Let's make this clear, I don't own Final Fantasy or any of the characters and I never will. This means all the chapters of this story.

Prologue

The Hand of God

Heart Attack American - The Bronx

It was nighttime, cool and pitch black. In the distance a medium sized city lit the sky but the light didn't reach this far. The countryside was dark, almost forbidding in its silence. A country road wound through the hills, bordered on both sides by fields and small groups of trees.

With a woosh the silence was broken. A thin silver sedan sped along the road, windows down and loud angry music blaring. In the car were three boys right on the verge of becoming men.

The driver: a tall individual with long silver hair and a cold expression on his face. The front seat passenger: a grinning friendly guy with black spiky hair and dark blue eyes. In the back: a boy, younger than the other two, sprawled across the back seat with his head leaned against the car door. His blond spiky hair was blown flat by the speed of the car and his blue eyes seemed to focus on nothing.

"Man, he is really drunk." The passenger laughed, his eyes sparkling at the boy in the back seat.

"If he throws up in my car you are a dead man." Growled the driver.

""Yeah, sure." The passenger turned forward in his seat and ran a hand through his hair.

"Why'd you have to bring your brother anyway?"

"He asked, besides he's old enough to take care of himself."

"Oh yes, and that's why we're leaving the biggest party in months before it's even midnight."

"I'm sorry okay," The dark blue eyes rolled. "Once I make sure he's okay we can go back."

The driver shook his head in anger. "You can play babysitter if you want to, I'll go back by myself."

"Zack... Zack." The boy in the back whispered and pulled himself up gripping the back of the passenger's seat and digging his nails in. "Fire, Zack!"

"Fire, where?" The car jerked slightly as the driver jumped, glancing in the rearview mirror.

"There's no fire." The passenger's eyes shot a glare at his friend then turned to the boy and grabbed him by one shoulder. "Cloud, come on man, it's okay. We're taking you home."

"Fire Zack, Fire." The blond shouted shaking the seat. "Fire everywhere."

"Calm down." The passenger shushed him calmly. "There's no fire Bro."

"Shut the fuck up and sit down kid." The driver snapped, anger practically rolling off of him.

"Fire." The blond whispered again before his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped back onto the seat.

"Man, Mom's going to kill me." The passenger watched his brother worriedly. "I don't think he's just drunk. Did you see him do anything?"

The driver shrugged, "No, but I know someone was passing around LSD."

"Shit, maybe we should take him to the hospital."

"To hell with that, just dump him on the lawn. He'll be fine."

The passenger glared at the other man. "Seph, you're my best friend and all, but what the hell is your problem with my little brother."

The driver frowned. "You're the one who wanted to bring him."

"Yeah, and what about that time last year when he got beat up?" Blue eyes flared in anger at the silver haired man. "You watched for like fifteen minutes and didn't do a damn thing."

"He should be able to take care of himself."

"There were five of them."

"Hell with this," The driver laughed coldly. "He's not my responsibility. You want to babysit him go ahead, it's got nothing to do with me."

"I don't know why I'm even friends with you. You're just a stupid selfish son of a bitch."

"Don't you dare insult Mother." The driver shouted gripping the wheel with white knuckles and pressing the gas pedal to the floor.

"Oh Yeah, and why not? She is a bitch." The passenger shouted back. "As long as she's got booze and boy toys she wouldn't care if you were dead."

Without a word the driver jerked the wheel, sending the car off the road. Dust flew as the car bowled over an empty field. "Don't you say a word about Mother!"

The passenger grabbed the door handle and held on tight. "What the hell are you doing? Sephiroth STOP!"

The driver jerked the wheel again but this time the soft dirt didn't hold enough friction. With a squealing sound the car slid sideways and ran itself through a fence. One solitary fence post came flying through the air and through the back window impaling the boy in the back through one shoulder. Screaming filled the car as both passengers held on for dear life.

The driver swung the steering wheel back and forth and laughed maliciously, still flooring the gas pedal. The car squealed in protest but continued to barrel into the trees.

"Cloud, Cloud!" The passenger screamed and struggled against the motion of the car to get to the boy in back. "Come on Bro."

Branches whipped at the car as it narrowly avoided a tree, sending dirt, leaves and branches in the open windows. The tires hit a hummock in the ground that made the passenger slam his head against the roof and slump over in his seat.

With almost bone crunching force the car side swiped another tree. The front end spun around, caught on a stump and flipped.

Dust settled and the car rocked slightly on its roof. Silence fell. In the back, the blond blinked and opened his eyes. Then screaming, vicious and raw, rose into the night.

Intervention - Arcade Fire

When I was eleven I woke up one saturday morning at six to watch cartoons and found my mom sitting on the floor in the living room crying silently with the telephone receiver in her hands. Her face was blank and silent tears were running from her eyes.

Both my older brothers had been in a car accident. They had gone to a party the previous night with Zack's best friend Sephiroth. Sometime between ten and midnight Sephiroth had gone off the road and flipped his car. He was drunk, they all were.

Zack was dead long before anybody got there. Cloud was alive but in critical condition. Sephiroth got off with a knock to the head and some glass lodged in his skin, but nothing serious.

Mom and I rushed to the hospital. Well, I did at least. Mom had shut down almost completely. I had to drag her there on the buses. By the time we got there Cloud was out of surgery but they weren't sure he was going to pull through. Somehow he had gotten a metal fence post through the shoulder. With mom as shut down as she was, I had to identify Zack's body and get the updates on Cloud.

We wouldn't have survived if it weren't for our neighbors the Lockhearts. It was just Tifa and her dad but they were amazing. Tifa took care of Mom and Mr. Lockheart helped me make the funeral arrangements for Zack.

The worst wasn't over yet, though. Cloud balanced out and survived but something in him snapped. When the blood tests came back we found out that not only was he drunk, but he was on a cocktail of drugs that would scare even the most hardcore junkie. Whatever they did to him, combined with the trauma of the accident, sent him off the deep end. He went catatonic for a long time. But if you touched him then he totally freaked out. The first time we found out about this was when a nurse tried to switch out his IV and he broke her arm. So he ended getting thrown straight from the recovery ward into a Psychiatric Hospital and has been in one ever since.

More than a month after mom still hadn't come back. I was working hard to keep us fed and to take care of her but I couldn't do it by myself. It was the Lockhearts that saved us again. They took turns helping me with Mom, buying groceries and cooking meals for us. They were amazingly patient, especially when the checks I had mom sign to pay them back for everything started to bounce. And once those bouncing checks added up and we could no longer keep the house they took us into theirs.

There was also Aerith. She had been Zack's girlfriend when he died. She helped me clean and pay bills until we couldn't any more. She offered emotional support that I couldn't get elsewhere.

At first I hated seeing Tifa and Aerith, hated that they were taking care of me. Both of them reminded me of my brothers. Aerith because she had been Zack's girlfriend and Tifa because Cloud had a thing for her since he was like ten. But having them there was the greatest gift I could ever ask for. We were companions in sorrow and without their support I might have ended up the same place as Cloud.

The hardest part for me was dealing with Mom. Sometimes she refused to believe that Zack was dead or that Cloud was crazy. For the first year, I would come downstairs for school and find three lunches on the table instead of one. These ended up being whatever she grabbed first, such as an unopened can of green beans and a stack of saltines. She did regular mom stuff but without any link to reality. Like telling me it was time for bed in the middle of the afternoon or washing my clothes with dish soap.

As for me, I was angry. I bottled everything up until I was about to burst, then I did. Mom was the one that usually caught the brunt of my anger, although Tifa or her dad got it more often than I would like to admit. I felt abandoned; of all my family I was the only one who held it together when Zack died. The only one that even tried to cope.

At first I wanted to hate Zack, part of me still does. He was the strong one, the one that held us together. When he died everything fell apart. I would have thought he was smarter than to let a drunk drive him home but he wasn't and it killed him.

It's been four years since the accident. Life goes on, things have balanced out. Mom came back to reality eventually and now she works part time at a diner. Tifa graduated and got a job but she still lives at home. Mr. Lockheart supports us and gives me driving lessons when he can spare the time. I, well I spend my time reading or drawing. There's school as well but I don't really care about it. Mostly I just spend too much time wishing I had my brothers back.

So yeah, new story. It kinda grabbed my by the throat and throttled me 'til I wrote it.

I haven't given up on Mako Special. I posted a new chapter three days ago so it's not like I'm not working on it. This is an attempt to write something just as compelling but much shorter. Hopefully about 20 chapters.

A big thanks to my Beta Readers: Holy Wolf, BananaPeaceMonkeyKarmi, my mum and my best friend myousa(neither of them are on fanfic, but oh well). They are freaking awesome!

Like Mako Special each chapter has a theme song(two in this one) and that's what the thing under the title is. Not important for you readers but it means something to me. Also lyrics probably have nothing to do with the chapter. My brain makes associations on atmosphere not what the song is actually about.

Anyway, next chapter will be coming as soon as I finish editing it. I'm going to try to update one of the two stories at least once a week, at least until school starts again.

I like to think somebody actually reads this stuff so reviews are fantastic. Plus they guilt trip me into writing more when I have the time.

Thanks all,

Palo