Eternal Fall

Final Fantasy is owned by Square Enix.
Warning: Child abuse, suggested rape, violence


Eternal Fall: part II: Toy Soldier

The nurse stared at the child for a long, long while. She couldn't help but stare. There was something about the baby that made him so interesting. He was a drooling, giggling mass of baby fat... like any other baby. But his green eyes were so deep and sparkling, as if he were truly something different... something special. He squirmed this way and that, and when she leaned close, he tried to grab at her hair playfully. She smiled and ran her figures through his hair gently. It was so soft, and it was silver. Bright green eyes, and silver hair... so odd. He smiled up at her and giggled again.

The nurses were happy to see him smiling. Until recently he had always been sick. They thought the child wouldn't make it for more than a few months. Oddly enough, they found they had to cure him much the same way they treated the men of SOLDIER after their Mako enhancement treatments. It made them so strong, but they usually got so sick at first. Recently the ShinRa government had begun to implant Jenova cells into new members of the highest military branch, which were the First Class members of SOLIDER. It made them stronger... gave them more speed. It made them even stronger than the original Mako radiation treatments did, even though the Mako treatments were still being used before Jenova was. Of course, while the general public knew about the Mako, hardly anyone outside of the ShinRa government knew about Jenova.

Why was this little baby showing signs of Jenova treatment? They never did figure it out. The important thing was that he was okay.

The nurse gently touched the baby's nose, and he grabbed her finger playfully.

"I have to go now Sephy. I'll see you tomorrow," she said with a smile.

But the stared at her and continued to hold her finger. He looked like he would be lonely without anyone there... even at his young age. She apologized softly and started to walk away. But he held her finger there, squeezing. She winced suddenly, feeling as though her finger was being crushed. She tried to tug her finger away, but she only succeeded in shifting the baby's position. He only smiled and and giggled innocently.

"Ouch..." she winced. "Let go, Sephy. Let go of my finger."

She cried out softly as she heard a small snap, and the baby finally let her go and laughed. He thought they were playing a game of some kind. He didn't know he was hurting her. He blinked and stopped giggling when he saw her hurry off. A rosy color came to his pale cheeks as he felt a bit of distress in his young heart as the woman left him there. He was not yet old enough to know that it was loneliness he felt. He wasn't old enough to realize that he was never hugged or kissed or held. He didn't know his mother was gone forever... or that his father was the man who poked and prodded at him and made him shriek in pain.

~~~~~~~~~~

When Sephiroth was a year old, he found himself on an operating table. He looked with curious green eyes at Dr. Hojo.

"Sit here and don't make a sound," Hojo hissed.

Sephiroth sat there, being a little afraid of the doctor, who didn't seem to like him for some reason.

"Docta docta!" Sephiroth said, shivering in the cold room.

"I said shut up!" Hojo yelled.

Hojo stormed out of the room and left Sephiroth sitting there shivering.

"Docta!" called the child. "Docta...."

A red light over the door started to blink, and he watched it with a mix of interest and fear. A wall of glass slowly lowered around his operating table, and he knocked it gently wit hit hit the floor, sealing him inside. "Docta?" He knocked gently again. He looked up when he felt something hit him... like a warm drop of rain. Then another... then another. Sudden, it started to burn him. He screamed and put his hands over his face. The burning shower started to come down heavily, and his little hands hit the glass over and over. "NO!" he shrieked. "Owie!!!!" The green shower fell hard on him, and he curled up into a ball and cried and screamed and shook. "Ow... Owie...."


When Sephiroth woke up he felt his entire body aching and burning. He started to cry, but there was no one there to help him. He sat up, trembling, hoping to see someone who would comfort him, but there was nothing but silence. He felt something feathery hit his cheeks and he touched them gently. He held silvery strands in his hand and blinked at them curiously. He dropped them on the floor, only to feel more fall against his cheeks. It took him a good deal of time before he realized the strands were coming from his own head. He soon lost interest when he realized how queasy his stomach was. To him, an aching tummy probably meant that he needed food. So he waited... and waited... and waited. But no one came to him... and he lie there cold, hungry, and suffering until the next day. And even then, the first thing he got was a slap across the face from Hojo for crying.

~~~~~~~~~~

At age two, Sephiroth looked down from the window at the ShinRa mansion and caught a glimpse of young boys and girls playing in the dirt road. He looked to his nanny and pointed down at them. He wanted to go outside and meet them. The only time he saw other children was when the important men and women of the ShinRa government brought their children to the mansion. And even then he wasn't allowed much time to play. For some reason the adults gathered around him and stared quesquestioned. But he didn't know why, and he didn't realize that he was important to them. Once in a while one of the adults would find him cute, and they would hug him tightly. That was why he looked forward to them coming. He wanted to see other children, and he wanted to be hugged. The doctors and nurses here didn't so much as pat him on the back. He would sit and endure the Mako radiation treatments every few months, feeling it burn him as it showered down on him. But all he could hope for after that was not getting slapped as long as he didn't cry out. And sometimes Hojo seemed to slap him anyway.

His nanny simply shook her head and went back to reading her book. He frowned and plopped down on the floor, bored out of his mind. He was tired of looking at books. Once, a child brought something to the mansion called a “toy,” and he let Sephiroth see it. It was a little toy soldier with a little gun, and to Sephiroth, it was simply amazing. He heard the parents talking about something called Chris-mus… or something like that. They talked about how their good little children got many of these new toys. It only made Sephiroth frown. The people he lived with didn’t seem to think he was a good boy, and even if they did, they didn’t seem to know what a Chris-mus was.

Sephiroth wandered to his white, plain, boring little room and frowned again. Maybe if he tried harder to be good, they’d give him a little toy soldier?

~~~~~~~~~~

He didn't know what birthdays were since his was never celebrated or acknowledged. It was only by coincidence that he felt extra light and cheerful on the first morning of his third year. He walked around ShinRa mansion quietly, exploring room after room... always hoping that something would be different. Even the quiet streets of Nibelheim just past the front gate had to be more interesting. But he seldom got to go outside.

He was feeling defiant today, and so he crept into the dark bedroom that he was so often told to stay out of. It startled him when his little foot disturbed a floorboard, making a loud creaking sound, but he made his way in nonetheless. His only light was coming from the hallway, so he carefully looked around, touching anything that looked shiny or interesting. He blinked curiously at the assortment of needles and handcuffs and medicines on the desk, but knew better than to touch them. In fact, the room wasn't all that interesting at all. He was going to leave, but a loud sound made him jump. He quickly dove into the shadows in the corner and hugged his knees. With wide jade eyes he watched as a portion of the stone wall opened up, revealing a well hidden door. Hojo emerged from there, but only long enough to grab some handcuffs and a couple needles. He soon went back through the hidden door.

Sephiroth sat there in the darkness of the room, and just before the door closed he heard a man's faint frightened scream. "Doctor?" Sephiroth murmured, although no one could hear him. He slowly stood, and approached the door. There was a long, spiraling staircase, and although it was dark he could see a glimmer of light at the bottom. He wasn't afraid of the dark since no one seemed to mind shutting him away in the dark labs all night after his Mako radiation treatments.

He slowly made his way down, moving slowly so that no one would hear. It took a very long time, many gentle steps, and a lot of nervous but well controlled breathing. Finally, his feet touched the dirt floor at the bottom. He looked around to see that he was in some sort of cave. He had seen caves in books, and this one was just as interesting. The dirt path seemed very long to him, even though it grew brighter with torches as he went. It seemed like an eternity before he saw a door ahead of him. The door looked as though it were made of metal... just like the labs at the back of the mansion. But this one was so well hidden.

A sudden shuffling sound from inside made him stop. Suddenly he heard what sounded like a muffled scream, and it was so close. Just through the door. Swallowing, he stepped forward and peaked inside through the small crack in the barely open doorway.

He saw Hojo there, and felt a little relieved to see him okay. But there was someone else in the room as well. Sephiroth watched curiously as Hojo stared at the other person, whose wrists were chained above his head so that he was forced to be on his knees on the hard, metal operating table. Well... Sephiroth assumed it was a man from the deep gasps and breaths erupting from the man's throat. The lab was so dark that he could only make out the man's long black hair as a feature he would remember.

Sephiroth stood there watching, nervous for some reason. He watched as Hojo got on to the operating table behind the man. Both of them were in the shadows now, and Sephiroth could barely make them out. It looked as though Hojo was hugging the man from behind, which made Sephiroth feel a sudden swell of jealousy. Hojo never hugged him! All Sephiroth got was slaps!

Suddenly Hojo seemed to push his body roughly forward, causing the other man to gasp, and Hojo laughed lowly.

"No..." Sephiroth heard the mystery man whisper. "I can't take it anymore.... Stop… ripping me… open…."

"Shut up," Hojo growled at the man. "There will never be relief for you."

Sephiroth's cat-like eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he watched as Hojo seemed to be bouncing the man on his lap. It looked like the other man wasn't enjoying it though. Why would Hojo care about a stupid man who didn't want to play games as much as he did? Why wouldn't Hojo ever play with Sephy too?

The mystery man made an odd sound, like the kind Sephiroth heard himself make when the treatments got really painful. Hojo was making odd sounds too, and he breathed heavily... but occasionally he would laugh lowly at the other man.

"Please..." the other man gasped. "I can't...."

"Perhaps this is karma for all the people you killed," Hojo said lowly.

"They never suffered.... I would never--"

"Well you should have," Hojo said darkly. "It feels good to fuck the unwilling. It feels good to take control. Isn't that what you wanted as a member of the Turks? Control? You thought it was alright to pick and choose who would die and who would suffer at that person’s loss. So tell me, why is it so wrong for me to make YOU bleed."

Sephiroth watched as Hojo whispered and hissed these words in the man's ear. He didn't realize that he was leaning too hard on the door until he fell through it, tumbling into the lab. He knew instantly that he had doneethiething horribly wrong. It was as though he could feel it in the air. He could feel Hojo's angry, piercing gaze. He heard Hojo get up off of the table and felt himself being pulled from the ground roughly by the arm.

"You know you are never to come here!!" Hojo yelled in his face. "Children as stupid as you will suffer their whole lives!"

Sephiroth just stood there wide eyed. Hojo called him stupid a lot... stupid and ugly. But he didn't usually raise his voice this much or even say this much to him. It took a few moments for Sephiroth to realize that Hojo was naked, as was the man on the operating table. Sephiroth was able to meet that man's eyes now, and he regretted ever coming in here. The man looked down at him with more hatred than Hojo had ever looked at him with. Sephiroth almost didn't believe what he was seeing when he realized the man's eyes were the color of blood. The dim light of the lab caught his features in just the right way to make him look very dark and demon-like as his hatred was so apparent.

"If you say anything about what you see in here," Hojo said, his voice snapping Sephiroth back to attention, "I'll have you beaten to death in the street!!"

And with that Hojo flung him out of the lab and shut the door. Sephiroth slowly got up and rubbed his arm. He heard what sounded like another scream from the man with the red eyes, but was still too young to know just how much help the man needed.

Sephiroth had hoped he was spared from punishment, but deep down he knew that would never be possible. Hojo came to his room that night and stirred him from his sleep. The young boy found himself stripped naked an beaten with Hojo's belt again and again until he wailed in pain.

"SHUT UP!" Hojo yelled. "The more you cry the more you'll suffer!"

Even at age three, Sephiroth knew the meaning of the word suffer. But he couldn't help but cry out as the belt cut into his fair skin. So Hojo dropped the belt and punched him in the face, sending his small body reeling back against the wall. He hit face first, and he covered his face with his hands as he screamed. But Hojo showed no remorse as he grabbed Sephiroth's shoulder-length silver hair and pulled his head back to look up at him.

"Vile child," Hojo said lowly. "I should just tell the ShinRa that you were a failure." He grabbed the crying boy by the arm and pulled him to the window. "You aren't worth anything. To think that I have been ordered to watch over such a stupid child who can't stop crying." Hojo grabbed him by the throat roughly, cutting off his air. "Accidents happen, don't they my little toy?"

Sephiroth whimpered as Hojo kicked the window open wildly, and he didn't have the breath to scream as he felt Hojo fling him from the second story window. The ground came hard and fast, and an ear-shattering scream erupted from the little boy's throat. His body ached all over, and he hit his head so hard that he saw patches of black. He tasted his own blood as it flowed from his nose and mouth.

Lights in the mansion flickered on, and a few of the nurses and researchers came outside. The found him nude on the cold, wet grass, screaming at the top of his lungs as he bled. His body was twisted at a horrible angle.

"Sephy!" cried the nurse. She and the researchers knelt beside him, ready to take care of him. But a shadow loomed over them from behind.

"NO! What happened!" Hojo cried, managing to look shocked. "You poor boy!"

The others looked relieved to see Hojo, since he was the most experienced in medicine.

"This is a disturbing scene," Hojo said, trying to look as troubled as possible. Please go inside, and I will come for you if I need you. Too many people will frighten the boy. He won't relax. Go and I will care for him. I'm sure you'll be there if I need you? Good. Then go now."

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Sephiroth screamed.

The others looked at the boy, but thought it best to follow Hojo's orders. So they left, occasionally looking back.

"NOOOO!" Sephiroth screamed again as they left him there with his tormentor.

When they were gone, Hojo growled something about witnesses and reluctantly carried a very horrified Sephiroth to a quiet lab to treat him. He was surprised when the boy straightened out on the operating table, especially after seeing the angle he was in after hitting the ground. None of his bones were broken, but he was covered with bruises and deep cuts... and he screamed because he landed on bits of glass and metal, which were still embedded in his back.

Sephiroth felt a tiny bit of relief when the objects were removed from his back, but his head and body still ached. He just wanted to go to bed and rest.

But Hojo saw it more fit to lock him in the closet for two days without food. He couldn't even get rest, for his nightmares never let him.


~*~*~*To be continued*~*~*~