A Blurb A Day... by Zack

So... I've found that when it's late, or when I'm supposed to be doing something else (like studying or Seph's paperwork), is the best time to write blurbs! So I figure I'll start transferring all my stories here by kicking over some random blurbs first.

Most of these blurbs have to do with a 1920s AU, where both Zack and Sephiroth are detectives, though some of the blurbs are Crisis Core. They're all based off of some prompt, and I pick on Zack a lot, apparently. Sorry in advance, Zack. >_>

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Before I knew what was happening, the ocean had risen up and broadsided the ship, ripping and tearing across the deck like a mad stampede of horses. In an instant my vision was gone, and I could no longer feel the security of the wood beneath me. Instinctively, I reached out.

Sephiroth!

The barest brush of smooth metal slid under my fingertips – was that the railing?? – and then a horrible feeling of weightlessness assaulted me. I felt my heart leap into my throat, but terrified astonishment stole my voice. The weathered side of the ship spun from my view, and I knew, with horrifying certainty, that I’d been swept overboard.

Nonono, this isn’t happening, it can’t-

The plunge into frigid, black waters silenced my thoughts and took my breath. I couldn’t see; everything was tumbling around and around … Frantically, I struck out with my arms, trying to latch onto something, anything, but my hands only closed upon twisting coils of bubbles. Thunder battered my ears as the enormous bulk of the ship slid through the water, somewhere beside me. Would I be crushed, torn to pieces by the propellers??

No … The ship was not too close, but too far, and it retreated from me, like a leaf on the wind.

Air …

The need for breath drove urgency into my limbs, and I kicked, shoving the water away, but it was still there, vast and unending, and it wasn’t going away, wasn’t parting, and would it never end …?

Finally, just when I feared I’d gone the wrong direction, my head broke the surface. I gasped, but salty liquid surged into my mouth, sending me spluttering. I slid back into the waves. Forcing myself to kick harder to stay afloat, I at last managed to keep to the surface. But it was hard. Rain pelted my face, and the ocean roiled around me, swelling and retreating, heaving and pitching. It was all I could do to keep afloat. The waves were colossal – mountains that blotted out the horizon, reaching for the sky, before throwing themselves down into frighteningly deep valleys.

I rose and fell with them, as the furious storm winds tried to carve them away. My hair, though soaking wet, was whipped back and forth; it seemed as if the sky and sea were at war, each trying to reach into the other’s domain. Both were black, and both were endless.

Panic shot through my heart. Where was the ship? It was right there a second ago!

Terrified, I cast about, struggling to keep my head above the water to see. There was nothing but the swell of the black ocean. It had swallowed the horizon, and, for the life of me, I couldn’t see past it. Was I even looking in the right direction?

After an eternity, a particularly large wave boosted me higher than the rest for just a moment, and I saw it. Knocked about by the surging waters, plunging into the surf, was the ship. It was dark, but the onboard lights distinguished it from the storm and sky.

The craft glittered, its lights reflecting in the water like stars the sky didn’t have. Hope flooded my heart, and I vowed to keep it in sight. Those stars were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.

But then a crushing realization brought me down to earth. The ship was heading away from me.

No! “H-hey!” I shouted, spitting water from my mouth. “Wait!” I waved my arms over my head, risking the plunge back into the water. “I’m over here! Hey!”

The winds whipped the words back into my face, a cruel slap to my frantic efforts. Desperation gripped my heart, and I once again began kicking against the cold water, striving to reach the ship.

But I knew I wasn’t a very good swimmer. I knew the ship was moving faster than me.

I knew I wasn’t gonna make it.

It couldn’t be true! How could it be that in one moment, I was safe with my friend, and in the next, all those little lights of safety were retreating away? They were going to strand me out here, in this vast, terrifying nothingness, in the grip of the storm. Would I be lost here forever?

Sephiroth?

With the next surge, the waters rose up, and the sheets of rain thickened, closing the starry ship behind a dark curtain and taking away my hope.

“No! Wait! Help!” My voice broke. “Can anyone hear me!? I’m here! I’m here! Sephiroth!”

The next wave choked my voice, and I had to focus on keeping my head up. Fear closed itself around my throat.

They were gone. God help me, they were gone!

Well ... so much for a blurb a day. XD Oh well, the sentiment counts, right?

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It was passing. Inexorable. Irresistible. Unstoppable, like the noon-time train, chugging along ever so slowly through a crowded town, hauling its heavy cargo to some unknown destination. Slow, yes, but it will go, it will pass, and it was too big, too massive, too unyielding to ever, ever stop. Maddening it its slow, yet unrelenting way.

Time.

Like the sand in the hourglass, it fell, grain by grain, second by second, and like that black, steel beast, steaming and hissing and screeching, there was no way to stop it, wish though you might for a thousand years. Even more maddening than the train, still, because of its continuous measurement of how much you had left, or how much you didn’t have, a stark, too-solid reminder that even the clock on the wall couldn’t provide, because at least the clock gave the delusion of hope. The sand took away even that – the clock was a static thing on a glance, while the sand shifted, sinking, drifting away, too ethereal a thing to try catching with your hands, and there was never enough of it.

You could die from lack of water, you could die by train, and you could die from lack of time, and that’s exactly what would happen, if I didn’t find him first. The train moved, the sand fell, eroding his future; each grain was another breath lost. I needed him, but I couldn’t find him, and I needed him for that. But my inadequacy was too much, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to find him without him, not in time; because he was out there too, and he was better than me, because he was like Sephiroth, and he was searching too. And he knew, more than I did, where Sephiroth might be, because he was a part of Sephiroth, a part of his history, in a way that I wasn’t, and could never be.

I was an outsider, struggling against the train, slipping on the grains of sand, and it was futile. And there was no more time, because I held the last grain, and he was out there, with Sephiroth, and I was here, with the clock, and the hand struck the hour.

Time was up.

School is eating me alive! D:

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They were frozen together on the sheer, shadowed side of the glacier, as footsteps crunched past somewhere above. Sephiroth had eased himself onto a narrow shelf; he lay there, stilled, glancing downward at Zack, anchored in a dozen feet above the water. They met each other’s eyes, silent, listening and waiting. Their empty transport bobbed along, continuing with the current; hopefully they wouldn’t need it anymore. Zack held his breath as it struck the ice. Would they hear?

A sprinkling of ice and snow dislodged and spilled down the glacier toward him when the toe of a boot appeared from a ledge further above. Zack ducked his head and hugged the cliff side, praying the guard would not think to look down. Sephiroth grew even quieter, if possible. The snow rained onto Zack’s spikes and tickled down his neck. A light breath of wind stirred their heavy clothing.

The crunching of boots continued, as whoever was up there turned away. The two detectives breathed a collective sigh of relief. When Sephiroth nodded, Zack resumed his upward climb; Sephiroth turned his attention to the wall above him.

Crack.

Ping.

With deceptive abruptness, the anchor spun loose from the ice and Zack plummeted toward the water. Frantic, he latched onto the rope, but it snaked down with him. With only twelve feet to fall, he hit the glacial liquid before it could pull taut.

The sharp gasp as icy waters wrapped around him drowned out the sound of the splash in his ears. His fingers were white upon the rope beneath his gloves, and, for a long, excruciating moment, after he remembered how to breathe, he could hear nothing but his helpless hyperventilating, desperate and shallow. His muscles had seized.

When coherent thought returned to him, he had the presence of mind to wonder why he hadn’t fallen beneath the waves. His head and face remained above the water, though it lapped at his chin; jerking his gaze upward, he found Sephiroth once again lying upon the shelf, arm outstretched and gripping the rope. The man’s jaw was clenched as he fought to keep Zack above the water. Urgent voices above them indicated that they had been heard.

Sephiroth’s eyes met Zack’s. There was an interminable moment where they stared at each other, waiting to be discovered.

Then Sephiroth let go.

Zack slid beneath the waves.