A trip down memory lane, part two.

[iattractmushi]

Characters: Cloud (iattractmushi), Lea (seeya_next_life), Zombie (fewterer), and Boss (datswhatshesaid)
Date/Time: Forward dated slightly to Saturday, May 29th
Location: Fourth Floor
Rating: Um... probably PG-13, for death and violence? Idk
Summary: The elevator finally opens, releasing its victims onto the fourth floor. They see four memories, one from each of their pasts.

Comments

[iattractmushi]

Cloud watched the memory unfold. His memory. That wasn't anywhere near as bad as he had been expecting it to be... though apparently, his former life was even more interesting than he'd thought. And mushi... two different kinds of mushi, even. He wondered if the different kinds had names, and what they were called. Though nothing seemed muffled or blotted out, like it had been in his crystal-given memory, this one didn't seem to have much information, either

[seeya_next_life]

Well that had been interesting. And Lea thought that without sarcasm. He recognized Cloud in the memory, so obviously it had belonged to him. What an unusual world Cloud must have come from--second eyelids and...mushi? Was that what that strange looking creature had been? A mushi? Hopefully Edensphere would never get attacked by giant mushi, in that case. Lea was rather fond of his eyeballs. He glanced at Cloud, suddenly very curious if there was just a creepy hole in his head where that eye should have been, or if he'd gotten another glass eye to fill the space.

Something about the idea of darkness consuming anything, eyes or otherwise, sent a shudder creeping up Lea's spine, and he gave Cloud a somewhat wary frown.

"Neat trick," was all he said.

Long memory is long--sorry! 1/3

[seeya_next_life]

[[this memory is not in the games, and is only in the KH manga/novels. the scene differs slightly in each version, so i basically combined the relevant parts of both. alas, there's no posted translation of either at the moment. i'm doing scanlations, but they're not to this point yet.]]

The sky was red and orange, smeared in streaks like someone hand trailed their fingers through tomato juice and dragged them across the clouds. A faint whispering sound broke the quiet along the stretch of beach, and a swirl of black erupted in the air, like the smoke off a fire.

"Let me go!" came a girl's voice from the whorl of black, and a figure emerged, struggling. She was slim, fair, with auburn hair and wearing a pink dress. Her bright blue eyes were narrowed dangerously, and her thin hands clenched as she pulled against the grip of a black-gloved hand. "Let go!" she cried, and pulled again, and the gloved fingers snapped open, sending the girl sprawling into the sand

Lea's Memory 2/3

[seeya_next_life]

She lifted her head after a moment, her brow furrowed. "You...aren't a bad guy, are you?" she asked, and Lea looked at her seriously

3/3 Sorry for teal

[seeya_next_life]

The blue-haired man blocked the incoming weapon, then bared his teeth, an unholy glow lighting up his eyes. His posture changed, his shoulders hunching and his figure growing almost dense in its appearance. Suddenly he looked more like an animal than a man, and with speed that didn't suit his massive weapon, he lunged at Lea.

"Disappear!!" the man roared, and Lea gasped, drawing up his weapons to block the blast of energy that erupted from the claymore.

"It's not very sporting of you to go all Berserk on me!" he complained, waving a hand to summon a whorling portal.

"Planning to run?" the man snarled. "Why not just vanish into the shadows forever, then? Nobodies like us can't feel things like friendship--what you seek is an illusion

[seeya_next_life]

Lea hadn't expected to see a memory of his own, after witnessing Cloud's. He had heard of this sort of thing happening before, but only with one memory, so when Cloud's memory faded and something new came up, he was caught off-guard. And when he recognized himself in the image, he felt something in his gut sink. Lea was not a man who shared much with others--especially strangers--and so viewing this here, with these people...with Boss...and Anger-Management Boy... Well, he would certainly be chalking this up to Not A Good Day.

He didn't appear to be having such a good day in the memory, either. But getting his ass kicked by a freak with blue hair aside, he could discern two things from this memory: Sora knew this Kairi girl, and...what had the blue-haired man meant when he'd said 'Nobodies like us'?

Obviously Lea was going to have to ponder on this a while. Hopefully this would be over with soon enough...

[iattractmushi]

While the memory had started out almost heart-warming--though Cloud wondered just what Lea had done to make the girl so mad at him--it quickly turned bad for poor Lea as the other two came through a shadow-portal thing similar to the one the red-head had tried to summon in the elevator and attacked him. Cloud winced as Lea got smacked down by the hammer weapon. That looked damn painful.

What was a Heartless? It didn't sound very nice, whatever it was. Cloud was interested, however, when the man with blue hair (blue hair? Really? What a strange world, if that wasn't some kind of dye) changed, becoming less human and more bestial. He winced again as Lea, distracted by the girl's cries, took the full force of the attack.

"...huh. Pretty neat trick, yourself."

[seeya_next_life]

"...What, getting my ass kicked?" Lea snorted, figuring that laughing at yourself when you got made a food of was the easiest way to pretend it didn't bother you. He buffed his nails on the front of his coat and grinned. "Well, I try and keep that stuff reserved for emergencies, you know."

Then he scratched the crown of his head and folded his arms again.

"I have a feeling these memories would be a lot more significant if they came with a little more segue and exposition..." It seemed that every time they managed to get their hands on an answer, they just wound up with twice as many questions to go with it.

...And mine is short, ahaha. For balance, of course.

[fewterer]

[This memory is kind of scattered throughout DOGS. I was pretty conservative about it, so it's short. I advise people get the visually representation through the manga scans to help things out. It starts here
and ends on page 20. I have a few other cited sources, but the best visual parts of this memory are in that scene.]Red. Rage. Blood

[fewterer]

He knew coming here was bad. It always was bad. So this memory had concluded the story of the children in that...kindergarten of hell. His first memory in the Sphere had him being attacked by a monster. This time he was the monster. Even as some kid he had killed all those people. No one did anything, they just let him rip through those children as if they were nothing. Yet they were the same at him. They had the metal collars too, they were subjects to some science experience, they were being forced to fight. So why was he the only one alive? How did he get into that situation? This wasn't normal at all

[seeya_next_life]

Giving a start when the sound of gunshots rang out, Lea's attention was torn from the horrific carnage of the scene playing out in front of them, and he quickly moved as far away from Anger Management Boy as he could. Okay, portals would have been really nice right about now. He could handle the scary movie marathon, but if people were going to start acting out the scenes, he was asking for a refund.

He made a point not to make a snide comment Anger Management Boy's way, as much as he might have wanted to. Kagerou would be very upset with him if he came home shot full of holes, after all.

Well, with Cloud, himself, and the angry guy out of the way, that just left Boss. And Lea was pretty sure that he never wanted to see what the hell was going on in Boss's head. He only hoped that it would be short.

[iattractmushi]

Cloud said nothing throughout the whole memory-viewing, his face trying to be a blank mask but with shock and horror slipping through.

The smell of blood lingered in Cloud's nose long after the memory faded away. He continued to stand in silence, not looking at anyone, trying to absorb the horror of it.

Those had been children. And another child had killed them. While other people, adults, watched. Like they had been testing the child murderer.

What kind of world did Zombie come from, that they could do that to children?