The End of the World
By: Her Valentine
Summary: A multi chapter FFVII fiction inspired by the MMORPG RF Online (no knowledge of the game needed. Three alien races scour the expanses of space, competing for the precious resources and the much coveted materia that have long since been depleted on their home planets. There is no room for mercy in this ever present and ever waging war. The battlefield is the universe itself.
Warnings: AU, attempted suicide, gore.
Part I
They were first sighted about a month ago, great glowing spheres thrown out in to the far reaches of the solar system. Somewhere past or just around Pluto, I imagined.
Pretty, really. Great flowers painting the sky in brilliant hues of pinks and oranges.
Children made wishes on them, hopping to stay up later or for ice cream before dinner.
But they were coming too close, too fast.
And then even the Shinra funded scientists began to publicly sweat. As far as they knew, they shouldn't be their. They imagined it couldn't be anything good.
Once the word 'extraterrestrial' hit the street fantasy rapidly faded to fear.
And fear fed the fanatical.
The count of world religions and cults surely must have nearly tripled just last week.
"It's the end of the world," they whispered.
Wives broke down at the checkout line. Children sobbed as they sat beneath their desks, heads between their legs. Men drowned within themselves, attending personal drunken eulogies dedicated to their own insignificance, to everything they wished to do and everything they could of been.
I was watching the human race kiss its existence goodbye. And the masses repented.
"He's coming!" The zealot preached to his sheep, "Be ready for him, because he's coming for you and he's coming for me. Wash away your sins, he's coming for all of us."
Live each day as your last gains a new meaning, because it is our last day.
"Bah," I mouthed around the barrel of the gun I was currently trying to ingest, "Bah," I repeated for good measure.
I wish I was capable of flocking with the rest of the good little, self-pitying and God fearing sheep as they prepared to weather out the final days of mankind.
The problem was I was a wolf with a bit of a mortality hitch. As it turns out, you can die once, but not twice. You can die three times, four times, five times, six times and maybe even seven times, but never twice.
The world gathered around their television sets, filling in pews, and parading in the streets. Everyone was preparing to die.
I locked myself in my house, preparing to be the last man left on Earth.
Eyes closed, brows furrowed, teeth gritted – a clench of the finger and I've pulled the trigger. No matter how many times I do this, there is no getting used to the initial sting of blowing the back of your head off.
'That is just foul,' I grimaced at the wet sound of gray matter spattering against the wall paper as my body seizes and falls heavily to the ground.
Just great, the result is the same as always. Why do I keep placing myself into these hopeless situations? Because I have such little faith in myself and my awareness of my physiology, I'm doomed to lay here for the rest of this forsaken day, hating myself as the back of my head slow begins to regenerate itself for the fifth time this week.
And its still only Wednesday.
And isn't that just lovely! I seem to have lost control of my bladder. I knew I probably should have gone to the bathroom beforehand.
1, 2 ,3 – the clock ticks. All I have left to do is count.
30 seconds passed and counting, 42 seconds passed and counting...
Someone knocks on the door at 5 minutes and 16 seconds.
No matter how much I really would have liked to have been left to to my own devices, it seems someone was determined to see me.
A polite knock was followed by the pounding of a much heavier hand and a not-quite muffled-by-the-door shout of "Vincent!"
Oh spare me the headache! Why bother, you usually let yourself in anyways.
The thud of the door being slammed against the wall 73 seconds later proved that the world is just entirely too predictable for its own good.
To bad it has too little time to really do anything about it.
"Not again, Vince," a giant of a man, followed by a slighter, but still significantly large, young man, groaned as he stumbled upon the mess I'd made of my front room. I might have had something indignant to say in response to the man inviting himself into my home, but my tongue is always the first thing to go and the last to regenerate.
"I'm not helping you redo the wallpaper again! Once is about all you'll get charity work out of me." The larger man felt he had the right to 'tisk' as he sat on my couch, throwing his booted, mud crusted feet up on the coffee table that was also mine.
His companion hovered by the door, visibly sensitive to the gore as he stared uneasily at the involuntary twitching of my fingers around the gun they still clutched.
'Come here, Cloud' I would have sneered if my ability to do so wasn't painted onto the floral wallpaper in my living room, 'I'll give them to you if you are so fascinated by them, it's not like they won't grow back.'
"Go get the hose, Cloud." The larger man, Cid, told our nauseated friend, who all but jumped as he eagerly grasped the opportunity to flee.
"They made contact," He stated, apparently remembering his purpose for his rough entrance.
'Hostile?' I guessed, even though it was unlikely he could hear me in my head.
"A bit of a language barrier, but we could tell by the tone they were spitting out fighting words."
'Nothing we couldn't have guessed.'
Cid slouched forwards, hand clasped around a lighter as he brought a cigarette to his lips. "No use worrying about lung cancer anymore. But tell me, are you scared?"
'More than you could ever know.'
"I won't leave you alone, so stop putting yourself through all this. It's pointless."
'I'm planning on being very alone for a very long time, excuse me if I'm being a bit self-destructive.'
Cid took a drag of his lit cigarette as he drew his hand through gray-streaked blond hair.
We waited.
Cloud came trudging in not long after, a heavy hose wrapped around his arm.
"Rinse him off, he reeks of urine. " Cid directed, "Then hose down the wall as best you can for now."
I've made it pretty clear that I hate my life, right?
When the first wave came and went, leaving the world in total darkness and incinerating a third of its population, I was wet and cold and still smelling of human waste.
It was with a still slightly lopsided head that I decided that there would be no deliverance for me after all.