Final Fantasy VII: Dichotomies
By Aujang Abadi
Sometimes I hear her falling. It’s such a quiet sound: the soft rustle of cloth, the gentle sigh of death. The steel barely whispers when it enters her. Then the blade slides free and she’s falling forward. She’s always falling. I catch her. There isn’t any blood—why should there be? She is perfect. She is dying. She is dead.
But when he falls from the ceiling, I do nothing. I cannot control my limbs. He is my master. I do not understand his strength; perhaps it is more appropriate to say I do not understand my weakness. He’s flying, down, down, down, while she’s looking up, up, up—but she’s not looking at him. She’s looking at me. She’s smiling, and then she’s dying. In her eyes I see peace. I run towards it. I can’t find it. I never find it.
No one else is here. They stand behind me and they fight beside me and they cry with me but they’re not here. She’s dead in my arms and I’m staring at the ceiling wondering how he falls so fast and why I move so slowly. But she’s still dead and there’s no blood. It’s all so perfect, so beautiful. This is his Promised Land. This is his birthright. He’s taking it from her. But she’s looking at me! And I can’t save her. I’m running and I’m screaming but I’m never moving. She’s falling and she’s dying and she’s dead.
He smiles—they’re both smiling—but his is the smile of victory, hers of resignation. I hold her in my arms and I walk away from where she died, where there’s no blood to disturb the sanctity. So sacred and so defiled. She’s dying here, in this tomb of her ancestors. He laughs and I kill him, but he never dies. He just smiles—he’s always smiling—and he’s gone. I walk with her in my arms. I weep but there are no tears. They are crying too, but they’re not here; it’s her and I. This is our place. This is her death. This is my failure.
She’s still, so perfectly still. I scream and I cry and I rage but all is silent. It’s so silent I can’t hear anything. I clutch at her, desperate to find life in her eyes, warmth in her fingers. She is cold. I am colder.
She is free—this is what they say, when they’re here, but I cannot hear them, because it’s her and I. She is cradled in my arms and she is so light, I can almost believe she’s not real, that none of this is true. But then my hands touch the water and I know. I’ve always known. I let go.
I watch her sink. I watched him fall; I watched her die.
I never say a word.