[ It's never been easy to return to the church in Sector 5. If anything, Tifa would have figured that Cloud would steer clear of it. But that's what makes it the perfect hideout, she supposes, for someone who absolutely does not want to see her, someone who ghosts her calls and stows away with his sickness. To suffer alone and in silence in this sacred space can only make the agony too terrible to bear. What a Cloud-like thing to do, she supposes, the irony barely scraping the surface of shock and grief. These wounds are still too raw to feel.
Tifa hears him before she sees him. She is badly wounded, but the one thing that keeps her conscious is the tiny bundle she is cradling in her arms. His footsteps ring like churchbells, reverberating into eternity. She supposes it's a good a sound as any to fade out to as she sways upon the precarious threshold between consciousness and the merciful dark she can only pray to succumb to.
She is not the one dying, though she wishes that she was. If only she could trade places with the tiny body she's holding so close now, as close as she wishes that she'd always held her. Marlene. She cannot accept that she is gone. Even though she was the one to bear witness to that strange man grabbing her, unsure of how to handle such a fragile, fiesty thing. She'd fought, just like her father. Barret would have been so proud.
The sound of her neck snapping is haunting her, will always haunt her. She can still hear it, skipping like an overplayed record, the crunch-crunch-crunch of bone on repeat. An illogical part of her mind still believes that she can save her, if only she rocks her softly enough, whispers the right thing into her tiny bloodied ears. So small. Every precious part of her is too small to be so still.
Cloud's footsteps, coming closer. Tifa doesn't even have the strength to cry. ]
I tried to call you. I tried, Cloud. I called you, but you didn't—
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2020-05-18 04:13 am (UTC)Tifa hears him before she sees him. She is badly wounded, but the one thing that keeps her conscious is the tiny bundle she is cradling in her arms. His footsteps ring like churchbells, reverberating into eternity. She supposes it's a good a sound as any to fade out to as she sways upon the precarious threshold between consciousness and the merciful dark she can only pray to succumb to.
She is not the one dying, though she wishes that she was. If only she could trade places with the tiny body she's holding so close now, as close as she wishes that she'd always held her. Marlene. She cannot accept that she is gone. Even though she was the one to bear witness to that strange man grabbing her, unsure of how to handle such a fragile, fiesty thing. She'd fought, just like her father. Barret would have been so proud.
The sound of her neck snapping is haunting her, will always haunt her. She can still hear it, skipping like an overplayed record, the crunch-crunch-crunch of bone on repeat. An illogical part of her mind still believes that she can save her, if only she rocks her softly enough, whispers the right thing into her tiny bloodied ears. So small. Every precious part of her is too small to be so still.
Cloud's footsteps, coming closer. Tifa doesn't even have the strength to cry. ]
I tried to call you. I tried, Cloud. I called you, but you didn't—