause. His mind aches over it all without any answers. The phone in his pocket finally stops buzzing at some undetermined point.
His eyes shut. If he sleeps or dreams, he is not sure. A blankness takes him over mercifully.
When he wakes, it is a numbness that has settled over him. He can't feel it. He can't feel any of it. It is welcome. He is skating across the top of the nightmare from before. He won't dare to look down. No. It isn't worth the risk. He won't go back to what it was like before he slept.
This clears his mind.
It sharpens his focus.
He picks up the first piece of the plan. There is nothing more to do than to move forward. He could dwell here on the mountain until he dies of dehydration but he is not ready for that. Part of him still wants a future. In the darkness, he picks his way down the mountainside and towards the town.
A street lamp lights up the middle of the town. Again, it's familiar to him in a broken way. He knows the way it feels to walk that path around and around the light. His mind can trace the way the icicles take it in winter and how in the deepest cold, the light could flicker out. He can hear Mariella's voice telling him, in an almost amused tone, "It is the darkest part of the storm now. It'll pass from here."
Sephiroth has to sigh out the frustration.
His mind is playing tricks on him. He had never been to Nibelheim before this point. Mariella hadn't mentioned this place, even temporarily.
He waits for the naked woman to return. Sephiroth is sure that she will. Especially since she had told him to go home. It is an unreasonable request since he has no home to go to. He was not born to a place. He was born into a concept.
At least that is what his mind is telling him if Genesis' words hold true.
He rubs his fingers against his temples. He will not let this storm take him again. There are things that he needs. He needs to go to the inn before he leaves but facing Zack is not something that he is ready to do. That requires him to listen to questions and answer them. He does not have the answers for those questions.
The numbness is firmly in place and that is what he needs.
He can hold onto it.
The structure of his actions are drilled into him, even if he is no longer working for Shinra.
He will not emote.
It is dangerous.
The evidence is apparent but he still needs to think. He still needs a place to spend the rest of the night that is not his room in the inn.
He stops under the lamp post in the square and traces his fingers up the iron siding. Rust has taken parts. The design is worn away but the function of it remains the same. It will serve its place in the world no matter how damaged.
That is all he has to discover.
A new place that he can fit.
But a monster has no place to fit. All they do is destroy or they are destroyed. His fingers wrap around metal. Or the monsters cause their own destruction.
That thought twists in Sephiroth's chest and he forces it back down. No one is coming to save him. No one likes him. All they see is a product. He catches himself. He needs to find a safe place to be until the next day. In the sunlight, there would be answers. There always are. A crackle draws his attention back to the present.
He had squeezed an indent into the steel.
A normal person would never be able to do such things. He presses his head against the pole. This has to be resolved. This endlessness has to cease. He has gone through too much for a few well crafted lies to destroy him. He's tired. He is haunted by a hallucination. He's had his hopes of running away with the help of Genesis shattered. He had discovered that the last person who he could have called his friends is now dead and only a mockery of himself.
It is reasonable to feel impaired.
The surface of the numbness shifts uneasy with whatever is occurring underneath it.
Sephiroth forces the muscles in his back to unknit. He will make it through the night and then he will recover enough to move on.
The dog starts barking again.
He opens his eyes to it and the pit of his stomach drops through the ground.
And the dog that should not exist continues to bark.
Sephiroth raises his head, tracking the sound.
It continues, defiant.
He pauses and then follows it.
The files on the mansion are in his bag in the inn but he can remember the broad strokes from the prepwork he does before any mission. The structure was old and it was owned by Shinra. It had been used as a research facility in conjunction with the reactor before they shut down the whole area. The building is not used now although there is minimal traffic to maintain the structure and to keep their neighbors from making the aging equipment theirs.
Sephiroth makes his way back up the house without questioning it further. It is a direction and a decision. It feels right. He is drawn to something in the numbness.
The dog still barks in his ears, the vocal cords going rough around the edges by the time he gets to the front gate. Unlike his dream, he has action here. There is no lock, only a clip that holds the chain together. It falls easily from between the length of the chain. The metal links slide from the hooks like a snake. It drops from his fingers to the ground like a dead thing.
He pushes open the gates, steps inside the door and stops.
The dog ceases.
The windows are dark. The ivy crawls up the sides of the building determined to reach the sky. The house sits between dead garden beds. It looks at him like he looks at it. This place echoes in his head like a song he hasn't heard for a long time.
He steps away from himself. The edges of his vision blur with an impossibility. The oddness increases a hundred times. It slides over him like mako in a tank. It warms his skin to the touch and runs through his hair. It steals his breath. It erases every thought from his head. It soothes the pain. The world fades.
It is a dream as he walks forward, kicking up the leaves against the pavement.
A familiarity threads up and down him.
And he feels oddly and entirely at home for the first time in his life.