Author's Note Well, I decided that since this is Aerith's story, that I skipped over too much of her life. I've decided to backtrack and write more on her childhood. Rest assured, when the time comes, the old chapters will return ^_^ But for now I wish to elaborate more on how she met Sephiroth, Zack, Tseng, etc... everything the game kinda skims over but never quite explains.

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Fanatics find their heaven in never ending storming wind
Auguries of destruction be a lullaby for rebirth...
Come with me in the twilight of a summer night for awhile
Tell me of a story never ever told in the past...

---- .hack//SIGN- "Key of the Twilight"

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Growing up in this place, you tend to have a different outlook on life. There are countless lessons I've had to learn... most were learnt the hard way. I wouldn't have it any other way; I wanted to 'suck the marrow out of life,' as were the words of an author of the past. I admit times were bad here in the slums-in fact they were downright terrible-yet we had no choice, and I kept reminding myself that things could be worse. Things could always be worse. Conditions were bad, but they could still get worse. The only way I saw possible would be if the pits of hell opened underneath us and swallowed every square foot of Midgar and its slums...

Wait... would that really make any difference?

...I think too much.

Looking through the aged, waxy-looking glass of my bedroom window, I see the seedy halogen lights from the plate shining on the dirt and garbage below, tiny twinges of bright light reflecting off the various scraps of metal and the like. It's nothing special. It's trash, being shone on by trashy light. Even at night, it was day here. It was day because you were afraid to sleep. You had no lock on your door. You couldn't sleep because you were afraid; afraid that you would be robbed, raped, murdered... or worse. Or perhaps you finagled a lock from the piles of trash, and you had a slice of safety knowing you wouldn't be a midnight snack to the Whole Eaters. And maybe you still couldn't sleep. You stayed awake, haunted by images of your past, seeing visions of inhumane experiments, hearing voices no one else could hear. Maybe you stayed awake for days, even weeks on end, because you held conversation with the Planet.

Ah... but I doubt there could be anyone with the same problem as I.

I'm a hybrid-a half-breed human and Cetra. My mother was Cetra, and I'm her hope for the future, the last shine of hope for our Ancient blood. No matter how small the genetic slices get as the generations descend, blood is blood and Cetra is Cetra. You could be 1% Ancient and be equal to a half or full blooded one. Heh, if there were any left besides me of course. I'm the Planet's protector. A great task left to me, the last of the once great race... and I'm still young. I'm only 22. Most slum girls have fantasies of marrying their Prince Charming at this age and moving on to a new life, living somewhere away from the jobs at Honeybee Inn, away from the trash, the blood, the monsters... human and animal. I had a dream like that once. But all 9-year-olds dream like that, while sipping imaginary tea from a china set. Or in my case, a tin can. I suppose that dream is still alive within me, but living in a slum can numb anyone's emotion to jelly.

I'm different. I'm strange. I talk to the Planet. I grow flowers.

Yes, flowers. They are small miracles here, and the bigger miracle is the sunlight that appeared one day. I spoke to the Planet one night, just before my 11th birthday... the Planet and I, we speak to one another like old friends. It's an advantage and a privilege I suppose. But I woke up that morning to find the miracle of sunlight beneath the plate. There were two cracks in the plate-one above my home and the other above the dilapidated church in the neighboring sector. So I grow flowers. The other residents of these slums have different opinions on them. I'm spoken of as three main things-a miracle worker, a freak, or a witch.

The last two are the most frequent. But, I don't care. Like I said, living down here can give you a different outlook on life, and numb your emotion. Everyday life is just ... a continuation of many zombie-like events. That's the way I think of things. Me, the freak. The witch. The girl that talks to herself. The young lady that grows the flowers. The orphan. The Cetra.

My name is Aerith. And this is my story.