"Making amends is much harder than it seems."

One glance around her apartment and you could tell that she lived alone. It was too neat, too feminine. But it was a sparse feminity, for the place was a dump. They used to call such living, the slums, but this was a time where the slums didn't exist. Now this was simply living, simply breathing.

A single wind chime blew in the faint breeze. Without the rest of the pipes it made no sound, silent and ghostly in the sunset.

Another glance would reveal that she had been purging something from her life. Cut up photographs and shredded daisies. Ashes and garbage cans loaded with address book pages. Strange scribblings on the wall, with names and dates. Birthdays forgotten or obituaries just read. The names were so common these days.

A closer look might reveal the occupant, if not for our intrusion. But there's not much else work for unemployed assasins but snooping and killing. Less killing, surprisingly, since the world itself does such a good job. But snooping is best done while their not home. Common sense, really.

We hunt ghosts down, mostly, those dead beat men and women who decided to leave whatever wanted to hold onto them because they thought the world was ending. Stupid idea if you ask me. But no one ever asks, do they?

"Get a load of this!" one of my associates says, holding up some half-burned doll, "Voodoo?" I inspect it, and it's just a child's toy. He was never a bright person, but he has a knack for finding the vital clue. The skeleton. The weapon. The ghost.

The young one is nervous. She always is. After she found her whole family dead, from one of these ghosts... it changes things. She doesn't talk now. She cut her own tongue out one night, when we weren't watching her. Damn rookie, doing a fool thing like that.

"Find anything interesting?" I ask her, and her empty brown eyes look up at me, formulating the answer. Being completely mute makes her think more, I can tell. She has to use her "words" carefully. Didn't even have a chance to properly learn sign language or anything. She just draws in the air, like people do when they tell stories to children.

She makes a cross with her fingers. She found something that scares her. No surprise.

She hands me the paper, and goes back to staring vacantly around the apartment.

No consequences. Can you imagine? When you're dead, nothing matters. But I wanted to find you, Elena. Do you still wear your hair the way you used to? Do you still hide niners under that suit and tie?

I had read enough. Seems like we'd found a ghost collector. Never a good thing. Those were almost worse than the ghosts themselves. Find any piece of writing they could that came from "the beyond" as they called it these days. For spiritualism was in, since they saw flaming death in the sky. Foolish people, really. They didn't realize it would be worse that the world didn't get destroyed.

Call me a pessimist, but you haven't seen what I've seen.

"God damn," the talkative one speaks, no surprise, he's stumbling unwittingly into some horrific piece of information, certainly. Either that or he's stubbing his cigarettes in his arms again. I have to watch that sometimes.

"What is it, Reno?" I ask, knowing that a recitation of his own name will bring him out of whatever infinite loop his brain is stuck in. That, and he hates it when I use his name. Prefers our handles now, which keep us safe. For the ghost collectors keep names, loads of names, waiting for that right moment...

"It's fucking goddamn collector!" he shouts, probably a little too loud. The owner of this domain will come home soon if he keeps that up.

"I know," I reply, hopefully he'll shut up, "Got Chirpy's name in a note over there." That's what we called her, cause she was so chatty. And she had the most impossibly yellow hair. Reminded Reno of a canary, and called her Chirpy cause she used to get angry. Not a fitting name anymore, since she dyed her hair into a mess of black and blue, and cut her tongue out. Not really funny anymore. But we have handles to go by. Names are dangerous.

My instinct was to check out the bedroom, since most collectors have fetish issues. But this bitch doesn't have one, must sleep in a basket or something. So I snoop around some more, hoping to come up with something.

And then I notice one of the names on the wall, clear as day. A girl I used to follow, back when I had a decent job. A personal obsession, if you will. I didn't know if she's a ghost or not, but she'll be one, either alive or dead. Cause she's on this collector's wall with a date next to it.

"Tifa Lockhart – 11/13"

But it's already January, beginning of the year. But there's no year specified, no indication that she's still around. I'd feel a little pity for her, but there's on thing I know about collectors. They're just. To a fault, really, considering they destroy anything that is evil. Anything. And since evil had become such a loose term, you can imagine the rate of death to birth changing.

Chirpy's gesturing to me frantically. I get the feeling I'm being watched, and I hate that feeling. It's the very reason I hate this planet. This world. I'm a survivor, which means I'm in Hell. But I have a job to do, and if I happen to get killed in the process, I'm quite willing to volunteer. Cause Chirpy may be mute, and Red burns himself with whatever he can get a hold of, but I'm the normal one. Suicide in the line of duty is a far more noble cause. Or so the movies they used to show us said.

I've been thinking too long, cause Chirpy's not gesturing anymore. She's got a look like she's pissing her pants or something.

Oh, fuck. The devil's come a calling.

Dead, right? Unfortunately no. He sated his lust for killing with the second wave. He'd become a kind of the poster boy for this brave new world, with his looks and infamous statis. Shows up at random times, as a messenger of sorts. He's a corpse that just won't die, looking for different missing parts of his body. Got most of them, I hear.

"Hello Ruddard," he says to me, with a hissing type of voice that demands respect and awe. I got over that after I saw him with that hero boy. That kid kicked his ass good. Should have deflated that perfect villain ego he has. But the heroes left with the third wave, taking Tifa and whatever chance civilization had. Left us all to fend for ourselves in the blast zone.

"What do you want, Sephiroth?" I reply, not in the mood for one of his games. He never got over his taste for puppetry and domination, that's for sure. Had ole Red and Chirpy in his strings for some time now, coaxing them with that stupid pretty boy appearance he has. Deviance has become such a norm that I can't even remember what unsullied human relations are anymore.

"Checking on things, Rude" he replies, smug and confident despite the face he's still missing three fingers and one ear, "Tending the puppets with care." Chirpy's got that long on her face again, the one she used to give the boss. Red does too, but he's more subtle.

I wish the dead would just stay dead. But the gateway's been opened, and it's hard to tell who's alive anymore.

I just wanted to make amends with you... return the love I got from you...

Shit. The collector's back. Sephiroth set this up. Only they sing the same tired old songs, like damn records. Like they forgot that things like that don't exist anymore. That when the heroes shut down the reactors, the real threats came out. Seems that mako and materia and the like weren't killing the planet after all. It was keeping the dead back, keeping the gateway closed.

Cause all the damned planet wants to do is add more dead to her store. More souls, more power.

Do you want to see through my eyes... do you want to see the surprise...

I didn't resist her soon enough, and now I'm probably going to have to watch her lists... not again, not again...

Lists... I need names... what were their names? Oh, but I know, I know one right away.

Cloud.

The stream of concious from a collector is scattered but as soon as the name is pronounced, you know that person is dead, and I envy this Cloud, the fucking hero. That's what makes them a collector, the names; invoking the truly dead. I need to make Red start talking so he can drown out the names, I don't want to see the faces, Red, why aren't you speaking?

"Red! The rules!" I manage to grunt out. It's much harder to speak when you're in their thrall.

"Rule one, never get married. Collectors like pairs, and ghosts like children," he belts out, the perfect puppet he's become. I'm not even the puppeteer, and he's like this. Maybe I'm a puppet too, but it's just so hard to think about anything outside of her voice now...

Sssephiroth... did you know?... I wanted to make amends...

She's turned her attention away from me. She must not have found any names, thank God, she didn't find any names, I don't want to give up any more names, I've given so many, all they ever do is take...

"Rule two, get rid of your name. That leaves you vulnerable."

But Sephiroth's dead, he can't be collected, cause he used to be a god, and he's fallen, and angels fall so quickly to the ground, when did I lose my wings...?

But they wouldn't listen... they wouldn't understand...

"Rule three! Never seek a collector or ghost alone! Always travel in groups of three so that one can be sacrificed for the mission."

I used to sit in the bar and wait for her, wait for her to close up, so I could be the last to tell her goodnight, and I saw her kissing him, and I wanted to kill him...

They said I was a fake!... How could I be?... They expected my powers to be the same...

"Rule four, the most important rule. Always do backgrounds checks on your partners, as one of them might be dead and exacting his revenge on you."

What? I don't remember that rule, sounds like Red's drunk again, trying to cut his throat with a broken bottle, or bending Chirpy over the stool again, when did he become such an ass? Red, why don't you...

Why don't you tell him, Rude? That is your name isn't it?

My real name is Rude, I made Ruddard up, my parents were slum trash, I used to have naughty thoughts about Tifa in the shower, that was her name, take her too, just take it, take it all away...

"So, Aeris," Sephiroth's voice sounds, millions of miles, in the stars, is that heaven, "Have you collected them all yet? Have you made them see yet?" His grin is beautiful, but he's a man, and I like curvy women who make drinks for me and kiss blond men when they think I'm not looking...

They all call me dark... I'm not dark, I free them... they just don't know...

"Shoot him for me, Chirpy," Sephiroth smiles, like knives and that long sword, he killed her didn't he, but why is he talking to her, why am I here, where did my drink go...?

No, but that's not sssephiroth's voice, that's rrreeenooo why can't I say the names, take it all, take them too, just take it all away...

Tifa...

Cloud, wanted me to come to life

Noble, considering

They found the gateway

Why did they have to let it out, why why why why why

But I'm Dark Aeris, don't you see?... I can't heal anything, he killed me, I died...

Death looks like Tifa, and I'm standing here with eeelleennnaa but she's smiling at me like I wanted her to and she's bleeding cause you killed her, take it all take it all away

I take.

ElmyraVincentCid

I take.

CloudYuffieBarret

Itakeyoutoo.

I take Tifa.

It's the gunshot that brings me back to thinking, but it's already too late. It's going straight for my head.

Isn't my life supposed to pass before...

I take you too, Rude.

AN: I got this idea from how I heard once that the Japanese version of FF7 has a character called "Dark Aeris" that returns after Aeris dies, except all the defensive attacks become offensive and the white magic becomes black magic. Other than that, I need to sleep more. Been wondering if I could do a horror story for a while now. Probably not horrific enough, huh? And I don't know why it came out in Rude's perspective, it just sorta happened.

Theme song: The Noose A Perfect Circle