Zack's Final Mission
Chapter 4: The Cure
There was a boy sitting in the open truck of his father's van with eyes wide open to absorb the freedom of being outside the roof platform of Midgar as much as he could before going back. His brother and father were driving home from the corn-fields they grew outside the outskirts of the dark city.
The roar of the engine could be heard pouring down the silent valley as they drove back. While they did, the van left the fresh scent of corn leaves through the road they left behind. The boy held one stalk in his hands and took small bites of the yellow grains while looking amazed at how vastly the deserted fields extended through the horizon.
He was always thrilled to go help his family just to get out of the smoky air of his birth city.
But something was meant to happen that day, an adventure the boy had always imagined having once he left the city's boundaries. The world was such a huge place and he dreamed of knowing each corner of it.
It was when the boy was stretching his arms in a yawn that his eyes caught something dark in the light brown dirty landscape. He narrowed his eyes forcing them to focus on the dark shape. His mouth opened wide as he let out a cry for his father.
He knocked eagerly on the glass that separated the driver's cabin from the open truck and called for his father's name. Noticing the sudden distress of his younger son, the old man came to an abrupt full stop pressing the break heavily with his foot.
"He's still breathing."
"Be careful with his head." He could hear voices in the distance but found no connection to what they were saying.
"What happened to him?" His ears sounded like he had something covering them since the voices sounded like mumbles.
"I know a person who can help."
"Well, what are you waiting for? Go get her, quick! We're loosing him!"
Darkness.
Aerith leaned her forehead on the transparent window pane of her bedroom's window and sighed restlessly. She went to sit on her chair by the mirror-desk and started lifting her hair up to tie it in a ponytail. As her hand dropped to pick up her pink ribbon she hesitated touching it and smiled remembering how she had got it.
Its tender feel finally reached her skin as she caressed the smooth fabric with the tips of her fingers. At last she carefully tied it in a bow behind her head holding up her light brown hair tightly and finished the do by placing the green materia her birth-mother had given her years ago at the top of the ponytail. Those were two objects she couldn't leave the house without. Both meant for something she loved but no longer could touch. Only their presence remained in them. By using them, those two people would always be close to her even if they were very far away.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror and instead of braiding it today she let her long hair fall loose down her back. Getting up, she fixed her pink dress on the knees and directed for the door.
While going down the stairs she suddenly froze holding the banister with her left hand and with one foot on one step with the other one on a lower step. She listened closely for she could have sworn she had heard someone calling her in alarm.
"Ae-rith!" She heard a far voice shrieking her name in gasps from running probably. "Miss Aerith!"
Certain that she wasn't imagining things she finished the rest of the stairs in a hurry to meet the person who was calling her so much. Opening the front door of her house a small teenage boy bumped into her unaware that the door had already been opened before he had reached for it.
"What's wrong?" Aerith widened her eyes as she watched the boy panting and resting his hands on his knees tired.
"There's… a man… hurt." The boy started saying between grasps for air. "You… have… to come… with me."
"Well, sure!" Aerith nodded closing the door behind her and starting to walk towards the market following the boy. "But shouldn't you have called the doctor first?"
"We did… But the wounds are deep." The boy answered. "He needs the kind of help you know of."
"It's not… as simple as that…" Aerith looked down thoughtfully. She knew what the boy was talking about. His father had been attacked by monsters one time he went to work outside of Midgar and they had poisoned him. After so many medications they had tried on the old man and so much time lost trying to cure him, Aerith finally tried using something she had always suspected she could do but never had the chance to try it.
The materia her mother had given her before dying was good for something after all. Still, she couldn't control most of its power yet and curing the old man took a lot of effort before she finally got it right. After she had successfully healed the man Aerith collapsed to the side warn-out to only wake up two days later.
She made that family promise they wouldn't spread the word around Midgar about what she had done afraid that people would start asking her to heal diseases she wasn't sure she could heal and was afraid of making it worse for not controlling the materia's power combined with her Cetra's power.
The family was forever thankful to the flower girl from the slums for what she did that they would never break the promise they had made to her, but seeing the man in the fields in the state that he was in and being the man a stranger to the city it wouldn't hurt to see if she could help. Apart from that family, only her adoptive mother knew what she could do. But Aerith always felt insecure about it. Those powers scared her in a way so she avoided thinking about it that much.
"Where is him?" She asked as they ran.
"Near our house, we found this huge tube and laid him there so the doctor could check him." The boy informed leading the way. "He was covered in blood, no one would say the man was breathing but my father felt his pulse beating slightly on his neck. He must be holding on to life by a very thin, almost breaking rope. We're almost there!" The boy pointed ahead.
Aerith looked in the direction he had pointed and saw a man in a white coat with shoulders and head down, pulling a white curtain to the side to leave the large metal tube without hitting his head on its top.
"What is happening doctor?" Aerith asked as she approached them at the tube's entrance.
"I've never taken care of a situation this bad." The doctor shook his head worriedly. "He had some bullets inside his chest I had to carefully take out. I took off his shirt and stitched the wounds and I was able to stop the blood from dripping out but I'm afraid there's not much I can do anymore. He's in a pretty bad condition. To tell you the truth I don't know how he is still alive."
"Who is he?" Aerith asked.
"I have no idea. He was dressed in SOLDIER uniform but had no tag on him." The doctor looked back inside and then back at Aerith. "He seemed like he got into a very serious fight. He needs time to recover now and we'll see if the wounds start getting better but I have to say I'm not sure he'll make it. I'll come back to see him tomorrow but now it's pretty much up to him and his will to come back. "
"Thank you doctor." Aerith smiled and the doctor left after shaking her hand firmly.
She stood outside the metal tube for brief seconds just looking down at the ground.
SOLDIER uniform?
She thought while shaking her head out of the idea that was already forming in the back of her mind. Giving one step forward, her hand reached for the edge of the curtain covering the inside of the faintly illuminated tube. Slowly she pulled the light cloth to one side making way to go in. A gentle breeze blew as she moved her hand causing her hair to wave slightly.
She placed her right foot carefully on the metal surface and her eyes little by little followed the man's feet to his legs, bare chest covered with white ligatures tied around it but already they had tiny blood stains appearing on its surface and then finally the two emerald beams met his face.
His eyes were closed and his face had the red vestiges of a blood stream running down to his neck. Spiky black hair contrasted with his own white skin.
It was him.
Immediately tears started running down her cheeks and she lifted both hands to cover her mouth. She noticed her hands were shaking and her head felt dizzy which caused her to lose her balance and her ankles to lose strength. She had to lean on the tube's wall not to fall flat on the ground. She noticed looking back at him that his breathing was very brief and almost unnoticeable.
"Z-Zack." She whispered stammering.
"Are you alright?" The boy called from outside, he noticed how pale white Aerith's skin looked like.
"Yes." Aerith didn't take her green eyes from staring at his body. "You can go if you want. I'm going to stay here for a while." She struggled to make her voice sound normal.
- To be continued
Note: Poor Zack… Well that's it for chapter 4! I hope you liked it! I want to thank everyone for all the reviews you guys sent me and a special thanks to my friend Prexistence, seriously, she's awesome! Thank you everyone, I really hope you don't give up on me!