<Center>"The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn."
-Pope John Paul II-
*The camera pans over a sea of white rolling hills hidden somewhere in upstate New York. Far from the prying eyes of the public. Past the tallness of twisted empty branches and brilliant evergreens lies a walled cemetery. It's ancient grave markers sprinkled with white as a lone figure moves; clad in black like shadows. Ravens fly above as the figure moves among the tombstones, his long platinum hair flowing like a curtain about his face. The figure is Sephiroth du Lac and he is a man that walks a lonely path. A velvet satchel sits in one hand. His trusty cane in the other which he leans on to aid his walk through the heavy snow.*
Often have I walked this city of the dead. This forest of graves that even now call to me to join them. The silence is maddening here. No words spoken and yet the rustling of the limbs of the trees and the blowing of the snow call to me. Here have I laid many of my friends and family. Here I have laid those that meant to me the most in my life. I know these steps without even looking. A churchyard shadow among the long forgotten tombs.
*At length he reaches his destination a small set of graves turned from the main path. With a heavy knee he falls down as if bowing staring into the words as if gazing into someone's eyes. They are melancholy eyes filled with a silent sorrow that only he could bare. His fingers wiping away the snow revealing the names...
Dante and Tobias du Lac
October 12th, 1997 - December 30th, 1997
"Taken too soon from this world"
... he lowers his head dropping a hand to his bag. He opens it pulling out two small toy cars freshly shiny and brand new laying them gingerly upon the stone slab amongst many other rusted ones. He sighs a single solitary sigh. One of acceptance and solace.*
Isn't it odd? A gravestone. It tells so little about the person it sets to memorialize. A birth date and a death date and between them a line. The sum of a persons lifetime is summed up in that line and yet it speaks nothing of that person. Of the lives they touched. Of what they meant to others. Some men seek to fill this line with great deeds and worthy accomplishments. Some men fail to meet their dreams and give into despair. Some men's lives are gilded treasures. Others are tragedies but the sum of the whole is defined by a single solitary line. Even I in all the years I have walked this waking world will be defined by this single solitary line. A tribute to the inevitability of death and the utter futility of mortal life.
*He kisses his gloved hand and lays it upon the tombstones cold marble. The sight of his breath and the sound of the murder of crows that circle overhead give a feeling of forlorn sorrow as he slowly rises looking down upon the graves.*
Seph: Merry Christmas, boys.
*He says with the sound of what can only be described as the tone of a father's love. His eyes close but a moment as he begins to walk to the next stone his grim task not done.*
But there is something far worse than the final fate of humanity. The inevitability of death. For you see in death there is always a reward. Be it the friends that mourn your passing. The loved ones that remember us. Even the solitary lives of strangers we touch with our mere existence. No there is a far crueler fate for some. A far more pitiable thing that even the wretched and the just alike disdain to speak of.
*He walks to the next stone. His face stoic now, as stern and hard as the marble he now bends to touch. He brushes the words to the stone away and upon the epitaph it reads...
"This stone is a
monument
to immortalize
those that
failed to be born.
Never named;
nor forgotten."
He smirks a bit staring at the stone before laying a set of small toys before it. Each one small and cheap unlike the shiny cars that decorate the stone carved for the two small babes.*
Here they lie. The unborn. That which never was. A small pitiable thing. The life snuffed before it began. They have no name. No loved ones to mourn them for theirs was a sort of nonexistence. The only life they knew was the life growing in their mother's womb. Even some were not notice. After thoughts. Memories as easily forgotten as they even came into existence. They are unmourned, unloved, uncared for. Look on them with pity for they will not even know the futility of that line. No birth. No death. A failed life in every sense of the word. And you see that is where the comparison begins for you see when I look at them I think of something just as pitiable. Just as pathetic...
*He stands slowly looking down at the cold stone with dull hollow eyes filled with no emotion.*
... Joshua Acquin.
*A cruel smirk crosses his lips as he begins to walk away looking up into the camera as he strolls amidst the graves and leafless trees and bushes. His steps crunching in the snow as he goes from speaking in a narrative to staring coldly and deliberately into the camera as if speaking to the man himself.*
Seph: For you see, Mr. Acquin, that is what you are. That is what I see when I watch the archives, the matches, the boorish promotions you have made. I see a career that is like unto a stillborn child. A child which never drew a breath. A child that lies cold in it's mother's arms never to kick with life. You are worse than a coward. Worse than a has been. You are a never was. You are nothing. A non existence. You left and no one batted an eye. No one mourned you. No one lamented you. You were a thought here one minute and passing just as quickly. Yours is a career, nay a life that never effected anything. And that is why I pity you.
*He chuckles to himself as he spits the vile venomous comparison taking a sort of cruel delight in every word uttered. It stimulates him as a drum stimulates the soldier to battle. His movements cocky, his pacing brisk as snow crunches beneath him as he cocks his head to the camera. Deviousness in his smile.*
Seph: For you see even in my weakest moments I have known the thrill of victory. Even at my worst I was still heralded as a champion. I have proved my worth, my value, my worthiness time and time and time again. But you? What have you done? What have you accomplished? You were here one minute and gone the next. And I know what your going to suggest.
*Seph holds his hand up as if stifling the argument already. His hand motioning in "halt"*
Seph: That this time will be different. That this time you'll somehow rise above and prove your worth. It's a lie you tell yourself. It's a pipe dream. It is a falsehood. Your career is something that has never existed but in your own mind. And much like the mother that holds that dead fetus in her arms you have wept over it. You have lamented. you have mourned your own false legend. Your own false life. Your own non existence. And that which does not exist cannot effect that which does.
*He drops his hands to his side. Shaking his head in incredulity. His face locked in a mocking grin as he looks to the camera. The dark eyes showing a sort of cruel delight as a cat toying with a dying mouse. His fanged grin shining as he drops his head. It's sight disturbing... unsettling.*
Seph: For you see come Climax the world will see you as I see you. As nothing. Not even a shadow. not even a ghost. For a ghost is someone that lived. A ghost is someone that meant something. A faded glory. No, you are not even a ghostly specter on the wind. You are nothing. But fear not , boys and girls. For at least I will be there; as I always am. For I am the fallen one!
*He breathes in deep tossing his head back with his eyes closing in ecstacy as he turns his face to the heavens.*
Seph: The Chosen One!
*He drops his head and smiles at the camera opening his eyes which faintly glow like cat's eyes to the camera.*
Seph: The only one, Sephiroth du Lac.
*He chuckles lightly before stepping out of sight off camera as the camera pans upward to the statue of an angel holding a child a single water drop like a tear falling down it's marble face. As the scene fades to black.*
