Daughter of the Earth
Prologue
Disclaimer: Any characters, settings or events mentioned from FF7 belong to squaresoft. Yshera, Hunter and any forecoming characters I devise belong to me.
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"Run! Come on, hurry up!"
Ifalna let out a fatigued shriek as her feet pounded through the soft snow, sending up small flurries behind her. She didn't dare slow to look behind her, but she knew that she would be overtaken soon.
As was the way of the chase, reality seemed a distant memory. Sight was lost in a blur of white and black, and in her panic, all she heard was the sound of her companion urging her on in front of her and the Hunter behind.
She screamed as she felt cold hands grasp at her shirt and brush her flesh, and she tried to leap away, but the Hunter pulled her back cruelly. She fell to the snow with enough impact to send a flash of pain into her head, and she lay on her back, too scared to move, with the Hunter holding her shirt up so that the snow reached up and chilled her freezing skin.
Harsh black eyes gazed down at her from behind the black hair and sinister expression of her stalker, and at the sight of those sadistic optics, Ifalna began struggling again, kicking and jumping about like a netted animal.
A gloved fist rose up and an intense force hit her in the face, stunning her and sending a flash of agony throughout her. Another scream pierced through the snowy darkness.
The face of the Hunter was adorned with a small smile that didn't reach those vicious eyes, and Ifalna couldn't fight back as he hauled her to her feet forcefully. Once she stood, Hunter's hand went to his hip, and with liquid fluidity, the detached coldness of a gun struck the side of Ifalna's head.
"Stop." He said to Ifalna's companion, and his voice was completely deadpan. "Come over here with your hands up and she won't be hurt."
In front of her, Ifalna's cohort – a Cetra named Yshera - stopped and didn't move, his eyes flickering uncertainly.
There was the sound of a blast, and though she felt nothing, Ifalna saw the blood splash out, covering her in sticky warmth. It took her a very long time to see that she was not injured, though Hunter's grasp on her loosened.
Another thunderlike shot sliced through the silence of the snowy night, and Ifalna bolted in terror, though the movement was completely involuntary. Once her legs stopped running, she turned slowly and her eyes bulged as hysterical screams erupted from her throat.
The Hunter's eyes were huge and rolled back, his mouth agape, and a steady flow of blood gushed from his lips. In his neck was a small bullet-hole.
Ifalna fell to the snow, unable to stop her banshee screaming as the horrific image remained burned in her mind. Yshera ran over to her and knelt beside her, stroking her back desperately. "Shh, quiet now! It's alright…"
Finally the cries turned into heavy pants which Ifalna tried desperately to staunch, and she began to feel faint. She hardly heard Yshera as he spoke to her. Her eyelids began to slide closed, and she was falling, slipping away…
She looked up through half-closed eyes, and she saw a man looking down at her, a shotgun hanging loosely in his hands and fire in his eyes.
She tried to scream, tried to cling to some safety, but the effort was lost in the darkness as she was thrown headlong into a deep sleep.
**
A/N: Though this first chappy of the story was short and kinda sucky, the rest, I hope, will be better. Thank you for reading.
