[#265 - Darkness] Waiting Games

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Challenge: [#265 - Darkness]
Title: Waiting Games
Word Count: 587
Author's Notes: After a landslide duirng a battle, Yuffie waits to see what happens next.

 

“Where… you?”

 

“Yell if… hear us!”

 

“Please…”

 

“…ffie!”

 

The voices came from far away. She heard them, but they were mostly garbled, as if someone had packed her ears with wet cotton-wool. She loosed a noise in response. It made her ears and throat tingle. Scratchy bits scattered over her face and the arm she’d thrown over her head for protection as she fell. Soil? Stones? Okay, so maybe noise was a bad idea right now.

 

“I hear… -mething!”

 

More dirt and pebbles cascaded over her face. When she raised her chin, her nose scraped the underside of a big rock. She heard it shifting as the landslide above it settled. How many tonnes were poised above her right now? Involuntarily, she trembled at the thought.

 

Something wrapped around her wrist. A hand. Someone was down here with her. She tried not think how pathetically grateful that made her feel. The hand squeezed in a gesture of wordless reassurance. However, it was so dark, and she was pinned so securely, she couldn’t see who it belonged to.

 

Until now, she never knew how deeply frightening it was to not be able to see your death coming. She was used to choosing her own destiny. It was what they had all done since they first escaped Radiant Garden and struck out on their own; a rag-bag of survivors with nothing but each other, the clothes they stood up in and a desire to survive that could beat any odds – or so she’d thought. Knowing that at any moment she could be crushed to death, and not be able to do anything about it, just about made her gibber with terror. One mistimed outburst and it was all over. Only the fingers encircling her wrist gave her comfort.

 

She didn’t know how long they stayed there. It could’ve been hours. It could’ve been days. It might only have been minutes. Staring into the impenetrable darkness, time telescoped until it had no meaning. Amazing how little that sort of thing mattered when every fresh second was an unexpected gift.

 

Her chest hurt. She couldn’t breathe in very deeply. The air was thin. Was it running out? How much had got trapped in here when the mountainside went bye-bye? Enough to last the night? Maybe she would just go to sleep and never wake up, like people did when they had hypothermia. Except she wasn’t cold. She was sweltering from locked-in heat. Good thing she didn’t eat the three-bean-burrito for lunch. Death by ass-gas; very heroic.

 

The rocks moved. Her chest compressed. This was it; she really was going to die. Someone whimpered. Was it her? She hated not being able to see.

 

“I’ve got you,” someone whispered. “It’s okay.”

 

She swallowed and used up her last bit of air. “Liar.”

 

Suddenly, the rocks on her chest were gone. Sunlight spilled into her world. She blinked, momentarily blind. Then things reformed into familiar faces. Hands removed the boulder that had crushed her left leg.

 

“We found them!” yelled Tifa. “Aerith, get over here, quick!”

 

“Dang-blasted kids,” Cid muttered. “Ain’t got the sense y’all were born with, jumpin’ after each other like y’think death by stupidity is someone else’s problem.”

 

Someone sucked in a pained breath near her ear. The grip on her wrist tightened. She turned her head.

 

“Not… a… liar,” Leon wheezed. He had been less than a foot away the whole time. “And you’re… welcome.”

 

Yuffie smiled with bravado. After all, ninjas weren’t ever scared of the dark.

Comments

[pieces-inmyhand.livejournal.com]

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Death by ass-gas; very heroic.

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Not gonna lie. While the rest of this made me wibble and reminded me of reality in Kingdom Hearts -that you could still die from normal events- , that bit was so very Yuffie.

[obabscribbler.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I love writing Yuffie. She's so bloody irreverent, you can't help but love her even as you know she'd probably annoy the life out of you in real life.