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Eclipse	By : SkyFire Category: Final Fantasy VII > General Views: 779 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Eclipse

by SkyFire
Warnings: DarkFic. Abuse, rape, the works. WIP.

Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII. Rub it in, why don't you? :( Anyone you don't recognize does belong to me, though. (Anyone want to buy one nutso scientist-type and a bunch of pissed-off villagers, cheap? ;P)

Eclipse: Chapter 2
He stayed there, clinging to the support mere inches above the lapping green of the reactor pool, Mako-fog swirling around him in threatening reminder, for only as long as it took for his limbs to stop shaking quite so much.
Once they had he reached up, gripped the next cross-piece and slowly pulled himself up, praying to every god he'd never believed in that his weakened body would hold out, that it wouldn't send him falling back into the pool below. He knew that if he fell, he was finished. He would not be able to get free of it a second time. He was already suffering from overexposure to the raw Mako; falling in again....
Falling in again was not an option.
And so he climbed, one pitted cross-piece at a time, forced to stop between each as his body protested. But he dared not pause for too long, for though the dip in the pool had gotten Mako into his wound and cauterized at least some of it, he could still feel the blood running from it, coating his lower half in glistening red that smeared on the support and dripped from his boots to hiss into the Mako below. Enough had seeped into those same boots that he could feel it squelching with each twitch of his toes. Between the Mako and blood loss, he didn't know how long he was going to manage to hold on to consciousness.
Another shaky reach, pull up, side screaming against the tugging of damaged muscle with each movement. Pause, panting for breath through the pain surged through him, sweat breaking out cold all over his damaged body even as a renewed weakness shook him. A mind-numbing cycle on endless repeat.
An eternity later, he reached again, only to have his hand land on not another cross-piece but a section of flat, horizontal metal. He managed to crack open swollen, sore eyes enough to make out that he had apparently made it to some sort of maintenance platform, the glowing green fog swirling malevolently some thirty feet or so below. Had he only climbed that far? It had felt like it was so much further!
But that was beside the point. There was a platform!
He hauled himself up and onto it, the metal warm against his burnt skin as he let himself collapse on it in a shivering heap, content to let consciousness fade away now that he had reached something approximating safety. He would stay there until he had healed a bit more, until his limbs stopped shaking and he could open his eyes for more than a split second.
Already he could feel his body taking advantage of the respite to work on healing the damage; starting to re-knit muscle, skin, and bone from the gaping hole in his side, the flow of blood slowing to a trickle as the vessels healed. Even as that was going on, it also worked to expel the excess Mako from his system; absorbing what it could, forcing the rest out through his pores, a shimmering green layer of sweat.
He didn't know how long he had drifted in a barely-conscious haze before the sound of booted feet landing on nearby metal forced him to pull himself together again. Pushing aside the dark comfort of the unconsciousness that kept creeping in, he cracked open one eye enough to see what had to be the last thing he had ever expected to. There, crouching down beside him now on the small platform, was a man, one of the survivors of his Nibelheim rampage. Had he come to finish him off? Now would be the time, if he had; since he had stopped moving, he had stiffened up and could barely force his muscles to twitch, let alone do anything more like defend himself from anything.
He couldn't exactly blame the man, either. What he had done to the town, twisted alien influence or not, was inexcusable. How could the man, how could anyone forgive him for what he had done? He had burned and slaughtered the once-peaceful little town with barely a thought. It would serve him right if the man pushed him off the platform and back into the reactor pool....
He saw the man reach for him and couldn't hold back the slight twitch that was all the defense he could manage just then, but the hands that landed on him - big rough hands, the hands of a worker - didn't push him, didn't even try to. Instead they lifted his coat to bare the wound on his abdomen, then let it down again. A small pause - had he called out to someone higher up in the reactor? He couldn't tell; his ears didn't seem to be working right - then those hands were back, this time tugging on him, forcing him to sit up.
The motion almost made him throw up, his already-narrow tunnel of vision darkening even more. He closed his eyes and focused on overcoming the surging nausea, knowing that retching with as large a hole in his gut as he had would not be pleasant. More motion, the nausea worsening and sending a surge of bile up his throat, the vague awareness that while he himself wasn't moving, he was no longer in the same place. Was the man carrying him somehow as they climbed up a service ladder? Or was he being hauled up some other way? He couldn't tell, his senses ruled by nausea and the pain of his injuries and Mako-burn.
An eternity of forevers later, the motion stopped.
When he came back to himself enough to realize it, he once again forced his eyes open a crack and found himself to be lying on what had to be thr reactor's main catwalk, yet more villagers milling around him. He couldn't move, could barely twitch, couldn't do anything but lie there no matter how his instincts were screaming at him to get up, get moving, get away. All these people were from Nibelheim, and while one might perhaps help him, might have been somewhere else and not known that it was him that destroyed the town, there was no such possibility for such a large group, especially when some of their clothing bore the scars of smoke, burns, and blood. Someone in that group knew the truth, and so they all would. No one could be so generous and kind-hearted as to go to such effort to save someone like him, could they?
But they didn't hurt him, made no move against him. One even wrapped the wound in his side as best as they could using a roll of bandages in a first-aid kit someone found.
He didn't understand them, didn't understand why he wasn't being hurt, vilified, and ultimately destroyed. Why were they helping him? They had to know. How could they not? So why-?
He was barely aware of being moved, placed on what he could only assume was some sort of stretcher, every little brush of contact with his skin sending fresh bolts of pain shooting along abused nerves. Distantly, he heard someone talking, the words coming to him in a mushy mumble it took him a while to puzzle through. When he did, a rush of alarm passed through him � if still far away, almost as if it was somehow apart from him though he knew it was not.
What about the other two?

Leave them. If they're not dead yet, they will be soon. Damn Shinra dogs.
Then all thought was pushed to the back of his mind as his stretcher was lifted, the slight jolting enough to set every nerve screaming in protest, leaving him fighting back against the darkness and anusea that wanted to take him into its grasp, clinging to consciousness with tooth and nail. The light dip and sway as he was carried out didn't help his struggle at all.
It didn't make sense. Why would the villagers bother helping him and not the others? He'd burned their town, killed their neighbors � the memory of the insanity made him sick � and yet they decided to care for him and not the others. Why? It made no sense. Unless it was because his injuries were not as extensive as those of Zack and Cloud? But no; he'd been run through as well, and by the Buster Sword, no less. Was the propaganda Shinra put out about him so good that even having seen his rampage with their own eyes they had convinced themselves that it hadn't been him, that he had in fact been pursuing the real culprits - in this case Zack and Cloud?
None of this was making any sense!
But whatever their reasoning, he couldn't help the wave of gratitude that washed over him, even mixed with the pain motion brought. Faced with the reality of the actual possibility of his own demise, he was forced to face the simple fact that he didn't want to die. Not to be confused with being afraid to die � he wasn't � but he just wasn't ready to just then, especially without being able to at least try to make things right. He knew he couldn't bring back those he had massacred while he had been Jenova's pawn, knew that their friends and relations would likely hate him no matter how he tried to atone, but that didn't stop him from wanting to.
How odd.
He had killed many, many more in Wutai under Shinra orders while perfectly sane and didn't feel that drive he did in that little mountain village.
And here they were, the same people whose peaceful lives he'd brutally interrupted, taking the time and effort to rescue him from what could have been a very unpleasant end.
The skin of his face felt two sizes too small, his lips cracked and dry, his throat raw as he forced the syllables up from aching vocal cords. �Thank you,� he rasped, voice the barest hint of a whisper.
A hard chuckle from near his head. �Don't thank us yet,� came the harsh, ominous reply.
But consciousness had finally decided to abandon him before he managed to decipher the words.
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TBC...
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Eclipse