From The Skies, a final fantasy vii fanfic

A/N: *salutes* Hey all. Lurking Beneath here, with the first story they've submitted for almost a year now. This is the story I've had information about on my profile for a while. I'm not all that great with summaries, so I understand that the one I presented won't have been good, so here's a version with more words:

Genre: Adventure/General. OC.
It may have been the granting of a subconcious wish of mine, or it may have been Fate acting like an ass by doing this to me once I was finally getting my life sorted out. All I know is three small things. One; the cashier is a stalker, and I shouldn't have flirted with him. Two; potions can heal wounds, but not quench the pain. Three; being a geek has never been more beneficial. Being sent to an alternate dimension by a crazy stalker isn't all it's cracked up to be. OC falls into the fandom story.

And now the story starts.

White tunnel, red blurs, dripping, moving faster than I ever have before. Snap, twang, strange monsters bursting forth from crystals. Pain, blood, dripping. Green orb, yellow orb, purple, red, white,

black. Ghostly hands, grabbing, screaming, pain, pain, pain, more pain. Fire, ice, rocks, unnatural wind. Speeding now. Flashes of violet, burning trees. Roar of a helicopter. Blades, ripping, tearing, even more pain, drip-drip. Blood. Dread, fear, anxiety. Storm clouds, green flash, catlike eyes. Anger, madness, flames, flames and more flames. Heat, pain, burning, stench of death. Death. Too much death. Nauseous. Speeding faster, up, up, even further up. Space, wailing, screams of the Planet. Pain pain painpainpainoh GOD the pain! Ears ringing, light headed, wailing oh god the wailing…! Spinning, thunder, silver, those eyes again, a shout-

"METEOR"

-x-

With a start, I woke up from what had been an entirely brief sleep. I cautiously scanned my eyes over my surroundings, only to let out a breath of relief that I didn't know I had been holding. I was in my bed, in my room, and that had all been a dream. Frowning, I turned over in my bed and closed my eyes.
One minute.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Glance at the clock.
Sigh.

I was wide-awake, it was two in the morning and that dream had been confusing. On the other hand, had it been a nightmare? Hell if I knew. All that I did know was that I wasn't about to fall back to sleep anytime soon- as usual- and that tomorrow (or today) was a school day.

"… Shit," I mumbled. I was failing enough classes already; going through them while feeling this tired wouldn't exactly improve my grades.

Fuck it, I'd just call in sick today. On the other hand, I could just say I slept through my alarm. They wouldn't have trouble believing that, I decided. I pushed myself out of bed and hobbled out of my room and down the hall towards the bathroom. Bleary eyed, I opened the door to the bathroom and gazed despondently at the mirror over the sink. A half-asleep girl in her late teens stared vacantly back at me, with nearly stark-white skin and chestnut brown hair. Noticing how pale my cheeks were, more so than usual, I lifted my hands up and felt my face. It was only then that I noticed how cold I was and that I was drenched in sweat.

"… Maybe it was a nightmare, then," I muttered, shivering and picking up the brush from the cabinet underneath the mirror. Combing my too-long fringe away from my eyes so that I could see well and finding myself still bleary-eyed, I resorted to splashing some cold water to my face in order to wake myself up. After I felt sure that I wasn't about to walk into a wall due to lack of vision, I walked over to the shower and turned it on full heat. This did not mean that it was scalding hot, though- I had set the maximum temperature to forty-two degrees Celsius. Grimacing, I peeled my sweat-soaked tank top and shorts off my body and winced when I heard them splat on the tiled floor. I'd probably have to mop up before my father got home from his night shift at the hospital. I guess it was a good thing, sometimes, that my dad worked at night. It meant that he didn't have to know about my insomnia, for one. For another, it gave me more freedom to do what I wanted at night and during the day. He sure did sleep a lot.

The water felt unnaturally hot to my cold skin, so I flinched when I stepped into the shower. It took me a few minutes to get used to the heat, but when I did, I relaxed. I ran my fingers through my hair, thoroughly wetting it and then picking up my shampoo from the shelf on my left.

What was that dream all about? I wondered detachedly. I didn't dream often- in fact, I hardly ever dreamt at all. Besides, the dreams I did have were always completely abstract, just colorful blurs and strange feelings in the pit of my stomach that left me feeling entirely confused in the morning. I couldn't understand why my subconscious had suddenly decided to send me a vision that wasn't completely incoherent.

It took a minute for me to realize that I was spacing out and had yet to use the shampoo. When I did, I squirted it into my hands and massaged my scalp with it. Then I ran some through the ends of my hair, which were located somewhere around the top-middle of my back. I scrubbed at the white substance furiously and left it to do its job for a couple of minutes. I then rinsed it out, brushed my hair through, turned the water off and exited the shower. I didn't bother with conditioner; my body provided an unnatural amount of moisture for my hair already. Not that this was a good thing; it meant my hair became greasy twice as fast as most others'. Grabbing a towel off the rack, I moved to the mirror again, which was now foggy. I guess I had spaced out in there for longer than I knew. I sighed and rubbed at the mirror with my hands to clear away the condensation. Blue-green eyes that would normally be pretty if not for the ever present dark bags underneath stared at me from my reflection. I almost winced at the harshness of the bruise-like rings. They were even worse than usual.

I toweled myself down and wrapped said towel around me. Opening the door, I went into the laundry room where I knew I'd find some clothing. Without thinking much, I grabbed from the "clean" pile, the one on top of the dryer, a plain white sports bra, t-shirt, jeans and panties and slipped them on. I probably didn't look too great right now with my mismatched clothing, but it wasn't as though I was about try to go to school today. I walked into the lounge room, at a loss for what to do next. The clock ticking on the wall told me that it was now three fifteen in the morning, five hours before my father would get home. I could always attempt to fall asleep on the couch, but I knew myself well enough to know that I wasn't going to be able to now. Therefore, I settled for the next best thing.

I grabbed my precious iPod nano from the mahogany table in the centre of the room where I had left it the day before and worked on untangling the headphones. For some reason, no matter how I left them they always managed to wrap around each other. Once the miniature speakers were separated, I put them in my ears and chose a song that wouldn't interrupt my thoughts. I smiled as the familiar song, Gabriella Climi's "Sweet about Me" played in my ears. Grabbing a blanket from the couch to warm my freezing feet, I lay down on one of the two dark brown, leather sofas. I placed the blanket on top of me before I stopped thinking coherently and rested, letting my mind wander as it would.

-x-

Before I knew it, it was eight in the morning; my father had just walked in the door and was in the process of taking off his lab coat.

"Hey dad," I greeted, still awake even after my prolonged stillness. He looked up at me, surprise evident in his tired eyes.

"Cheyanne?" he questioned, pushing his glasses up as if he was seeing wrong. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at school by now?" I smiled in a sheepish sort of way.

"Yeah, I sort of don't feel too well," I told him, feeling only slightly guilty for lying to him. Not that I should really have felt guilty in the first place, lying was second nature to me by now. After finally getting his shoes off, he came towards me and put his hand to my forehead with a frown.

"Well, you don't have a fever," he informed me. "But you look terrible! Did you get any sleep last night?" He gestured to the bags under my eyes.

"Barely any."

"Poor thing," he muttered. "You can stay home if you want, I won't make you go to school looking like this." I smiled gratefully. Not only would I hopefully catch up on a bit of sleep, I would also be missing double year twelve math, my least favourite subject.

"Thanks."

"No problem, sweetie." Dad stretched his arms and yawned widely. "I'm going to go sleep now, otherwise I'll end up with bags just like yours," he grinned. "'Night."

"You mean 'morning'," I replied. He shrugged.

-x-

It was frustrating when I couldn't think of anything to do. This was the case at the moment. I was currently sitting on my bed cross-legged, pen and paper in hand, as I made a futile attempt at remembering and writing down the five acts of LOVELESS from Crisis Core. I was stuck on what came after "there is no hate, only joy, for you are beloved by the Goddess."

"Buzz," said my phone. "Buzz buzz buzzzzzzz."

I groaned as the sound of my half-broken phone assaulted my ears. I really needed to get a new one. Nonetheless, I swept it up and opened it up to see who was calling. To much of my insane relief, it wasn't one of the school staff ringing in order to pester me about why I wasn't in school. I connected the call and put the phone to my ear.

"Hey, Gracie," I said.

"Moshi moshi!" said the girl on the other end of the line. I grimaced at the Japanese.

"Gracie, can you please stick to one language?" I pleaded.

"You're such a spoil sport, Cheyanne!" she informed me, and I could practically hear the pout in my otaku friend's voice.

Gracie, short for Gracelyn (why her parents had given her a name like that, I had no idea), was my best friend and had been since early elementary school. With her dark blonde hair, beautiful green eyes and slim figure, she was one of the prettier girls in our year, but not exactly the most popular. People, especially boys, seemed to find her obsession with anime and all things Japanese strange. So did I, really, but I was more accepting of it. Seeing as I was one of the average members of our school, in both looks and grades, we were almost complete opposites. Actually, I wasn't even average in my grades. I was failing many of my classes this year, but not due to lack of knowledge. It was because of my tendency to be too tired to pay attention to what was going on.

Speaking of which-

"Hell-oo? Cheyanne? You still with us?" Gracie called in my ear.

"Uh- yeah. Sorry, I got distracted. What did you say?" She sighed.

"I asked why you aren't at school right now. Sensei wants to know."

"Gracie, please stop using Japanese in English sentences—"

"Aw, just answer the question!"

"Well, truth is I got even less sleep than usual last night so I feel like crap, but you can tell the teachers that I'm sick."

"You poor thing. Don't worry, I'll tell Mr. Foss that."

"Thanks, Gracie. That makes another coffee I owe you, doesn't it?"

"And don't you forget it! See you tomorrow, if you're feeling better."

I smiled. "See you," and pressed the "end call" button. Now that I had a moment to look at the screen of my phone, I noticed a new crack running through it, from the bottom-left corner to just past the middle of the screen. It was faint, but my guess was that it wouldn't be for long. It must have formed when I dropped it the other day. I sighed- I really didn't want to have to go out and get a new one. This phone had been my friend for five years now, and I liked it. It was a chunky flip phone, not old enough to be retro yet but it was old enough to look different. Hanging from it was a reference to one of my favourite video games- I black orb with silver swirls adorning it. Not many people tended to know what it was, which was a waste, but I still loved my mini black materia. I guess I didn't really have a choice whether or not to get a new phone. The ringer was broken, the camera was stuffed and I was pretty sure the screen was fucked now, too.

Oh well, I might as well go get one then, I thought with a sense of defeat. I couldn't keep my old phone forever. After all, I had the day off and if I went to the mall this early, I could get there before the morning rush that I hated so much.

Wasting no more time, I took my second trip down the corridor to the laundry room and pulled out my typical day outfit. A long sleeved white button-up went on in place of my t-shirt, and over that I put my favourite sweater… vest… thing. I didn't really know what to call it- it was like the beginnings of a v-neck sweater with the arms chopped off like a tank top. Gracie had affectionately dubbed it a "sweatervest." Whatever it was, I loved it. It was knitted, warm and baggy, the three things I loved most in clothing. I swiftly carried myself into the bathroom to fix my hair, only to be overjoyed that for once it didn't need it. My hair had dried just how I liked it- wavy and only a little bit frizzy. All I had to do was sweep my bangs into a side-fringe as I always did. I grabbed my foundation and tried hastily to cover up the bruise-like bags under my eyes, but to no avail. If anything, though, they looked less like I was an insomniac and more like I was just severely lacking in coffee. But it would have to do- if I remembered my timetable correctly; the bus would leave for the mall in five minutes. I applied some rushed eyeliner and bolted for the door, not forgetting to put on some shoes. I grabbed a pair of socks off the ground- they probably hadn't been washed since I had last worn them but I was in too much of a hurry to get a fresh pair. I slipped them on and shoved my feet into my favourite pair of checkered converses. I grabbed my knit beanie/cap from the hat-stand and messenger bag from beside the door before sprinting to the bus stop, conveniently located directly across the street from my house, where I could see the bus waiting.

I barely had time to get on, give the driver my bus fare and slump into the nearest seat before the bus set off again, and I was silently thankful of my ability to do things quickly when I needed to.

-x-

Red flip phone, silver slide phone, black touch screen, neon green designs, purple blackberry…

This was why I had procrastinated getting a new phone. There were far too many choices for something I only wanted to use for calling people.

The bus had arrived at the mall about twenty minutes ago, and I had wasted no time rushing for the nearest mobile store. I wasn't particularly fussy, so it didn't particularly matter where I went. In the store I had ended up in, there were a few I liked- but they were way too expensive for my price range. The shock of ginger hair and freckles that was the shop assistant seemed to notice my dilemma and came over to help me.

"Having trouble, miss?" he asked in that 'it's-way-too-early-for-me-to-be-doing-this-and-I-really-need-a-coffee-but-my-employer-will-be-mad-if-I-go-get-one' voice that I knew much too well.

"Yeah. I need a phone that isn't too expensive, not too complicated but still good enough quality to get everything I need done," I rattled off. The shop assistant blinked at me with brown eyes, and I took the time to notice the name on his tag, 'Matthew.' He blinked again.

"… I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" he asked. I sighed.

"I just need a good phone that isn't too expensive. Any recommendations?" Matthew just stared for a few seconds. I guess he wasn't much of a morning person.

"Um… Well… That's a pretty vague request there, since we have a lot of those, but… This type is good, I guess." I looked at the phone he pointed out. It was a black touch screen phone, around two-thirds the size of my PSP. The edges were rounded and the back was sleek and glossy. What's more, according to the price tag it was only seventy dollars if you switched to the plan of company that made it.

The thing that really got me, though, was the fact that it looked just like a DMW.

My sensible side told me it was much too flimsy and I'd break it in seconds. On the other hand, my sentimental fangirl side screamed at me to BUY IT!

"… Uh, I only know it's good because I've got one myself, though, so if you want to look around a bit more that's fine… um, miss? Helloo?"

"I'll take it," I decided. It looked good, and there was no reason for me to take any longer looking for a phone than I needed to. Plus it appealed to my complete and utter geekiness.

Matthew stared at me a few seconds. He seemed to do that a lot.

"Alright, then? Err… Let's see…" he mumbled, walking into a room behind the counter. When he emerged, he was holding a box, which I assumed, held my new phone in it. I fished my wallet, pulled out two fifties and handed them to Matthew the shop assistant. He shoved the cash unceremoniously into the register, handed me my change and printed the receipt, placing the box on the table.

That was when I realized something- I had been using the same phone for five years. In other words, I was pretty much technologically retarded when it came to post-2005 phones and had absolutely no idea how to use this new thing, much less how to set it up. I turned to Matthew, rubbing the back of my head sheepishly.

"Um… about this phone… I kinda have absolutely no idea how to set it up or use it. Err… I'll go get you a coffee if you help me with it?"

I didn't think I had ever seen a person's eyes light up that quickly. The redhead had in that instant, gone from 'I-really-fucking-need-caffiene-right-now-or-I'm-going-to-fall-asleep-on-my-feet' to 'oh-my-god-I-have-no-idea-who-you-are-but-I-love-you-for-that.'

"Seriously? You mean it?" he exclaimed, and I could almost see the stars sparkling in his eyes. I nodded.

"I would hug the life out of you right now if you weren't a complete stranger and it'd make me look like a super creep." I grinned at this.

"No problem, I was going to get one for me anyway. Besides, you'll be helping me with this. So, what do I get you?"

"Nothing special, just a cappuccino. I don't honestly don't care which shop you get it from, as long as it has caffeine," he told me, grinning practically ear-to-ear. "And while you're doing that, I'll set up that phone for you." I laughed nervously. Something about that grin creeped me out, but I must have been imagining the glint of evil in his eye.

It wouldn't be the first time I let my imagination get away from me with things like that anyway.

-x-

When I returned from the nearest Starbucks with two cups of hot coffee in my hands, Matthew was bent over my new phone at the cashier's desk, tapping away at it with a speed that I was sure would melt it if he continued like that for too long. At his side was, I noticed, my broken phone. It was missing the black materia phone charm, and I almost dropped the two coffees I was holding in shock.

Where was it?

Oh god, oh god, oh god, had I lost it? Had it hooked on something and been ripped off without myself realizing? Fuck! That thing had cost me—

When I realized it was hanging from my new phone, I let out a breath of relief. Retracing my footsteps to look for a small phone charm would have been a major pain. Matthew the shop assistant seemed to be particularly sensitive to the smell of hot, caffeinated beverages- roughly three seconds after I walked in his nose twitched and head shot up.

"… Coffee?" he questioned. The expression on his face reminded me of a small child who had just been given candy. Then again, he was, at that moment, the older equivalent of a child who had been given candy. I smiled and held up the crappy, flavoured Starbucks cappuccino for him, he practically dove for it. I watched in silent awe as he downed the scalding hot beverage in less than twenty seconds and tossed it into the trashcan behind the cash register.

"… You drink like a bloody fish," I deadpanned, sipping cautiously at my equally hot drink. It burned the roof of my mouth and I winced.

"After many years of waking up earlier than could possibly be healthy for a young person, I have trained myself not to be susceptible to heat from drinks," He 'explained.' It made absolutely no sense to me, anyway.

A few minutes of silence ensued, only broken by Matthew tapping on my phone. Eventually, he held it up to me with a grin.

"Done," he proclaimed with a proud expression. "I also sort of went through your old phone and copied all your contacts into it. Hope you don't mind…" The sheepish look on his face told me that he was starting to doubt whether what he had done was a good idea.

Well. This was new to me. I wasn't used to people doing more than what they were asked for me, so I didn't know how to react. Smile. Say thanks. Act polite! I commanded myself, willing the corners of my mouth to turn up into a thankful sort of expression.

"I don't mind. Thank you!"

His sheepish expression morphed into one of relief. "Well, then. That's good. By the way, black materia? Nice," he grinned. This time it was my turn to blink at him disbelievingly.

"You're a geek too?" I questioned jokingly. He smiled.

"And proud of it!" Matthew answered, well… proudly. "Hey, this thing was hand-crafted, right?" he questioned, holding the little charm to his face.

"Yeah, I had it commissioned. Cost me a pretty penny, though."

"How much?"

"… Thirty-five bucks."

"For a little thing like this? Ouch."

"Yeah."

There was an awkward pause for a while, I took the break in conversation to look through the touch screen. I clicked the contacts first and skimmed though them quickly to make sure I had all of them, then punched in my new number as a new contact. I had a different sim card now, so that meant another number to remember. After a few seconds a new contact labeled "Me". I sucked at remembering phone numbers. A couple of minutes of surfing through my phone's functions later I decided I was done.

Turn to Matthew, smile, be grateful.

"I think I better get going now," I told him. He smiled.

"Aww, leaving so soon?" he asked jokingly, a strange glimmer in his eyes.

O-kay, unexplainable creeping feeling just rose twenty percent.

"Yeah, I have to go grocery shopping," I lied, sticking my tongue out with a bored expression. Rule number one of leaving in my world: use an excuse, doesn't matter if it's made up or not.

I need to lie less.

"Ah, gotcha. Er… have fun?" I grinned, creeping feeling had to be just my imagination.

"I'll try. Every day's an adventure." Roll eyes. Grin. Enjoy expression on shop assistant's face- he was kind of cute when you looked past some of the more obvious imperfections.

"By the way, my name's Cheyanne. It was nice meeting you!"

"Matthew. See you around, Cheyanne."

It only hit me a while after I'd left the shop, halfway home on the bus I finally realised…

He'd had my phone at the counter, and I wasn't talking about the new one. I never gave him my phone. I'd had it in my back pocket, and I would have noticed if I'd dropped it. So that meant…

Okay, maybe my creeping feeling had been justified.

-x-

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully for me. I ate the breakfast that I'd forgotten to have, reluctantly did some homework and turned a door-to-door salesman away. I had lunch and sat in my room playing Final Fantasy IX for an hour or two… or three- I wasn't sure, I always lost track of time when I played that thing. I took my two dogs for a walk before it got too dark and when I got back I made my dad and I's dinner- Well… breakfast, in his case. I swore my dad would turn into an owl at this rate and become permanently nocturnal. He actually looked a little like an owl, too; slicked-back hair (usually messy by the end of his shift, though), sort of rigid way of standing and his glasses had large, round lenses which made his eyes look a bit larger than normal. If I wasn't his kid, I'd most likely be a bit weirded out by him. But I was his daughter, so all was well, good and as normal as it would get.

"Speak of the Devil and he shall appear," was that the saying? Well, it wasn't as accurate as it could be in this situation- I hadn't verbally spoken of him and my father certainly wasn't the Devil- but lo and behold, dear old Dad was shambling through the door, obviously lured here by the smell of my "wonderful" mac and cheese.

Don't get me wrong, I could cook better than plain old macaroni. I just hadn't felt like really… doing much for dinner that day. I set a plate of it down in front of him as he flopped into his seat, still yawning. Obviously my father wasn't much of a morning person. I used the term "morning" loosely, though. According to the digital clock on our outdated microwave it was seven-thirty pm.

"Mm. Smells good…" my dad mumbled. I rolled my eyes.

"C'mon, Dad, wake up a little. You've got to be at work in what, an hour?" I scolded. He answered with another yawn and a quick apology. I directed my eyes to the ceiling again. Sigh. Clumsy and slightly irresponsible father… it was a mystery to me how he ever managed to become a nurse.

We ate our food in comfortable silence, the only sounds to be heard were the slight scraping noises of forks against plates and the constant, quiet drone that were the cars passing on the road outside. Same old, same old.

After a while, we set our cutlery down and Dad rose from the table, stretching his arms out like he'd just woken up then instead of twenty minutes ago.

"Welp, I'm gonna go take a shower and head off to work. Thanks for the breakfast-slash-dinner," he smiled. I grinned at him.

"Don't fall asleep in the shower." He groaned.

"You're never going to let that go, are you…"

"Not a chance. Have a nice night at work, Dad." He leaned over and kissed my forehead.

"Will do. Don't worry, I'll return with all the gruesome and gory details of whatever surgery I have to help with and whisper it in your ear while you sleep." This time it was my turn to groan.

"Seriously, Dad, don't. I'd wake up and be sick all over you… and my sheets." He rolled his eyes in good humor.

"Really, how did I ever raise such a squeamish girl. Hope you feel better for school tomorrow."

"I hope so, too."

-x-

Trying to fall asleep night after night is easy for most people. Unfortunately I wasn't "most people." I was myself, and myself just happened to be a scaredy-cat, paranoid insomniac with a video game addiction. So falling asleep was much harder for me than most other people.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

And there was the ticking that drove me close to insane every night. I really needed to switch to a digital clock.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

I tried to ignore it and fall asleep.
Two minutes.
Five minutes.
Thirty.

Nope, not working. I turned over into another position, one where I was more comfortable.

Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
An hour.

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

One in the morning and I was still lying wide awake. It looked like I wasn't about to get much (if any at all) sleep that night, either. I was thankful that this happened often enough that the hysteria had worn off. When this insomnia had first started, I had stayed up staring at the clock until exactly one o' clock, when the fit of hysteria hit me. I had been around thirteen at the time, and just recently gone through a "severe mental trauma", as the psychologist put it. Even though it had been five years since, I still didn't like to think about it.

Eventually the clock hit three in the morning, and I resigned myself to what was sure to be another sleepless night.

-x-