Guilt’s Cost: Part LVIII

Dreams

Vincent dreamt. His body may have been frozen into lifelessness by the stasis box but his mind went on. These were not the same dreams that he had suffered during his first thirty years of stasis. Those had centered around Lucretia and Hojo. Now he was mired in a thousand nightmares about Tifa and himself. They came with such frequency that the end of one merely merged into the beginning of the next.

The most frequent of his visions was one of Chaos raping Tifa. Vincent found himself separate from the demon and he watched helplessly as Tifa was torn to shreds as the demon ravaged her. No matter how he tried he could do nothing to help and as she called out his name begging for him to save her, he could only scream out for Chaos to stop.

Second most terrible was the nightmare about Tifa’s baby. The dream would start with him and Tifa standing together. Suddenly, she would double over in pain, screaming in agony. Vincent would help her lay on the ground, trying to comfort her. Blood would start to run from her, forming a large crimson pool around them. As her cries became worse, Vincent would realize that she was in labor and that something was terribly wrong. She would writhe in death throws as the last of her life’s blood was drained from her, and Vincent could to no more than hold her as the final traces of color were pulled from her cheeks. Once she was dead, everything would grow quiet except for the sounds of his own tears. That’s when he would hear it. It starts off quietly at first, and then grows louder. The sound of a demon’s screech would break the calm and Vincent would look to see something tearing its way out of Tifa’s abdomen. A small black clawed hand would erupt from her stomach as the newborn demon fought its way out of its mother’s dead womb. Vincent would let Tifa fall from his arms, horrified at the sight. The tiny Chaos demon would emerge; it’s vicious yellow eyes shining as its tongue licked the blood from its face. He would try to look away but could not, coming to see the mane of black hair that hung from the back of the baby demon’s head.

There were others, to many to describe. Most of them involved Tifa suffering either at the hands of Chaos or Hojo. Occasionally, there would be a dream about Angel being in Hojo’s lab, Tseng’s death in the temple, or Cid and Shera being shot to death in their home by Turks. These dreams were just as vivid as all the others and Vincent longed to see that all those that were suffering in his mind were all right.

And so the dreams went, never ending. Vincent’s sleeping face never betrayed the feelings within him, as the complete shut down of his body wouldn’t allow any expression. Sometimes through the screams and cries of his nightmares, he thought he could hear Tifa speaking to him. Her voice was distant, and her words had nothing to do with the dreams he was mired in. But even this small hint of her presence near him kept him fighting through his visions. Tifa was out there waiting for him and he needed to keep his sanity, no matter how difficult it was. He would survive this that was clear. If he was able to go through this for thirty years for a woman that did not love him, then certainly he could survive a million to get back into Tifa’s arms. No matter how horrible the dreams were, they all had one thing in common. They made Vincent realize exactly how much he loved Tifa, and how if he tried hard enough, he would be able to get back to her.