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Full-Length Final Fantasy VI Novel: "The Esper"
Below is the first chapter of my 66,000-word novelization of Final Fantasy VI, which can be read on my website.
THE ESPER
By Travis Lambert
Chapter 1
"The Lady Stirs"
The dreams of fever are madness. Half-formed, melting, merging figures of men and beasts, waves and trees, light and darkness, writhing and pulsing in phantasmagoric chaos—the woman’s dreams were haunted by these shapes as she lay on her sickbed. In waking and sleeping, the visions that passed before her broken mind—insane, frightening things that always lingered on the edge of meaning before impishly disdaining form and slipping into shapeless fears again—kept her from drawing a clear distinction between reality and fantasy, waking and dreaming.
And yet there was one demon, one monster, which frequently appeared before her mind’s eye: a feathered, clawed abomination, frozen, caged in ice, shrieking its terrible screech and burning her with its fiery eyes. The frozen monster raised her to such a pitch of terror that her consciousness drove itself back to the furthest depths of her mind and sought to annihilate itself. Anything, anything to escape the monster. And so the woman’s psyche shattered itself on the rocks of imbecility.
These are the demons that haunted the dreams of the woman whose story I tell, if that Word Eternal deigns to lend flesh to thoughts, gives them words, and if that Spirit Who grants and revokes the tongues of men gives them understanding.
She writhed and muttered pitiably on her sickbed, her only attendant a wizened and tired-looking old man, who even now was emerging in her mind like a distant light from her nightmares. Gradually she awoke and found herself lying in a cold sweat. How long she had lain in her fever-bed she didn’t know. She gazed up, at first blankly, but with growing awareness, at the old man dabbing her face and neck with a damp rag. After having been mad for so long, the woman let the peace of stillness wash over her. She had begun to cry.
“There there, sweetheart,” said the old man. “It’s okay. You’ve been sick for a long time now, but you’re coming around.” He turned aside to re-soak the rag in a basin, and the woman gasped, for part of his face was hideously scarred, as if he had been recently burned. But he didn’t appear to have noticed her reaction, for when he turned towards her again he smiled with paternal affection and continued to gently dab her forehead. She didn’t know if his burns still caused him pain, but they didn’t seem to hinder his work, which he performed with all the kindness of a father nursing his daughter back to health or a man handling some delicate and priceless treasure. His left eye (the one on the burned side of his face), browless and nearly shut with scar tissue, was opaque, as if a white film was over it—Blind, she thought. His good eye was dark and wrinkled with crows-feet when he smiled.
And now she began to take in her surroundings. She was not in a house but a cave. There were oil lamps on a table, pots, and phials filled with various colored liquids, as well as other medical instruments. But if it was strange to her that she lived in a cave, it was stranger that it appeared to bear the marks of fire damage. Here and there were singed edges and charred holes in the furniture and black spots on the walls and ceiling. Even her blanket had scorch marks and smelled like smoke. It was as if some tiny white-hot star with a mind of its own had bounced around the cave, scarring everything it touched.
“Are you ready to try and eat something?” said the old man.
“Yes,” said a woman’s voice, and it took her a moment to realize that it was her own, for she did not recognize it. What is my name?—the question suddenly occurred to her. But at the same time, she realized just how hungry she was. She was famished. The old man got up and went and stirred the coals in an iron stove, then put a pot on. While the stew was cooking, the old man gave her a cup of water to slake her incredible thirst. The woman sat up with some effort, for her long sickness had sapped her strength.
“Do you remember anything?” said the old man.
The woman thought for a moment, then shook her head. She knew it should have disturbed her more than it did, but in her state, food and drink seemed more important. She did not yet have the strength for the question of her identity.
“Do you know who you are?” he said a moment later, but then, when she didn’t answer, he reproached himself. “I’m sorry. I’m a fool to question you so soon. I should leave you alone for a while and let you regain your strength. You’ve been out for a long time...."
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