(no subject)
Title: An Inkling of Truth
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters/Pairings: Cloud
Genre: Drama, psychological horror I guess?
Rating: PG
Summary: I'm really getting too much into luceti if I'm writing FANFIC for it. Of course, considering this is the first thing I've posted since August I guess it's better than nothing.
Like a tiny shard of glass caught against the skin; not a wound, merely an irritation. Not grievous enough to constitute as an injury, but with the potential of becoming one. Left untreated, ignored to heal itself, sitting and trod upon and brushed and only making itself known with the faintest hints, all the while burrowing deeper. Pushing beneath the skin, to muscle, to bone. Moving inside, becoming invisible to the naked eye, not without painful digging.
That was what the memory of her voice was like.
He didn't want to think about it; "Don't think about it," Zack had told him, and Cloud took it literally. He forced himself to forget, to block out her voice with noise and movement and task after task after task. He refrained from sleeping, so that when he would at last collapse from exhaustion the rest would be dreamless, senseless. So she wouldn't have enough of his energy to remind him of her.
Her words hissed in the back of his mind like a hand on a hot burner, stank and reeked of malice and promise and temptation. He hated her...but couldn't stop remembering.
You have power, Cloud. You can show them what you can do; I can help you. Cloud told himself that she had said that in the basement...but now he was beginning to think that she'd somehow made herself a home permanently in his head. Whenever she became too loud, he would make himself another pot of coffee and go to patrol the town, visit the shops, stare down into the tunnels and contemplate returning.
She wouldn't be quiet. He would think thoughts that couldn't be his, but couldn't be hers because she wasn't there. He remembered what Leto had told him about spice, how it could unlock ancestral memory. Had he opened up Jenova inside of him, unlocked a voice her cells contained, given her life once again? Was he going to go insane like Sephiroth did, driven mad by the knowledge of his birth and her voice drilling into his head?
No. No, no no no no. He couldn't. He couldn't, couldn't. He didn't want to hurt anyone, the family he'd pieced together, the friends he'd made. The home away from home he'd forged inside of Luceti, the village of people who -for the most part- only wanted to help, and only wanted to get home. A village of good people, of decent people, and victims just like him. He couldn't hurt them...he wanted to protect them.
Would he have to protect them from himself?
He would.
He thought of Tifa, of Aerith, of Reeve and Barret and Yuffie. Of Reno, of even Kadaj. Some of them his enemies, most of them his friends, and all of them a part of his dysfunctional, makeshift family.
He thought of Zack. His best friend, his brother, his savior.
He thought of Simon and Denzel. His boys. His light.
He thought of Stella, Senel, Jenny, Leto, Mark, Albert, Sigmund, Raine, Emil, of all the men and women and children who'd accepted him, who trusted him. And then he heard -felt, saw- Jenova's memory uncurl in the back of his mind, like a snake wrapped around his mind, wriggling where she wanted, shoving aside his memories of his companions and reminding him that in the end, they would chose themselves over him. That if it came down to it, Senel and Stella would trample over him towards an escape back home. That if he wasn't there, Barret, Yuffie, everyone would simply leave him behind, trust that he would take care of himself.
"I don't want them to worry about me," Cloud muttered aloud; a moment later, he wasn't even sure he had.
They wouldn't. What hurt was that Cloud couldn't even be sure if that was true or not. Who was saying these things? Was it Jenova, or himself? Jenova wasn't here, she shouldn't be able to speak to him, not at all but if that wasn't her voice telling him these horrible things...
Then it must have been himself.
...and if he was thinking these terrible things...then there had to be an inkling of truth to them. Or perhaps not.
But he wasn't going crazy. No.
He wasn't not insane. "I'm not crazy," Cloud murmured, and for a moment his eyes burned a brighter green, so green it nearly swallowed their natural blue. "I'm not crazy."
You aren't crazy.
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters/Pairings: Cloud
Genre: Drama, psychological horror I guess?
Rating: PG
Summary: I'm really getting too much into luceti if I'm writing FANFIC for it. Of course, considering this is the first thing I've posted since August I guess it's better than nothing.
Like a tiny shard of glass caught against the skin; not a wound, merely an irritation. Not grievous enough to constitute as an injury, but with the potential of becoming one. Left untreated, ignored to heal itself, sitting and trod upon and brushed and only making itself known with the faintest hints, all the while burrowing deeper. Pushing beneath the skin, to muscle, to bone. Moving inside, becoming invisible to the naked eye, not without painful digging.
That was what the memory of her voice was like.
He didn't want to think about it; "Don't think about it," Zack had told him, and Cloud took it literally. He forced himself to forget, to block out her voice with noise and movement and task after task after task. He refrained from sleeping, so that when he would at last collapse from exhaustion the rest would be dreamless, senseless. So she wouldn't have enough of his energy to remind him of her.
Her words hissed in the back of his mind like a hand on a hot burner, stank and reeked of malice and promise and temptation. He hated her...but couldn't stop remembering.
You have power, Cloud. You can show them what you can do; I can help you. Cloud told himself that she had said that in the basement...but now he was beginning to think that she'd somehow made herself a home permanently in his head. Whenever she became too loud, he would make himself another pot of coffee and go to patrol the town, visit the shops, stare down into the tunnels and contemplate returning.
She wouldn't be quiet. He would think thoughts that couldn't be his, but couldn't be hers because she wasn't there. He remembered what Leto had told him about spice, how it could unlock ancestral memory. Had he opened up Jenova inside of him, unlocked a voice her cells contained, given her life once again? Was he going to go insane like Sephiroth did, driven mad by the knowledge of his birth and her voice drilling into his head?
No. No, no no no no. He couldn't. He couldn't, couldn't. He didn't want to hurt anyone, the family he'd pieced together, the friends he'd made. The home away from home he'd forged inside of Luceti, the village of people who -for the most part- only wanted to help, and only wanted to get home. A village of good people, of decent people, and victims just like him. He couldn't hurt them...he wanted to protect them.
Would he have to protect them from himself?
He would.
He thought of Tifa, of Aerith, of Reeve and Barret and Yuffie. Of Reno, of even Kadaj. Some of them his enemies, most of them his friends, and all of them a part of his dysfunctional, makeshift family.
He thought of Zack. His best friend, his brother, his savior.
He thought of Simon and Denzel. His boys. His light.
He thought of Stella, Senel, Jenny, Leto, Mark, Albert, Sigmund, Raine, Emil, of all the men and women and children who'd accepted him, who trusted him. And then he heard -felt, saw- Jenova's memory uncurl in the back of his mind, like a snake wrapped around his mind, wriggling where she wanted, shoving aside his memories of his companions and reminding him that in the end, they would chose themselves over him. That if it came down to it, Senel and Stella would trample over him towards an escape back home. That if he wasn't there, Barret, Yuffie, everyone would simply leave him behind, trust that he would take care of himself.
"I don't want them to worry about me," Cloud muttered aloud; a moment later, he wasn't even sure he had.
They wouldn't. What hurt was that Cloud couldn't even be sure if that was true or not. Who was saying these things? Was it Jenova, or himself? Jenova wasn't here, she shouldn't be able to speak to him, not at all but if that wasn't her voice telling him these horrible things...
Then it must have been himself.
...and if he was thinking these terrible things...then there had to be an inkling of truth to them. Or perhaps not.
But he wasn't going crazy. No.
He wasn't not insane. "I'm not crazy," Cloud murmured, and for a moment his eyes burned a brighter green, so green it nearly swallowed their natural blue. "I'm not crazy."
You aren't crazy.