A low, dim light fell over the quiet town of Kalm. The centre of town was eerily quiet, only a small handful of citizens were out of their homes and they moved as if hunted by something far bigger and more powerful than themselves. Nobody wanted to be outdoors when the sun went down. Not anymore. Not since the Ascension. God now walked the earth, and he was a dark, terrible god. A god with a single wing, a wicked blade and a name; Sephiroth.
The sky had turned an unsettling gray on the night of the Ascension and it seemed to the people of Kalm that it had never regained it's light. People dreamt of blue skies but awoke to swirling storm clouds more often than not. Foolish people whispered that the swirling clouds had eyes, ever watchful for signs of disobedience. Rarely were those people seen again. Ever since the night the meteor had fallen from the heavens, life had changed significantly.
The silence that permeated through Kalm was shattered momentarily by the barking of a dog. The pooch was standing at attention, ears pointed straight up. An old man, the dogs master presumably, pulled the dog away from the window. He didn't know what the dog was seeing or smelling, but he was sure it wasn't good. Briefly peeking out the window, the old man saw something small falling from the sky, almost like a shooting star except for the sickly green glow trailing behind it. The old man quickly closed his curtains and preyed silently that the dog hadn't attracted the angles attention.
The old man had only seen an angel once, the night following the fall of the meteor. That same eerie green glowing light had flashed in the sky against the dark clouds and moments later a man was standing in the centre of town. For a moment hope had fluttered through the old man on fragile butterfly wings. He had recognized the tall man with the dark skin and the heavy machine gun in place of his right arm. He'd travelled through the town not long ago with a small group of what the old man suspected were the terrorists he'd heard about from Midgar, the ones calling themselves Avalanche. It only took a moment for the hope to be crushed by fear.
The man with the machine gun had came to inform the people of Kalm that he had been chosen to be an angel, a servant to the god Sephiroth. He was a messenger from the heavens and his message was; obey or perish. Confusion and panic tore through the small town at the angels message. Half the town cowered in fear, the other rebelled. The ringleader of the chaos, just a boy really, had rallied the bravest amongst them to storm the "so-called" angel. What followed couldn't be called a battle. The dark angel barely raised an eyebrow, but he did raise his arm cannon and blast the poor boy into the next world. The boys mothers cry cut through the night, bringing a sudden halt to the short lived riot. The boys corpse was lifted into the air by some invisible force, tearing it from the mothers grasp. The body hung there, suspended by some invisible hook it seemed, rotating ever so slowly. The angel said no more; his message had been received loud and clear. In a flash of green light, the angel vanished. The boys corpse remained there for a full day and night before it, too, suddenly vanished.
Ever since that night, the citizens of Kalm had spoken in hardly more than whispers. Businesses closed overnight. The peaceful town of Kalm, which the old man had lived in his entire life and had never yearned to leave suddenly became a prison. He didn't leave his home unless it was unavoidable, or as was becoming more and more frequent, decided to spend the night at the bar. The drink calmed his nerves, stopped his hands from shaking, at least for a little while.
One night at the bar he'd overheard a conversation that chilled him to his core. A crowd of young folk were crowded around this man, urging him to tell his story. Other people sitting at the bar decided that they were better off not being apart of any dangerous talk, but he old man noticed the way their heads tilted towards the sound of the mans voice. Heck, he was doing it himself.
The one talking was a youngish man with a shock of crimson red hair. He carried himself with the air of someone who glided through life, but the shadows under his eyes and the uneasy glances towards the door hinted at a fear he wasn't accustomed to. The young man, Reno, he learned later, had travelled from Midgar. There were a lot more people in the metropolis than there were in sleepy Kalm, and information apparently more plentiful.
According to Reno, the person who'd proclaimed himself God was none other than the legendary hero and SOLDIER 1st Class; Sephiroth. The old man had guessed that much, after all Sephiroth wasn't a very common name, but what had come as a chilling surprise was that the angel serving Sephiroth was in fact a member of Avalanche who'd failed to stop the insane SOLDIER and as a result had become his brainwashed slave. According to Reno, there were seven angels roaming the planet, doing their dark gods bidding, whatever that was, all previously members of Avalanche. The dark skinned man with the machine gun for an arm was called Barret, and was apparently often sighted in Midgar, seemingly searching for someone. He was sometimes accompanied by a beautiful, terrifying woman with long, dark hair. Reno said her name was Tifa, and she was once a sweet, strong-willed woman who he'd admired despite being an adversary of sorts.
News of others angels was harder to come by, but there had been reports that the night the angel Barret had appeared in Kalm, other towns had been received the same message Kalm had from other angels. Cosmo Canyon had apparently been visited by a beast with orange fur with the voice of a man. Rocket Town had been shaken by the appearance of Cid Highland, a local hero, apparently corrupted. Wutai had been visited by a young ninja girl who'd slain her own father in a show of force. The people of North Coral spoke in hushed tones of a devil in a red cloak. A man from Nibelheim had told Reno that a spiky haired youth with blond hair and a vicious, gigantic sword had appeared that night, but unlike the other reports of angels appearing and disappearing in flashes of green light, the blond man, after delivering his message, had simply walked towards Shinra Manor and had never come out. Shadows could been seen moving in the windows of the manor, but no one had dared approach it.
Downing his drink, the old man decided he'd heard enough and headed home. He didn't want to be around if, as he suspected, the angels had heard everything Reno had said. The boys corpse floating above his head still lingered in his mind whenever a dangerous thought entered his head. The planet was under new management, and as far as the old man was concerned, it wasn't like to change anytime soon. He only hoped his death would be painless, and would free him from the horror of this new reality.