I, SEPHIROTH (part 2)
Part 1 | Part 2
3, Re: The Sephiroth of Suburbia
“Ha, ha, ha... my sadness? What do I have to be sad about? I am the chosen one.”
It was around this time that I heard some sort of commotion coming from outside the office. Matt’s dad, a goblin of a man, who must have come home early, was shouting at his son. My stomach dropped and I was suddenly aware of the blood inside me, burning, for I was obviously trespassing in Matt’s dad’s office, having been told several times by both Matt and his dad never to go into the office—or the house without the parents present, for that matter. My face was all flushed red, full of hell and hemoglobin, which I tried to gulp down. I had only a few more questions to go, so in one smooth motion, I twirled and rolled the chair to the office door, locked the deadbolt, then twirled and rolled once more back to the computer, where I took the mouse in hand like there was no tomorrow and started just clicking away as fast as I could, answering the remainder of the “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” quiz questions as if I had cast Haste on myself and then jumped into the body of Sephiroth, like it was no longer me answering the questions but Sephiroth himself, in the flesh, clicking mighty fast clicks.
Q7: DO YOU EVER REGRET THINGS YOU’VE DONE? No, regret is for the weak. I only look forward.
Q8: IF YOU WERE WRONG, WOULD YOU ADMIT IT? Of course I would, but I’m never wrong, so there’s never anything to admit.
Q9: DO YOU PUT OTHERS ABOVE YOURSELF? Pfft. No. Well, maybe my Grandma Susu—but no one else.
I flicked the roller ball to the next question, and that’s when I realized that the faint yelling had stopped, only to be replaced by a stomping of feet, then I sensed a presence right outside the office door. The doorknob started to jiggle. Matt’s dad’s voice dropped like an atom bomb. FORREST I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE echoed in the room even with the door closed. My heart started to race, hands shook. I closed my eyes but didn’t say a word, only thought to myself: I am Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is never afraid. Then I took a deep breath and opened my eyes once more. Only three questions left.
Q10: DO YOU EVER IGNORE THE TRUTH? Of course not. I am an introspective person who is able to take full stock of himself. I own up to all my darkness, however unpleasant.
Q11: HAVE YOU EVER CRIED? No. Sephiroth never cries.
Q12: DO YOU EVER RUN FROM YOUR PROBLEMS? No way. I am Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is never afraid, and therefore he never runs away.
And that’s when I realized that I needed to run away, because there was a mighty slam on the door followed by another atomic bomb: FORREST GET YOUR GODDAMN ASS OUT HERE RIGHT NOW. But first I needed to get my quiz results. More pounding. The room shook; a fallout of drywall drifted through the monitor glow. LAST WARNING BOY. I jumped in my seat and my hands shook so wildly that I knocked over my soda, spilling it all over the keyboard, which caused a crackle and a poof and then a faint smoky smell before there was another pounding on the door. At that moment, nothing was more important than finishing the quiz, proving that I was Sephiroth, once and for all, rubbing it in Miles’ face, so I rolled that roller ball to SHOW RESULTS? and clicked harder than I had ever clicked before; the webpage went white before loading in the new page real slow like an old Xerox, and while the page was loading, I stood up out of the twirly chair and looked around the room, taking stock of my escape options, of which there was only one: a window that opened to a pathway in front of the house, itself blocked by a great holly, prickly leaves and all, but I was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and had climbed through worse in my time, so I smirked a Sephiroth smirk and resolved myself to the holly, but not before turning back to the monitor, where I saw the results—those glorious results—fully loaded: a low-resolution picture of the man himself, a still from the game, disc 1, the Nibelheim incident; he was standing there in the blaze, reverse gripping the Masamune, back to the camera, hair blowing wild in the fiery wind, looking cool as hell, in the fires of hell, as if he was one with the flame itself.
YOU ARE SEPHIROTH: the coolest, most strongest, most unstoppable warrior ever. Pretty much a god. You’ve got a dank sword and amazing hair and a long black coat that makes you look totally badass. You’re smart and calm and not afraid of anything and you’re always one step ahead and you can mind control people like they’re puppets because you’re just that cool and powerful. You’ve got a dark side, which makes you even more cool and mysterious, especially to the ladies. But be careful, because even though you are the most strongest warrior alive, you still have a lot of enemies, and your worst enemy just might be yourself.
The pounding on the door had stopped, and for a moment, there was only the sound of hard drives clicking and little fans humming. I could practically hear the computations in real time as I inched myself closer to the monitor, awestruck by the glory of Sephiroth; eyes wide, drooling, sweaty palms, heavy breathing, the whole thing. My face was so close to the monitor that condensation was threatening to put out the very fire Sephiroth was standing in. It’s hard to gauge how much time had passed before I snapped back to reality, placing my hand on that big mouse, rolling right to the PRINT RESULTS button, and clicking multiple times in spastic frenzy. The printer went chhk-chhk, otherwise silence; I figured Matt’s dad had given up. Less than a minute passed, and I had my quiz results in hand, on a single sheet of warm paper. I placed my cheek up to the paper, felt the warmth, then kissed Sephiroth right on the head before turning to the window, pushing aside the curtains, fiddling with the latches, and lifting the pane; a light breeze touched my skin and the smells of summer—pollen, petrol, petrichor—wafted through my nostrils.
With Sephiroth in hand, I lifted one leg out the window, and then the other; and there I was, surrounded by the great hedge. I took a deep breath, then used my free hand to create an opening in the holly, prickly leaves drawing blood. Eyes closed, I lifted Sephiroth to cover my face and, using my free hand to displace branches, ducked my head and pushed right through the holly. It wasn’t long before I felt the warmth of the sun upon my skin, but there was also a chill, a literal shadow upon me. I lowered Sephiroth, eyes open, and that’s when I saw it. But it wasn’t an it; it was a he. It was Matt’s dad, staring down at me, his sunken head nearly lost in that bulbous pumpkin body of his, loose flaps of skin hanging all around his face, and those flaps had flaps and those flaps had warts and those warts had warts and those warts had little pube-like hairs poking out all over the place; his bushy brow was one single line that sunk in the middle like a reverse bell curve, and his eyes were less like eyes and more like small black holes that sucked even the very soul out of a person. He was so hideous up close that I remember wanting to gag, but I was unable to move at all, for my eyes were supermoons and my body had taken on heinous gravity. Fear. With Sephiroth in hand, I gulped, and I thought of the fear litany: I AM SEPHIROTH AND SEPHIROTH IS NEVER AFRAID. But before I could regain composure, I felt a sharp pain on the top of my head; Matt’s dad had reached deep into my wild hair and clenched. He started tugging. Before I knew what was really going on, I was being pulled out of the great holly by my hair. I was flailing my hands, waving Sephiroth all around. I screamed: LET GO OF ME! I’M SEPHIROTH! YOU’RE JUST A PUPPET! And then I started to yell spell names: SUPERNOVA! FIRE THREE! ULTIMA! LET GO OF ME! QUAKE! METEOR! As if Matt’s dad were some sort of enemy to defeat in turn-based combat. But I could not break free. He kept pulling, dragging me across the lawn; my arms were flailing and my legs were kicking and I was screaming bloody murder the whole time. Then he dumped me onto the hard cement of his driveway.
I was on my hands and knees, panting like a wild dog, hands all scrapped up and sticky, paper Sephiroth pushed against the cement underneath my bloody palm. It took a moment to realize that Matt’s dad had unhanded me, but when I did, I propped myself up and attempted to make a run for it, but there was nowhere I could run, for I was surrounded. Trapped, like a demon in a summoning circle, one person on each point of the pentacle that bound me: Matt’s dad, Matt, Lauren, Lauren’s mom, and Miles. Realizing I was stuck, I collapsed to my knees, consumed with a fear that was beyond fear, dread. I was trembling and Sephiorth was crumbling in my trembling hand.
Matt’s dad stepped into the circle. He said: I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO INTO MY OFFICE, BOY. Then a smirk lit up his toad-like face as he said: COPS ARE COMING. THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU BREAK INTO MY HOUSE. And I, high on adrenaline and the faux confidence of a fictional video game character, looked at that old goblin and said coolly: Well, maybe you shouldn’t leave the door unlocked then. And this prompted the old goblin to lurch at me with near-murderous intent, but Matt stepped forward, blocking his father, and meekly said: I tried to stop him, Forrest, I really did, and I hope we can still go swimming later. To which I scoffed and said something like: Yeah right, never swimming with you again, narc. Then a cop car pulled into the driveway and just idled there ominously, to which I said: What are they going to do, arrest a kid? And I laughed a fake villainous laugh because, at this point, I believed they were just trying to scare me.
Then Lauren stepped into the circle, the flame in her eyes nearly as bright as her fiery hair, she said: Miles told me all about how you traded my Game Boy Camera. And then her mother, whom I had never seen before in my life, stepped forward and said: That’s trespassing and theft, Forrest. And then she paused and said: Have you ever been to juvie before? Which made my stomach feel like an elevator with its cord cut. And she must have been a businesswoman because she had this fake executive smile on her freckled face when she said: WELL? And I tried to do the villainous-laugh thing again, but all I could muster was a stutter: I, I, I, I, and so on. And then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. I could hear songbirds singing and distant lawnmowers growling and the cop car softly purring as it just idled there like existential dread.
And when I opened my eyes, I saw Miles standing there, looking down on me, an aura of defiant victory radiating from him. I said: HOW COULD YOU? I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS. YOU’LL REGRET THIS. But Miles just looked at me with this big toothy grin on his face, as if he had measured the worth of my soul and found it so laughably pathetic that all he could do was crack a smile; he was only missing the cigarette and the polearm and the Highwind. He said nothing but mouthed one word: Payback. And this drove me insane. I stood straight up, pushed the bloody quiz results into his face, and shouted: YOU ASKED ME TO PROVE IT. LOOK. I AM SEPHIROTH. SEE! PROOF ENOUGH FOR YOU? And then I lurched at him, as if to cause harm, but that’s when I saw her, standing right behind Miles, her hands covering her mouth, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was my grandma, Susu. She was weeping.
She was weeping.
And when I saw her standing there, weeping, something struck me, something real and profound, something like embarrassment that morphed into guilt and then shame, real deep shame, as if my branch on the family tree had withered and was about to fall away, as if all my ancestors were looking down on me, disappointed, some shaking their heads, some weeping. I looked around and, struck by the realization that I was surrounded by the consequences of my own decisions, I dropped the quiz results, fell to my knees, and buried my head in my hands. A cool breeze drifted in, blowing Sephiroth away on the wind. My eyes welled, and I, too, began to weep.
With tears streaming down my face, I started to mumble: But I … I… Sephiroth…
That’s when Miles stepped into the circle. And I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said:
Yeah, but Sephiroth loses in the end.
If this essay made you feel something, please let me know via email at f0rrest@pm.me.
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