after the wall has fallen

-irishais-

Walking, walking, walking, walking.

Walking, walking, walking, walking.

Miles, miles of nothing. An eternity of barren rock, of twisting, flimsy-thin clouds that wrap around him like a shroud. His boots wearing thin at the soles, blisters swelling on his feet until the pain becomes part of him, ground into his nerves, until he can't remember a time without it.

Just...walking, until he reached the edge of nothing and looked straight down into more nothing. He could have kept walking, he supposes, off the edge of the precipice just to see where it got him. Like a storybook character who had to go backwards to move forwards. Maybe it would have worked.

He's still trying to get his mind around the fact that at one point, he had simply given up.

Sensory overload, pictures from a life that's his and not his at the same time, charging through his brain, his nerves all on end and screaming for it to stop. It had, abruptly, his world shattering like glass. For a while, Squall is certain that he was dead.

He inhales and exhales slowly, just to remind himself that he can breathe. Oxygen feels the same as poison gas— all the instructors tell you that. With one, you remember how to live and with the other, you find out what it means to forget.

"Hey, man. You okay?"

Painfully, the world filters back into place, the noisy cafeteria, the clanking of silverware against plates, Zell's voice. Zell. Squall turns his head, and out of the corner of his eye, he realizes that his drink is still in his hand, lifted inches off the table. He can't remember if it was on its way to his mouth or back down to the tray.

His throat is suddenly dry, and so Squall brings the can up, drinking deep and not really tasting anything. He has to look at the label when he is done— lemon-lime. Huh. It's not important. The can makes an empty, dull thud when he sets it down.

"What?" he asks, and the word comes out distant, unfocused. Squall puts his hands against the table's surface, the plastic smooth and cool under his palms. He focuses on that, on the fact that his friend has just asked him a question, something that needs an answer. Squall could give one, if he could remember what the question was.

Zell is looking at him strangely. "You look kinda like you're gonna pass out. Maybe you should go see Kadowaki."

"I'm fine."

He is. He's only seventeen. That's too young to be losing his mind, right?

Insane. There are many things that Squall is, and insane is not one of them. He isn't really willing to start, either. That's supposed to be Seifer Almasy's department, to be crazy with sorceresses, crazy with "romantic dreams". Just...crazy.

Squall isn't crazy.

"Let's get out of here," Zell says.

Let's get out of here.

Squall remembers a feather, falling into his hand and crumpling away into dust, into more nothing, nothing.

He remembers walking, walking, walking, walking. And he's pretty sure he remembers being dead.