Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Halloween Tales ❯ Just Like Me ( Chapter 5 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Linkin Fantasy 
Zell has to face one of the most frightening things in the world....
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Horror / Comedy | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 10.31.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 351 | Status: Completed
Zell has to face one of the most frightening things in the world....
Non Anime: Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mystery / Horror / Comedy | Type: One Shot | Uploaded On: 10.31.2003 | Pages: 3 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 351 | Status: Completed
In this bone chilling tale a young boy learns the hard way that its better to be an individual. Especially on the day of Halloween when anything can happen.
Just Like Me...
Zell's story
Zell was wizzing around the steps of Balamb Garden on his t-board enjoying the early morning air. He passed students leaving or entering the military school. They weren't too happy about his careless riding though.
"Hey watch it!" A girl said just missing getting hit by the airborn board.
"Sorry." Zell called behind him.
"Do you have to ride around on that thing?" A boy asked in a nasty tone as Zell went past him.
Zell was having too good a time to really care that he was getting on peoples nerves. 'They wouldn't be complaining if they had one too.' He thought to himself as he kept heading up the stairs towards the Garden entrance. "Hey Willy." He said as he sped over the low entrance gate.
"You'd better be off that thing before someone sees you with it in the halls." The old gate watcher warned.
"Yeah yeah." Zell mumbled. "Oof!" He suddenly fell backward off his t-board because someone stopped it from moving. He looked up and saw Seifer standing in front of him. His foot was against the tip of the board stopping it from moving. "What the hell'd you do that for?" The little blonde asked, standing himself up and turning the board off.
"Can't you walk like normal people?" Seifer retorted with his own question.
"Can't you get a life like normal people?" Zell snatched up his board and started walking off towards the cafeteria for breakfast. 'What's with people today, are they out to get me or something?' He pondered to himself.
Zell left his board in a nearby ganitors closet and went into the cafeteria. He ordered his usual hotdogs that the ladies always had waiting special for him. Because he was the only one to ever order them this early in the day. He said his thanks then joined Selphie and Quistis at the table.
"Morning Zell." The brunette girl chirped up and Quistis nodded her acknowledgment.
"Hey guys." He said sitting down and immediately starting in on his food. Quistis looked at Selphie who looked back then they continued staring at Zell.
"Do you have to eat those every morning?" Quistis asked. "I mean, isn't it bad for your health?"
Zell paused his eating and answered not even bothering to finish chewing and swallow. "No."
"That smells really nauseating this early." Selphie added pinching her nose a second.
"Well excuse me for enjoying myself." Zell said food still hanging in his mouth.
"Eeuw." Quistis and Selphie turned their heads away from the gruesome sight. "Well you enjoy your meal then." Quistis said as she stood up, Selphie doing the same. "See ya Zell." She said bouncing off with the instructor.
"Yeah right." He mumbled. 'This is just gonna be one of those days isn't it?' He asked himself and put his hotdog back on the plate. 'Maybe I've got bad luck it is Halloween eve.' Not being in the mood to eat anymore he got up and took his tray back to the counter.
All day during classes it seemed like Zell was getting picked on by instructors, making him answer questions they knew he didn't know. Once he finally got a break the only thing he wanted to do was punch out his frustrations. Not wanting to be alone he went looking for a sparring partner.
"Hey Irvine you busy?" He asked finding the cowboy walking the same direction as him, he ran to catch up.
"No not really."
"Cool, you wanna spar with me?" The bouncing blonde asked punching playfully at the taller man. Irvine just kind of furrowed his brow at him.
"I would Zell but I'm not really a fist person." He said holding up the gun he kept at his waist under his coat. "Sorry."
"It's ok, I'll go try someone else." Zell said trying not to show his disappointment. He went to find Squall but was turned down again. He gave the same reason Irvine did.
"This sucks." Zell complained kicking his foot at the ground. He walked slowly to his room with his head down. The day wasn't going to well for the little martial artist. Classes were annoying, he couldn't even enjoy lunch and ended up fighting monsters alone, instead of the hand to hand combat he wanted. "Hey I know what would cheer me up, a visit with Ma."
Feeling a little bit better already, Zell decided to have dinner at home and forget the whole awful day. As soon as he got to the front gate there was a sudden crash of thunder in the distance and a down pour of rain splashed the ground and him. "Great, now even the weathers against me!" He yelled turning back towards the garden.
Since night had come he decided to head for his room and skip dinner all together. So thngs couldn't get any worse.
Zell got to his room, changed his clothes after drying and got into bed. Sighing, he placed his hands behind his back. "Why does everybody have to be so.... them?" He asked the cieling. "Life would perfect if everyone could just be more like me- no, just like me." He corrected with a smile. Then lighting snapped lighting the room briefly followed by more thunder.
"Ugh." Groaning, Zell slid himself under the blanket and cowarded away from the storm.
............................
The next day. Zell woke up slowly and groggy from a rough sleep. The storm had ended and everything outside was back to its peacful state. "Halloween," Zell said looking at the mini calender beside his bed. "Maybe I should just skip today and stay in bed."
Depsite his fears of having another bad day, Zell forced himself out of bed anyway. After getting dressed and primping himself he headed for the closet to get his t-board but stopped himself.
"Guess that would be a bad idea after what happened yesterday." So he turned away and headed down for breakfast. 'Maybe its time for a change and I'll get normal food, according to everyone else.' He thought as he left the room. As soon as he got into the main hall he was almost barreled down by a t-board!
"Hey watch where you're going!" He shouted at the person then he had to quickly dodge another one.
"Maybe you should get one instead of getting in the way!" The attacker called to him as he sped away and Zell glared angrily at the back of the person and swore it was "Seifer?" No it couldn't have been, but why was everyone suddenly riding a t-board and in the school of all places? Thinking he might be delirious from lack of sleep Zell just kept going to the cafeteria.
Once he got to the service counter, one of the ladies frowned at him. "Sorry honey but we're all out of hotdogs today." She affirmed, knowing what he was going to ask for.
"What? But it's breakfast, no one eats those this early but me."
"Well they do now." She said pointing out at the other students having breakfast all of them eating hotdogs!
"What the hell?" Zell wondered as he slowly walked towards his usual table where his friends were. Selphie and Quistis were busy chatting as they ate. Food flying from their mouths every now and then.
"Hey Zell." They both said spontaniously as he sat down. Confused and a little frightened, the boy waved.
"So I was thinking we could go right after breakfast." Selphie said continuing their conversation. After breaking himself away from staring at the two inhale their hotdogs he asked.. "Where ya going?"
"Oh, Selphie and I are gonna get tattoos, cool huh?" Quistis said not in her usual monotone authorative way. She actually sounded like a teenaged girl.
"Tattoos, on you guys?" He asked.
"Yeah baby! They're way cool." Selphie said giving Zell a thumbs up. He just furrowed his brow in confusion. They went back to eating and rudely not offering Zell any.
"Do you guys have to eat like that, its kinda gross." He said.
"Well excuse us for enjoying ourselves." Selphie spat at him.
'What the hell is going on here? Are they... playing a joke on me?' Zell wondered. Not wanting to witness the horror anymore he got up and left. The cadets were still riding around on their t-boards without a care in the world. 'This is really weird.' Zell thought but suddenly had an idea come to him. "Well if ya can't beat 'em." He ran back to his room to retrieve his own board.
"This is so choice." He said as he whizzed down the halls to his classes with everyone else. Stopping himself, Zell got off his board and went in the classroom taking his seat.
All through class everyone spent most of their time doodling on paper, something Zell often did when he got bored. He just stared around him wondering why everyone all of a sudden wasn't paying attention.
'Why aren't we learning anything?' He wondered silently. "Uh instructor... shouldn't we be learning something?" He asked.
"What are you nuts. Thats boring. Besides I don't know what I'm supposed to be teaching anyway." She said and laughed going back to her drawing.
"Oh well." Zell shrugged not wanting to argue with the instructor. After classes he figured since things were going so great, maybe Irvine or Squall might want to spar with him today. He didn't know why everyone had suddenly changed but after getting over the weirdness of it all he was liking the idea.
"Yo Zell." Irvine said seeing the blonde as they were both going the same way again. 'Yo?' Zell repeated in question. "Uh hey Irvine." He said when the cowboy caught up to him.
"So you wanna go spar with me?" Irvine asked punching Zell lightly in the shoulder.
"Uh sure but, are you sure you want to? I mean, with you having a gun and all." The blonde stated.
"Gun? Shoot I dropped that thing this morning. I decided hand to hand combat was my thing." Irvine explained showing of the new gloves he'd had on.
"Okay then lets go." Zell said not bothering to question his friend. When they got to the training center though it was completely full. There were cadets everywhere fighting each other. "What the hells going on?" Zell asked out loud.
"Yo Zell, hows it goin'?" One of the boys said seeing the two standing in the entry.
'Now this is just getting freaky. Everybodies acting like.... me.' Getting a little freaked out Zell turned and ran away.
"Hey where ya goin'?" Irvine called after him. Zell ran out into the hall on a mission. 'I gotta find Squall, at least he'll be normal.' Lucky for him Squall was just around the corner heading for the front of the school. "Hey Squall wait!" He yelled and the brunette stopped while Zell caught up.
"Hey man, am I glad to see you. Everybodies acting really weird today, it's like they're all trying to be....." Zell's words trailed off when Squall turned to face him and what Zell saw left him speechless. He had the exact same tattoo on his face as Zell did.
"Wh- what is that?" Zell asked pointing to Squall's face.
"Tattoo, I got it with Quistis and Selphie this morning." He explained. "Pretty cool huh?" Squall asked. "Now we're just like you." As he said this his form started changing right infront of Zell's eyes.
"What the?"
Squall shrank a little and his hair color went blonde, he looked just like Zell! Screaming, Zell turned and started running away hearing Squall or himself laughing in the background. As he ran he bumped into Seifer and fell back to the floor.
"Oh Seifer am I glad to see you." He began standing himself up. "Squall he's well he's me!" Zell explained.
"Lucky stiff, I've always wanted to be just like you." Seifer said and turned into Zell too!
"Oh no." Scared out of his mind now Zell started backing away from him.
"Whats the matter, you want me to get Ma to help?" The Seifer/Zell asked.
"No, stay away from me." He said and then Quistis and Selphie showed up with the tattoos on their faces.
"Yo Zell." They both said as they changed themselves too.
"What the hell is going on. Why is everybody me?" He yelled, getting backed into a corner by everyone in the school that looked just like him.
"This is what you wished for." The Quistis/Zell said.
"Being you rules." Selphie added.
"Yeah baby." Irvine said.
"No no this isn't what I wanted." He whimpered. "I didn't really mean it. I don't want everyone to be just like me. I don't." Everyone was moving in on him saying little cliche things that Zell often did. "Aaahh!!!" A snap of lightning woke the boy from his dream. He sat up panting in a cold sweat. "God it was just a nightmare." He said having to make sure he jumped out of bed and left his room, knocking on the closet door to his.
It took a few minutes to open. "Who the hell is bothering me this late?" Seifer said answering. When Zell saw the older blonde just the way he always looked a huge smile crossed his face. He stepped forward throwing his arms around Seifer's waist.
"Boy am I glad to see you." Zell said meaning it in more than one way. "I'm so glad you're you and not me." He started rambling on about the dream he'd had.
"Get lost chicken head, you're freaking me out." He pushed the boy away from him. Zell happily backed off and trotted down the hall laughing. The other doors started opening and he saw that everyone was who they should be.
The End
Yes, the thought of a bunch of Zell's is frightening isn't it? Well kiddies that was the last of our Halloween tales for this year. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, I know I did.
Just Like Me...
Zell's story
Zell was wizzing around the steps of Balamb Garden on his t-board enjoying the early morning air. He passed students leaving or entering the military school. They weren't too happy about his careless riding though.
"Hey watch it!" A girl said just missing getting hit by the airborn board.
"Sorry." Zell called behind him.
"Do you have to ride around on that thing?" A boy asked in a nasty tone as Zell went past him.
Zell was having too good a time to really care that he was getting on peoples nerves. 'They wouldn't be complaining if they had one too.' He thought to himself as he kept heading up the stairs towards the Garden entrance. "Hey Willy." He said as he sped over the low entrance gate.
"You'd better be off that thing before someone sees you with it in the halls." The old gate watcher warned.
"Yeah yeah." Zell mumbled. "Oof!" He suddenly fell backward off his t-board because someone stopped it from moving. He looked up and saw Seifer standing in front of him. His foot was against the tip of the board stopping it from moving. "What the hell'd you do that for?" The little blonde asked, standing himself up and turning the board off.
"Can't you walk like normal people?" Seifer retorted with his own question.
"Can't you get a life like normal people?" Zell snatched up his board and started walking off towards the cafeteria for breakfast. 'What's with people today, are they out to get me or something?' He pondered to himself.
Zell left his board in a nearby ganitors closet and went into the cafeteria. He ordered his usual hotdogs that the ladies always had waiting special for him. Because he was the only one to ever order them this early in the day. He said his thanks then joined Selphie and Quistis at the table.
"Morning Zell." The brunette girl chirped up and Quistis nodded her acknowledgment.
"Hey guys." He said sitting down and immediately starting in on his food. Quistis looked at Selphie who looked back then they continued staring at Zell.
"Do you have to eat those every morning?" Quistis asked. "I mean, isn't it bad for your health?"
Zell paused his eating and answered not even bothering to finish chewing and swallow. "No."
"That smells really nauseating this early." Selphie added pinching her nose a second.
"Well excuse me for enjoying myself." Zell said food still hanging in his mouth.
"Eeuw." Quistis and Selphie turned their heads away from the gruesome sight. "Well you enjoy your meal then." Quistis said as she stood up, Selphie doing the same. "See ya Zell." She said bouncing off with the instructor.
"Yeah right." He mumbled. 'This is just gonna be one of those days isn't it?' He asked himself and put his hotdog back on the plate. 'Maybe I've got bad luck it is Halloween eve.' Not being in the mood to eat anymore he got up and took his tray back to the counter.
All day during classes it seemed like Zell was getting picked on by instructors, making him answer questions they knew he didn't know. Once he finally got a break the only thing he wanted to do was punch out his frustrations. Not wanting to be alone he went looking for a sparring partner.
"Hey Irvine you busy?" He asked finding the cowboy walking the same direction as him, he ran to catch up.
"No not really."
"Cool, you wanna spar with me?" The bouncing blonde asked punching playfully at the taller man. Irvine just kind of furrowed his brow at him.
"I would Zell but I'm not really a fist person." He said holding up the gun he kept at his waist under his coat. "Sorry."
"It's ok, I'll go try someone else." Zell said trying not to show his disappointment. He went to find Squall but was turned down again. He gave the same reason Irvine did.
"This sucks." Zell complained kicking his foot at the ground. He walked slowly to his room with his head down. The day wasn't going to well for the little martial artist. Classes were annoying, he couldn't even enjoy lunch and ended up fighting monsters alone, instead of the hand to hand combat he wanted. "Hey I know what would cheer me up, a visit with Ma."
Feeling a little bit better already, Zell decided to have dinner at home and forget the whole awful day. As soon as he got to the front gate there was a sudden crash of thunder in the distance and a down pour of rain splashed the ground and him. "Great, now even the weathers against me!" He yelled turning back towards the garden.
Since night had come he decided to head for his room and skip dinner all together. So thngs couldn't get any worse.
Zell got to his room, changed his clothes after drying and got into bed. Sighing, he placed his hands behind his back. "Why does everybody have to be so.... them?" He asked the cieling. "Life would perfect if everyone could just be more like me- no, just like me." He corrected with a smile. Then lighting snapped lighting the room briefly followed by more thunder.
"Ugh." Groaning, Zell slid himself under the blanket and cowarded away from the storm.
............................
The next day. Zell woke up slowly and groggy from a rough sleep. The storm had ended and everything outside was back to its peacful state. "Halloween," Zell said looking at the mini calender beside his bed. "Maybe I should just skip today and stay in bed."
Depsite his fears of having another bad day, Zell forced himself out of bed anyway. After getting dressed and primping himself he headed for the closet to get his t-board but stopped himself.
"Guess that would be a bad idea after what happened yesterday." So he turned away and headed down for breakfast. 'Maybe its time for a change and I'll get normal food, according to everyone else.' He thought as he left the room. As soon as he got into the main hall he was almost barreled down by a t-board!
"Hey watch where you're going!" He shouted at the person then he had to quickly dodge another one.
"Maybe you should get one instead of getting in the way!" The attacker called to him as he sped away and Zell glared angrily at the back of the person and swore it was "Seifer?" No it couldn't have been, but why was everyone suddenly riding a t-board and in the school of all places? Thinking he might be delirious from lack of sleep Zell just kept going to the cafeteria.
Once he got to the service counter, one of the ladies frowned at him. "Sorry honey but we're all out of hotdogs today." She affirmed, knowing what he was going to ask for.
"What? But it's breakfast, no one eats those this early but me."
"Well they do now." She said pointing out at the other students having breakfast all of them eating hotdogs!
"What the hell?" Zell wondered as he slowly walked towards his usual table where his friends were. Selphie and Quistis were busy chatting as they ate. Food flying from their mouths every now and then.
"Hey Zell." They both said spontaniously as he sat down. Confused and a little frightened, the boy waved.
"So I was thinking we could go right after breakfast." Selphie said continuing their conversation. After breaking himself away from staring at the two inhale their hotdogs he asked.. "Where ya going?"
"Oh, Selphie and I are gonna get tattoos, cool huh?" Quistis said not in her usual monotone authorative way. She actually sounded like a teenaged girl.
"Tattoos, on you guys?" He asked.
"Yeah baby! They're way cool." Selphie said giving Zell a thumbs up. He just furrowed his brow in confusion. They went back to eating and rudely not offering Zell any.
"Do you guys have to eat like that, its kinda gross." He said.
"Well excuse us for enjoying ourselves." Selphie spat at him.
'What the hell is going on here? Are they... playing a joke on me?' Zell wondered. Not wanting to witness the horror anymore he got up and left. The cadets were still riding around on their t-boards without a care in the world. 'This is really weird.' Zell thought but suddenly had an idea come to him. "Well if ya can't beat 'em." He ran back to his room to retrieve his own board.
"This is so choice." He said as he whizzed down the halls to his classes with everyone else. Stopping himself, Zell got off his board and went in the classroom taking his seat.
All through class everyone spent most of their time doodling on paper, something Zell often did when he got bored. He just stared around him wondering why everyone all of a sudden wasn't paying attention.
'Why aren't we learning anything?' He wondered silently. "Uh instructor... shouldn't we be learning something?" He asked.
"What are you nuts. Thats boring. Besides I don't know what I'm supposed to be teaching anyway." She said and laughed going back to her drawing.
"Oh well." Zell shrugged not wanting to argue with the instructor. After classes he figured since things were going so great, maybe Irvine or Squall might want to spar with him today. He didn't know why everyone had suddenly changed but after getting over the weirdness of it all he was liking the idea.
"Yo Zell." Irvine said seeing the blonde as they were both going the same way again. 'Yo?' Zell repeated in question. "Uh hey Irvine." He said when the cowboy caught up to him.
"So you wanna go spar with me?" Irvine asked punching Zell lightly in the shoulder.
"Uh sure but, are you sure you want to? I mean, with you having a gun and all." The blonde stated.
"Gun? Shoot I dropped that thing this morning. I decided hand to hand combat was my thing." Irvine explained showing of the new gloves he'd had on.
"Okay then lets go." Zell said not bothering to question his friend. When they got to the training center though it was completely full. There were cadets everywhere fighting each other. "What the hells going on?" Zell asked out loud.
"Yo Zell, hows it goin'?" One of the boys said seeing the two standing in the entry.
'Now this is just getting freaky. Everybodies acting like.... me.' Getting a little freaked out Zell turned and ran away.
"Hey where ya goin'?" Irvine called after him. Zell ran out into the hall on a mission. 'I gotta find Squall, at least he'll be normal.' Lucky for him Squall was just around the corner heading for the front of the school. "Hey Squall wait!" He yelled and the brunette stopped while Zell caught up.
"Hey man, am I glad to see you. Everybodies acting really weird today, it's like they're all trying to be....." Zell's words trailed off when Squall turned to face him and what Zell saw left him speechless. He had the exact same tattoo on his face as Zell did.
"Wh- what is that?" Zell asked pointing to Squall's face.
"Tattoo, I got it with Quistis and Selphie this morning." He explained. "Pretty cool huh?" Squall asked. "Now we're just like you." As he said this his form started changing right infront of Zell's eyes.
"What the?"
Squall shrank a little and his hair color went blonde, he looked just like Zell! Screaming, Zell turned and started running away hearing Squall or himself laughing in the background. As he ran he bumped into Seifer and fell back to the floor.
"Oh Seifer am I glad to see you." He began standing himself up. "Squall he's well he's me!" Zell explained.
"Lucky stiff, I've always wanted to be just like you." Seifer said and turned into Zell too!
"Oh no." Scared out of his mind now Zell started backing away from him.
"Whats the matter, you want me to get Ma to help?" The Seifer/Zell asked.
"No, stay away from me." He said and then Quistis and Selphie showed up with the tattoos on their faces.
"Yo Zell." They both said as they changed themselves too.
"What the hell is going on. Why is everybody me?" He yelled, getting backed into a corner by everyone in the school that looked just like him.
"This is what you wished for." The Quistis/Zell said.
"Being you rules." Selphie added.
"Yeah baby." Irvine said.
"No no this isn't what I wanted." He whimpered. "I didn't really mean it. I don't want everyone to be just like me. I don't." Everyone was moving in on him saying little cliche things that Zell often did. "Aaahh!!!" A snap of lightning woke the boy from his dream. He sat up panting in a cold sweat. "God it was just a nightmare." He said having to make sure he jumped out of bed and left his room, knocking on the closet door to his.
It took a few minutes to open. "Who the hell is bothering me this late?" Seifer said answering. When Zell saw the older blonde just the way he always looked a huge smile crossed his face. He stepped forward throwing his arms around Seifer's waist.
"Boy am I glad to see you." Zell said meaning it in more than one way. "I'm so glad you're you and not me." He started rambling on about the dream he'd had.
"Get lost chicken head, you're freaking me out." He pushed the boy away from him. Zell happily backed off and trotted down the hall laughing. The other doors started opening and he saw that everyone was who they should be.
The End
Yes, the thought of a bunch of Zell's is frightening isn't it? Well kiddies that was the last of our Halloween tales for this year. I hope you enjoyed yourselves, I know I did.