A/N: Novocain, dear, thanks for being an awesome beta reader once again. I really appreciate it.

To the readers of this story: you might spot a few fragment sentences along the way, the use of which is completely intentional on my part. You'll probably see why. I hope this little... grammatical irregularity won't be much of a problem. Thank you for reading!

Four Walls

i. boogieman inside

Barely past noon, silence has fallen in the girl's small bedroom. The walls are enveloped in a sense of pleasant brightness she pays no particular heed to. She is sitting on the floor, bare-legged and immobile. A light camel robe is draped sloppily on her shoulders, and her hand, pallid and dry, holds the hem in a grip that could only be described as numb. A carton of milk lies knocked sideways, forgotten, a little over two steps away. It is beginning to smell sour. The picture would seem frozen was it not for a ray of light that flutters on her slightly-parted lips for a heartbeat before disappearing again.

The girl sits still and still - still still still. The invisible threads holding her body in place loosen gently with the melting of every minute into the next. She could be asleep, already deeply veiled with darkness and tucked under many levels of sea water, countless layers of semi-consciousness she would struggle to wriggle her way out of. Young and frail, perhaps she has already been snatched deftly by none other than Death himself, the budding woman already on the back of his chariot, dignified and insecure, her dark coarse hair tickling her jawline as they whip together through Nothing, the shell of her body left behind as a reminder of how her lips looked before they were tainted with a faint violet hue. She could be a spoiled girl sulking on the floor. She could be an illusion. She could be all these things and more, but she is not.

One thing she is: the only living creature in the room. Strangely enough, there is not a single ant lurking under the bed, not a hairy little spider mocking the stillness of the scenery from behind wooden furniture. Her eyelids seem heavy, her eyes unmoving. She stares at the empty space ahead with no spark. One could say that she looks disinterested, but a more knowledgeable soul would probably disagree; her fixed attention is just like that of a being absorbed in something alien, completely and utterly enchanted.

ii. boogieman coming

Same room, the heart of the previous night. There are jazz tunes playing softly from an old electronic device on the desk – the music carries itself to the farthest corners of the room, courtesy of some late night Midgar station. A figure is lying on the bed. It is a familiar figure, that of the girl.

She is scribbling something on a large notebook, a small smile playing on her lips. It doesn't appear to be a diary, even though the girl is hardly too old to be still keeping one. She wiggles her toes and brings the tip of the pen to the corner of her mouth. Absentmindedly, she bites until the plastic is littered with teeth marks.

She murmurs to herself, "Next? Next..."

As she squints her dark brown eyes at the paper, the girly name tag in bold blue letters on the door begins to slip, unnoticed.

An idea strikes her. She starts writing again, reciting part of her text.

"And so... Sephiroth... was," she says slowly, "...defeated... forever."

She stares at her words quietly for a moment and grins. Satisfied with herself, she rubs her nose, and then, after some scuffling around the room, the notebook is on the desk, the music has stopped, and she is in her pajamas. Pulling the covers tightly around her, she closes her eyes softly - tentatively.

Gone. Defeated... forever.

The name tag keeps slipping lower, smoothly and stealthily. For the longest time there is no sound, and then the bold blue letters that form Marlene Wallace fall to the wooden floor.

The girl's eyes snap wide open.

She awakens to the sound of liquid black slime dripping on the sheets and lazy jazz music playing in the background.

Rolling over on her back in one spastic move, she's distracted when a thick black droplet lands on her eyebrow and runs down her temple to give her ear a warm, wet feeling. Disgust wells up in the pit of her stomach. And when she looks up at the man on her ceiling, it starts to tingle. With each detail she takes in, it tingles more. His back seems glued to the concrete wall, long silvery hair following gravity's call, falling towards her fluidly as if reaching out for an unseen treat. The tingling spreads to her fingers, and her breath is dying in her throat. His black suit appears to be melting around the edges, and her bed cover is now drenched in the dark material. A few stray droplets find their way onto her face and forearms. The tingling spreads to the roots of her hair.

He is balancing precariously, his arms spread but not holding on to anything. Looming, cold, and foreign, the man on the ceiling taints the room with a sickly green glow. His pregnant presence makes her vision merge the outlines so that his form is part of everything that could possibly be considered her world. He is an invader.

Sephiroth is looking at her, face blank. His eyes are like glass.

She opens her mouth to scream and feels some of the slimy liquid slip into her palate, raw and metallic. It tastes like blood.

iii. boogieman

A dark cerulean sea, its depths trembling with old, rotten inquietude. There is neither a sky nor wind, yet she feels timeless waves crashing into one another soundlessly around her. Marlene Wallace finds herself standing on the surface of a small patch of still water.

Her rather round face is a pure reflection of wariness and confusion. What is happening?

"Make yourself at home," a slightly nasal, imperial voice suggests. She spins on her heel and there he is: the man from the room, the man from many years ago, lounging on a worn armchair in the middle of an unknown, eternally moving sea. The waves seem to ignore him. His hair, no longer as much a source or terror as it was a few moments ago, is sprawled on the velvet orange material of the armchair's back. Her vision flashes to his pale lips, only to see its left corner twitch slightly upwards; the trace of a half-smile. She takes a step back.

"Frightened, are you, little girl? This is your world. I'm but a mere guest." The words are spoken in a drawl, as if he has no reason to hurry. Perhaps, time, too, would bend at his will.

"A dream..." Her own voice is full of little-girl fear. "Nightmare."

"What makes you think so?" he asks conversationally.

"You're dead!" she half-shouts, half-sobs.

His hand lets go of the arm rest and makes a curt, firm move around the wrist. He is pronouncing their surroundings.

"You think this is no place for the dead?"

She is cold. Dreading to look around, Marlene bites her lip hard, and makes what she considers to be a bold move.

"I- I don't know what's going on, but what I do know is that you can't really be here. I know Cloud killed you years ago. You're just... a figment of my imagination, are you not? This can't be real." She whispers the last part to herself.

"Then what a wild imagination you must have." A pair of feline eyes, oozing alien malice, is fixed on her brown ones, which are very much normal, vulnerable. Rather painfully so.

"What is this place?"

His slight, lop-sided grin broadens a little. It is unsettling. She tightens her fists as hard as she can to hide the shaking.

"You don't even recognize your own mind, do you? Kids these days sure are entertaining."

Marlene feels his insanity surge through the air between them and engulf her more and more with each passing minute. She only wishes she could run away, but the sea, the dark recesses of her mind - they are all uninviting.

"Why me, then? What do you want?"

"Getting to the point, finally... How old are you?"

"What does this have to do with anything? I'm old enough to know you're crazy, a crazy man from the past!"

He arches his neck further back and raises a long, silver eyebrow. Strangely, when he speaks again, it is a rushed and cunning warning.

"I should, perhaps, teach you that speaking without thinking is," he pauses, seemigly lost in thought. "Ill-advised," he says finally, satisfied with himself. He is pleased with the world. Whose world it is, his or hers, doesn't matter anymore.

"I might have been too young the last time you tried to leave ashes in your path, but I'm not a child anymore! I've been practicing hand-to-hand combat since I was a toddler," she says in an attempt to reassure herself.

He chuckles. It is a disturbing sound, and she can feel the water below her stir ever so slightly.

"From that Lockhart woman, I suppose? Oh, yes, I do remember her. You shouldn't look so surprised. Don't you think I would know who exactly this mind I'm visiting belongs to?"

When she doesn't respond, he speaks again. "Your naivete is alluring, little girl. I wouldn't mind seeing how it tastes on the tip of my tongue."

She stumbles back and falls on her back. The water is chilling, and it drenches her clothes completely, yet she still somehow floats. She wants to cry and run and tear his throat apart, but she can fully sense the danger in her very bones, so she merely yells a useless warning.

"Stay away. Away! Don't you dare come near me."

Apparently, he disapproves. The sneer is gone, replaced with a mask of disinterest.

"Don't think too highly of yourself, Marlene Wallace. I'm sure you're just as bad as Lockhart at best, barely good enough to be target practice."

She's getting up, scowling and glaring, desperately thinking of a way out.

"You were defeated twice, weren't you? So what do you want?"

"Mother would never let me die," he says smugly. "I just need a new body."

He stares at her.

She hopes she is misunderstanding.

"Submit, human," he orders slowly.

The girl's jaw drops a fraction, and it is as if the chill of the cold is now part of a terrifying waltz on every inch of her body.

"Must be a joke..."

"Yes, must be," he mocks. "I shall definitely bend your will, in the end - never doubt that. I have an eternity at my disposal, very much unlike you."

She tries to protest, but she is stone and he is the air, creeping up everywhere, invading everything. Her mind is filled with a stifling pressure, images flowing into her conscious like an unwelcome flood. They are mystical, sensual, brutal. She screams and clutches her head – make it stop - a finger trailing down her spine - a sea of deep crimson - please stop - the waves are eating her legs up, up her torso and arms, until she can feel and see her head floating amongst the waves, and she can smell the blood everywhere - someone laughs - there is a pang of pain and a wanton need that is both hers and alien at the same time, and then it is the severed head - stop - her severed head washes ashore, sand clinging to the bloody arteries and bones and she blinks - a woman wails -

she wails -

make it stop

iv. boogieman and the girl

Marlene's bedroom, one o'clock. Every single thing around her is serene. The girl is lying motionless, entranced. Her eyes are half-open and unfocused; she doesn't see the tall boy enter her room, the opening of the door taking the fallen Marlene Wallace with it in a semi-circular sweep.

"Tifa's been calling you. Overslept ag--" The boy stops mid-sentence, the unasked question trailing after the silence.

He feels the strange aura, as if the room itself has been holding its breath. A few things are on the floor, and so is Marlene, her shoulder-length hair falling over her face but not quite concealing the empty gaze.

He rushes to her side and grabs her arm. The robe slips from her shoulder. The body loses its balance and threatens to fall over but the boy holds her in place. He calls her name, his voice laced with fright. "Marlene!" He calls her over and over, but no response issues from her stiff lips. He checks for her pulse; the faint clock inside her body is ticking feebly.

"What happened?" he shouts at no one in particular. He jolts her, once, twice, shaking her shoulders violently, until she gasps loudly.

He is so surprised that he lets go.

She gasps for air again and doubles in half, clutching her body in a strong grip, hands traveling over more or less sensitive places. A desperate voice begs brokenly: "...Stop... mine... mine!"

"Marlene? It's me, Denzel." He sounds unsure of himself, as he approaches her again. He is stunned to find her looking blindly at him, staring but not seeing.

"Seph...i...roth..."

He blinks.

"Se...phi...ro...th..."

She stays quiet for a moment, and in the bright afternoon light he can see the black pupils dilate as desperation wells into their depths. She sees someone else in his stead. In a flash of a fighter's premonition, he knows what's coming next.

Adrenaline surges through him as he moves out of the way, right before she lurches at him with a beast-like growl.

"Calm down. Calm down." He puts his hands up, partly to make his intentions clear, partly to protect himself. With another loud throaty noise, the disgruntled girl makes another move, disturbingly fast for such a lost mind. She attacks again and again, furious and wild, her features contorted with blind ugliness. She goes on, Denzel dodging her frenzied attempts continuously, until she trips on her long nightgown and falls on her stomach with an ominous, pitiful thump.

Denzel is at a loss.

Her movements slow down, and she is now on her knees. He can see her limbs shaking. This monster can't be Marlene, he thinks to himself. Not Marlene – not kind, rational, self-assured, innocent Marlene. But either way, he is determined to save her.

He approaches her carefully. She is silent. From behind a curtain of uncombed, dishevelled hair, he notices a smirk. Alarmed, he tries to back away, but things happen fast. She grabs his hand so hard her nails scratch his skin, and he topples over her. The boy is unprepared, unable to react just as fast. Her eyes are wide and distinctively green when her lips crash onto his own in a vulgar kiss.

She licks his bottom lip, sits up and throws her head back, laughing a deranged laugh that brings back memories. Understanding suddenly dawns on him, a moment too late.

The last thing Denzel remembers before it all fades to black is the stabbing pain in his abdomen, the sound of blood gushing out from a fresh wound, and the murmured choke of a soprano voice.

"Denzel?"

The first thing Marlene sees when the black fades into her vision of reality is the wound on the body she is straddling - and then the bloodied pencil in her hand.

"Denzel?"

Inescapably, the core is shattered. Marlene Wallace has fallen.

Every corner and every wall of the room is painted with the most dreaded feeling – her truest, darkest of horrors.