Wow… my first FF7 fic… I'm sorta intimidated but I think I'll get over it here in a second…….Ok now I am! Please, review! I accept constructive criticism but no flames, please; I don't enjoy the smell of smoke! Moving on! BTW, I do not own any Final Fantasy games, characters, or even any of the other things such as authors, books, etc that are mentioned in this fic. Really, I just own the main character, Mia.

Chapter 1 Through the Rabbit Hole

My eyes quickly scanned the words across the pristine white pages of the new book I just bought last month. I had already read it twice but there wasn't a problem with reading a 360 page book three times in only two months, was it? Okay, so maybe I don't have a life, but that's no reason to not read a very well written book. The real sad thing about it though, was that it was depriving me from the world of my cherished videogames/movies/etc.

That was yet another thing that distracted me from reality. Videogames had become quite a hobby of mine in the past, well, I'm not sure but I'm guessing about… since I could use my thumbs to press A. Yeah, so you can kind of sum up the fact that I'm destined to be a shut-in with lots of cats and videogames once I'm finished with college. In fact, I can tell you now that videogames take up about 60% of my time.

What takes up the rest of it you may, or may not, ask? Let's see, reading takes up almost the rest of it then, the other 1% is the necessities: sleeping, eating, making good (enough) grades so I don't get kicked out of college. That's the sort of things that I usually partake in.

Sadly, though, I have just found a new love in the a new series of books. The twisted, yet humorful (yes, I just said humorful) works are very intriguing and I can relate to them better than almost any other book ever did for me. As much as I love it, it has been distracting me from finishing Final Fantasy XII which I was in the middle of before buying my latest book. Plus, I had been on a role of watching Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children at least once a week but that also came to a screeching halt when I picked upthe first installment of the seriesabout six months ago.

Also, sadly, reading and walking isn't a very good idea because when you're so immersed in such a great piece of literature you tend to forget to watch which way traffic's going in the parking lot. That's about when I decided to take the book out from my nose to discover the trio of cars in my path. One had stopped just in time from hitting me and they were all honking very noisily at me. All I could do was shout apologies and run as quickly as I could to the side walk which I had strayed from so long ago.

I was able to reach my dorm room without any further deadly encounters and as soon as I flopped on my bed I pulled my book back out and began to delve even more into the story. On reflex, one of my fingers pressed the "on" button to my tiny TV because I ilke having a little noise. It came on with some dramatic movie playing on the Lifetime channel. I ignored the sounds of people confessing their love to each other and went back to the wonders of the fictional world that is literature.

After an extravagantly long time of reading I finally encountered the last page of the book forcing me to put it down and face the real world once more… Which is no fun at all but I guess we all have to deal with it.

I looked up to see another movie on with yet another scene of love confessing and the romantic goop that goes with it. I wasn't too familiar with dating because I never had anyone ask me out at High School because I was such a loner. Sure, I wasn't the ugliest girl or the meanest chick, but people always looked at me weird because I never wanted to "hang out" with anyone. That left me a lot of time to spend by myself reading or playing videogames, but since people today are shallow and insecure, I got teased a lot for my nerdy demeanor. Which brings us back to the subject of "love"… yeah, it's shallow and insecure in my eyes like the rest of those people who said I would never be able to pick up a guy if I was too busy picking up books and videogames…. Their loss!

While gagging myself a bit over the love scene, I quickly changed the channel to something more entertaining: mindless, violent, and oh-so addicting cartoons! Since there was nothing on, though, I decided to reacquaint myself with the world of DVD's! Mainly being (you guessed it) Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I popped the DVD into my laptop and plugged my earphones in so I could have complete privacy while watching my favorite movie of all time. Nothing was going to interrupt this glorious two and a half hours because I had no idea how long I had gone without watching it (I was on the verge of having withdrawals). I nestled onto my bed and made myself as comfy as possible while the FBI warnings took there time in telling me not to do this or that.

After sitting through the credits (yes, I actually take the time to do that) I let the DVD go back to the menu and I exited out of the window to look at my plain computer background. I don't usually bother to put anything on the background but it was about time I needed to. Just a plain, blue screen starts to look boring if you look at it everyday.

Just when I pulled up the Internet I heard the rumble of a storm begin to stir outside. I could already see the lightning flash before I had time to go to Google images. Since the lightning never pertained to me, I just kept going. I looked up some images of Final Fantasy VII and found a pleasant one of Sephiroth and posted it as my background.

While I was admiring my new, and rather hot, background a pop-up ad interrupted my moment. "Are you ready?" it read. I didn't know what the heck it was for but I exited out of it anyway. I hated pop-up ads and I was almost certain that my virus-scanner was supposed to block them.

There must've been some tech-angel watching out for me because right when I shut down my laptop the power in the dormitory became non-existent. I heard several squeals from all of the other girls who must not have put up whatever electronic item before the power went out. That made me want to get my broom out of my closet again and bang the roof… again… because apparently, the girl who lives above me didn't know the meaning of "try not to panic when the lights go out" whenever she went to freshman orientation.

Power-outs were quite common but some girls weren't very mature about them. Usually they'll go wandering around banging on other dorm doors or they'll start panicking like there's no tomorrow. I usually just follow what's advised and stay where I am until the lights come back on. There is also the instance where I'm about to beat a boss on a videogame and the power decides to quit… that's whenever I become immature and start yelling profane language while throwing the remote controller at my TV. Fun times…

This time, I decided it would be a good moment to go to the grocery store to pick up some candy seeming how I was low on food. I grabbed my purse (which was more of a canvas piano bag) and pawed for my flashlight in the dark and left after locking my door.

Other girls were wandering the halls with their flashlights on and I had to give a couple of them a death-glare whenever they shined their light in my face. I made my way down a couple of flights of stares (quite loudly to add, only to evoke more screams from more of the immature girls) and out to the parking lot where my old, beat up car waited for me.

The engine came to life after I turned the car on and right when I was backing out it suddenly died on me. I was left in the driver's seat trying my best to crank the 1987 model back up but only to fail. My dictionary turned colorful, at the moment, and I only sat there banging my head against the steering wheel. Finally, I decided to try it one more time and it came to life. I praised my car a few times before speeding to the grocery store which was located off-campus.

It was dark and it was raining, but I decided to take a couple of back-roads anyway. I always liked taking them as long as a deer didn't hit my car. It had little traffic but it required a little more caution. Caution was the least thing I used on the road so I speeded down the pour asphalt anyway.

That was when my car died……again… it came to a sliding stop and I had to press my brakes just to actually bring it to a stop. I heard a loud thump and felt one side of my car go considerably lower than the rest. My tire had run off the shoulder and I automatically knew I was stranded.

Of course…. This was just my luck… I tried my cell phone but it had no signal whatsoever and it was also low on battery.

"GREAT!!!" I shouted at nothing, "JUST FLIPPIN' GREAT!!!"

I banged my fists on the steering wheel to no avail. I would have to wait until the storm cleared up which was probably going to be in the morning so I locked the car doors, leaned the seat back, and prepared for a long night in the middle of the woods… alone… in the dark… with nothing but old newspapers and window chalk (multiple college pranks…) to defend myself with…

"I wanna go home!" I whined like a child. Then my mind began to wander which isn't a very good thing when you're stranded. I thought about the pop-up add on my computer. Could it have predicted this? Or could it have been something worse yet to come?

My eyes darted from window to window in my car, just in case. The rain was finally starting to come down which helped me feel calmer. I squirmed a bit in my seat to find a comfortable position and finally sat still. My eyes began to close on their own and I soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

Little did I know the madness that awaited me……

Yay! It's finished! Sorry if it was a little cliché for a beginning but I couldn't think of anything that would end Mia up in… well… you know! But, hey, it coulda been worse! Anyhoo, please review! Please PLEASE review! I accept constructive criticism with open arms, but like what I said above: no flames, people! It's my first Final Fantasy VII fic anyway! And to my past readers: I am not dedicating chapters but I do want reviews anyway! It encourages me to update!

Later! ;)

Ninja Cat of Light