The Fallen Chapter 16
By Tiger
“You know what I like best about the cold?”
Gabriel’s voice came out tired and strained, as he and Rory had been
walking for several hours down the narrow stone rimmed path, feet sinking
deeply into an inexplicable snow every step they took. How the frosted
precipitation had managed to get into the cave itself, and to go as far as
coating the floor, neither of them knew, but seeing how it had only come
into existence recently they guessed that the path opened up to the sky soon.
Explanations or not, however, both of them were cold, wet, and exhausted,
and Gabriel’s questions had been the first words spoken in about thirty
minutes.
Rory, who had sported a shorter pair of legs, had began to lag behind him
despite her lighter frame to carry. She gathered a sudden burst of energy
and pushed herself forward to catch up, answering his question with a brand
of dry humor that she always sported when she was particularly uncomfortable.
“Let me guess,” she said slowly, “its perverted and is involved
in the process of breast feeding?”
With a snort, Gabriel shook his head, watching the burst of fog burst out
from his nose. That was, in fact, a second thing that he liked about the
cold, how easy it was to make yourself look like a bull. Fun stuff. But it
hadn’t been what he was thinking of when he had first spoke up.
“Nah,” he said slowly, “try to crack one of your
knuckles.”
Shrugging, Rory complied, reaching up to seize her pinkie, and quickly twisting
the tip of it to the side with a popping sound. Instantly, her skin, which
had turned chalky white due to the freezing conditions, quickly colored with
a swirl of red, and a second after it had returned to white a searing pain
raced through her finger. “Ow!”
Gabriel chuckled slowly and kept on walking, wondering how often that trick
would work on people. Probably until he tried it on somebody with a gun,
at which point it would no longer be an issue, as he would no longer be able
to ask the question. Not without working out some sort of blinking alphabet
system. He squinted into the depth of the tunnel, licked his lips, and braced
his neck. About two seconds after he’d done so a large, tightly packed
snowball smacked into the back of his neck, and he slowly wiped the stinging
ice from the back of his neck, not giving Rory the gratification of complaining,
or even turning around.
A moment later, a second snowball came at him, but arced over his right shoulder
and smacked into the stone wall beside him. Once again, he pretended not
to even notice, but a flicker of doubt washed over his smile. That one had
contained a rock in the center, that would have hurt like hell.
Then he felt something smack into the back of his head directly level with
his ears, and instantly wished he had been hit by the second. “Hey!”
he cried, spinning around. “You’re supposed to at least pack some
snow around the rock!”
Rory laughed and faked innocence for about three seconds, and then simply
broke out in a triumphant smirk. “So,” she ventured, “what
the hell do you expect to find?”
“Honestly?” Gabriel asked, resuming his pace.
“Honestly,” Rory confirmed, doing the same.
Gabriel paused. “Nothing,” he said, after a moment.
“Nothing?” Rory asked in surprise.
“Nothing.” He agreed. “The world is filled with many fucked
up things. Lunatics, rapists, murderers, religious fanatics, and guys who
are actually addicted to eating lard. The world is not,” he added,
“something that has a mind of its own. And you know, even if it did,
I don’t think it would be a weapon maker. It would probably make pansy
little booties or something.”
“True...” Rory said, though it probably couldn’t be plainer
that she disagreed. Rory didn’t know why, but faith was one of the few
things she’d always possessed that most people didn’t have. The
problem was, she didn’t know exactly what it was she had faith in.
Everything she heard she was supposed to believe and to believe in, she
didn’t. Everything she heard that was completely wrong, she could usually
feel some sort of connection with. “I don’t know,” she said,
arguing both with Gabriel and her own statement, “when I was younger
I used to pretend I could hear the planet talking. Half the time though,
when I was making up stuff it was saying in my head, it got weird. It was
like it wasn’t really talking, but like I had no control over what I
was making it say. Like something was simply putting the ideas of what it
was saying into my head, and I heard it that way.”
Her words faded into an uncomfortable silence. After a bit, she murmured,
“I was probably just a dumb kid, though.”
Gabriel didn’t know what to say. He thought it was quite clear that
Rory was nothing near dumb, but he didn’t know how to state so without
violating his firm opposing to everything involving fate, destiny, and a
higher power. Instead, he chose to commentate on something else she mentioned.
“What was it like?” he asked, “living in Midgar slums? I never
really lived in a big city until I was already in the Turk training
program.”
“Dirty.” Rory said simply, obviously not wishing to discuss it.
“But about what you said... how did you manage to get into a group like
that? >From what Reno told me, you can’t be very nice.”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face, and quickly faded away. He half closed
his eyes, as if a full scope of vision clouded his memories, and spoke softly.
“I’m not really sure.”
Rory looked over at him in surprise. “Huh?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he repeated. “I was born in Kalm, I think.
I remember a lot of hills, and a lot of green, and that could be a lot of
places, but God knows I’m not from Kalm and I don’t have the eyes
for someone who was born in Mideel.” A distant memory crossed his mind,
a friend of his who’d had the almost neon green eyes of a man born on
that island. He was probably thirty something now, or all out dead. The fact
that the latter was far more likely than the former didn’t make him
near as sad as he’d thought it would, or should.
“And?” Rory prompted, reminding him that he was telling a story
and this wasn’t the best time to go off on a walk through random memory
lanes.
“Yeah...” he said irrelevantly. “And then it goes blank, until
I’m walking into a Shinra office, I’m dressed in blue, and a really
tall, really pale man is explaining what he calls ‘the rules of the
game’ to us. As far as rules go, these were pretty weird... but with
nothing left to do, I followed them, for about a year I guess. Things sort
of settled into normal, I went out drinking one night, and boom- I wake up
naked in an alley with you. Quite a life, huh?”
“Oh...” Rory said slowly, “you talk awfully mature for someone
who can only remember the cliff notes to his own life. What, were you in
a coma or something?”
“Dunno.” Gabriel said simply, and shrugged. “I doubt it,
‘cause like you said, I don’t talk like a three year old and I
know how to do a lot of shit. For instance, I can put disassemble and put
a hand gun back together in under twenty seconds. While mixing a martini.
Not to mention my bodies not all atrophied and weak.” He added that
last part, he thought, with far too much pride.
“So you just can’t remember it...” Rory said.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “I guess.”
“Maybe you’re lucky. Sometimes I wish I couldn’t remember
any of my life.” Rory said suddenly, breaching the subject that shed
turned away just seconds earlier.
“Really?” Gabriel asked, “Any parts more than others?”
“Eh.” Rory said, exhaling deeply. “All of the parts that involved
being cold, or hungry, or tired... or eyed by some of the perverted pedophiles
in limousines who patrolled the neighborhood looking for a lil girl who wanted
a candy bar.” She twitched especially hard at that one, and then looked
desperately for something to change the subject with. “Do you see
that?”
“What?” Gabriel asked, going suddenly alert.
“That...” Rory’s voice changed strangely. She had first said
it without actually seeing anything, but a sudden sparkle down the tunnel
caught her gaze. “C’mon,” she said, and began to walk a little
faster, hoping to god that maybe it was a space heater or anything they could
light on fire. Gabriel hurried to keep up with her, trudging quickly through
the ever deepening snow.
They entered into what had to be one of the most bizarre rooms that either
of them had ever seen, and not just because it was, in fact, a carved out
room in the middle of a mountain path. Three tall pillars jutted up from
the floor in a triangle pattern, apparently made of stone or some sort of
crystal. The ground around the pillars seemed radically different in every
respect, the first one having snow piled up all around it, the second having
a large ring of bare rock where their was absolutely no ice of any kind,
and the third had a group of dark purple, sickly looking plants sprouting
up straight through the ice and the stone. Embedded in the top of each pillar
was a long, leathery handle.
“Woah...” they said together, and shared a look. Together, they
approached the closest pillar, which unfortunately was the one waist deep
in snow. Struggling over the ice, Rory suddenly slipped, and falling forward,
reached for the leather handle for support. Somehow, though she didn’t
understand it, she missed, and went tumbling to the ground. Gabriel leapt
up to help, but upon seeing her lying fine but rumpled, couldn’t help
but laugh.
“Very funny...” she muttered, pushing herself to her feet. “Why
don’t you try to grab it?”
“Aight...” Gabriel balanced himself slowly on the ice, taking baby
steps across it until he was within range of the handle, which he promptly
grabbed. He’d expected it to come away easily, as if it had been perfectly
balanced, but instead he felt a kink, and pulled it away slow as a long,
sheathed blade came with it, emerging from the pillar itself.
“Woah...” Rory said, leaning forward for a closer look. “Come
on, let’s see it.”
Seizing the sheath, Gabriel slowly began to pull it off of the blade, revealing
the base that was an incredibly dark blue. With a flourish, he pulled it
off the rest of the way, and went to inspect his new weapon, stopped by only
two things. First, a wave of incredible cold came at him, causing him to
turn his face, and a second after that- blackness hit.
***
“Its 4:00. Time for your pill.”
He hated the man. And he hated his pill even more. He didn’t know who
the man was, or what the pill was, he just knew that he hated them both to
an incredible degree. The man was tall, pale, and wearing a long white lab
coat, which was amazingly clean considering the greasy condition of his long
brown hair. The pill was green.
“No!” he heard himself saying, in a voice not entirely his own.
It sounded... higher, and far more irritating. Kind of like a six year old
who didn’t want to take a bath, because he’d just get dirty the
next day anyway. I mean, who cares that he was probably carrying six kinds
of disease on him from the grime outside, baths were inconvenient.
“Its 4:00,” the voice repeated dryly, malice creeping into its
tone. “You will take your pill.”
“NO!” he was screaming this time, and he was trying to lash out,
but something was holding him down. Not completely, just his limbs and his
head, and as if to prove it he threw his chest out wildly in an effort to
break the bonds. A sigh was his answer, and the greasy haired man shook his
head.
“Heavens,” it said, “I thought we were past this. I thought
you had grown up.”
As if from no where, a syringe was produced, but for some reason he wasn’t
objecting to that. Needles, normal medication, apparently those hadn’t
scared him... but the pill, that was terrifying. The needle sunk into his
arm, and almost immediately he felt sleepiness wash over him, and his eyes
slid shut as the man in the white lab coat stared in humor at the needle,
which was dribbling a cool blue liquid down its edge.
***
Gabriel blinked. His cheek was cold. Idly he realized that it was exactly
as cold as it had been before his bizarre vision, or memory, or whatever
it was. In fact, everything was exactly the same as it had been. The entire
disturbing visual had lasted less than a second, apparently. Feeling mildly
put out, Gabriel shook his head, and returned his gaze to the blade. It shimmered
in a bizarre way that made it look like it was reflecting the light at angles
that weren’t really possible, and the cold it emitted was enough to
make him replace the sheath in a few more seconds. His eyes met Rory.
“Wow,” he said.
“Wow,” she agreed. They shrugged, climbed away from the ice, and
each walked towards a different pillar. Gabriel, with longer legs, longer
arms, and less of a bruise from a nasty ice fall, got to his first, and this
time the effect was different- the blackness hit him the second his hand
wrapped around it.
***
Flashing lights. Lots of flashing lights. And sirens. Oh god damn the sirens,
God damn the sirens to hell. They were always the worst part, as his ears
were sensitive, and he was really prone to head aches in those years.
He did a mental stop.
What years?
Honestly, he didn’t know what years he was thinking about, except that
he was prone to head aches during them. Especially during these little expacades
by the guy with the greasy hair, who would move him from the monotony of
being strapped down and take him instead into the blinding activity of being
strapped down in a room with a strobe light and a siren. And the itch was
starting...
...he tried to fight it like he always did. He didn’t like the itch,
and he truly didn’t like what came after it. Especially because it made
the man in the coat so fucking happy. Once in a while he able to fight to
itch, hold of the resistance to symbolically scratch it, but usually not.
Those rare times he did, the way Mr. greasy hair looked like he had just
swallowed sour milk was classic, but this was not one of those times.
Which would it be? He felt to distant to really feel which one was bubbling
up like he usually could, even though he only had three places to look to.
Then he felt his skin begin to bubble and stretch, and new exactly what-
the armor. Hadn’t it been different in those days? Oh, that’s right,
it had been painful...
Screams ripped from him, from pain and horror as he literally felt his rib
cage realign itself in his chest, and he felt an empty sucking system as
most of his internal organs simply disappeared. Out of the corner of his
pain glazed eye, he could just see the greasy haired man, a bright disgusting
smile on his face.
***
Her face hurt. Honestly, everything hurt, but that was the main thing. Her
face. It was swollen with bruises, and a long gash traveled down the left
side of it. One of her eyes was swollen shut, and her lip was split too.
“R-Rory!”
She would have blinked if she wasn’t already squinting through swollen
eyes. Reno was standing above her, framed in incredibly bright light, and
he looked like he was about the throw up and burst into tears at the same
time.
“How ya doin’ kid?” he asked, but his voice was incredibly
distant.
She felt her lip tremble. “My stomach hurts,” her voice said, sounding
small and pitiful.
“It’s okay, Rory…you’re gonna be okay…” Reno
said, but his quickening breath and his shaking hands seemed to belie that
statement.
Her lip trembled again, and with a small wail, she burst into sobs. “Reno,
I don’t wanna die…I don’t wanna die…”
Reno squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, letting a few tears slide
down his cheeks. She fell against his chest, shaking with sobs.
“Shh…shh…Rory, you’re not gonna die…you’re
gonna be okay…” he trailed off as his voice cracked.
“Then why won’t you look at me when you say that?” Reno nearly
choked, horror-stricken as Rory continued her sobbing. She realized she was
going to die. His Rory, his innocent, realized she was about to go away from
everything she had ever known. “Reno…”she sobbed. “I
don’t wanna leave you….I don’t wanna leave…I wanna stay
here….Don’t let them make me go…”
Reno held on to her, tightly as he could without hurting her.
“Shh….Rory, shh…just…” He didn’t know what
to tell her to do. He shut his eyes, and quickly opened them again. Whenever
he shut his eyes, he saw the horrors of reality. What would an innocent,
a young girl with an imagination see? “Just close your eyes…imagine
things are different…imagine things are okay…where do you wanna
be? You can be anywhere in the world.”
“I…wanna be here with you.” Sobs overtook her as she once
again fell into Reno’s arms.
The nurse came in with the IV bag that held the sedative to send Rory into
her dreamless sleep, before Reno was to pull the plug. “Hey Rory,”
he beseeched softly. “The nurse is gonna give you some medicine to help
ya sleep, okay?”
She sniffed. “Okay.”
“Anything, um, you wanna tell me, cause I think they’ll make me
leave while you’re sleeping.” Reno felt so sick. It had always
hurt, lying to Rory, and now it hurt most of all.
“I love ya.”
“I love ya too, kid.” He squeezed her against him until she murmured
a soft ‘ow.’
“Hey Reno?”
“Yeah.”
“Since you’re goin’ out, do ya think you could scrounge up
the gil to get me some ice cream from the cafeteria?”
Reno’s heart splintered. Her innocence… “Uh, sure.”
“Reno?”
“Yeah.”
“You ain’t gonna leave ‘till I get to sleep, are ya?”
He hugged her. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She smiled and lay
against him.
“Night Reno.”
“G’night, Rory.” He kissed her forehead. In a moment she yawned,
and drifted to sleep.
***
It was like an electric shock, coming back into reality, and the two of them
reeled together, nearly dropping the new weapons they held in their hands.
Gabriel’s was sheathed, and hers was not, so Rory got the first look
at her knife, but even before she scooped it closer she could feel an air
of familiarity about it. The blade was long, thin, and incredibly green.
Dark to the point that it almost looked purple, but when she tried to check
out how truly dark it was, a wave of sudden nausea swept over her, and she
fell back against the pillar. Unable to explain, but almost positive the
wave of sickness was coming from the blade itself, she lowered her eyes to
the nearest thing- the hilt, and almost dropped the weapon yet again.
The handle was simple, but beautiful. It had been engraved with something,
not carved into but around, so the image actually rose up from the handle.
A long stemmed rose curled around it, long thorns jutting out on either side,
dripping blood. The blossom of the flower spread out into the opening where
the blade would emerge. At the very bottom, one word was written:
Rory.
It was the switch blade her brother had given her, with a different blade,
and she didn’t even need to check her pocket to know that she wouldn’t
find anything. Shaking her head in amazement, she looked over to Gabriel,
who was staring at his knife in what seemed like fear.
“What’s wrong?” she asked in a low voice.
“Uh...” he pulled the sheath away from the handle a little bit,
and showed her. Brimming low, around the exposed edges, danced little red
flames along the bottom of the blade. He pulled it a little more, and not
only was their fire their too, but it was wider, and a darker shade of red,
flickering out but somehow not burning the leather
sheath.
“Huh...” Rory said, holding her green blade up a little higher
for him to see.
“Huh.” Gabriel agreed, slowly licking his lips as he stared at
it. A moment later, he needed to look away, and a sudden gag ripped through
his mouth. “Ugh...” he muttered, holding his stomach, “what
the hell is that thing?”
“I don’t know...” she admitted, and went to test the blade
on her finger. Something stopped her, and she stared at it a moment longer,
and then flicked it back into its sheath. “I wonder if were going to
beat the others back.”
Gabriel shrugged at her, slowly holstering his knives on his belt. “I
don’t know,” he admitted, “but if their stuff is weirder than
this, I don’t think it’ll matter, cause they’ll be fucking
nuts by the time they arrive.”
Rory couldn’t help but agree.