Challenge 055: At the Core

[mneme-forgets.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [055] keychain (Oblivion keychain)
Title: At the Core
Word Count: 583
Notes: There are spoilers for all of the Ansem Reports in this story. The sections in italics are borrowed by me from the game itself. I do not own them or the characters and seek to make no profit from this story.


Ansem Report 10
Is the core of the world's heart the world of the Heartless? I will pursue the answer there and become all knowing. My path is set. I shall seek out the wielder of the Keyblade, and the princesses. My body is too frail for such a journey, but I must do this. I will cast it off and plunge into the depths of darkness.
*****

Ansem dropped his quill atop his notes, scattering drops of ink across the page. He stretched, spreading his arms behind his back and curving his spine.

He knew what he had to do to continue his research, but beneath the overwhelming curiosity that flagellated his soul, there was fear that skittered in his guts like those small dark creatures with their hard black carapaces and curled antennae.

Ansem prodded his sleeping assistant awake, shaking his shoulder. Cloud tipped his glasses further down his nose to dig his knuckle in his eye. His sweaty blonde hair was ruffled all over into unruly spikes.

“I have to know. Help me, Cloud.”

“Yes, your Majesty.” Cloud scrambled to his feet and helped Ansem into the apparatus with its alarming metal cuffs that fastened along arms and legs to keep the subject secure. Some parts of the procedure were painful. The drawn out screams of the subjects attested to this fact.

Cloud lowered the thick goggles over his eyes then flicked the switches down one by one watching purple light arc between the rods. Finally it engulfed Ansem, crackling and shifting about his body. He gritted his teeth at the sensation. But the pain had yet to begin.

“Now,” he hissed, “infuse my heart with darkness!” Cloud blinked at him through the goggles, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.

“But, your Majesty, I . . .” Cloud angled the small monitor so that Ansem could see it around the edge of the fluorescent screen positioned in front of him. The core of Ansem’s body was full of a writhing twisting mass of blackness.

“Then extract the darkness, you fool,” Ansem said, feeling his stomach turn over at the sight. It was too late to turn back now over something so trivial.

Cloud winced and turned the crank, reversing the flow of the energy. He gripped the controls that lowered the extractor. The stone and metal contraption descended in front of Ansem’s eyes. It made no difference. Extraction was no more or less painful than injection if his patients’ screams were any measure to go by. Ansem watched the ominous metal claws approach his chest and told himself that soon he would have the answers and that was the only thing that mattered. He closed his eyes against the tearing pain seeing black and purple stars and constellations blooming behind his eyelids.

Ansem felt his soul tearing like a rotten sheet of cloth. The agony was unbearable and he tried to distract himself without success.

The experiments caused the test subject's heart to collapse, including those of the most stalwart. How fragile our hearts are! My treatment produced no signs of recovery.

That was the trick though, he didn’t mean to recover. As galaxies of purple light unfolded on the dark backdrop of Ansem’s eyelids and he began to lose all sensation in his body, Ansem thought he saw a door outlined behind his eyes. The door screamed as Ansem put his hand to it and shoved it open and he was engulfed in the purple light of oblivion.

Comments

[gysecune.livejournal.com]

This is an original, interesting portrayal of both Ansem and Cloud. I really like your writing style, too (one of the things that jumped out at me is how you personified fear).

[mneme-forgets.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for the kind comments. I have always been interested in Ansem. He was known as a good king, but somehow he went bad anyway and I think that stories like that are always intriguing.