Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7 > Center of the World
Zack’s first impression of Nibelheim is the quiet. It’s a small town, like Gongaga, but in Gongaga the people were never still. City-folk might see it as a sleepy little town, but behind their easy attitudes, everyone knew everything about everybody else, or made it their business to find out. Gongaga never lacked for going-ons, and gossip spread in the wind like dandelion seed. From the main road into Nibelheim, he can’t see anyone. The town feels… dead. The mako stink is thick in the air, without steady rain to drive it into the soil.
“How does it feel?”
Zack stops, surprised at Sephiroth’s sudden question. He feels pressure building at the back of his skull, a sort of fog creeping into his thoughts.
“It’s your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right? So how does it feel?”
Sephiroth is looking at Cloud expectantly. Cloud gapes, a slow flush spreading up from his collar.
“I wouldn’t know because I don’t have a hometown…” Sephiroth continues.
And isn’t that odd. The General never speaks superfluously, almost never asks even relevant questions of the regulars. He’s friendly with Zack, in a reserved way, when they are off-duty, but he’s never shown curiosity toward Cloud beyond duty-related issues.
“Umm… how ‘bout your parents?” Cloud asks uncertainly, like he doesn’t know if the General is really speaking to him. In these surroundings, he’s already easing into the abbreviated Nibel dialect Zack remembers from their first meeting.
“My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father…” Sephiroth’s laugh is hollow, flat, not like his typical ironic snort or infrequent rich belly-laugh. “What does it matter…? All right, let’s go.”
The General is all business once more. He turns abruptly and walks to the town square. Zack, around the dull ache pounding at his temples, is relieved. He considers talking to Cloud, who is blank faces in the way Zack knows is hiding some deeper emotion.
Maybe later. They’re on duty. He marches across the still-muddy cobblestones into the square, the regulars’ heavy boot steps close behind. Sephiroth turns toward them as they draw close.
“We leave for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you get to sleep early,” he commands, then starts toward the inn. He stops, framed in the open door, with a distracted tension in the line of his back.
“All we need is one lookout,” he nods to Andrews. Cloud makes an abortive gesture with his arm.
“Oh, that’s right… You may visit your family and friends.”
And Sephiroth disappears into the inn. Zack studies Cloud, considers, and decides he needs to think about what to say. Shiva knows he’s messed up before, hurt Cloud, by speaking carelessly. It’s never been this important that he get it right, and now he can barely breathe around the bright pain flashing behind his eyes. He never gets headaches like this, except during mako treatments.
Zack follows his superior into the inn, knowing he’ll need every minute of sleep he can get. Hopefully his subconscious will untangle this mess he’s made of his thoughts about Cloud.
___
This time, Zack knows he’s dreaming. He sees Cloud, wearing too-baggy Soldier fatigues. His fatigues, he knows. It makes perfect sense in the way that dreams do. He doesn’t object when Cloud kisses him, a moth-wing touch of lips, almost nothing, almost not there at all. Like the echo of laughter in a hidden room in a forgotten town.
“Come with me,” Cloud says, but doesn’t say. He’s smiling too wide to be talking. His eyes are unbearably bright, unreal like sun through glacier ice, like the afterimage of lightning.
Zack follows, pacing slowly as Cloud runs ahead, clumsy in his oversized combat boots. Zack’s feet are bare; he presses them into sandy boot prints.
“Breadcrumbs,” he thinks, and he is in a dim, green-shaded glade. A flash of yellow through the heavy boughs of pine draws his eye.
“Wait!” he shouts.
Cloud is laughing, sprinting away. Zack tries to catch him, is running but not moving. The trees melt and reform around him, dark and strange. He stops and rests on a sun-warmed boulder.
“Are you lost?” Cloud’s voice sings in his hear. He looks up-- they are in a rocky, barren clearing. Cloud moves away, revealing a roughly hewn path of dangerous, razor-edged shards.
“Come on!” Cloud shouts, hands on his hips. Zack doesn’t want to go, but he can’t leave Cloud, so he starts walking. Shadows streak across the sky.
Cloud stays by his side now. It’s too quiet: their footsteps should echo, he remembers the echoes. They walk across an endless old bridge that doesn’t creak, though he feels vibrations through his soles as the ropes stretch and sway. He looks down. The chasm below fades into darkness.
They’re going to that place. He tries to warn Cloud, to stop him, but no words come out. Cloud turns and smiles.
“I kept her safe,” he croons.
They’re inside a building, and all around is the smell of old iron and salt. A reactor. Zack sees Aeris’s sweet smile through a small window of thick glass, through the vivid poisonous green of mako. She has no body.
“I kept her safe,” Cloud repeats, gazing at Zack with pleading blue eyes. Zack is caught, unable to look away.
“Don’t you want it?” Cloud asks, staring uncertainly at the dull metal grating of the floor.
Zack steps back.
“Cloud…”
“Please take it!” Cloud holds out his cupped hands, determined. Zack reaches to him, clasps his hands over Cloud’s.
“It’s a secret,” Cloud whispers reverently, and opens his hands.
It’s a heart, still beating. Aeris’s heart, Zack thinks. He backs up until he’s trapped against the warm metal of the pod. The Aeris-pod.
“Stay away,” he shouts mutely.
Cloud tilts his head curiously. His shirt Zack’s shirt is soaked in blood, spreading to the beat of the heart in his hands. A puzzled grin stretches his cheeks.
“Do you want it?” Cloud asks, and Sephiroth is there, masamune in hand, dripping viscous and dark. He nods coolly. Cloud holds his heart out like a supplicant offering his crude wares, face bowed in shame. Sephiroth bites into it neatly, chews twice and swallows. Blood smears his thin-lipped, aristocratic sneer.
Cloud looks back to Zack. His face crumples in pain.
“I’m lost,” he gasps. “Come find me, Zack.”
“Zack!”
“Zack, wake up!”
He bolts upright, and he can’t breathe, he's gasping for air.
“What is it?” he rasps past the dry, hard lump in his throat and the screaming pressure in his chest. He forces himself to move, to stagger to the door; as he opens it he slumps against the wall. Cloud’s waiting, his eyes the impossible blue of support materia, like mako under a thin veneer.
“Sephiroth’s missing.”
_____________________________________
And we all know how it ends.
Dialogue from this chapter and is lifted right out of the game.
Originally the first part of the chapter wasn’t going to exist, but I thought it felt incomplete without it. I tried to write it a few times but nothing was coming, until I listened to a wonderful piece of music: “Elegy” by Herbert Howells.
“Elegy” is a viola piece, written for one of Howells’ close friends who died during the First World War. A brief sample of it can be heard here (Track 4): http://www.amazon.com/Callus-performs-Vaughan-Williams-Howells/dp/B000FA55SW/ref=sr_1_6/002-9563153-4226402?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187649216&sr=1-6
“How does it feel?”
Zack stops, surprised at Sephiroth’s sudden question. He feels pressure building at the back of his skull, a sort of fog creeping into his thoughts.
“It’s your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right? So how does it feel?”
Sephiroth is looking at Cloud expectantly. Cloud gapes, a slow flush spreading up from his collar.
“I wouldn’t know because I don’t have a hometown…” Sephiroth continues.
And isn’t that odd. The General never speaks superfluously, almost never asks even relevant questions of the regulars. He’s friendly with Zack, in a reserved way, when they are off-duty, but he’s never shown curiosity toward Cloud beyond duty-related issues.
“Umm… how ‘bout your parents?” Cloud asks uncertainly, like he doesn’t know if the General is really speaking to him. In these surroundings, he’s already easing into the abbreviated Nibel dialect Zack remembers from their first meeting.
“My mother is Jenova. She died right after she gave birth to me. My father…” Sephiroth’s laugh is hollow, flat, not like his typical ironic snort or infrequent rich belly-laugh. “What does it matter…? All right, let’s go.”
The General is all business once more. He turns abruptly and walks to the town square. Zack, around the dull ache pounding at his temples, is relieved. He considers talking to Cloud, who is blank faces in the way Zack knows is hiding some deeper emotion.
Maybe later. They’re on duty. He marches across the still-muddy cobblestones into the square, the regulars’ heavy boot steps close behind. Sephiroth turns toward them as they draw close.
“We leave for the reactor at dawn. Make sure you get to sleep early,” he commands, then starts toward the inn. He stops, framed in the open door, with a distracted tension in the line of his back.
“All we need is one lookout,” he nods to Andrews. Cloud makes an abortive gesture with his arm.
“Oh, that’s right… You may visit your family and friends.”
And Sephiroth disappears into the inn. Zack studies Cloud, considers, and decides he needs to think about what to say. Shiva knows he’s messed up before, hurt Cloud, by speaking carelessly. It’s never been this important that he get it right, and now he can barely breathe around the bright pain flashing behind his eyes. He never gets headaches like this, except during mako treatments.
Zack follows his superior into the inn, knowing he’ll need every minute of sleep he can get. Hopefully his subconscious will untangle this mess he’s made of his thoughts about Cloud.
___
This time, Zack knows he’s dreaming. He sees Cloud, wearing too-baggy Soldier fatigues. His fatigues, he knows. It makes perfect sense in the way that dreams do. He doesn’t object when Cloud kisses him, a moth-wing touch of lips, almost nothing, almost not there at all. Like the echo of laughter in a hidden room in a forgotten town.
“Come with me,” Cloud says, but doesn’t say. He’s smiling too wide to be talking. His eyes are unbearably bright, unreal like sun through glacier ice, like the afterimage of lightning.
Zack follows, pacing slowly as Cloud runs ahead, clumsy in his oversized combat boots. Zack’s feet are bare; he presses them into sandy boot prints.
“Breadcrumbs,” he thinks, and he is in a dim, green-shaded glade. A flash of yellow through the heavy boughs of pine draws his eye.
“Wait!” he shouts.
Cloud is laughing, sprinting away. Zack tries to catch him, is running but not moving. The trees melt and reform around him, dark and strange. He stops and rests on a sun-warmed boulder.
“Are you lost?” Cloud’s voice sings in his hear. He looks up-- they are in a rocky, barren clearing. Cloud moves away, revealing a roughly hewn path of dangerous, razor-edged shards.
“Come on!” Cloud shouts, hands on his hips. Zack doesn’t want to go, but he can’t leave Cloud, so he starts walking. Shadows streak across the sky.
Cloud stays by his side now. It’s too quiet: their footsteps should echo, he remembers the echoes. They walk across an endless old bridge that doesn’t creak, though he feels vibrations through his soles as the ropes stretch and sway. He looks down. The chasm below fades into darkness.
They’re going to that place. He tries to warn Cloud, to stop him, but no words come out. Cloud turns and smiles.
“I kept her safe,” he croons.
They’re inside a building, and all around is the smell of old iron and salt. A reactor. Zack sees Aeris’s sweet smile through a small window of thick glass, through the vivid poisonous green of mako. She has no body.
“I kept her safe,” Cloud repeats, gazing at Zack with pleading blue eyes. Zack is caught, unable to look away.
“Don’t you want it?” Cloud asks, staring uncertainly at the dull metal grating of the floor.
Zack steps back.
“Cloud…”
“Please take it!” Cloud holds out his cupped hands, determined. Zack reaches to him, clasps his hands over Cloud’s.
“It’s a secret,” Cloud whispers reverently, and opens his hands.
It’s a heart, still beating. Aeris’s heart, Zack thinks. He backs up until he’s trapped against the warm metal of the pod. The Aeris-pod.
“Stay away,” he shouts mutely.
Cloud tilts his head curiously. His shirt Zack’s shirt is soaked in blood, spreading to the beat of the heart in his hands. A puzzled grin stretches his cheeks.
“Do you want it?” Cloud asks, and Sephiroth is there, masamune in hand, dripping viscous and dark. He nods coolly. Cloud holds his heart out like a supplicant offering his crude wares, face bowed in shame. Sephiroth bites into it neatly, chews twice and swallows. Blood smears his thin-lipped, aristocratic sneer.
Cloud looks back to Zack. His face crumples in pain.
“I’m lost,” he gasps. “Come find me, Zack.”
“Zack!”
“Zack, wake up!”
He bolts upright, and he can’t breathe, he's gasping for air.
“What is it?” he rasps past the dry, hard lump in his throat and the screaming pressure in his chest. He forces himself to move, to stagger to the door; as he opens it he slumps against the wall. Cloud’s waiting, his eyes the impossible blue of support materia, like mako under a thin veneer.
“Sephiroth’s missing.”
_____________________________________
And we all know how it ends.
Dialogue from this chapter and is lifted right out of the game.
Originally the first part of the chapter wasn’t going to exist, but I thought it felt incomplete without it. I tried to write it a few times but nothing was coming, until I listened to a wonderful piece of music: “Elegy” by Herbert Howells.
“Elegy” is a viola piece, written for one of Howells’ close friends who died during the First World War. A brief sample of it can be heard here (Track 4): http://www.amazon.com/Callus-performs-Vaughan-Williams-Howells/dp/B000FA55SW/ref=sr_1_6/002-9563153-4226402?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1187649216&sr=1-6
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