Prologue

"Tracy! Wait up!"

Aya Yurika panted tiredly as the twenty-one-year-old struggles to catch up to her older friend, who was quickly getting out of sight.

"C'mon Aya!"

Trang Ly stops to wait until the girl caught up. The two of them were exploring the forests around the former location of Mideel when Trang suddenly spotted what they were looking for and raced excitedly ahead, leaving the poor teenager behind her. Aya's short black hair fell over her face as she tries to catch her breath. The blue jean jacket she had been wearing was now tied around her waist, airing out her now sweat-drenched off-white tank top. With finger-gloved hands, Aya works to untangle the mass of foliage that had caught onto her blue loose pants and kicks off the thick slab of mud stuck under her dark brown hiking boots.

Aya couldn't figure out what it was her twenty-three-year-old friend was so excited about. She looks up to see the back of her friend, who was now staring at something far ahead. Sweat also drenched the young woman's black tank top, though it was much less noticeable on the dark shade of the shirt. However, her white hooded shirt-jacket did show some form of sweat on it, as her blue fitting jean pants also had some foliage caught onto it but not as much as Aya's pants. The mud clotting up Trang's dark brown boots did little to slow her down and she made no effort to clean off the excess earth.

"Wh… wha… what… did you see?" gasps Aya between air intake.

"It's just like what I saw in my dream…" answers Trang in awe, although the tone of her voice suggested she was talking to herself rather than answering the teenage girl.

Aya watches as the young woman began walking slowly towards a glow in the distance. Once she regains her normal breathing, she continues towards Trang and the two of them approach what seemed to be a small glowing hole. When they got to the edge of the hole, they look down to see a pool of some strange glowing greenish liquid some seven feet down from the hole's surface.

"What is that stuff?" wonders Aya.

"Lifestream," exclaims Trang as if entranced by the sight.

"Lifestream?" repeated Aya. "This is Lifestream? I knew they referred to it as Lifestream at the school in Cosmo Canyon, but I always thought it was more of a symbolic term. I didn't think it would be an actual stream."

Both girls watch the rippling surface of the Lifestream for a few minutes until Trang spoke up.

"Do you realize where we're standing?" she asks her friend.

"The former location of Mideel, of course," answers Aya confidently. "This was where Mideel was originally until something happened and the ground underneath Mideel collapsed. The surviving townies rebuilt the new Mideel further east, away from this area."

"The locals said that it was necessary in order for the Planet to heal itself here," adds Trang.

Aya squints at the hole and then cocks her head to one side. "Well, now that you said that, the hole does sort of resemble a healing cut. Like a scab on the Planet."

"If this exists then the stories about the Northern Crater must be true as well," exclaims Trang excitedly.

"Too bad they won't let anyone near the crater," sighs Aya, crossing her arms behind her head. "After what happened a century ago, the crater's become off-limits to everyone."

"Yeah," agrees Trang disappointedly.

"I guess that's it, huh?" vociferates Aya. "We've explored the Round Island, the cave near Wutai, the ancient Nibelheim reactor, pretty much everything the older generations told us about. So with all our findings, what happened a century ago really did happen."

The teenage girl lets her arms fall to her sides and looks down at Trang, who was still staring at the pool of Lifestream.

"It's a shame we weren't there to see it all happen," asserts the young woman, still looking at the pool. "I would've liked to see it all unfold."

"Are you nuts?" retorts Aya. "WEAPONs destroying cities, Meteor threatening to destroy the Planet, all hell breaking loose… I'm glad we didn't have to live through all that. I'd be scared shitless!"

"I wonder," began Trang. "Is it really all over?"

"What do you mean?" asks Aya.

"I've been having these weird dreams lately," answers the young woman. "I mean, I've had them occasionally before we started this journey, but… now they've been occurring more and more frequently."

She breaks her gaze from the pool and looks up at her friend. "It's like they're telling me that the fight isn't over just yet."

"Stop talking like that," responded Aya, crossing her arms. "You're giving me the chills."

"But what if the fight really isn't over yet?" wondered Trang. "What if whatever started that titanic battle a century ago is still around? Isn't that a possibility?"

"C'mon, nothing lasts forever," argues Aya.

"Nanaki was there when it happened and he's still around," notes Trang. "What if he's not the only thing left over from the battle?"

"Okay, now you're scaring me," exclaims the teenage girl as a chill ran down her spine. The thought of such a possibility frightened her down to the bone.

"I'm sorry," apologizes Trang. "I don't want to overlook possibilities. It makes me feel better knowing something that might happen. Helps me prepare for what could be."

The two of them look down at the serene surface of the Lifestream pool and then look at each other.

"Let's go back to Mideel," suggests Aya. "This place is giving me the creeps now."

With a nod from Trang, the two girls began their trek back to the relocated town. However, before she could take a step forward, a piercing scream echoed through Trang's mind. She starts to feel dizzy as the scream got louder.

"Ah, what's that screaming?" she groaned as she clutches her head.

"What scream?" asks Aya. "I don't hear anything. Are you allright, Tracy?"

The sound got so intense that Trang put both of her hands to her temples to pressurize them in an effort to alleviate her sudden headache. "This scream… Is it… the cry of the Planet?..."

Without warning, the ground beneath her began to crumble and soon the young woman found herself falling into the pool of Lifestream beneath her. Everything happened so fast she couldn't comprehend anything. The last thing she could see and hear was the sight of Aya racing to grab her hand and the sound of her nickname echoing through the chaos.

"Tracy…!"