#day 17

The Mako-Flush did not begin as an alarm or a flashing bio-monitor. It began as the sound of grease hitting a red-hot iron plate, echoing inside the hollow space behind Bianca’s sternum.

She was six years old, but her small, fragile frame carried a density that defied human biology. Spliced with Sephiroth’s refined S-cells since the age of two, her foreign Nephilim biology had reached a catastrophic, violent stalemate.

The Mako density in her containment chamber had been increased by forty-two percent over the last seventy-two hours on Hojo’s personal command: a calculated attempt to force her celestial-demonic cellular matrix to assimilate planetary energy.

The Planet, however, recognized her as a parasite. And its blood was burning her alive.

The floor of the subterranean cell was cold, slick concrete, but to Bianca, it felt like molten lead. She lay on her side, her knees pulled tight against her chest, her thin, coarse white hospital gown twisted around her small thighs. The back of the gown was torn open in frayed, crude strips to accommodate the twin, ruined appendages protruding from her shoulder blades.

At age four, Professor Hojo had shattered the humerus bones in both of her black wings to eliminate any possibility of flight. Now, ornamental, feather-covered burdens lay limp behind her, held aloft only by internal, surgical support wires that hummed and vibrated under the violent bio-electrical surges racking her nervous system.

Her black hair, usually wavy and reaching toward her waist, had been crudely shorn to her shoulders to make room for the suction-cupped monitoring electrodes that had been glued to her scalp for three days straight. Red, inflamed circles of raw skin dotted her forehead and temples where the adhesive had torn her flesh away.

"Seph. . ." The name didn't leave her lips as a word. It came as a wet, shallow gasp, accompanied by a bright, iridescent bubble of dark-tinted blood that burst against her chin.

Across the windowless chamber, eight-year-old Sephiroth stood frozen beside the single crate that served as their shared bed. He wore the same standard-issue, unbleached hospital gown, the hem falling just past his knees. His silver hair, drastically shorter than the legendary silver mane that would one day strike terror into the heart of Shinra, fell in jagged, shoulder-length layers around his small, pale face. His cyan, Mako-infused eyes were wide. The feline pupils slitted so thinly they looked like fine black needles against the glowing irises.

Through the primordial, glowing cord of the Red Thread of Fate wrapped tightly around their small wrists, Sephiroth didn't just hear her call. He was drowning in it.

Normally, the Thread was a quiet, rhythmic hum: a gentle, telepathic pulse that allowed them to sense each other’s presence even when separated by sterile laboratory partitions. But right now, the non-native blood surging through Bianca’s veins was in total, catastrophic rejection. The Mako was violently clashing with her celestial-infernal DNA, and the feedback loop was tearing through their psychic link like a screaming wave of high-voltage static.

It wasn't an emotion. It was physical, blinding noise. It sounded like tearing metal, like screeching glass, like a thousand voice-coils blowing out all at once inside the core of his brain.

Sephiroth dropped to his knees. His hands slammed against his ears as a white-hot spike of agony shot behind his eyes.

“Subject N is exhibiting acute systemic Mako-necrosis,” a flat, synthesized voice droned from the ceiling speaker above them. “Cellular rejection rate at seventy-eight percent. Heart rate dropping. Prepare the containment isolation valves. Sephiroth, clear the platform for automated extraction.”

Sephiroth didn't move toward the door. He didn't clear the platform.

He was eight years old. He had been trained to obey the men in the white coats. He had learned that resistance meant longer needles, colder water, and darker cages. He was compliant because compliance was the only mechanism he possessed to keep Hojo from taking his bread rations away, or from putting Bianca back on the metal table without the local numbing agents.

But as the heavy, pneumatic seals of the reinforced cell door began to hiss—preparing to lock Bianca inside a sealed Mako-decontamination chamber where she would spend the night drowning in chemical neutralizers—something inside Sephiroth broke past his conditioning in that single moment.

He didn't run away from her. He lunged forward.

With a sharp, desperate movement, Sephiroth threw his small body over Bianca. His bare knees slammed onto the freezing concrete beside her trembling ribs. He reached back with his left hand, grabbing the manual internal override lever mounted beside the door frame—a heavy, mechanical bar meant for emergency maintenance—and pulled it down with all the strength his Mako-conditioned muscles could muster.

The heavy steel bolt slammed home with a deafening CLANG. The automated extraction arm jammed with a shower of orange sparks, and the ceiling speakers erupted into a harsh, pulsing red light accompanied by a blaring klaxon.

“Warning. Manual override engaged in Cell 4-A. Sephiroth, release the override immediately. Hojo’s directives require immediate bio-isolation.”

Sephiroth ignored the voice. He ignored the alarm. He ignored the heavy, leather-gloved fists that immediately began pounding against the reinforced observation glass outside their room.

He slid his arms beneath Bianca’s small, convulsing frame and pulled her up into his lap.

"Bianca," he whispered. His voice was small, cracking with the raw, terrifying gravity of an eight-year-old boy who knew nothing of the world outside concrete walls, but knew every single line of the girl dying in his arms. "Bianca, look at me. Look at the thread."

She couldn't look at him. Her eyes, normally a deep, striking indigo, were completely flooded with an unnatural, sickly teal glare. The Mako density in her bloodstream was so thick that the capillaries in her sclerocorneal junctions had ruptured, staining the whites of her eyes with glowing, bioluminescent pools.

Her pupils were wide, feline, and unseeing, and they rolling back toward the ceiling as another violent seizure hit her frame.

Her small body—already showing the early, severe biological stress of the excruciating weight of her S-cell assimilation—jerked violently in his grip. The Mako wasn't just sickening her. It was actively destroying her tissue.

Underneath her porcelain skin, the veins along her neck and arms were swelling, turning a dark, bruised violet that hummed with static discharge. The internal support wires inside her shattered wings shrieked under the strain, bending against the dense, improperly healed scar tissue along her upper back. A low, agonizing groan tore from her throat: a sound far too heavy and guttural for a six-year-old child.

It burns, the thought slammed through the Red Thread, jagged and raw, shattering Sephiroth’s own consciousness. Seph, it’s tearing me apart. It’s eating my insides. I’m melting. I’m going to dissolve into the floor.

"You're not dissolving," Sephiroth said, his voice rising over the blaring alarm. He pressed his forehead directly against hers, ignoring the burning, feverish heat radiating from her skin. The contact was so intense it felt like pressing his skin against a heated stove, but he didn't pull back. "You're here. You're right here with me."

Bianca’s small, right hand blindly lashed out through the air. She couldn't see him through the blinding teal glare in her eyes, but her hands sought the only physical constant her short life had ever known.

Her fingers snagged the collar of his hospital gown, pulling with a frantic, terrifying strength born of pure, primal panic. She dug her knuckles into the fabric, twisting it so hard that the cheap material tore along his shoulder.

"Don't let them take it," she choked out. Her voice breaking on a dry, raspy sob. A line of dark, necrotized blood leaked from her left nostril, dripping onto Sephiroth’s silver hair as he held her close. "Seph. . . the floor is opening. The floor is gone. I'm falling into the dark."

"I have you," he gritted out.

Sephiroth closed his eyes and reached deep inside his own chest. He was only eight, and Hojo had taught him that his blood was a tool: a weapon designed to be measured, siphoned, and studied under microscopes.

He gathered his own energy and forcefully shoved it down the glowing cord of the Red Thread.

The impact was instantaneous and agonizing.

A sharp, bio-electrical shockwave erupted between their wrists where the crimson thread was looped. Sephiroth’s back arched as he willingly absorbed fifty percent of her somatic pain. A violent, sickening cramp seized his own stomach. His lungs burnt as if he had just inhaled raw acid. His vision flared white. A high-pitched ringing filled his ears as he took on the crushing physical weight of her Mako-flush.

He gasped. His small body shuddered against hers, but he didn't sever the link.

“Sephiroth!” Hojo’s voice finally cut through the intercom, sharp, cold, and utterly devoid of humanity. “You are interfering with a critical stress-adaptability trial. Disengage the soul-link immediately or we will deploy gas into the enclosure.”

Sephiroth didn't even look up at the observation glass where he knew the tall, stooped shadow of the Chief Scientist was standing. He wrapped his arms tighter around Bianca’s waist, pulling her tiny, broken frame against his chest until her head was tucked beneath his chin. He could feel her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird: erratic, fluttering, and terrifyingly weak. Her pulse was dropping precipitously, plunging into numbers that meant imminent cardiac collapse.

"Stay with me," Sephiroth whispered. His lips brushing against the cool, sweat-dampened crown of her black-and-indigo hair: a kiss from an older brother terrorized for his sister. His voice was no longer that of a test subject. It was the raw, desperate plea of a boy holding onto the only piece of light in a universe made of steel and concrete. "Bianca. Listen to my voice. Stay with me. Don't let go of the thread."

Seph. . .her voice inside his mind was fading, shrinking into a tiny, fragile whisper beneath the dying hum of the static. It's so cold. The water is so cold. . .

"It's not water. It's just the floor," Sephiroth insisted. His tears finally broke past his composure, hot and fast, dripping down his cheeks to mix with the blood on her face. "Feel my hand. Feel my gown. I'm holding you. You can't fall if I'm holding you."

Bianca’s small fingers tightened their death-grip on the shoulder of his gown. She pressed her face hard into the crook of his neck. Her prehensile tongue made a small, instinctive clicking sound against her fangs: a subconscious coping mechanism she used whenever her internal balance was completely shattered.

Slowly, agonizingly, the violent convulsions racking her frame began to subside.

The stabilized energy Sephiroth was pouring through the Red Ribbon was working like an internal tourniquet. It didn't cure the Mako-poisoning. It couldn't purge the foreign planetary energy completely, but it forced her non-Gaian cells into a state of temporary, protective dormancy. The dark, swollen veins along her neck began to recede, shifting from a violent violet back to her natural, pale porcelain.

The sickly, bioluminescent teal glare in her eyes began to dim. The Mako-flush slowly drained away to reveal the deep, watery indigo beneath.

Her breathing, though still horribly shallow and wet with congestion, settled into a slow, rhythmic cadence.

"Seph. . ." she whispered, her voice barely a murmur against his collarbone. She didn't open her eyes. She didn't have the strength.

But her small hand remained locked into his gown. Her knuckles white. Her fingernails dug through the cloth and into his skin until she felt the faint, warm bead of his blood against her fingertips. "Are we. . .are we still in the room?"

"We're still in the room," Sephiroth whispered back.

He leaned his head back against the cold concrete wall. His own chest heaved as he fought through the lingering, nauseating wave of shared pain. The static in their mind-link had cleared, replaced by a soft, trembling silence: a shared space where both of their hearts beat in quiet, fragile synchronization.

Outside the observation glass, the heavy boots of the Public Security troopers were already echoing down the corridor. The heavy mechanical lock on the door was whining as the override was slowly being bypassed from the external terminal.

In less than two minutes, the door would slide open. Men in heavy rubber aprons and thick leather gloves would step inside. They would pull Sephiroth away, strap Bianca to a mobile gurney, and take her down to the lower sub-levels for a full Mako-flush recovery and cellular extraction.

They would be punished. Hojo would ensure their rations were cut for a week. There would be no plastic cups of sweet vanilla pudding. There would be no extra blankets to cushion the cold crate.

Sephiroth knew all of this. He knew the protocol. He knew the consequences of defiance.

But as he sat on the freezing concrete floor of Cell 4-A, cradling the small, scarred body of the six-year-old girl who carried half his soul, Sephiroth tightened his grip. He smoothed a stray strand of black hair away from her electrode-scarred forehead. His cyan eyes fixed on the sliding door with an unyielding, silent promise.

They could take her to the lower labs. They could strap her to the metal tables. They could turn the Mako valves until the glass turned green. But as long as the Red Thread remained wrapped around his wrist, she would never fall alone.

"I'm here," Sephiroth whispered into the dark of the cell. His voice steadying as the heavy locks finally gave way. "I'm not letting go."

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Here are some rough character designs and a look at the game's visual style (excluding the background). I’ll be posting this kind of content very sparingly, as I don’t want to spoil the entire game; I’ll stick to showing things that are already public or will appear in the trailer.

I’m sorry I don’t post very often. Since I’m developing this game solo and it’s intended to be a substantial experience rather than a short one, I simply run out of time—most of it goes toward preparing for my OGE exams, my regular studies, and art assignments for school. Still, making posts like this reminds me that I can actually pull this off—not all at once, but over time. Looking back at the journey so far, however short it may be, shows me that I’m one step closer to creating my game.

Это примерный дизайн некоторых персонажей и стиль в котором будет выглядеть игра (задний фон не считается). Я очень редко буду публиковать подобный контент, поскольку не хочу сполерить свою игру полностью. Буду лишь показывать общедоступные вещи, или те которые появится в треллере.