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“No…” his voice was barely audible. He looked around himself in disbelief, wide green eyes glinting in the darkness. The darkness… this was not how it was supposed to be. Where was the lifestream? Where was the bright viridescence that would beg to consume him, that he always managed to resist and eventually allow for his return?
His heart was beating violently against his chest, pounding so quickly. It perfectly matched the speed at which the pulse of his many victims reached when they were standing before him; before death itself. His gaze shot from one corner to the other, desperately searching for some kind of escape, anything that wasn’t just this choking darkness.
But… there was nothing.
His breath shuddered. He took a few steps back, noting the way his chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself. The darkness was closing in, blackness everywhere, all-consuming, all-encompassing.
What… what is this feeling?
He could feel something in his eyes. Something… so odd. No, this was wrong. This was all wrong. Why was there water brimming at his eyelids? Why were his orbs burning so, why could he feel something warm trickling down his cheek?
“I… Cloud. Don’t leave me here. Please, I do not want to die. Tifa, Aerith- I do not want to die…”
He fell upon his knees, the tiniest sob slipping past his bloodied lips. His vision blurred; yet there was barely anything to see, just the hazy paleness of his trembling hands. Why were they shaking like that? Could no one hear his pleading voice?
“Please… I do not want to die. Please!”
He brought his hands up towards his skull, trembling violently, shaking his head. No, this couldn’t be true, this wasn’t real. This couldn’t be the end. He was Sephiroth, he’d ravaged huge villages to the ground, resisted and broken the jaws of death, bent reality, and pounced between entire timelines. He… he wasn’t just an experiment, he was so much more! But he still had to prove himself, he had to punish humanity, he had to make the world see, he had to make the world know, that he had a place in the cosmos, that he had a purpose.
Through more heavy breaths, he curled up into himself, shutting his eyes tightly as he felt more tears drip from them. How long would he last here? Why did he have to be erased…? Was his mere existence so monstrous that the others were determined to outright remove him from reality itself…? Everything he’d done, everything he’d ever been… it would all mean nothing. His hatred, his love, his determination, his experiences, his life…
… It would all mean nothing.
“Mother… Gast… Zack…” he spoke. He could feel his fingertips disippating. His soul fragmenting, dying, everything slipping away…
“Are you there…? Can you hear me…?”
So close to victory, he had been…
“Can you sense how…” he paused for a moment as he felt a lump grow within his throat. “…frightened I am…?”
He hadn’t felt fear in a long time. He remembered how terrified he had felt at Nibelheim, his mind trying to wrap around the idea that he was a genetically engineered monster created by the arrogance of humanity. And, before then, when he’d first been asked to take life. For hours, he’d wept and begged for Hojo and the other scientists to to not force him to kill the little lab mouse curled up in his hand. But… they wanted to break him. Mould him into their personal tool.
He’d never wanted this life, this existence that revolved only around destruction. But, now, faced with the starved jaws of death, he didn’t wish to die either. He didn’t want to be forgotten. No, no, why did it have to be like this? Why did he have to feel such fear in the face of his end?
“I just… I wished to have meaning,” he spoke mournfully, finally opening his eyes again to be greeted by that constricting darkness. “I didn’t wish to die and disappear like everyone else. I… I wanted to make the world one, to extend for infinity through the threads of time, to be free and live not as a weapon, not as an experiment- but as my own living, breathing, sentient being.”
There was nothing but silence around him. The void did not respond to his words, to his sorrow. It merely looked on with indifference, consuming more and more of his soul, more of his being.
(((You lost. In the end, you truly were as meaningless, as fleeting as when you first came into existence.)))
And thus, he waited with the knowledge that humanity would continue, life would continue, the planet would continue: while he would cease. Born into a life that had condemned him as an abomination, into a world in which he could never hope to belong.
While his mind slipped away… he remembered the warmth he had so rarely felt. When Zack saw through his shell into the soft core within, and treated him with such affection. When Professor Gast used to speak to him about the wonders of their world, smile on his face as his passion formed into words. When he dreamt of the cosmos, the world in his fingers, and the freedom to travel the universe as he pleased. Thus, as more tears welled up in his orbs, he curled up further into himself, trying to comfort himself with his own warmth.
It wouldn’t be long now…