Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Love By Moonlight ❯ Swarm! ( Chapter 22 )

Chapter Twenty Two.

Ding Dong! A pause. Ding Dong! The little red door slowly pulled open, revealing a tiny patch of brown on the other side, followed by a pair of green eyes. When Selphie recognized the face she yanked the door completely open and waved to her friend. "Hi Zell." The girl said and the little blonde looked down at his sneakers.

"Hi," He replied. "Can I come in?"

"Sure, did you come to give me my homework?" She asked stepping aside to let him in.

"....No, not exactly... I mostly came to say goodbye." He looked up at her to see the shocked look on her face, but it remained cheerfully the same.

'Maybe she's in denial already? Poor thing.' He decided to change subjects and get back to that later. "How's your mom?" Asked Zell.

"She's gonna be blissfully out of it for a few days but she'll be fine." Stated Selphie in an odd calm. The girl opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of Fresca and a container of Hawaiian Punch and held them up at Zell.

"The punch." He answered, then said. "I'm glad she's gonna be ok, and thanks for the juice but I really shouldn't stay long, I am leaving you know?" He said a little louder.

"Yes, you said that already." Selphie commented handing him the see through plastic glass cup.

"Well, don't you care!?" He asked her shocked that his best female friend, whom has a crush on him doesn't care that he'll be gone.

"Zell, you always go away on trips." She took a sip then went on. "Why should I care about this one, you'll be back." Selphie shrugged.

"Yeah, but this time I'm not." Zell muttered and she looked up hearing that.

"What do you mean, you're not moving are you?" She asked getting a swell of concern in her voice all at once.

"No, I'm not moving. I'm just...going." Zell walked over to her and threw his arms around her shoulders, hearing her sniffle into his ear.

"But if you're not moving, then why are you leaving?" She asked patting his back.

"I have too, but I'll call you as soon as I get there, okay?" Zell looked her in the eye and added. "When I call you, you can't tell anyone where I am, okay?"

Selphie couldn't stop her tears from flowing, and with no response he wasn't even sure she'd heard him. "Are you running away, because you can always stay at my house if you're having problems at home." She looked up with huge glassy eyes and frowned.

"No, I'm not having problems at home, but I am gonna be leaving....I'll be back someday...so can you keep my secret?" He asked her and she nodded, leaning forwards into his hug.

"Aaaww, Selphie. You were supposed to be my strong one." Zell was saying then he pulled back and grinned at her. "You want a goodbye, fuck?"

Her mouth dropped and she punched him in the shoulder. "That is the grossest thing I've ever heard you pervert." Her smile returned to it's normal status and wiped her tears away. "Just so's long as you come back eventually and me and Irvine can keep contact with you, then I'm fine... and I promise I won't tell."

Zell's smile brightened and he hugged her again then gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "Thanks Selphie, you're the best." He pulled away and walked to the door.

"I know." She was saying then a thought occurred to her. "Oh but, what am I gonna do when your mom calls and asks where you are?"

Zell paused at the door. "Tell her....I love her and I didn't run away, I just need to be by myself for a while." With that he waved to her and walked out the door. 'Now to get to my garage without attracting too much attention to myself.' He thought.

Zell put his suite case in the garage where Ma wouldn't see it and where it would be easier for him to sneak it out of his house, when she fell asleep. He wanted to leave in the morning like Seifer suggested, but he wouldn't get very far with his mother knowing he was missing, she would call the police for sure. Plus, knowing the school they called her already to tell her he'd skipped. So he had to sweat out the rest of the day outside.

'This'll at least give me time to think.' Zell walked quietly along the streets, not really sure where it was he was going. 'I need to get my train ticket, I can't take a boat if Squall's gonna be arriving on one.' Zell u-turned himself to the train stations path and fished in his pocket for his wallet. 'I hope it doesn't cost a lot.'

Thumbing through the bills in his wallet, he looked to have about enough to take a train. 'Geez look at this line.' The boy slowed himself to a stop behind a larger man and he sighed exasperatedly. 'Always getting stuck behind the taller guys, whose backs usually stink from this heat, ugh great.'

The line was moving slowly today, so someone must be in front bitching about their seat. 'For gods sake it's a train, there is no better seat they're all the same!' He mentally shouted at whoever it was. When the line finally did start to move, Zell was worried about his Ma. He felt like he was abandoning her and everyone else. 'No.' He shook the thoughts away. 'This is for the better. I have to keep them safe.'

"Next." The ticket woman said.

"Can I get a ticket for Timber, the soonest time it can leave." Zell asked and pulled out his money.

"That'll be forty three dollars for one, leaving at 10 O'clock tonight." She said.

"That's the earliest one you've got?" Zell griped but handed her the money anyway. 'There goes grabbing something to eat before I go.' He shoved his wallet back into his pocket and looked around.

"Is there anything else I can get you?" The woman asked.

"No."

"Then move it along, you're holding up the line, next!" She called. Zell walked away and looked around for a place he could hide out until his train came in. "I can't go to Irvine's...I can't stay at Selphie's....where can I go?" Walking aimlessly, Zell bit his bottom lip wondering where was a good place to hide out so that he wouldn't get caught.

"The warehouse!" He snapped his fingers. "No one ever goes in there, except the fishermen and they won't see me if I hide." Zell made a b-line in the other direction and ran off in the direction of the large warehouse.

* * *

Going to the warehouse proved to be a bad idea from the start. When Zell arrived there, he heard talking from the other side of the door. 'I thought this place was supposed to be empty.' Zell wondered. 'Maybe the fishermen are moving stuff around, I'm sure they'll let me hide out in there if I don't touch anything.' Turning the knob on the door, Zell pulled it open, slowly. The commotion of the people inside dulled down to nothing and all the fisherman visible were staring at him, or more likely glaring.

Zell just stood there feeling like, the most looked at- but least popular person in the room. 'I can't let these guys intimidate me.' He figured. 'I have to stand up for myself.' He put his foot firmly down then walked the distance of the room away from the door.

"Who does this kid think he is?" He heard a few whispers from the men.

"I don't know, but something about his scent is a little familiar." Another one said.

'I wonder what they mean by that?' Zell wondered.

As the little blonde made his way to the back of the room he kept his back straight and his head high. He couldn't let these people see his fear, that's what his Ma always instructed. When he came to the end of his path, he sat himself down on a large black box with a gold trimming. "They're just fisherman, there's nothing to be afraid of." He mumbled to himself.

There was a loud shout in the back of the room, the suddenness of it made Zell jump out of his skin. It sounded like a woman's scream, but something was off about it.

A few of the men began to laugh. "Even from her coffin she's loud." A man in the corner said.

'Coffin?!' It was as if everyone in the room had heard Zell's thoughts, because all heads suddenly turned to him and it grew silent. 'Uh oh, did they just hear my thoughts?' The group of fishermen all stood up and walked in the direction the boy was sitting. "Ah haha, boy would you look at the time." He said glancing down at a watch he doesn't own. "I should be going, my Ma worries when I'm not home in time for- well anything really."

Stumbling to his feet, Zell backed himself against the wall. 'It's warm.' He mentally noted and turned around. "Ahhh!!" A larger of all the men in the room had his hands clamped firmly into Zell's shoulders. But wait a second, those aren't finger nails, they're claws!

"Aaarrrr.....Grrrrr." Zell struggled to get free but the grip tightened.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" The gruff voice of the man holding him asked.

"Rrrr," He continued to struggle. "You're not fishermen are you?" Zell asked with a strain in his voice.

"Can't say that I am, but I do love the taste of 'em." The man replied. The other vampires laughed seeing the assault. Some of them got closer to him for a better look, while the others just sat back and watched. "Maybe you'd be willing to give me a quick taste, I'll bet your blood is real good."

Zell arched his back and gritted his teeth to pull himself free but nothing was working. "I really don't taste all that good just ask the guy that bit me before." One of the vampire women walked up to Zell and licked the side of his face.

"Mmm, you taste alright to me." She said touching his cheek with a pointed finger.

"Get off of me!" Zell shouted.

"And what if we don't want to?" The man asked.

Zell thought for a quick second then rammed his foot up into the guys dick, and waited for the shout of pain and the loosened grip but all he received was laughter.

The man turned Zell around and pushed him into a wall, then picked him up by the back of his head and pressed his face firmly into the wall. Zell placed his hands forward to try and back himself off of it a little but his face was ground sharply into the concrete walling.

"You're a damned fool if you think I feel pain. Let me show you what true pain feels like." He pressed his face closer than any one of them would have thought it could go and the large man rubbed it back and forth.

Little trickles of blood were shedding from the skin that had been torn away by the roughness of the wall. "Rrrrr-aahhh!!!!" Zell cried out. It felt as though his whole face were exploding.

"Look boys this piñata is full of candy." The woman shouted. The room went up in a cheer as they all walked over to the wall letting little droplets of Zell's blood fall onto their tongues. "Hm hm hm hmm." The man laughed. "You picked the wrong day kid."

Zell pushed back against the wall again leaving enough room to talk. "Somebody help me!!" He shouted as loud as he could.

The room of vampires laughed mockingly and the one holding him up threw him backwards onto the floor. "Do what you want with him." He said walking away.

"Seconds." A skinny, shorter vampire said while licking his teeth.

Zell looked around him in a shudder. 'What am I gonna do?' Panic staining his face.

One of the male vampires pushed him from behind into a female vampire that looked down at him and hissed. "Human in the middle." Someone shouted when the female vampire pushed him back into someone else. The whole room laughed while they pushed the little blonde around a circle.

"Are you gonna cry now, human?" One of the men mocked. Zell tried to swing at one of them but he missed and a man behind him grabbed him and bit down into his shoulder without using his teeth. Everyone in the room was just a breath away from him now.

'Seifer please help me.' He thought before the room came down on him. "Aa-.." His cry was cut off by the engulfing of the room down on him. The hungry vampires ripped brutally at his clothing and into his skin. He could hardly breath.

Their laughter filled his ears. When one moved away another took their turn pulling at him. Some of them licked their fingers after taking a scratch at him, while others just sucked the claw marks on his arms legs and face.

Zell's mind was crying but he continued to struggle. Every clawed finger nail, sharper than the next set of teeth, every ounce of body weight that put pressure on Zell was overwhelming his bite mark. It wasn't until someone ripped off his bandage that made his breaths start to quicken, his heart beat raced a mile a second. He felt something stirring inside of him that he had never felt before.

Using every bit of strength he had Zell managed to knock the vampires back away from him though he was still down on the floor. He looked around the room at all the staring faces, and waited for whoever would attack him next but nobody moved.

Standing he took a step back. From the side of his eye, Zell saw that everyone was moving away. In fact they were out and out leaving him alone. He didn't understand why, he was just grateful to be let free.

...................................

When Zell made it outside, after his slow backing out of the warehouse, he ran to the beach and fell to the sand holding back tears. 'I've never been afraid like that in my life.' He thought and even his mind was crying silently.

'Maybe everyone at school is right, maybe I am an idiot, a loser- a nobody....who was I to think that Seifer loved me...' With those words going through his mind, Zell let the tears in his eyes fall onto his nearly bare lap. 'Who am to think anybody loves me?'

After a few sounded tears fell from his lips and eyes, he looked up into the sky and shouted. "Why didn't you come to save me!" Zell dropped his head and felt the warm beach water wash up onto the shore and touch him. Wiping his eyes he looked out and sighed. 'It's dark.' His right eye winked itself closed and he reached up with the back of his hand and wiped away the blood from his face.

Sniffling, he crawled over to the water and scooped some into his hand and ran it down his face. "Ouch." He said rather casually; compared to the pain on his legs a little salt water in a cut didn't hurt him much. Sniffling again, he tried his hardest to fight back tears but he couldn't.

"Am I the biggest loser alive?" He asked himself and wiped the rest of the blood off with what was left of his shirt. "My suit case...I left it at the warehouse." He remembered. "I can't go back for it, they'll rip me apart."

He looked in the direction he had just came from. 'I guess I should just go home.' Zell figured, standing up. 'Who was I to think I could ever leave Balamb anyway, and there's a good chance I won't even see this Squall guy.' He started to walk in the direction of his house when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

"Zell....."