Prelude

The little boy didn't notice the man in the red coat, standing like a statue amidst the teaming crowd waiting outside the Zanarkand Stadium. In his exhilaration, the little boy barely even noticed his father and brother beside him. He bounced on the balls of his feet, his small body humming with excitement. All he could actually see were long legs and bright clothes, but he was part of the crowd, like a cell in a huge body. He didn't think the noise could get much louder but he was proved wrong when the world exploded into screams and cheers. He tried jumping but still could not crest the sea of backs and shoulders he was looking at.

Two large hands grabbed him suddenly around the waist and hoisted him up into the air. He landed on his father's broad shoulders and suddenly he could see to the end of the world, or so it seemed. His small, tireless fingers tapped a rapid cadence along the sides of his father's goggles while he strained his own goggles to magnify the walk in the distance.

He saw hands waving and he followed the hands down to arms and the arms to shoulders and heads. Then he saw him, toward the end of the team line. A head of spiky blond hair, a flash of blue eyes and a huge million-gil grin to go with it all.

"I can see him, Vydran! I can see him!" the boy cried out. His father patted his leg and his big brother stuck his tongue out.

The Abes were his favorite team even though they only had two Engineer players. His father and brother were rooting for the other team but they allowed him to favor the Abes. He was young. He didn't know any better.

He waved his hands frantically, trying to get his favorite player's attention but he was only lost in the crush of adoring faces and Tidus passed into the stadium doors without noticing his number one fan. That was okay. Surely he'd notice on his way back out, after the Abes had won the title.

It seemed like forever but the crowd finally began to move toward the front gates of the stadium. The boy clutched his ticket tightly as he hummed to himself. After longer yet, their tickets were finally taken and they head for their seats.

Big brother got food and they all snacked. Then, in a burst, the music began. Machinery began to move and whirl as the water-harnessing began. Father explained what was happening as it happened. It was only right as father was an Engineer and machines were what people in his class did.

The boy tried to pay attention to the mechanics. Engineering was his future after all, but he could only see magic in how the water splashed and churned and filled the invisible sphere with liquid. The players stepped up to the platforms, all on one gigantic ring that ran the circumference of the water field, waiting for the game to start.

Stats were read off amidst advertisements and the players took a breath and stepped into the sphere. They swam to their own sides and entered formation. A huge siren ripped through the stadium. The game was on.

It was amazing. The Abes scored on the Duggles within moments to the upset of the crowd. The Engineer team from C-South were kicked into high gear then, realizing that the Abes were playing for keeps. For the next four minutes, they kept the blitzball on the run until the Abes won it back.

The boy recognized the set up almost before anyone else. He saw Benther, the Abes forward, to a two and a half spin and shoot the blitzball straight up. Tidus moved at the same time, speed swimming for the pole of the sphere faster than seemed possible. The ball broke the sphere before him, shooting up into the sky, water spraying off it's blue and white skin.

Tidus breeched the water and flipped in the air, his shooting foot moving up to met the blitzball on it's way back down after gravity assumed control again. It would have been the perfect shot.

Then the world exploded.

The sound drowned out the boy's screams along with the cries of all in the stadium. It might have been a bomb, the way the ground shook and the tallest pillars exploded into the finest bits of dust.

People were running before they even realized they were scared. He felt his father grab him and turn. In a moment of clarity, the boy strained to look for Tidus who had, moments ago, been up in midair. He didn't see his favorite player, but he did see the water sphere disintegrating, the players inside desperately swimming for the ring. They wouldn't make it.

What followed was a blur. The boy was carried by his father and he saw his brother beside them. But somewhere in the chaos, big brother was lost. Father stopped and cried from him but his fear went unnoticed in the stampede around them.

Outside the stadium, buildings were falling like rain, raindrops of stone crushing entire groups of people. Father fell once and the boy tumbled to the ground, scrapping his hands against broken glass and concrete. Before he could cry in pain, father grabbed him up by the back of his tunic and they were off again.

Only once did the boy raise his eyes and he would forever wish he hadn't. Around him was war and destruction. Around him was Armageddon. People screaming, crying, dying. And in the sky floated death: a sphere a hundred times larger than any water field. From inside the sphere shot pulses and flashes, the center of the assult on Zanarkand.

Something crashed down right beside them and the boy was thrown to the ground again. This time he picked himself up and turned to his father. He was no where to be seen.

Suddenly, his fear of dying gave way to the only fear more terrifying for a child: the fear of being lost.

"Vydram? Vydran!?" his bloody fingers scrambled as his face and ripped the goggles off to clear his vision. "VYDRAN!?!" he screamed into the smoke.

In the second before the parapet hit him, the boy saw part of his father, crushed beneath a blitzball statute of Jecht, the most famous Blitzer of all time. Then all he knew was a pain in his knees and nothing below them. All he saw was smoke and darkness. Then, darkness was all there was.