Epilogue: Deliverance
Taking out the knife, I lunged at Selphie as she screamed “DIE!!!”.
The whip didn’t go down. I had managed to get the knife and slide it into her heart. As the knife, the weapon over which I had taken an oath to take my revenge with, dug deep into Selphie’s deceived heart.
The weapon of hers dropped on the other side as the sirens closed in on me. The spot lights came on us, and we were like two lovers kissing in the wind- intertwined in a deadly kiss.
Then, I saw it in her eyes.
The sudden realisation of the horrible truth. She had suddenly realised that she had been wrong. That I had been “innocent”. I held her to my arms as her slim body started to go limp.
“Squall...” she said, “I’m... sorry.”
“Me too.” I said, “You couldn’tve known. Don’t be sorry.”
“You’re a lion, did you know that?” she asked.
“Maybe I’m a lion.” I could reply.
As we stared into each other’s eyes, life started to fade away from hers. She managed to find the strength in her to come closer to me, and land a light kiss on my cheek.
“Thank you.” She said.
And she died.
She fell down on her back, lied there as a beautiful girl full of life once- a girl I knew to be cheerful 24/7. A girl who brought happiness to everyone else.
But no. I wasn’t innocent. I was guilty. So was she.
She was guilty for leaving me here in this wheel of lonliness and darkness. Misery. She was guilty, because she had made me believe I could make a single difference. I couldn’t.
But could I have blamed her? Why should she, like I asked to myself many times during the second longest night, hold on to life? Just to prove to the world that she was still standing?
What kind of a sick joke was that?
After all the death and madness she had caused... She was still guilty. She wasn’t a stone-cold murderer for revenge. She was stone-cold now, but not as a killer.
She was a victim, just like I was.
“Squall Leonhart! Put your hands above your head and surrender! Put your hands above your head and...” the voice of the G.L.E. intercom faded away.
I fell down. I managed to sit down, in the exact same position I had sat down in Time Compression- legs bent slightly, arms down to the sides, head down. My damp hair was hanging down from the top of my head.
She was gone. And now, I had gotten my revenge. The only thing I was craving for all this time. I was the only one left out of our orphanage gang, out of those who had saved the world once.
But I couldn’t save my own world.
I sat there as the rain continued to fall down on me, and the cops were still telling me to surrender. A thought found it’s way in my head:
Maybe I’m a lion.
The spotlights and the city was howling after me...
...But I was too tired to go on.