We Are One
By LightSoul
First note: This is a short story based on two certain characters from Final Fantasy VIII. It contains a little spoiler from the game's ending.
.
"You and I...we are one. We are the same."
As my eyes open quickly, I can feel the air rush against the skin of my forehead, emphasising their speed, their anxiety for me to awaken. I sit up and my breaths become deep, and my forehead is sweating like a waterfall. I've been remembering my dreams for the last few nights. Each begins differently. Once I was on a beach, surrounded by people. Once I was in a strange city. Once I was even flying through space. But all the dreams ended up the same. I land into the clutches of that woman...the same one every time. Each time she gives me a speech, beginning with the same line. But every time the speech comes to me, it is longer than before. The dreams come to this terrifying climax, then I wake up, scared to sleep again.
I squint to see the time displayed on my alarm clock. To aid me, I open the curtain right next to my bed for moonlight. Then hands of the clock reflect the light back at me, and I see the time. It's not yet four o'clock. It's over two hours before I am scheduled to get up, but I don't want to sleep again. I sweep the sheets away from my body and stand on the cold floor. Slowly I begin to dress myself, and try to think of other things. How well my day will be. What I will try to accomplish. Who I will see and what I will say. But it doesn't leave me. The image of her enters my mind again, and soon, she is all I can think about. Her face, her voice, but most definitely, her words.
I take a walk on the beach, which is as blue as the night sky and the night sea. It's lonely and I'm afraid, but still, I believe it's better than dreaming that dream again. I look out to sea and see no lights, I look to the sand and see no life. I want to be free from her, though she is only a dream, a fragment of my mind. To be free of her, must I die?
I wander up and down the beach until the sun rises from his hiding place. It's warmth welcomes me unlike the unforgiving night winds. It must be about the time I should be awake. I need to get to my daily business. Soon, I find myself walking through the town, looking for fresh groceries for the week coming. I see people I know and greet them happily, and they return this greeting. Here, in the hustle and bustle of town life, I feel happy, because I feel safe and secure. It is when I am at home, the safest place I believe I can be, that I am afraid.
As I leave my favourite store, wicker basket full of fresh vegetables, I hear a scream, a voice yelling for help. A young man is rushing towards me, holding a woman's purse. He's too busy looking behind him for pursuers that he doesn't see me. In a flash, he rams into me, and pushes me towards the stone path. I see my vegetables flying from my basket, like a final dash for the skies, before I feel the pain on the back of my head...then darkness.
When I wake up, I find myself on the road of a dark city. I recognise it from pictures, Deling City. I had always wanted to visit, and without wondering how I arrived, I begin to look around. The sights are amazing. The night life is wonderful, and the scenes are to die for. When I go to buy a souvenir of my visit, the scene begins to melt. As a yell out, I realise that it's not for real. This is a dream. It began differently, but...this is where it would turn into the other dreams.
The buildings and people melted into nothingness, and I find myself floating in space. Then she appears. White hair, white sticks out to the sides. Red clothes, stripes on her face. And the most memorable, her black wings.
"You and I...we are one." She tells me, her voice like a rasp. "We are the same."
"What do you mean?" I ask as I have for every dream of her.
"Our power. Our supremacy. You and I, we are not different one bit." She continues. "Our personalities, our power, and our ambitions. That is why we should be one."
"I have no powers. I have no ambitions but humble ones." I tell her shyly.
"I am no different from those before me, and you should know." She smiles evilly. "And you are no different from those after you. This fact from me you can believe."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" I scream at her, but she simply closes her eyes and shakes her head.
All of this I have seen before. This all had happened in my previous dreams. But still, the conversation flows on.
"Come." She says to me. "Let us become one, my dear."
"I don't know who you are." I tell her. "I can't! I don't know you!"
"Of course not." She says, her eyes partially closed. "I am not yet created where you are. You exist no longer where I am. Do you understand?"
"You are...from the future...?" I ask her.
Of course. Now I remember her. Years ago, along with the boy from the future...It's definitely her, the same woman that died at my feet. The same woman whose powers I accepted into myself.
"You're the sorceress from the future?" I ask her.
"I am a sorceress from your future. You are a sorceress from my past." She says. "Together, we can create a sorceress feared for all of time! Past, present and future!"
"Impossible..." I whisper. "Because I will never be one with you!"
"I will show that I pity you with my laughter, my dear." With this, she began to laugh.
A stinging pain rushed about my body, what people call 'pins and needles'. I had felt this sensation before, when I received her powers.
"As I told you, we are one!" She yells, holding out her hands. This plane of reality was beginning to spin. Some say you can't be hurt in dreams. I can now tell them different. The stinging was now becoming a stabbing. The vision of space then becomes Deling City again. The woman smiles and the sensation in my body continues.
"This is Deling City." She tells me. "This is where we will begin."
"We will not begin..." I say, my voice strained by the pain. "I will not become one with you..."
"Here, we will begin our reign." She laughs. "It will not take long for these idiots of Deling City to respect us. After we take charge, we shall search for Ellone and destroy SeeD. Do you know who Ellone is?"
"No!" I yell, denying the fact that I do know the girl.
"It doesn't matter." She responds. "As one, I will be the dominant half. You will only be what people see."
With this, the sensation becomes longer, and she walks up to me. She reaches for my heart with one hand and my mind with the other. With a flash of light, she disappears, and my eyes rush open. I find myself in a hospital, hooked up to some machine I am unfamiliar with. I try to tell myself it was just a bad dream, but I hear two voices in my brain. One belongs to me, and the other, to her. I try to sit up, but my body won't respond. I hear her voice telling me to sit up, and my body obeys. A doctor enters and looks at me.
"I see you're awake at last." He tells me. "How do you feel?"
I try to open my mouth, but again, my body doesn't hear me. My mouth remains closed for a few seconds, but then opens with her command. My voice comes out of my mouth, but the words don't belong to me.
"I feel...very happy."
THE END
.
Last note: Wow, you read this far? If you couldn't tell, the main focus of the story is Edea, and the woman that takes over her is Ultimecia.