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They came looking for me. I didn't know what to do, but I was
told to go and hide, so I
did. All I could hear from my bedroom was shouting, and occasionaly
I knew they were referring
to me.
I could tell they were getting mad, their shouts were getting
louder and suddenly one of
them fired a gun into the ceiling, which happened to be the part that
was also the floor to my
room. Then all was silent.
I crept to the top of the stairs and they were gone. But my mother
was sitting at the table
crying. I went down to see if I could help, but she said no, and that
she was thankful that they
hadn't gone upstaris, or else they would have taken me with them. I
wanted to know why, but she
wouldn't tell, and when I tried to push her she just became silent.
I told her I was sorry, but she
said nothing.
I wanted to hurt those men.
Then she smiled at me and pulled me onto her lap. We sat there
for a long time, and I
must've dozed off, because when I woke again, I was in my bedroom,
and there was light
streaming in the window.
When I went back downstairs my mom was going through the daily
chores, acting as if
nothing had happened, so I preteneded too.
She saw me and put down the dish she was drying.
I told her I was going outside to play in the flowers, she didn't
say no, but the look of
worry on her face was so intense it scared me. I looked away and retreated
to the small garden
in the yard.
It was fenced in and contained an amazing amout of flowers. Well,
maybe it wasn't so
amazing, but flowers didn't grow here. They never had.
I was watering them when I heard voices. Then I saw those men again.
Why wouldn't they leave us alone?
I knew my mom wouldn't want me in danger, so as quietly as possible
I slipped to one of
the areas where the flowers were thick and tall, and being small for
my age was able to easily
hide myself from view underneath them.
I stayed there for what seemed like forever, not daring to move.
From where I was laying,
I could hear voices inside the house, and from my mother's frantic
protests, it was obvious they
were going upstairs. That was a perk to living in the slums, I had
no toys, and my room wasn't
messy. It looked almost like a grown-up's room.
Apparantly they didn't find anything, because they soon left.
They were coming more
often, it would only be a matter of time before they found me. When
I was sure they were gone, I
went back into the house.
My mother grabbed me and held me close, I made no move to break
away. Again she
wouldn't tell me what was going on, but she could only protect me so
far. I would have to know
the truth sooner or later, and I didn't want to learn it from someone
else.
I pleaded that day, the men were coming more and more often. I
wanted to know what
was so special about me.
She finally gave in and told me. The first thing she said was
that I wasn't her real
daughter. She said she found me at a train station one day, and that
my real mother had died
that day.
I stared up at her and mumbled something about her being my real
mother, not this lady I
never knew. Actually that was sort of a lie, but how much could distant
memories really count?
Besides, I wanted my mom to be happy.
And it did seem to make her happy, but the smile only lasted a
second, then she pulled
me onto her lap. What she told me next, I didn't understand.She said
I was something called an
Ancient, and that they wanted me to find something called the Promised
Land.
I asked her why I was so special, why another Ancient couldn't
the job, but she said was
the last of them. I was suprized, how could I possibly be the last
one?
She said she didn't know, that fate could play mean tricks sometimes.
I knew that was
true, but at least now I knew why I wasn't like all of the other
people my age. They always
stayed away from me.
I pulled myself off of her lap and went back outside to think.
My mother didn't stop me,
she knew I was confused and wanted to figure things out. And to think,
I was only eight at the
time.
Shaking my head I brought myself out of the past.
Shaking my head I brought myself out of the past. I had never found
the Promised Land,
although the City of the Anctients was found. It was a magnficient
place, I had never seen
anything quite like it. I felt like I belonged there.
I knew that night that I DID belong there, for matters I didn't
really know of at the time. I
had snuck away from the group and left Bone Village, entering the woods
that we had passed
through earlier that day.
I couldn't tell anyone, they wouldn''t understand. This was my
fate, I knew this now, and I
was going to become one with the planet wheather I liked it or not.
But I knew my death was
insignificant, if it meant a chance to save the world, and my friends.
Soon, I was at the entrance to the city. What I was looking wasn't
in the surface city. It
was in the underground one, and somehow I knew how to get there. Without
looking for long, I
found the top of the crystalline staircase.
There were no sides to it, and while I did have a fear of heights,
I felt no fear. There was
an invisible force all around me, and it would protect me.
Reaching up to my hair I began playing absently with the single
piece of Materia that
was tied in the band. I knew that it was finally going to get
an use.
The stairs were long and twisting, and I wasn't paying any attention
to them. My mind
was elsewhere, in sort of a dream.
I was thinking about the group. They had all been so nice to me,
so understanding. It
was so hard to just leave, and without telling anyone. But I knew this
was the only way. They
would try and make me stay. They wouldn't understand the mission, and
I couldn't explain. How
was I to say that it just felt right?
Seeing that I had reached bottom, I looked around, searching for
the spot. I saw it in the
distance. It was a raised alter, with a series of stepping stones being
the only access.
I managed to cross them, and it somehow reminded me of jumping
across roofs in the
slums of Midgar.
Wiping a stray tear from my eye, I stood in the middle of the
alter. I had an excellent view
of the surrounding city, and somehow I knew that I would soon join
the rest of my kind. But the
thought didn't sadden me, instead I was suprized to find acceptance.
My mother had once told me that when you know your path, you can't
listen to other
people and you must follow it.
Now I believed her.
Closing my eyes I knelt and began to pray. I wasn't sure for what,
but I knew it was right.
I could feel the materia in my hair beginning to activate, and suddenly
I knew what it did.
I called forth with all of my mental ability, and then something
caused me to open my
eyes. Three of the group members were standing in front of me, and
one of them seemed to be
about to kill me, but then he stopped himself.
I was about to say something, but I never got the chance. The
next thing I felt was a
sinister presence, and then the cold metal of a long thin sword pierce
my body. The last thing I
heard was laughter, tinged with satisfaction.........
______________________________________________________________________________
Well, I hope you enjoyed that. It was one of those things that sort
of came to me when I was sitting
in front of my computer - when I was supposed to be studying for finals.
This wasn't my best, but it came out better than I thought.