Twisted Fate

Chapter Seven

Darkness

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Sudden power outage caused Vincent to stand up from the comfortable chair immediately, knocking the chair on the thick carpet floor. His hand instinctively reached for the gun that was supposed to be on his waist. Supposed to be. A server frown appeared on his usual emotionless face as he realized he had left his gun in his room. A potential deadly mistake that he should have never made. Yet there was no time to further blame himself for something he had already done. Without wasting another second, he grabbed Aeris' arm and pulled her closer to him.

"Follow me." He said in a very low voice without giving further instruction to the poor girl who had no time to digest the current situation. Putting his arm around her protectively, he dragged her to his room, quickly closing the door between the two rooms. Within one second, he dashed from the door to his bed and retrieved a pistol underneath his pillow. With a series of swift movements, he checked if the gun was fully loaded, and then ran back to Aeris' side.

The poor brunette could only stared at the shadowy figure with wide eyes. He was moving in a superhuman speed. Everything he did was so precise, so perfect; as if he was trained to be prepared for any deadly situation. And she thought Tseng was fast...

"Are you alright?" A low, yet concern voice broke her chain of thought. She startled a bit and found herself looking into a pair of shinny ruby orbs... and blushed. She realized her face turned slight hotter than usual as she mumbled a "yes" for an answer. Secretly, she thanked god for having the dark environment to hide her blush.

But she was wrong. His enhanced eyes could see every single detail in this room, including the girl standing so closed to him. Her blush did not escape his eyes; yet, he did not think much about it. Perhaps she was scared, but whatever the reason was, it's not important to him. Right now, he had to be prepared... in case 'he' came again.

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It had been more than an hour since the power had gone off. Nothing unusual had happened. Vincent decided not to risk taking Aeris out of this room. He could have run away easily; but with this girl, he might not be able to outrun Sephiroth if he should strike again. The most dangerous place is also the safest one.

His eyes landed on the phone on the nightstand. If only the phone was working. Somehow, the power and the phone line went down at the same time. Coincidence? Or was it something more?

".... now, I still go to the church, but I don't sell flowers anymore..." The girl had been telling him about her life for almost half an hour. He turned and nodded at her. He was never a conversationalist, but if this could distract her and calm her down, he did not mind being the listener.

"So, do you know Sephiroth?" Her sudden question almost made him bolted up. Yet, he composed himself faster than he could act out his instinctive reaction. Before he could answer her, her voice raised up again. "Of course you know Sephiroth, silly me..." A slight movement of his eyelid betrayed his emotion. How did she know...

"Everyone knows Sephiroth!" She said it in an almost childish way. "He was the general, the 'war hero'." Vincent relaxed as he continued to listen quietly.

"But why would he want to kill me?" She frowned and tilted her head to one side. "I'm or was just a flower girl. I've never seen him before. Not in person, I mean. On TV and magazines, of course I've seen a lot of him..." She giggled a bit. How she was able to be so cheerful despite her potential life-threatening situation was completely beyond Vincent. He was never a cheerful person to start with. Not even before he joined the Turk more than thirty years ago.

More than thirty years ago.

The girl in front of him was not even born then.

Being a Turk would change a person's life; that was what he had heard before he joined the company. In his case, it literally had changed his life. If he had not taken that path, perhaps he'd be a 57 year-old old man who owned a weapon shop. Probably he would have some grandchildren by now.

And he would never have met her...

The image of the woman he loved started to float in his mind once again. Her sly smile, the way the wrinkled her nose, everything about her kept on haunting him like an endless nightmare.

Aeris' words still floated into his ears, but he was not listening. All he could hear was a soft feminine tone whispering softly; yet he could not make out any words she said, as if somehow he was isolated in another world.

Suddenly, she stopped talking and leaned closer to him. Vincent bolted up at the sudden body contact. He felt her hands on his arm were shaking as he stared into her widened emerald eyes. Just then he realized why she was distressed all of a sudden as something rudely broken the dead silence once again.

A hard pouncing sound from the other side of on the wooden door.

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Note: I know, it took me long enough this time. Cause I thought no one read this story, so I wrote some new ones. Guess I should have put up the poll early. It's short, but I just want to put it up as soon as I can. Cause if I continue with this part, it might go on much longer. So I thought it might be a good place to stop. Comments and flames please send them to vinnyvalentino@hotmail.com