Blood & Sympathy (FFVII: Vincent x OC)

Prologue

The soil was cold. Cold enough to ripple a shiver that coursed through her entire body. Jocasta Ernchester, or that's what her name used to be, had been wandering the wilderness of Gaia for far too long. She'd lost track of time. Her mind was too occupied in her thoughts, in her nightmares.

She struggled so hard to keep herself from sleep. Exhaustion was the only way out of the nightmares. That demon inside of her kept torturing her mind, feeding on her fear, her thoughts, her pain, her despair. That's why she couldn't sleep. The nightmares were too many. That beast they'd forced into her had become a parasite, feeding on her suffering.

It's been so many years, she'd lost track of time. She didn't know how long she'd been wandering around the lands and seas of Gaia trying to find meaning in that wretched life of hers. Maybe she should have just dug her own grave and walked right in hoping that she'd suffocate and die. Or maybe she should just try to stab one of her daggers, right into her heart.

But she knew that the tissue would grow back before her body would get the chance to die out. A feature she'd added on her genome with all these precious experiments of hers. She sighed as she rested her head back on the rock of a cave she'd been using lately as a home.

She had, pretty much, lost sense of home a long time ago.

Jocasta couldn't remember how it felt to have a home. She couldn't remember feeling anything else except pain and anger and suffering. Jocasta of all people knew that science could be used in the vilest of ways and create the most abominable creatures. She herself had created her own monsters alongside Dr. Hojo, Dr. Lucrecia Crescent, and every other scientist Shinra had hired and funded for them to create superhuman beings.

The discovery of Mako enhanced humans for the SOLDIER program came from Dr. Gast's team, and when Dr. Gast disappeared, Dr. Hojo led the way. Such a brilliant mind. The thinnest line imaginable parted his brilliance from his insanity. He'd done this to her. He'd been messing around with demons of old Cetra legends. Legends of the Ancients. He'd been trying to fit these demons into humans. Test their limits in any way possible.

He'd fixed her fears, her senses, her weaknesses with the most painful of ways. She couldn't feel cold, she couldn't feel warm. She didn't feel hunger until the beast inside her growled in need of food. She'd let it out and go hunting like the mindless creature that it was.

She opened her eyes and looked at the entrance of the cave. The bright light of the morning sun reflected on her dull grey eyes. She used to have the normal brown color most people do, but after all these experiments, all that unending torture, whatever was natural on her had disappeared. It'd been so long yet it still saddened her whenever she thought of what she'd become. It made her miserable.

Her once pale brown hair had now turned into pitch black. She couldn't remember the last time she'd given a genuine smile to someone. Anyone. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually felt the need to cry, to laugh.

Jocasta stood on her feet and she grabbed her quiver with the few arrows that were left in it, and her bow. She settled them both on her back and walked out of the cave. She waited for a moment allowing her eyes to adjust to the bright light. She scanned the barren lands outside Midgar. There was nothing but dirt and stones and maybe a little bit of dying greenery scooched beneath the boulders.

She let out another heavy sigh and she started wandering around. She'd roamed these lands a thousand times before. She maybe thought she could get back to the ruins of Nibelheim. She hadn't been there for a while. She'd heard that the small town she once called home, had been destroyed and buried in ashes. There wouldn't be anyone there. There would be a few ruins she could settle in for the next few days at least.

The journey was long and tiring. The treacherous terrain tormented her feet. Her pitch-black boots and clothes absorbed the sun's heat. She pulled her hood, savoring the least touch of shade on her face. The sun was hot, the lands almost drained of life. Not even local creatures dared to walk around unsheltered. Shinra had been sucking up all the Mako they could. The absence of Lifestream turned normal creatures into monsters.

These transformations were both normal and abnormal. The entire point of life is to take all means necessary so that the hereditary information can be passed into the future offspring. And by any means necessary it means survival. All life on Gaia was once fully dependent on the Lifestream, but now... now there was no spare Lifestream for the creatures in need. So, their organisms had to figure out ways to survive without it.

And that's where transformation comes. Multiple mutations take place in the genome. Some malignant, some others benevolent that promised survival. And that's how monsters showed up around the planet. Naturally, these kinds of mutations take hundreds of years to take place. Jocasta couldn't understand how such changes happened so drastically. If she was still the woman she once was, as a scientist, she'd feel that spark of excitement every time she'd experiment, test, find something.

She would still have that thirst for answers. Discoveries. But it was all gone. Along with her humanity, herself, her friends, whatever family the people around her she acknowledged to be. Time passed so painfully slow, yet so inconceivably fast. She tried so hard to forget. So hard to cast aside these painful memories.

Jocasta grabbed the pouch she had hanging from her belt. It was disappointingly light, letting her know that there was no water left in it. Her throat felt dry, it stung and burned in the harshest of ways. She tried to pour whatever was left of her water into her mouth, but nothing but a few droplets came out. Her dry tongue savored these few droplets, nevertheless. Shit. She cursed under her breath as she kept walking in the endless deserted lands that spread as far as the eye could go. It felt like the entire planet had become one huge wasteland. Judging from that, it seemed that the plants hadn't figured out similar ways to survive the absence of Lifestream, contradicting to what happened with the animals.

Her vision got blurry for just a moment. It didn't matter much anyway. Jocasta threw a hand over a nearby boulder in an attempt to keep herself standing. She sucked a deep, painful breath. Her gaze dropped on the dirt she stood on. Even the soil itself screamed in need of water. The cracks screamed in need of life. She fell on her knees. Maybe she just wanted to pass out right then and there, in the middle of nowhere, and hopefully wait for carnivore birds to consume her body to the bone.

But with tissue consistently self-healing itself, probably because the demon inside her wanted to live, that would be another never-ending torment and she had enough of them already.

Jocasta felt her back hitting sharp stones as she fell down. Her feet refused to keep her standing. The sun met her face and blinded her vision. Her eyes stung and she shut them closed. She could only hear the slow rhythm of her heavy breathing. Her fingers, that were tightened around handfuls of dirt, finally relaxed the grip as she slowly slipped into unconsciousness.

For a moment she smiled. This is it. She thought. She hoped that when she'd open her eyes, it would be her soul sucked into the Lifestream. Back in the heart of the planet where everybody belonged. Where everybody came from and where everybody went after death. After sweet, sweet rest. Peaceful rest.

Yes. That's what she needed. A peaceful rest. Her smile faded as she lost all her senses, but still had hope. Hope.

It was ironic how much death could resemble hope. Maybe that was because death was a door, and that door led the way out of a hell house. A treacherous place you're thrown in without your consent. Without anybody asking if you actually wanna be there. That 'hell house' is Life. Life was supposed to resemble hope. But from what she'd seen in her own life, it had anything but hope in it. Anything but happiness, and nothing but pain.

Maybe from top to toe, her story wasn't a mere miserable container of pain. Maybe it had happiness, excitement, belonging, even love. But for the past years, at least, it was suffering that all she's known.

And with these last desperate, depressing thoughts, Jocasta felt herself slipping away. Losing all consciousness, and hoping she'd never wake up.