Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ When Darkness Falls ❯ Chapter Thirteen ( Chapter 13 )

A month later.

"...Fucking shit!" A man declaired when bringing his foot down into a bundled-in body of teen that's scrunched against a wall.

Stealing was a lot harder than Zell had thought; proof of that is this big Ox trying to kick his ribs in. This is the seventh time he's been caught, and the fifth time someone's tried to bash his head in.

"Ooff!" Blood spattered from the teen's mouth to the cold concrete ground.

The man leered at the kid with a grisly smile crossing his face. Bending down towards the dirty blond thief, he scooped up his wallet from his grip. He moved the flaps of leather apart and checked to see if all his money and credit cards were still inside. "You got lucky, shitty puke." He stated, bringing his foot into Zell's chest again.

"Rrrrr..." The blond groaned in pain.

The man finally stopped his assualt, leaving the thief alone in the alley rolling in pain.

Dincht rolled over onto his stomach clutching it to reduce some of the pain coursing through his body. His breaths were coming out in pants, short and whispy. Looking ahead to where the man had left, Zell thought bitterly to himself. 'What am I doing wrong?! Other people do this sort of thing all the time, so why can't I?' Picking himself up to his feet, he supported his posture on the wall beside him. "Rrr..." This time he clenched his stomach for another reason. Hunger.

'God, I'm hungry... I haven't eaten in two weeks!' He pushed away from the wall and began to walk into the crowds that flooded the sidewalks. 'Stealing won't matter after too long, 'cause I'll be dead by the time I can actually eat something.' His walk was husky and tired, but he slowly began to regain his strength as he traveled. '... I wonder what time it is?'

Three women laughed in the distance talking about something petty in the world's eyes. A salon that does dreadlocks for women. Zell thought they looked nice enough, and decided to ask them for the time when they approached.

"That's not what Dana told me. I have the right mind to..."

"Excuse me," Zell started to say. "Do any of you have the time, please?" His eyes were hopeful when one woman raised her arm, but it quickly faded when all she said was.

"Yup. And what a pretty watch it is."

"I was just admiring that, is it new?" One of the other women said.

"My husband got it for me a week ago." They began to walk on by.

Zell looked after them, partly angry but mostly sad. Hanging his head, he felt a hand on his shoulder before a low whisper. "Psst, it's 10:43." A female's voice. But whomever it was, they were gone just as quickly as they had come.

Zell spun a quick circle looking for the woman, but found no one. "... Thanks." He muttered. Casting his vision upward he thought for a moment. 'It's almost lunch time... maybe I could stop by the school.' Turning on his heels, he headed in the direction of the school at an even pace. 'I don't wanna do this to her, especially after she might be getting her life back together...' He turned at the corner ahead. '...But I've gotta eat something... I just hope Selphie can let me go again.'

"Selphie?" A saultery voice said beside her locker. Backing away from the metal door that was attempting to close on her face, the brunette looked up to see Seifer staring down at her. Taking a few steps back to spare both their necks she said. "Yeah?"

"It's been about a month now, where's Zell?" He asked.

"I don't know." Selphie replied in all honesty. "I haven't seen him."

Seifer scoffed out a laugh and crossed his arms, thinking the girl just wanted to give him a challenge for the answer. "Come on, you live right next door to him. You had to have seen him once or twice."

"What's it to you, anyway?" She glared at him through narrowed eyes. "I thought you hated Zell; what? Are you just trying to pick on him or something?"

The usual suspect of school bully looked taken aback. "What's with you? I just wanted to know why he wasn't sitting with us anymore?"

Selphie looked away and sighed, shrugging. "Okay, okay... Zell isn't here anymore because he went to stay with his aunt in... Winhill."

"Even I know a lie when I hear it." Turning away, he added in a low tone. "If you won't tell me then I'll just go to his house and see for myself."

"Go ahead," Selphie said in a hushed tone as well. "you won't find anything there either." Turning in the opposite direction Seifer was walking, Selphie staggered backwards to avoid slamming into Rinoa who walked up behind her.

"What was that all about? You making a date?" Rinoa joked.

"I wish, but, no." Selphie looked back over her shoulder. "He was just asking me about something." Putting on a smile. "So what have you been up to this week?" She asked her friend as they began their walk to class.

"Well, I didn't wanna say anything just yet but - - since you pulled it out of me," Rinoa's face lit up with a grin. "I think Locke might ask me out."

"What?!"

"I know! Isn't it cool, we've been spending a lot of time together since," she paused to make her voice not so 'pointed finger'. "... well, you beat him up."

"Hmph." Selphie crossed her arms turning up her nose ready to end the conversation at anytime. But she had questions first. Because the last time she checked, Locke wasn't exactly raising skirts and blowing kisses at the wandering ladies. "So, what makes you say that? Did he give any hints?"

Rinoa twisted her mouth up and looked idle a moment. "No. Not really." She replied. "But, he's been coming over to my house and we talk and hang out and stuff."

'How do you give your friend a news flash that a possible crush is gay?' Selphie hung her head then started to laugh inside which made her shoulders shake a bit.

It wasn't until a single giggle slipped out that Rinoa turned her attention to Selphie asking. "What?"

"It's nothing. I just think that if it feels right then go for it. You never know." Patting her friend on the shoulder, Selphie sped up her pace going into a classroom. "See you at lunch." She chimed.

"Yeah, bye." Rinoa replied, shaking her head in exasperation she wondered. 'What is with that girl?' Even she had noticed that for the past few weeks Selphie hadn't been herself. But just now her friend did seemed to be returning to her normal state. Maybe it was because of Zell. 'Yeah, where is he anyway?'

...

"I don't know what I was thinking." Zell muttered to himself. He arrived at the school sometime around eleven. He assumed the time because the 'A lunch' people were just filing in. "Selphie's not gonna see me."

He watched the scene of people a little while longer before turning away and leaving. Everyone was in their own little world, while he was left facing the large one on his own. One never understands the difference when you have everything necessary in life; you think ignorantly in bliss: how hard is it to live on your own. Drop the money set aside for you, the home around you, meals, bills, transportation. Zell never realized just how much he groaned over troubles in his life that were petty compared to just being compotent enough to take care of himself. He's alone. He has nothing. No one. It won't be much longer for him. He has to do something more..

'What am I gonna do for food?' He wondered. 'I'm damn near collapsing when I walk.' Pausing in his footsteps, Zell held his head rocking on his heals. 'I need to sit down.' Dropping immediately onto his butt, Dincht looked straight ahead through the crowds watching all the people going by. 'Someone, anyone, has to have an easy wallet or purse to steal from...' Suddenly something green caught Zell's eyes. 'Now what was that?' He wondered.

Shakily, he stood and started across the street, avoiding the cars that were coming in his direction. The patch of green was moving at an even pace but he couldn't seem to keep up.

"Hey!" He shouted to it, whatever it was. "Hey!" He skidded to a stop. 'Damn!' He lost it. "Shit.." He swore lowly.

"Fuck you, asshole!" A guy called out while backing out of a building that Zell was standing next to.

"Hey."

The two of them met eyes. The guy was impossibly good-looking, with long spiked out black hair and intense green eyes that were just eating through Zell's scrutinizing gaze.

Sizing up the short blond, he said. "What the hell are you looking at?" He then walked down the street.

"Sorry." Looking into where the knockout had just come from, Zell cocked his head. Walking into the big grey building that looked as though it could have easily passed for a parking garage, his eyes darted from left to right as if he were casing the place or had something to hide.

Continuing farther in Zell spots a chair in the far corner; hoping it didn't belong to a regular, he sat down quickly. 'Is this a shelter?' He wondered bringing his legs into his chest and hands up to his face, because after a month of starving and being afraid to sleep longer than ten minutes, he had finally found somewhere to at least part-way belong. Soft and low so he wouldn't be heard by the others, Zell began to cry.

'That's all they need is to think I'm some kind of wimp.' A hand came down on his shoulder, it startled him to look up at the person as he put his senses and body into alert in-case he had to fight with someone.

"Hi." A girl said, taking a seat beside Zell's fetal-positioned body.

Zell looked at her with red rimmed eyes and blinked. Green hair. She was the person outside! And her voice sounded like the woman that told him what time it was earlier.

Now that she's still, he took in her appearance. She was a cute girl with petite features and figure. She was wearing scruffy looking kakhi pants and a zipped up grey sweater jacket with a hood in back. Her hair was yanked into a ponytail looking a lot like a patch of green grass sitting atop her head. Her big green eyes made him ache for Selphie Tilmitt.

Zell sniffled and dropped his legs from the hug his arms were giving them. "Hi." He said behind a voice with a stuffed nose.

The girl cocked her head to get a better look at his blotchy face. "How come your crying?" She asked. "Did somebody mess with you?"

Zell huffed out a laugh and shook his head wiping the tears from his eyes with his sleeve trying to regain his composure. "No. It's not that, it's just that..." He trailed off.

"That what?" She pushed, not meaning to come off as nosy.

Zell thought about telling her but backed down. "...Nothing. Forget it. It's my problem not yours."

The helpful young woman nodded. A lot of the younger ones there didn't wanna talk. It was no big deal.

"My names Terra Highwind, by the way." Terra held out a hand.

Taking it, the two of them shook with the blonde replying. "Zell."

"Nice to meet you." They remained silent a moment, until he saw Terra point outward. "See him.. over there?" She said.

Zell looked to see where she was pointing.

The guy was pulling out a cigarette tapping a sleeping male next to him for a lighter. He had a tall physique, although, he seemed a little shorter than he actually was, maybe off by an inch or two. His face was cut sharp and he had killer blue eyes and light brown hair. His clothes seemed fancy for a homeless person's - at least to Zell anyway.

The boy had on a black shirt and vest, one of the goosedown puffy ones, that all the 'Cool Kids' wore around school. He also had on a pair of black fingerless gloves and midnight black jeans. The definition of bad ass.

"That's Clyde. He's a 19 year old thief." Terra placed a hand on his arm. "He's been jailed once or twice for breaking and entering." She looked up at the ceiling as though she were trying to mentally read what was left of the introduction.

"Oh, yeah, the weird thing about him is that he's rich - well, his parents are rich. But once he went to..." She scrunched her fingers in and out to indent. "the bad side." She shook her head at the term adults use to soften blows. "I don't know, his parents changed the locks on the door and moved." Shrugged, she said. "Simple as that. He was bad-news to their reputation, and he had to go."

Zell looked empathetic to that commenting. "That sucks."

"Hmm, I don't think Clyde really minds though." Pointing again, she said. "See him?" There was a little boy in the distance with lime-green colored hair that looked like a bad dye job by a once blonde. "Only 13 years old, and he's already on the streets." Terra went on explaining. "He came home from school one day and found his parents in their bedroom... murdered."

Zell blinked in shock hearing that. "God." He said.

"Uh huh." Terra nodded and pointed to another teen this time; one Zell presumed was a woman. "See him?" She said. He was standing up from a rest, now leaving the room as she spoke. "That's Irvine, his parents kicked him out when they found out that he was gay. They of course didn't like the idea of that, so here he is."

Zell's eyes shaded hearing that. He murmered to himself but he was heard anyway. "That's just like me."

Terra rubbed his shoulder calling his attention back. "You're gay?" She asked plain and simple. Zell nodded and she smiled patting his back. "It's okay to be gay; we don't judge you here. We've all got a story behind us..."

Zell found that hard to believe. Terra, to him, seemed more like a case worker than a bum. "What about you? What's your story?" He asked turning himself so that he was sideways now, but she was still facing front.

"My parents kicked me out because of my baby, well, my would-have-been baby, had I not had a miscarriage." She shifted uncomfortably for a second then remained bodily still. "I had a boyfriend, he knocked-me-up and so on and so on... Adults just love being right..." Terra squeezed her eyes shut as though remembering some part of it made her have to fight back tears every time.

Finding herself she went on with her story saying. "Well, in conclusion he turned abusive. Which is how I lost my baby. I never had a job. I found it very hard to get one; and my parents - like Clyde's - up and moved within all the time I've been gone."

Zell twisted his lips up hoping he wouldn't be rude asking. "Uuum," He started. "Eh..hh..couldn't you try again? I mean, you never know. Right?"

Terra laughed at what he'd said, and nodded. "I've got debts out of my ears...I should be jailed or something. I can never get a place, even if I did get a job." They sat in silence a moment. Terra nudged Zell in the shoulder and he looked over at her. "I've got five bucks saved away, you and me can go get something to eat." She offered.

Zell couldn't believe her generosity, considering that the money was hers, and she really didn't have to treat him to anything. They just met!

"Terra, I couldn't let you spend anything on me. I have mone-." He started but she waved a hand to him then grabbed his into hers standing up.

"I want to. Besides, your first day anywhere should always be really great, right?"

Zell shrugged saying. "I guess so."

"Then let's go." She dragged him out of the building with her and they walked down the streets of Dollet.