Chapter 2: A new beginning.
"Cloud…Cloud…Cloud!!!", "Please don't… don't do it… don't act foolish, remember your promise, remember our memories together. You've got to stop him, save us, save the earth, please Cloud".
Tifa woke up panting in sweat. It's been ages since she dreamed about Cloud… or Sephiroth. "Get yourself together Lockheart, it was only a dream". Not a dream… a bad nightmare. She tuned herself and stared into the alarm clock "7AM". "Time for shower and breakfast" she said. She leapt to her feet, put on her nightgown and made her way to the bathroom.
"I'm in need of some coffee", she stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her head and covered her body in a soft, lime green negligee.
While heading for the kitchen she picked up the newspaper and read today's headlines, hoping they were more interesting than last week's. "Dog survives laundry adventure", "Jenova auction", "The success behind Shinra company", "Geesz, they really don't have anything more interesting to share?"she said in a sarcastic fashion.
She dumped the paper in the bin, made a cup of coffee and sat down on a chair underneath the window. "Time for breakfast" she thought. While leaning backwards in her chair, she tryed to open one of the cupboards to get some cereal. Carefully balancing on two of the chair legs she managed to open the board got grip of a cerealbox between her thumb and index finger. "Tifa, you're good" she grinned.
Just when she shook some cereal in a bowl the door rang. Tifa looked at her shiny silver watch; 8 AM. "Those movers are early".
"Morning m'am" The chubby bald headed man in the door opening said, "We're here to pick up some furniture, 6 tables and 24 chairs to be precisely". "Oh, those are located in the bar, follow me please" Tifa told the man. "When will you transfer my own furniture and personal stuff to my new home?" she asked. "Another truck will arrive within an hour or so, all your stuff should be at StormVale before the night falls". "Greeeaat" Tifa tried - but failed - to suppress a big yawn. "Early start?" The bold guy asked. "You bet!".
"Well I'll be leaving within half an hour for StormVale so I'll catch you guys later today" she replied.
After dressing up and gathering some of her basic need supplies – clothing, cell phone, make up and other luxury products – she took her car keys out of her pocket and went outside to start her Chevrolet and put some of her bags in the trunk.
An hour passed by and Tifa got fed up with the songs coming out of her car radio. "Please tell me that they do have decent channels the place I'm going" she moaned. She'd been trying to find some decent music but she was unsuccessful so far. "Okay, last try". She was switching channels when something distracted her.
"…heim…Seph.i..r..….Mansion….Darkness shall fall once more."
"What? Who? What's this? Who is this?" Shivers were all over her spine and in the arousal she pulled over in the verge of the road. She stared at the radio and tried to switch channels once more to locate the voice that just startled her. "Shiva, please say this isn't true, I must be hallucinating, that must be it, I'm imagining things because I'm stressed out". She reached for the backseats where she opened a box to pick up the photograph of her and her friends at the Golden Saucer. "I miss you all, why did we lose contact?". The only one she had seen a few times since Sephiroth's defeat was Barret Wallace, her best friend. He started a new life in Rocket Town with his daughter Marlene, he decided to live an easy one this time. No more fighting for him.
"Tifa…"
An angry male voice blasted out of the speakers once more. In impulse Tifa smashed the photograph towards the radio where the glass shattered to pieces. "Darn it" she muttered while wiping the glass off of her lap and testing the radio. "Good job dumbhead, you broke it". The radio kept silence. She leaned back in her chair and let out a sigh.
"What was that… It sounded as if someone was calling out for me… ". She grabbed her bag, took out a note block and her favorite bleu pen (which was a birthday present from Barret for her 19th birthday a few years back). "Okay, think Tifa think, what did you hear… something about the darkness shall fall once more and heim… something about heim". "What does Sep stand for? What's the relation between Sep and Heim…". 'Oh forget it, I'll look at it once I get to my new home".
Startled as she was by the voice and the message, she turned on the car engine and decided to continue her trip to StormVale.
"Hello M'am, good to see you finally arrived". The voice came from the same bold headed guy she met earlier that day. "Yeah, I got a…. some car trouble along the way" Tifa answered. She took a look at her watch and saw that she'd been driving for over 5 hours, while the route planner told her the fastest route would take at most 4 hours.
"Wow, did it really take me that long to come here?" she wondered. "Everything's settled, and we placed the furniture on the exact spots you ordered us to" the man spoke. "Great!" Tifa said in joy, "Thanks for everything, please send over the bill once you get the chance". "We'll do that m'am, enjoy your new home" the bloke greeted Tifa once more and made his way to the truck.
When she entered her new house she immediately noticed how tidy everything was even though nobody lived there for more than a year. She took a can of soda and settled herself in a comfy dark green chair to take out her note block. "Let's see… Sep… heim…oh, and mansion! I'm sure the voice mentioned that" she scribbled the word mansion next to the other words. For some reason the word mansion sent shivers down her spine and Tifa experienced a flashback.
She was in… Nibelheim. Everything was on fire and a tall figure with long silver hair was destroying everything that crossed his path, Sephiroth. In the distance she saw Nibelheim mansion enlarging in front of her while she was running towards it. Everything got black and she couldn't remember a thing.
"NO WAY" she screamed out. What does this mean? "The darkness shall fall once more" "It can't refer to Sephiroth… It can't!" "We defeated him… Cloud defeated him…, he's gone, he's no more." What was she going to do next? Was she going to call her old friends and tell them about the voice? They would obviously say that she'd gone mental. Maybe she should just visit Nibelheim to see if everything's okay over there, it's less than a one hour drive from where she was now.
The dream, the voice, the reoccurring thought of her friends… Maybe some higher-power spirit does want to send her a message after all…
