Good morning, Worm your honor!
The Crown will plainly show the prisoner
Who now stands before you
Was caught red-handed showing FEELINGS
Showing feelings of an almost human nature.
This will not do…
-Pink Floyd, The Trial
It was never truly dark in the Shinra Laboratories, the overhead lights were always kept on even after all the researchers and scientists had left for the day. There were no windows in this part of the building and without any clocks it was impossible to determine the time of day. Thus, it was impossible to tell if it was day or night or how long Aerith had been held captive inside the Shinra Building. Days, weeks, hours?
Aerith's first memories were of this place when she lived there with her mother. She remembered the cold grey walls and the smell of the sanitized air. She was a child growing up without sunrises, sunsets, or the colors they produced. Her mother had tried to explain the concept, she had drawn a clock on the wall with the sun and the moon on opposite sides. It was a fun game they played together; the memory briefly filled Aerith with warmth. The two played that game every time her mother came back from the room until the scientist arrived and wiped the walls clean. Aerith remembered her mother yelling at Hojo but was too young to remember what was said. Afterwards, Aerith could draw as much as she wanted with unlimited crayons, but no more clocks.
She stretched out on the cot that had been placed on the far end of her cell. Her blazing red half-length coat flung over her face, giving her some semblance of darkness. So far, they were keeping her confined to a glass cylinder-shaped cell, devoid of any privacy. For medical observations, the scientist had promised it was only for a short time but recognized the lie. She was sure this glass and metal cell would be her world for a long time. The room she grew up in was probably long gone, repurposed for storage or lab equipment. The drawings on the wall, her childhood mosaic scrubbed away. All traces of that scared yet hopeful little family gone and forgotten.
The glass cell was punishment for running away those many years ago. They had fled this world of steel and cruel scientists and it had cost Aerith's mother her life. Yet Hojo would never forgive her for running away, she knew the professor would never allow her to have a normal room or any resemblance of privacy. Even if she could answer all his questions, point out the location of the so-called Promise Land. He would still find a way to hurt her and punish her for running away from him.
"Welcome back Aerith." The sinister voice of Professor Hojo, as if on cue filled the glass cell through an intercom.
Aerith slowly pulled her jacket off her face and stood up on the cot, as her eyes adjusted to the bright light, the looming face of Professor Hojo met her gaze. Aerith only remembered him for how scary he looked when she was a child. He remained the same terrifying figure, concealed behind those dark, tea-shaded glasses.
Hojo idly flipped through the papers attached to a clipboard, his eyes focused on its papers while he stood beside the glass. Pretending as if the last Ancient captured in a glass cell was beneath his attention.
"You've been away for so long; I barely recognize you. I see you've grown into the spitting image of your mother. Such a pity about her fate, the last pure-blooded ancient shot down in cold blood and so young too. You should know that I demanded they bring you right back here, but I was overruled. That was the real tragedy that day, so much data on Ancient adolescence lost because a war took priority over science."
Aerith refused to respond, she merely stared forward looking calm and placid, just like her mother had taught her when being interrogated by this man. Giving him as little as possible was her last defiance against his cruelty. She would reveal no emotions to him, he would not get the satisfaction of upsetting her, not today.
She knew Hojo would try to get under her skin, and manipulate her into reacting, all to collect data or just for his sick pleasure. But if she didn't react, he would get nothing, he couldn't physically hurt her, so long as Shinra wanted to know the location of the Promised Land. But her emotions and sanity were fair game to him.
"That reminds me, we need to examine your menstruation cycle, and check for deviations from your mother's data. You being a crossbreed and all."
His words were just as cruel as the promise behind them. No one had ever called her that name before; she hated that term. It dehumanized her, it made her feel less than a person, just an animal to be studied. Despite how she felt, Aerith continued to sit calmly and stared at the professor and didn't respond to his insults.
Hojo looked up from his notes to stare at his captive, the lines on his face made clear his annoyance with her.
"You do know we got her back? Do you think I would have let the last Ancient rot in a gutter? If I couldn't have you, I was damn sure not going to lose Ifalna. I'm sure you will be glad to know we kept everything, every strand of hair, every organ, every pint of Ancient blood. All of it, I've meticulously cataloged and analyzed everything while I waited for your return. I've learned so much from your mother, my dear Aerith, we are so close to unlocking the secrets of the Ancients. I just need your continuing cooperation. Maybe if you're good I'll let you see her, albeit under one of my microscopes."
Aerith bit her lip as her hands gripped into tight fists, she tried to maintain her composure and hide her horror at Hojo's actions. She knew he was baiting her, wanting a reaction out of her. This was not going to be easy; Hojo had an entire laboratory and years of preparation to break her down. Nevertheless, she would deny him that satisfaction and promise herself it would take more than bringing up her dead mother to affect her.
"If only you knew, the things I've been creating while you were gone." Hojo's attention had returned to the data on his clipboard, his words an afterthought.
The sound of boots clanking against steel catwalks filled Aerith's ears as a large shape materialized behind the mad doctor. Aerith struggled to make out what it was, one of Hojo's experiments undoubtedly, another biologically engineered monster. It was human shaped only bigger and taller. As it came closer Aerith could tell that it was wearing some sort of clothing, a uniform perhaps. There was something familiar about the way the creature was dressed as if it was something she should recognize. The dark colors of its uniform meshed with its shape it was hard to tell where the fabric ended and organic skin took over. It was enough to get Aerith to stand up and walk towards the glass to get a better look at the being. It was human or it had been human at one point, its skin looked stretched as if the bones and muscles inside had expanded while the skin strained to contain its insides. Aerith dared to look up at the creature's face, it was a man's face, but the features were stretched around his expanded skull. The abomination turned its head down at her and gazed at her with its blue-green eyes.
Aerith gasped as her eyes widened in shock. "Oh no." Her voice trembled in horror as she pressed her hands to her mouth. She knew who this was, she would never forget those eyes, his eyes.
"Zack" Speaking his name out loud took all her willpower as she forced her jaw to stop trembling. "Oh Planet, what have they done to you?"
Hojo finally stopped looking at his notes and adjusted his glasses before speaking. His tongue wet his lips before he spoke up, he had planned this encounter. "Forgive my manners, I haven't introduced your new bodyguard, he is here to keep an eye on you, make sure you don't try and leave us again. You two have a history, don't you? Well, I'm afraid you won't be able to catch up. His vocal cords have been burned out; these SOLIDER types are a lot more manageable when they can't talk back."
Aerith continued to stare into the blank face of the man she once loved. Her eyes swelled with tears while her hands covered her quivering mouth.
"We recovered him from a failed mission at the old laboratory. The boy was near death, but thanks to my brilliance he was reborn into something better. Shinra lost its greatest asset that day, but I gave them something better!" Aerith couldn't help but listen as her heart broke again. That was why he had never returned, he had nearly died, and Hojo had taken him, he would take everything away from her.
"He's more powerful than any previous SOLIDER type, compared to him they were just failed prototypes. I'll need to make a new classification of SOLIDER for this type, the process is ready for mass production. I no longer need to worry about gestation times for JENOVA cells to replicate human DNA, removing the need for a host was such a breakthrough.
Hojo had gotten lost in the details and his ego, while he prattled on about genetic manipulations, Aerith was openly sobbing. Zack had promised to come back to her, but he never did. Aerith had always assumed that he had found someone else, she would have been fine with that, if only he had told her. For years she had just assumed that Zack had abandoned her, that she hadn't been worth saying goodbye to. But this, knowing that all this time he had been one of Hojo's experiments, he had been violated and tortured while she waited in her garden. That was too much for her to handle, could she have done something to save him, bargain her life in exchange for his?
Shinra and Hojo had now taken everything from her, her home, her mother, and now the boy she loved. Everything she cared about had been twisted by this corporation and the insane professor who worked inside of it. She knew they would never stop until the Planet was bare and dead and inside of her doubt grew that they could ever be stopped. Shinra was just too powerful at this point, what their military couldn't destroy, their scientist would define. They would beat everything down while they drained the planet dry.
Aerith willed herself to look up with strained eyes to look at her new jailer. The monster that was once Zack stared down at her with indifferent eyes. Aerith wondered if he still remembered her if there was still some part of that carefree boy inside. The creature placed his left hand on the glass and moved it down, his fingers dug into the glass leaving behind a deep gash in the thick glass wall. The sound of scratching glass filled her small cage.
The sharp sound was loud enough to cause Hojo to pause his monologue. He responded by taking out a pen and pushing up the papers on his clipboard and began to write. "Hmmmm, an unexpected reaction. The test we ran on his memory was inconclusive. Does he remember the girl he left behind or was it a more primal reaction? Either way, his initiative is encouraging. Our research on Ancient biology is inexcusably lacking in reproductive data. I plan to have you two bred, eventually."
Aerith cried out in shock as her hands fell to her side, her fist clenched in rage. "You can't! You monster, you can't do that!"
Hojo grinned cruelly as he sneered at the captured Ancient. "You're going to learn that to get what Shinra wants, I am allowed to do a lot."
The walls that kept Aerith's feelings hidden tumbled down, she began to cry openly as her legs gave way. She curled into a ball as her emotions poured out of her, how she felt. The terror and pain Shinra had caused her all her life was now freely pouring out of her. She felt naked, exposed as monstrous eyes stared down at the vulnerable woman.
"Aeeerrrrrissss." The sound that came out of the monster's mouth was more of a throat gurgle than an actual voice. Nothing like the tone of Zack's voice, it carried none of his charm or affection.
"Ah, so he does remember you, interesting, and still trying to communicate with you despite having his vocal cords burned away. How charming."
The professor turned and began to walk away. The monster that was once Zack Fair moved to follow but paused. Its head continued to stare down at Aerith for a moment longer, before lumbering after the Hojo.
Aerith's cries grew louder as her body shook with despair. Shinra had taken everything from her, her home, and the people she loved. Now Hojo had threatened to take away her autonomy if she didn't co-operate, if she couldn't answer questions, she knew nothing about. Hojo would find new ways to hurt her, and she was powerless to stop him. There was no hope, no stopping Hojo, no stopping Shinra. Everything good in this world, every kindness directed her way, Shinra had punished. They would take and take until she and the planet had nothing left to give.
She continued to cry on the cold steel floor of her prison. Her weeping turned to screams of rage as her sadness turned to anger. She slammed her fist into the metal floor until her hands hurt. She cried again at the futility of her situation. She was utterly alone.
Eventually, she cried herself to sleep and the last Ancient fell silent, her breathing normalized as she spelt. She slept unaware of the cameras that recorded her, every movement, every sound made inside the glass cell had been logged. The breakdown of the last living Ancient would be more data for Professor Hojo to analyze.
AN: So, this chapter was special for me, it's a chapter I've wanted to write when I started this fic. I have this theory, In FF7 Remake Aerith is portrayed as cheerful and teasing. Which was a different experience than when I first played FF7 so many years ago. To me, I see Aerith as a very sad character, who hides that sadness under a facade of cheer. She has gone through a lot and is aware of the sacrifice she must make to save the Planet. Her cheerful demeanor is a wall to keep locked away all the pain, sadness, and anger that she feels.
It reminded me a bit of Pink Floyd's art project The Wall (Psst, hey kids, you should listen to The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon, it's great I promise!) and how the character Pink, builds up walls from his childhood and adult traumas. Near the end of The Wall during the track The Trail, Pink is forced to confront his fears and the trauma demands that the walls be torn down.
I wanted to do something similar in this fic, I wanted to put Aerith in a position where the bad guys tear down her walls. Their evil is too much for her to bear, she finally breaks down and all the sadness and pain comes out.
Now don't worry dear reader, this does not mean that the tone of this story is going to go in a dark direction. I just enjoy exploring these characters and putting them in uncomfortable situations.
