PROLOGUE
Amidst the suffocating blackness of a city in torment, a young girl in a pink button down dress stood alone on a deserted street. In her hair, light brown in colour and tied back in a long plait which ran the length of her slender back, she wore a matching pink bow which fluttered wildly in a sudden breeze that whipped past her soft skin, passing as quickly as it arrived. Hooked on her arm she carried a wicker basket, and inside it her delicate hand—with skin as white as a china doll—touched an array of exquisite wild flowers. She is a special woman, for anyone who can sustain the life of such flowers in the dark, putrid slums beneath Midgar city must surely be gifted.
Looking up, her wide green eyes—about which so many of the young men in her slum have dreamt about—see not sky and stars but the base of the real Midgar. High above, suspended on huge pillars, the floating city houses the lives of the rich and privileged, while beneath the poor and the outcast rot in the debris left by the decadence of those above; living off crumbs that occasionally trickle down from that distant world. Down below the areas don't even have names, they have numbers; slums labelled Sectors 1-8. Some of them lay in ruin, while others thrive through trade, violence and scandal. It was a dangerous and seedy world that was near impossible to escape, no matter how determined the inhabitants might be.
Feeling tears begin to burn those emerald eyes at the injustice of her world, the flower girl quickly reprimanded herself for allowing her emotions to so easily creep up on her. Normally she prided herself on her strength of character and willpower in the face of such hardships, and instinctively, still annoyed at her momentary showing of weakness, she moved her hand from the flowers to a gold bangle on her wrist. It wasn't a particularly special looking piece of jewellery; in fact it was rather cumbersome but hidden in its underside were set two incredible white orbs. They glinted as if emitting their own light, and inside them the cloudy glow swirled rather like smoke in water. She touched the orbs faintly with just the tips of her fingers, again without thinking, and felt immediately calm, as if everything, no matter how dire things had become or would become in the future, would surely be put right before she moved on from this world.
The never-ending sounds and rancid smells of Lower Midgar had lessened during this mysterious respite, however out of nowhere it seemed, a train began to rumble in the distance. Its whistle pierced the air as it continued to thunder along the tracks, rumbling monotonously on and on.
The flower girl, woken from her momentary daze, took a few seconds to realise that she was far from any train line. She knew these slums better than most having spent much of her childhood exploring their myriad hiding spots and shortcuts, and yet louder and louder still she could hear the train rumbling onwards. Again its high-pitched whistle sounded and it seemed now that the train must surely be right on top of her. The flower girl covered her ears, dropping her basket of flowers which scattered sadly across the dirty ground, but still the train could be heard, perhaps even clearer than before. Was it her imagination? She had never previously experienced anything like this and the confusion was beginning to frighten her.
Her hands still covering her ears and the train still noisily following its course, the beautiful flower girl fled.