Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ I Know What Lies Beneath the Snowfields ❯ Chapter 50 ( Chapter 50 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

"I Know What's Beneath the Snow Fields"
Chapter 50

She sat there huddled up in one bleak corner, cold, frightened, and all
alone. Around her loomed the darkness, an endless void to which she
found herself its sole prisoner. She had been swallowed by the abyss. Night
had selfishly drawn her back into its horrible black wings, and would never
release her again.

Time had long lost its meaning. Hours or days, she could not tell the
difference anymore. They simply slipped by unnoticed.

A gentle but bitter-cold breeze always blew through this dungeon. It
loved to caress her body, to feel her weak limbs shiver so pitifully. A sickly
dankness suffocated the air to the brink of nausea. Cruel silence
oppressed her to total stillness. Sometimes, the stiff steel walls let out a
creek, or the quick skitter of rats echoed across the stone floor. But
instantly, the sounds disappeared back into the same dull silence.

Aeris was prisoner here, yet the nightmare was not new. She had lived
it many times before.

There had been pain too, well beyond anything else she had ever
tasted. So brutal, it always left her voiceless, totally crushed under its claw.
Her entire body ached non-stop. The hungry agony savoured the taste of her
delicious, slender limbs.

Aeris was prisoner here, yet the torture was not new either. She had
lived it many, many times before, far too many to count.

She hardly had any recollection of the surroundings or events around
her; only flashs of blurry pictures, muffled sounds, or odd sensations, all
rolled into one hazy moment of consciousness.

She somewhat remembered feeling her coat and sweater literally torn
off. She vaguely recalled huge black figures, all strangers, drag her away
somewhere against her will. They handled her so roughly; their brash
voices sounded pure nonsense to her numb ears. Everything plunged into darkness
afterwards. Whenever she woke up again, she found herself flung back in
her black hole, so utterly broken on the cold floor.

Aeris had no memory of what happened during the actual torture, only
the devestating, savage pain it left behind. In her cloudy mind, she had
seen a blue computer screen type out some hazy jargon. She had seen
blood-filled test tubes. Sometimes, there was this strange feeling of hanging in
limbo, like her whole body had been immersed into some thick liquid. She
remembered screams. The horrible shrieks and tearful cries always
re-echoed through her ears. She guessed they were hers.

She could only recall the dreaded operation table once: she had beeen
stripped naked first. Her bare body had been spread flat over an
icy-cold table top, with a bright light and ominous machinery hovering overhead.
She had felt hands, grubby yet so nimble, fiddle along her body,
stuffing sharp needles into her skin. Bleeping sounds had droned into her ears,
that and faint hissing. Only once, she remembered opening her eyes. A
brilliant pair of yellow eyes, ablaze with vicious insanity, had glared back at
her.

That must have been the Professor. Aeris did not know. When she woke up
again, she found herself in the dungeon, all her clothes carelessly
flung back on her. She never recalled more than that.

The girl guessed she had resisted this nightmare at first. She had
probably screamed for help, struggled madly, or begged for pity. If that
had ever happened, she assumed someone had struck her unconscious or
drugged her. Indeed, either her head throbbed in dull pain, or she felt
nauseous.

But now, she doubted whether she resisted anymore. The torture never
ended, it only grew worse each time. Aeris always found herself
sprawled on the cold floor again. She felt too weak, too helpless. Yes, she had
probably succumbed to the nightmare and torture long ago. There seemed
no use resisting it.

The horror saw no end. The girl found no place to hide, no succor in
the darkness. Some invisible, evil force hovered around her, watching her,
laughing at her.

So she sat huddled up in one bleak, filthy corner. She simply waited
for whatever may come next.

Nothing new. She had lived it all before. But she always found herself
broken, frightened, lost, and so alone. Every torture felt like the very
first time.

Sometimes, while overwhelmed by wretched misery, her troubled mind
unconsciously drifted back to another world. Faces floated by, their
voices too faint to understand. She wandered through many places, marvelling at
each tiny detail. It all seemed such a strange dreamworld now, ages old,
one she hardly recognized anymore.

Had she really hoped to escape to there?

As Aeris sailed away through this dream, she wondered at these strange
sensations tingling her cold, pitiful body:...kind warmth.. unlike
anything ever felt before....... shelter from night and fear...

..safety...total safety from all harm....

At that moment, Aeris caught herself lingering over one particular
face; one face she associated all these strange words with. It seemed so dear
to her, so much her cold fingertips ached to touch it again. But instantly,
she shoved that face far away. It always aroused such a violent turmoil
in her heart. It always choked her, made her eyes swell with so many hot
tears. Indeed, she found the pain in her body far more tolerable than
that inside her heart.

She struggled to not think of him. It hurt her too much, his name
almost on her lips, her aching heart ready to burst with such inconsolable
grief. Yet all in vain; her mind always clung to that same face. In final
desperation, Aeris tried to stop thinking altogether.

The cruel question prickled her torn mind: why had she escaped in the
first place? She belonged *here*...in this bleak hell called
"the Laboratory". What had ever convinced her otherwise? Had she really
hoped to escape to there..... to that strange dreamworld far, far away?

The Professor would never release her, not when he could enjoy her on
an operation table instead. She meant too much to him; his darling little
specimen. What had made her believe she could ever escape him? There
was no safety anywhere. He'd torture her to madness in her nightmares. His
ghost would forever haunt her. And at last, he'd send his best hound dog after
her, never to return until it had retrieved her.

Another face appeared, filling her whole being with bitter hatred but
equal terror. The dreaded "hound dog" had white hair and pink eyes. A
demon in a trench coat, smiling so viciously back at her. He had stopped at
nothing to capture her. He had torn her away from her only shelter, and
cast her back into this horrible nightmare. To her, this "Professor"
seemed an ominous presence with Davoren for a body.

And where lay everything now? All burnt to ashs. Her warm shelter, her
peaceful safety, all trampled to the ground. The demon had wrenched her
out of those protective arms, into another that felt so cold, so unfamiliar.

Aeris remembered that moment so vivdly: when she heard the loud bang of
the gun, then witnessed Vincent crash to the ground. He had lain so
helplessly sprawled on the tracks, gasping, writhing in such pain. She
could still see the ruthless gunman standing over his victim. She saw
him triumphantly reach for the trigger.

She wanted to scream "stop!"

In her tormented mind, Aeris had repeated the scene at least a dozen
times. How often she cowered in the darkness, languishing over that one
scene. Everytime, she wanted to stop the madness: clutch the gunman's
coat and beg for mercy; embrace Vincent to protect him from any more harm;
anything, anything but lose him.

But in the end, Aeris always crumbled back to the same desperate
conclusion: What did it matter *now*? Vincent was dead.

Dead. The word crushed her. It rang through her ears each time she
remembered him lying there on the iron tracks.

Vincent was dead...dead...

Again, Aeris desperately shut out all thoughts and emotions. She did
not want to think. It drove her mad. It hurt her too much. Many times, she
had burst out crying until unconsciousness took over. She did not want to
think! She did not want to think!

Yet the poor girl never succeeded. Everytime she remembered Vincent's
face, the nightmare grew darker, colder, and more frightening. And this
time, she found no warm arms to shield her away, or any soft voice to
lull her to sleep.

Vincent was dead.