Note Basically, there's just one thing you need to know before going ahead. This is not AU, because I wanted to write a story involving Tifa and Sephiroth - no, not really as a couple - not a normal couple at least- in the actual FFVII world. It is AU-ish in different terms: I will just suppose Sephiroth has won the final battle, and he has - sort of - become a God. Further explanations will be in the story, most likely. And yes - AC is completely ignored here.
Excrucior
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Prologue
The eccentric pianist.
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At times I see you, you silver rider
Sometimes your voice is not enough
Your face in windows outside forever
(Low)
--
Mako, blood and metal.
Bad combination, worst combination ever. It pierces my nostrils and - yes, yes, the pain. It is real, real like the first time. My hard breathe is real, my fingers scratching the rust are real.
I didn't die that night. But as a punishment, it feels like dying every times this happens again. It's hot, and I'm suffocating. It's all wrong around me, not a single thing makes sense. But it doesn't matter, because I'm dying, and I'll be dying either way. But the pain - it makes my heart skip a bit - it is too much - absolutely unbearable - my blood. The noise of the reactor has never bothered me so much.
I'm scared. I think it was this night, as I lied stabbed at the end of that stairway to hell, that I discovered what fear was. I discovered what hate was, what love was, what death was, what madness was, what vengeance was. It was an initiation. Still now, this pain - mind plays tricks.
The pain - too much pain destroys you, doesn't strengthen you.
And I know this pain will cost me a scar.
--
I see my reflection in the dusty mirror, and it's not easy, not easy at all. No, I'm not ugly. But I don't even know who I am. I used to be Tifa Lockhart, a raven haired martial artist. Now - ah.
Yet they think I'm interesting, even more interesting than I was when I tried to save this shitty world. They think I'm strange, therefore interesting. Do they think I'm mad, I just don't know. Probably.
Gods they don't know. They don't know anything.
But they're all out there, and I'm sure about it. All ages, all kind of human beings, drinking. I still have to understand if I prefer just uncorking bottles, or going out there and do what I'm going to do. Yet - no, it's not for my own pleasure. It is necessary. And they don't know, it. Gods.
No, I'm not mad - I whish I was. The less one understands here, the better he lives.
They call me a pianist, now. I'm not a pianist. But I need to play - and I never asked them to come here listening. I'm not a pianist, and I laugh in the face of the ones who records my concerts - because they're not concerts. I don't know what they are, because I'm not a pianist.
Tifa, Tifa the eccentric pianist, and it's not funny.
I don't care. If the room out there was deserted, I wouldn't care, because I'd have to go out and play anyway. If the people out there don't like what I play, if they like it - no, I don't care.
This day has started bad, I knew it from the very moment I woke up, my abdomen hurting actually, whit no concrete reason at all, as my hand was running under my vest to check for inexistent blood. I knew it was not my day. But now several hours have passed, and I'm here. I have to play, I know it, because my fingers are starting to tremble.
"Tifa.."
And then there's you, Cloud.
Where are you, Cloud? No, you're not there on the threshold, where everyone might think you are. You're elsewhere - elsewhere is the keyword. Because it doesn't matter to me where you actually are - but it matters that you're not here, Cloud, it matters and it hurts.
No - it doesn't hurt as much as nearly dying in that reactor, but hell - it hurts enough.
"Are you okay?", you ask me.
And I smile. Because no, Cloud, I'm not okay, and we both know it. Still, it's hard to state who between us is less okay. You're not okay, Cloud, so I suppose we can just keep going this way, because facing what's happened to you - so suddenly, one day, so unexpectedly - it's too hard for us, isn't it? So we don't want to have this conversation, Cloud. All right. I won't say a word, if you don't want to hear it. Yes, Cloud. I'm still that devoted to you, and I won't hurt you if you don't want to.
Maybe I'm okay, after all. Yes, maybe I'm more okay than you are.
You stare at my long, shoulder-revealing blue dress. I read on your face that you find me beautiful, you even smile. But then you turn your face, you hesitate, and everything just fades.. like - why? What's bothering you, Cloud? What are you looking at? It's just a wall, Cloud, and I'm here. Why are you so afraid to look at me?
Hell - yes. Tonight something is completely wrong.
--
While you escort me, you manage to make me feel safe - ah, the contradiction. I know, being here in your arms is infinitely more dangerous than being in the middle of that crowd - in the middle of these people. They're normal, after all - what could they do to me? Maybe they would tear my dress,grab my wrist. What do you do to me, Cloud? I hide my face against your shoulder, and I don't even look where I walk. You're practically dragging me, and this doesn't happen often. I'm squeezing your hand, and this doesn't happen often too - I don't want to have many intimate physical contacts with you since that day - because I'm afraid.
But this evening I have to do it, because I feel something there out - something that scares me more than you do - and it's no good.
It's incredible what's happening to me. I thought I didn't care about people watching me. But this evening…
I'm scared. It's an overwhelming feeling, and I begin to wonder if I will be able to play. I know I will be sick if I don't play. But there's something that bothers me, and I can't look at the crowd. It's not properly panic, but it's running dangerously towards panic, right now. I'm afraid that if I look into the crowd, I will see something terrible.
This is not paranoia - there's no time for paranoia in a world that feeds you with shit even without imagining it. There's something wrong in the crowd, but if I don't play, I'll explode. I have to play.
The crowd is not very different from usual. They part as we pass though them, yelling my name, applauses cheering me. So why am I scared? We're almost at the piano, and I regret having this dress on, because it leaves my shoulder exposed, and I just want to hide - and it's not paranoia.
I want to hide, because there's something piercing through me, there - somewhere. If it's paranoia, there's just one thing to blame.
The stupid dream I had this night. Why everything has to converge there? Why? The memory is enough to make me touch my abdomen. Everlasting inexistent pain.
You make me sit at the piano, because I'm so confused - so filled with unexpressed thoughts - that I'm paralysed. I have no idea what's happening, and at this point I wish it is paranoia.
You leave the stage slowly, and the crowd starts to grow silent. I would like to ask you to stay, Cloud. But I know it would sound awful, so I just bit my tongue.
It's like gravity, this evening. My eye flees on the crowd, and I withdraw it immediately - there's something wrong. The bar is sick full, as usual. For every person sat, there are ten standing pressed against each other, and there's no way I can scan the whole room. The semi-obscurity doesn't help, too. There's no way I can understand what's wrong.
Still, I will play, because at this point there's no going back. There is a noise in my head - and it's not music. They're thousand noises fighting each other, and the melody doesn't exist, a thread connecting them doesn't exist. There's chaos, and I don't want to scan the room.
I raise my head, my gaze goes beyond the edge of the grand piano. It seems infinite tonight.
"Good evening to you all", I just say. My voice isn't very different from usual, but I think I'm suffocating.
And in the moment I'm just staring at the crowd - even if so superficially - I know it has happened.
What has happened, I don't know.
It has happened. I was like - off guard.
It's like something has shot me - it's like dying, like being smashed. Like a lighting struck.
It's all the same, but at the same time it's all different - something has caught me. I'm trapped, even if I'm here, free like always.
There's something I don't like about the room -but it's too damn late.
Now it's the usual moment: the piano looks blurred to me, every key has lost its meaning.
Then, my hands rush on the piano like fiends attacking their prey, and the music starts.
It's not music, though. I'm not playing - I'm beating those keys. There's no inspiration - it is merely improvisation. It's anger, usually. It's pure fear tonight.
I am afraid.
But whatever it was, it has already happened - and it's still happening. I can't say anything, though. It's here, in this room, and it kills me. And I don't want to see it. It-
As my hair fall down messily, my hands flowing too quickly on the keys to be seen, my expression probably tells all. If there's something threatening me in this room, I'm in its possession.
It feels like the end of the world, in a world which is ending already.
Something has happened to me, here, just a few seconds ago.
And I've missed it.
--
End of Prologue
Notes: This story is completely insane, strange, dark, psychological, and on with the list. Very very experimental .Not to mention is my first and probably last POV. I wanted to write something different from what I would usually write, so here's the randomness. Eh. Unfortunately I had no beta checking this.. I hope it's not too terrible. Not that I really think someone could actually like this, but maybe I could continue this one day. Please, if you have something to say about what you've read, share.
Swamp-eyes.