♖ 007; video → broadcast mind.
i.
It's dark for a half-second before the sky explodes with colours. Blue and green and pink whistle through the air, and you're staring up at it with wonder. You can feel warmth on your shoulders, her hands, and you lean back against them.
Wishing fireworks.
Not said, but you know. You're surprised that it's Vanille's voice, too, bright and gentle. You'd thought it'd be your mother, but it's a relief to hear her. The relief is short, though; the sadness in her next words... something's wrong. (Then again, ever since you knew her, something's always been wrong.)
If you could have any wish come true, now, what would it be?
ii.
The blaze of colours is twisted heat and shrapnel. Too loud-- too close, and hot. The foggy realisation is compounded by gunfire. Your mother isn't at your side anymore (was she ever there? You can still feel Vanille), she's in front of you, and there's a gun she doesn't know how to use in her hands.
People always told you that you looked like your mother, but you're sure you look far more scared than she does. She's calm, following after that idiot as if there's nothing that could go wrong! The anger rises in you out of nowhere (instead of out of fear, like you remember from the first time you saw this.) Even in your dreams you're trying to reason your way out of it, but the mind is leading you through a maze. It's wrought from metal and the entire world seems washed in a green light.
Instead of watching her leave, now you're on a bridge looking down, watching PSICOM and victims of the Purge scurrying like ants. Maybe... maybe that's what makes it easy for the soldiers to do this. They're not people that are being blown up. They're insects.
The realisation hits like cold water. You don't need to be ants. You're already touched by Pulse, tainted by Hell. They kill you before you can kill them.
It's getting hard to breathe, but Vanille is still there with her hands on each of your shoulders. She's not that much taller, but you'd think she was trying to keep you from falling apart. Maybe she was.
In slow motion, you see it unfolding again. You can feel your heart beating heavy in your chest, and now you're desperately thinking you need to wake up. You can't watch this again. You need to wake up.
First, your mother is holding a bazooka. Next there's an explosion, and then they're sliding. Horror is crashing over you. It's not his fault. It's not Snow's fault. You should do something to make this stop, because you know it's your own head that's leading you through this, but you can't.
Instead, you watch your mother die. There's a yell that tears out of your throat as she falls, but you don't know if it makes any sound.
Another explosion, bigger and brighter, until your entire field of vision goes white.
iii.
The white light drags on, and you think it might have blinded you before it fades back into black.
The only thing around you is darkness, before a haunting choir rises up around you. You're not falling, but you know you can't be on solid ground. You're floating. You'd think you were underwater, but you know what's happening. You remember, and it tightens a knot in your gut.
An eerie light starts to filter down - blue-green, and when you look up you can see its source. The unearthly tendrils of the light lead back to a bright, white center, and the strange blue and green reach out and run over their source. A face, metal, and mechanisms twisting around its body like a snake.
Everyone is here, you realise. Even people who weren't the first time, and you know that even before you see Fang. Maybe you heard her voice, saw the light catch the silk of her sari. The yellow stripes of Lightning's shoulder guard stands out in the dark, the light bounces off the sharp discs of buttons and the curve of jewelry.
You know you aren't floating for long, but it feels like an age before it strikes. Ropes of light grab you, bind you, and no struggle will release you. You'd close your eyes, but you can't bear not to watch as the sharp pain sears a brand into your wrist before everything disappears into the dark.
iv.
You know this place. It's a sea of crystal dust crunching under your feet, but you don't even think about it because you're running.
The sight that greets you stops you short.
One of the cie'th - it stands closes to a gunblade, and a sound of horror dies in your throat - lets out a roar. It's dragging itself towards you, all distorted limbs that don't resemble anything human anymore. They're in pain, you hear as clearly as if Lightning was standing at your side. Looks like it's up to you now, Hope.
You can't move. The others have turned to face you, now, and their screams make you stagger backwards, hands over your ears. Doubled over, waiting for the strikes-- you can't do this without them.
It never comes. Eventually, the sounds die out, and it's not until you're so cold that you think maybe you died before you noticed that you open your eyes.
v.
A forest of blue and white stretches out before you, and it doesn't take you long to realise that all the trees are crystal, and that those aren't aren't trees, but people.
Snow taunting another foe , Sazh with guns drawn, Lightning ready for the charge, Fang poised with her spear and Vanille about to cast. They're all--
---
Hope jerks awake, breathing heavy.