Run Away Now, Perspective
A look into Celes's mind after the end of the world, the only world she knew.
It had started to rain, making the heavens moan and the earth shutter underneath the downpour. Somehow, it seemed like an eon since the last rain shower, and Celes sat in the chair at her desk, thinking about how perhaps the weather may bring more fish to the surface, or perhaps scare them away.
Those days, she only thought of fish, vegetation that did not look poisonous, and how her gag reflex was getting better as she learned little tricks to make gutting fish more bearable.
She had been taught how to survive in the wilds on her own back in the days when she had that beautifully soft four poster bed with the satin sheets, and the mindset that she would never have to use the training, for long anyway.
The stack of slightly moldy paper at her fingers looked inviting, the inkwell was closed tightly to prevent any loss because for them, ink was rare. Cid had told her that the other survivors used a lot of their supply writing letters to loved ones, but never sent them because the birds on the island were not trained to be letter carriers. She read through those letters in the little box under the bed while her Grandad was asleep, taking notes unconsciously about what lovers think, how mothers feel as they wonder whether their children are even alive, and how losing friends can make people desperate.
Somehow, hopelessness and uneventful days turn people to the mountains, where a cliff is just the right height to leap off of; where it is acceptable to die.
A sideways glance showed the musty bed in the corner of the tiny house that creaked as Granddad moved over to face the wall, a cough escaping his chest in his sleep. His quiet snoring resumed, sounding a bit labored and wheezy.
Celes let her fingertips brush against the edge of the papers, wincing when they sliced open her skin. She brought her finger to her mouth to suck on, easing the little cut.
Somehow, that little twinge of pain made her brain kick on, making her push back her chair and stand up, moving to the door that always let in a draft.
"I need to go fetch some fish, I'm getting hungry," she thought as the first rain drops struck her face.
Celes never expected that the world would end, nor did she expect to ever survive the end. In her mind, the end meant that she would die along with everything else; it only made sense. In the dense underbrush of yellowing grasses and dying weeds, her white boots fumbled to find footing, she took a mental note that the ground was very uneven.
"I wonder if everywhere else is like this."
The skies remained a reddish-orange color from the day Kefka ripped the world asunder, Cid mentioned a few hours after she woke up from what felt like her century sleep.
They had spent a long time talking. Just talking to each other. Cid told her everything he knew about the world since that day. The birds and animals seemed to be dying of despair, the fish were struggling, the crops withered, and even the insects fought to find sustenance. The others who were left on the little island with them knew nothing more than they were separated from their loved ones. Many of them could simply not accept that the world had ended, and others just drifted along until they died alone in depression.
"And how did you manage to not give in to sadness?" she had asked after Cid finished the story.
"Well," he sighed, rubbing his eyes, "I had you."
"Me?"
"I took care of you for an entire year. Before that, I was your doctor in the Empire, remember? When you were a little girl, you would cry and hug me when I had to give you shots and take blood. You always came crying to me or Leo, never anybody else."
Celes smiled a little at the memories of Cid singing her to sleep before an operation and holding her as she wept.
"I always thought of you as my father, and Leo as an uncle or older brother..."
"And I always thought of you as a daughter, or even a granddaughter," Cid said gently, patting her hair with a wrinkled hand.
Now at the seashore, Celes slipped out of her boots and left them neatly on the sand. The beach felt nice between her toes, and felt just like she remembered a beach should feel.
"At least this has not changed," she whispered, lifting her cape as she walked along the shore. The waters broke and crashed on the rocks, causing spray to splash her. The blonde laughed, teetering sideways to escape more of the foam. A wrong step sent her toppling over on to her side, sand flew up with her feet, and her laughter echoed off the rocks of the mountain that lined one end of the beach. As the young woman calmed down, her stomach aching from her first bought of laughing in over a year, she saw the sky above. Rain fell softly.
"It almost looks blue today."
A sea bird glided overhead, letting out a caw, and made Celes' heart pound in her ears.
"Locke...where are you?" she said, unable to control the words that spilled from her lips, "Why do birds always remind me of him?"
On the beach she remained, moving her limbs across the soft sands, taking in the sensations, trying to once more feel like she once felt: alive.