Note: This story really sucks but I was writing to clear my head. Guess it works. Tell me what you think:)

Disclaimer: I do not own Sephiroth, Tifa, or any of the other Final Fantasy characters

Everybody was dead, their bodies, their houses, their everything… were being eaten alive with fire. My father was dead, his face on the ground, his body still and barely warm. It hadn't happened but hours ago.

That man had done this.

I was running down the dirt path towards the mako reactor, holding that murder's sword, and I felt like I was swimming through thick syrup. I couldn't get there fast enough. I couldn't kill him fast enough.

He was there, at the top of the metal stairs, unaware of my entrance. I charged at him, drawing the blood-soaked weapon. But then he was turning around. Slowly. So slowly. His eyes pierced me, green and catlike…

I screamed, sitting up in bed, a sheath of sweat covering my whole body. My head spun from being jolted from the nightmare into the quiet of my dark bedroom. How many times had I woke up sweating and screaming, this dream still burnt clearly on the front of my eyes?

I let my breathing slow and then everything was quiet. I turned on my sound-soother and settled back down under the covers, too afraid to close my eyes, but too weary to stay awake.

I drifted.

Sephiroth: too malevolent to be defeated, too monstrous to forget. I'd lost count of how many times I'd remembered that night when he destroyed my home and my childhood.

Fifteen was too young an age too lose all of that.

The streets of Edge were teeming with the cities inhabitants. The hustled and bustled, passing each other in an intertwining array of bodies. Though none of them stopped to remember tragedy or think about the shadow cast over the city, evil still lurked at every corner. Every now and then, you could find a man raving on and on about an 'angel with one wing' or a woman telling her kid a story about a man who was worse than death, but they all never really thought about the fact that he really could come back.

I prayed that that day would never come.

I was dusting and polishing. Wiping and scrubbing. I was sure that the bar had never looked any better after I was finished. Everything shone, almost like new and I smiled, exhausted. Cloud would be pleased.

"Everything is so new!" Marlene cried when she saw.

I grinned at her, "Yup. I've been cleaning since closing time." I looked at the clock. It was past nine.

"Time for bed, sweetie," I told her, "You and Denzel can go play in the square tomorrow."

"Yes!"

She went to bed willingly and I checked on Denzel, almost afraid to know if he'd gotten worse, but he was sleeping, a smile on his face. I sighed. He didn't deserve to be sick.

There was so much on my mind. From those dreams to Cloud's absence to Denzel being ill.

I felt silly worrying about a little dream. I was a grown woman, more powerful than others. I didn't need to be scared anymore. A dream shouldn't frighten me.

But a person could.

I left the bar quietly, locking the front doors and turning out the lights. The kids would be safe upstairs.

The town was quiet, the last few shoppers and citizens driving home and leaving the area empty. It was rare for the center of the city to be so vacant, so silent. It was as though they knew what was coming.

I looked up to the statue of an angel, it's head bent and hands together as it prayed. But even the beautiful statue looked uneasy.

The wind shifted my hair softly and I jumped as something so soft brushed against my cheek. I caught it before it drifted away. A feather? Something wasn't right. It was too quiet, like the walls and windows of the buildings around me were holding their breath. The celestial statue above me seemed disturbed.

"Good Evening, Miss Lockhart."

I jumped as that voice broke the silence and then spun around to face the biggest nightmare of them all.