If the planet was compared to the galaxy, and each town was a shining star and each person was a planet whose life revolved around his or her city, Mt.Nibel would surely be a black hole.

That is the conclusion that Marlene had come to in her many dark days in the damp, small, cave-like room she had been imprisoned in. It was so dark most of the time, it was as if light could not reach her - as if it was being drawn into the dark hearts of the evil that made the mountain its home.

The evil, however, was a faceless one to her. The long trip from the rebel camp to this hellhole was a fading memory to her now. Cold days and nights with a bag over your head can do that to you. All she could remember were bits and pieces of the sounds that, although frightening, were somewhat calming. After all, when you're blinded for such a long time, only the memories of your minds eye can keep you sane. Memories and sounds, which is why the occasional grinding of wheels on rock, or the faint hum of an airships engine were calming to her. These creepy men (at least she assumed them to be men) never spoke a word the entire trip. It was unsettling and eerie… quiet and cold. There were particularly quiet times when she began to believe she was dead. The only thing that reminded her she wasn't was the constant pulsing hot air that rhythmically shot out of her mouth, hit the bag that lay only centimeters from it, and bounced back onto her face.

Occasionally (but not frequently) when her breathing became strange, or she began to panic, they pulled the bag up to her nose - but never any farther. They wanted to remain faceless for as long as possible. At first, she couldn't figure out why, but after so long she had drawn a conclusion. It was to weaken her. To weaken her with fear. They wanted to keep her weak and feeble… ripe for whatever they were going to try to do to her, she supposed. Well they had a big surprise coming, because the woman they would be dealing with was not the one they were going to expect. It was going to be a strong, sane woman with the taste of vengeance on her lips.

At least, that's what she told herself when she realized their tactics near the end of the trip to the mountain. Now, she wasn't so sure. Timeless days coalesced together had shaken her up a bit mentally. Not having a sense of what day or time it is can be quiet frightening if the circumstances are right - and judging by the cold, ridged walls and occasional spider or rat that frequented the room she was locked in, she'd say the circumstances were just about perfect.

To her surprise, the smell wasn't actually that bad. In fact, there was really no smell to the room at all, which was - in it's own way - a little creepy also. Every once in awhile she would swear that the distinct scent of medicine had seeped into the eerie vortex of a room - but if that were true, it quickly dissipated as did her hopes of something happening. Something different happening that is. She had been thrown in the room for (what she made out to be) roughly five days, and every day was so mind-numbingly similar, it had begun to mentally take effect as well.

The first day, as she counted it, they arrived in Nibelheim. Although still blinded, she knew this was in fact Nibelheim for two reasons. The first being that there had always been rumors circulating around that the cult had made its twisted home in the broken remains of the ghost town - which had once been alive and prosperous, but since the dark days of Sephiroths destuction, it had been left for dead.

Left for dead, and found by dead as far as she was concerned.

The second reason she knew where they were, was the very distinct sound she heard shortly before they reached their destination. When she was younger, and always begged Tifa to tell her stories of her journeys, whenever Tifa would tell her about Nibelheim, she would mention the ghostly howl the wind made when it wound its way though the high peaks of Mt.Nibel. A sound, Tifa said, that could chill even Barrets bones.

So when she heard the sadistic howling of the cold wind, although it terrified her, it also soothed her. She was finally able to put a point on their location. Time was still a conundrum, but at least space was solved. Time and space… two things, Marlene now knew, that we are too ungrateful for knowing.

Shortly after the howls, she heard the terrain change as well. They had definitely entered the town. Still blind as a bat, and having never actually seen the town, she drew it in her mind as they went along. It was beautiful. She saw Tifas house, big and white and perfect, sitting next to a creek. A few houses down was where Cloud grew up. Also big, but not quiet as perfect. Many doors and even more windows - his house was as confusing as he was. In the middle of town was a big large circle where the people would gather and mingle in the day time, and at night Cloud and Tifa would mischievously play. Shops and Inns run by cheerful old men whose guts were just a bit larger than their smile. A dog happily chases a cat around an old oak tree that has as many stories about it as it does circles inside its bark.

Marlene wasn't sure, but she thought she smiled at that point, but she was positive that shortly afterwards, she cried. They weren't going to her dream Nibelheim - they were headed to somewhere closer to a nightmare. Somewhere where only the vaguest of hauntingly chilling stories could escape. Somewhere that could quiet possibly be the last place she ever goes.

Now here she sat in the middle of the "fifth" day, and hope had become a passing train - slowly heading to a point of non-existence on the dreary horizon. She sat with her back propped up against the cold wall, hugging her knees closely to her chest.

Although she had no true since of time, she knew that shortly they would be bringing her daily meal and drink; a pile of assorted slop and a dirty, odd-tasting liquid that a dog in a desert would have turned his snout to. It was humiliating having to eat and drink the horrible meal, but you find out in times of desperation, pride for food is a pretty fair trade.

It wasn't as if she was starving, but getting something in her system helped her keep calm - as much as one can keep calm in such dire circumstances at least.

Shortly later, sure enough she was picking up the rusted fork that came with the lunch tray from hell, and scooping up a big bite of the slop - immediately chasing it down with a slug of the "water". Thinking back to the first day, it seemed almost impossible to get the stuff down. The semi-solid stuff tasted like puréed chalk, and the "water" tasted as if it had ran through a faucet aged with rust and strangled by moss. When you mixed the two together, as she found out on the second day, the horrible tastes almost cancelled each other out. Now, on the fifth day, her taste buds were almost null to the stuff.

She finished the meal in a little under five minutes. Taste or no taste - it was gross, and left you feeling a little odd. But none-the-less, after that feeling past was when she always felt the best. After her mind had let go of the disgusting images of the food, and whatever nutrients were actually in them began to work their course through her body.

This was generally her thinking time - although by this fifth meal, there wasn't much left to think about.

"Fifth meal…" She whispered to herself in a hoarse voice she barely recognized as her own. She frowned her brow and squinted her eyes. Fifth day… she thought to herself.

It was then that she realized that she was subconsciously adding her days up here in direct relation to how many meals they had given her. She shook her head and grimaced a bit. One more aspect of her thought that they were trying to control. In reality, she could have possibly been in here for ten days… or more. Or even, if possible, less.

She balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into the dirt-cased ground. She was angry, and the worst part was she didn't even have a face to put the anger on. She could only remember seeing the lower half of the robed-mans face at the rebel camp, and even that was pretty much shadowed and vague. It's not like she could see anyone on the way here. They didn't pull the bag off her head until she was being shoved into the room she was in now, and by the time she had spun around, the door was already being latched shut. When her meals came, a small section of the bottom of the door slid over and the tray of slop was simply shoved in, quickly followed by the closing of the section of door. Therefore her only true enemy was the damn door - systematically spewing out her rotten food tray once every… well, once in awhile.

On the second "day" (after seeing the process the first "day") she waited by the door for what seemed like hours. When she finally heard some sort of noise outside, she bent down to peer out and maybe get a glimpse of what was outside this world she had been locked in to. Instead, she found herself getting a face-full of tray that slammed her strongly straight between the eyes - knocking her back on her ass and making her nose bleed.

She didn't try that again.

She had now finished her fifth meal, and discarded the tray into the corner of the room with the other four, shortly the fifth glass in the group was making their company as well. It was down time for her until the nutrients kicked up in her body. She reachd to the opposite corner of the room to her left and pulled the single piece of furniture that was given to her - a small (but fluffy) pillow. She pulled it close to her, and stopped it just at the right spot as she slowly fell on to her left side - her head gently sinking into the pillow beneath it.

She closed her eyes tight. She didn't want to cry today… for once. It was getting tiresome every "day", and she just wanted a break. A short vacation to "no-cry" island, where tears are banished from the tropical climate and sadness is only as abundant as snow.

Her flight was cancelled as two drops of tears ran down her cheeks forming a pair of clean rivers amidst the dirty land around them. She thought about a saying that Tifa used to tell her.

The only moments we really know who we are is in our darkest times. If no light can reach us, we must reach it.

Tifa always had smart little lines like those, seemingly just lying around in her head. Marlene wondered if maybe she learned them all from Cloud… he seemed like a kind of philosopher at times. A philosopher with a big sword and a mean attitude, of course.

Cloud… that was someone she could direct her anger on. It was easy to get mad at him. Maybe too easy at times, she thought.

Amidst her anger-directing, something incredible happened. Something that she thought was not possible in this room. Something different happened.

The old wooden (but sturdy) door that had only been opened one time since she had been thrown inside of it, and only for that reason, cracked. Not cracked like an eggshell over a bowl, but the way your knees crack when you stand up sometimes. The old familiar sound of something that had been stiffened up, and was now shouting its joy to be free to move again. The door… was opening.

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Marlene was on her feet in seconds, if not half-seconds. She didn't know whether to get into a fighting stance, or to charge the door, or to possibly even hide. After another moments of consideration, she realized how ridiculous a thought "hiding" was in this large empty room.

Before anymore asinine theories could run through her anticipating mind, the door was open and the person outside was inside the room looking at her.

In that moment everything inside Marlene changed. Not in a noticeable way, but in a subtle sort of way. Her hope train suddenly kicked into reverse, the uneasy feeling in her stomach unwound itself from her abdomen, and the tears that had been sorrowful creeks down a scared girls dirty cheeks had transformed into joy-filled rivers flowing down a smiling girls dirty cheeks. She rushed to the person and wrapped her arms around their waste - pulling herself so close to them, she would have cried out in pain if she wasn't so filled with joy.

Tifa vigorously hugged her back just as tight. Marlene reverted back to the little girl that had lived in Tifas bar all those years ago - small and confused… just a shell of a person in the arms of a great one. Her emotions ran through her like there was a fire, rushing up to her face and rolling out of her eyes. She buried her face in Tifa's shoulder, refusing to loosen her hug as though if she did, Tifa would disappear.

"It's ok." Tifa said. Her voice was like a chorus of angels singing down from the heavens into this hell-like prison, and the moment she said the words, it was as if no matter what happened after, it really was going to be ok.

"What took you so long?" Marlene asked though tears, loosening her hug only enough to pull back and get a look at Tifa's face. It really was her. The big eyes, the warm smile, the flowing brown hair… it was really her. Upon that image, Marlene had to bury her face in Tifa's shoulder again and replace the tight hug.

"It's ok baby, things are going to get better from here on. I promise you." Tifa said in a calm, soothing voice as she ran her fingers through Marlene's hair.

Marlene sniffed up some tear-accompanied sniffles and said

"Can we escape?"

Now it was Tifa who seemed to be doing the tight hugging.

"I'm already free, baby girl."

"What?" Marlene questioned as she raise a fist around Tifa's back and rubbed tears away from her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Let them save you dear. Let them open your mind and free you soul… it's the only way out of here. Trust me."

Suddenly the intimate hug they were sharing ran cold. Marlene's body stiffened in Tifa's arms.

"What?" She said, arching her back so she could look at Tifa's face again. "Tifa, what are you talking about?" She asked, frowning at her in confusion.

It was then that she noticed that she had been wrong before. Maybe it was the extreme joy she found from seeing a familiar face, let alone one that she thought was in danger. Maybe it was the countless hours in the room with no human contact. Maybe it was a mind-altering drug that they had been feeding her through the food. Regardless of the cause, the mistake was the same. This was not the Tifa she knew and loved.

At first glance you would think so, but after studying it for just a moments longer, you'd see the subtle changes. Most noticeably her hair, which was no longer a familiar brown, but a deeply darkened brown - practically black. Her skin was also paler... sickly looking almost. Her eyes, which were always big and beautiful, seemed to be reduced to two beady dark dots - gazing out of hollow shells. And to top it off, her gentle smile was about as warm as Shiva's touch.

"Tifa." Marlene spit out in half shock, half sympathy. "What the hell did they do to you?"

Tifa continued her empty smile, leaning a bit closer to Marlene's face.

"They… freed… me."

Marlene was crying again. This time for whole new reasons then her previous ten cries or so. She wasn't crying from fear, or sadness, or joy, or love. She was crying in sympathy… sympathy for what had been done, and what she would have to do.

"I'm so sorry…" She said, her voice weak and barely audible. "I'll come back for you. I promise."

Tifa simply stared at her, seemingly sympathizing the same way Marlene was towards her.

"I'm sorry to hear that." She said as a tear ran down her pale cheek.

Suddenly, almost from out of nowhere, a loud sound began to play. It came from inside the room, it came from outside the room. It seemed to drown every last molecule of air in its ridiculously deafening volume. Marlene shot her hands up towards the sides of her head, trying to shield herself from the thunderous noise. Under their protective shells, her ears could now more clearly identify the sound as a sort of alarm. Strangely though, it was an alarm with a bit of a melody to it as it's pitch dropped and raised in odd patterns.

Tifa collapsed to her knees on the floor in front of her. Marlene bent down and wrapped and arm around her shoulder. Just as she did, the noise stopped.

Marlene shook her head, thinking for a moment that it might help to get rid of the low humming that now made its residence just inside her ears. It didn't.

Tifa was now laying on her side motionless.

"Tifa!" Marlene cried, hunching over her and grabbing both her shoulders to give them a gentle shake. When there was no response, Marlene lowered her head to Tifa's chest. She heard a heartbeat and felt the familiar, slow, up-and-down breathing pattern that comes with the task of being alive. She studied her for a moment longer, coming to the conclusion there was nothing she could do for her right now, and her escape window was probably slowly closing shut.

"I will come back for you." She said once more before standing up and heading towards the door.

Just as she was practically outside of it, and freedom (from the room at least) was on the tip of her tongue, an icy cold hand tightly gripped her ankle.

Somewhere inside of her she expected to turn around and see the old Tifa she had loved like a mother, crawling towards her to tell her she had been relinquished from whatever mind-altering hold that had been put on her. In reality though, she knew that was not the case. She was right.

Tifa, now with a demonic grin and a sadistic twinkle in her eyes, was staring up at her. Marlene her to yank her back into her prison with some new sort of super power, but was met with a different reaction.

As she began to pull away, Tifa sharply thrust her out-stretched leg forward, causing her to go tumbling into the hallway ahead - taking two un-controlled steps before crashing into the rock wall before her. She turned her body to the side and put out her arms at the last moment, but failed to prevent the hard wall from smashing into her. A sharp pain rang through her entire side as she collapsed to the base of the wall.

Slowly pulling herself to a sitting position, she leaned back against the rocky surface and grabbed at her left side - which now was throbbing in pain. It was at that moment she heard the true horror of this place. Blood-curdling screams faintly echoed through the halls from either direction, which (after glancing down both ends of the hall) curved back behind her, forming a sort of half-circle-hallway. A loud machine relentlessly whirred from the right, sounding like an airship engine one take-off away from failing. A quiet whistling was also constantly coursing its way through the air.

The visual matched the audio well. The walls on either side of the six-feet-or-so wide hallway were rigid, cold rock, much like the walls in Marlene's prison. Dim, in-wall lights ran along the hall at regularly spaced intervals, leaving dark gaps in between. The ground was rock as well, but had been covered with an exotic-looking, purple and black carpet. The ceiling hung dangerously low, probably only seven feet from the ground. A cold breeze (which she quickly identified to be the source of the whistling) was persistently flowing through the hall like a stream of water through a jungle - only the water was a frighteningly cold air, and the jungle, a cave-like insane asylum. The chilly breeze stopped at Marlene, wrapping its invisible icy-cold hand around her before continuing down the hall on a constant journey toward nothing.

At least, Marlene hoped nothing. She hoped that the air (like she had previously thought time and light) wasn't being sucked into some twisted vortex of evil at the heart of this beast of a cave.

As Marlene began to regain her composure, Tifa strolled out of the darkness of the room across from her. Her long, pale legs holding up a frame that looked ready for a fight. Her eyes pierced into Marlene's like daggers.

Marlene pulled herself to her feet. Tifa had stopped a foot away from her and was staring at her viciously, yet still smiling.

"You have to trust me little girl. You don't know true freedom until you've seen and heard the things I have. You don't know the truth until you've lived the life I have for the past few weeks. You don't realize how much of the universe is at your fingertips. He is real, Marlene. He is real and he is everything you've been looking for your whole life."

Marlene shook her head. She didn't want to hear the name of the "he" Tifa was referring to.

"Tifa… don't you understand what they've done to you!" She yelled. Upon another moments thought she added, "No… of course you don't. They're drugging you, or… or brainwashing you or something. Tifa you have to come with me. You have to! This place is insane! And it's take you with it!"

"Life is insane. The only path to true mental stability lies with him."

"He was insane. He was a murderer! He destroyed your entire town when you were a kid!"

Tifa's smile abruptly disappeared and was replaced with an angry, scornful look.

"How dare you!" She shouted, and then lowered her head in thought. After a moment she looked up and said, "I won't kill you Marlene. But I will make you hurt."

As quick as her smile had disappeared before, one of her long legs was hurdling towards Marlene's chest in a sideways-kick motion. Marlene managed to catch her foot with both hands, but only acted as a speed-bump in the kicks thunderous path, which drove her back hard into the wall before plummeting into her stomach. Marlene felt every ounce of air shoot out of her at once. Tifa lowered her leg and Marlene slowly slid down the wall, landing back in a sitting position on the floor, holding her stomach and fighting for air.

Tifa had hit her only once before that moment. It was years ago and Marlene and her had gotten into one storm of an argument. The freshly formed rebellion was just getting its legs and Marlene felt they needed to make a major push towards recruiting members of the (now unemployed) Turks. Tifa had disagreed and they began to fight over it. Had it been an argument as simple as that, no blows would have come to be. However Marlene made the mistake of bringing up a taboo subject. She remembered the line well, because she made note never to speak it, or of it, again. In the heat of the yelling, she had cried out

"Oh, Tifa! Get over the idea that Cloud is going to come rushing back into our lives to help us! He hasn't come before, and he's not coming now! He's forgotten you, why can't you do the same to him!"

Before the last word was out of her mouth, the backside of Tifa's gloved hand had slammed across her face. She stood with her mouth open for a few moments, considered screaming at her, but instead, simply walked out of the bar and never spoke of him again.

Of course, hours later Tifa came rushing to find her, apologizing in tears and telling her it would never happen again. Marlene instantly forgave her - but the grudge she would hold against Cloud was just beginning. She understood why Tifa had hit her. It didn't dawn upon her until that moment when the locked-away emotions of Tifa's heart had been triggered by a senseless comment.

As far back as she could remember, Tifa never seemed to be bothered by the fact that Cloud had just suddenly upped and left them one day. Even the day he first went missing, she seemed calm… almost as if she knew it was bound to happen. Sure she was a little quieter, and perhaps a bit less lively, but she never seemed sad. Just… calm - as if waiting for something.

Now, of course, Marlene knew the truth. She knew that every day he didn't walk back into their lives, Tifa's heart broke. Every week he wasn't around, her smile would grow a little smaller. Every month he didn't show, she died a little. That's why she seemed to be waiting for something. She was.

Marlene had felt hatred towards Cloud ever since that day. She could understand him walking away from the people. She could understand him walking away from his friend. Heck, she could even understand him walking away from herself. But not Tifa. It wasn't right. Regardless if he ever did or not, she loved him. He had to know it… and he just didn't care. Which is why it was so hard for her to go to him for help. She guessed in her mind that he wouldn't even know who she was or what she was talking about. She thought he was going to be either crazy… or dead. He was neither, just one hell of a mess. Tifa would have loved him under any circumstance.

And now here she was, standing over Marlene like a god passing judgment down on his creation, and Cloud could be anywhere on the planet. Could have given up. Could be caught. Could be dead.

Didn't matter. Cloud wasn't the problem right now. Tifa was.

Marlene pulled herself to her feet. Her body hurt just doing that - she was in no condition to fight. She was just too mentally and physically weak from the past few days. If Tifa wanted to, she could probably easily leave her for dead.

"Are you ready to accept him into your life?" Tifa questioned, seemingly sensing the mood of defeat within Marlene.

Marlene bit her lip and stared at the ground. If there was another answer that would have saved her - it wasn't showing. She lifted her head back up, and after a moments hesitation, she shook her head.

"Good girl." Tifa said with a smile. "This way."

Tifa took her by the hand and began leading her down the curved hallway. Marlene knew it was a loss not making an escape attempt, but only a temporary one. Mentally, she was tough. If they thought she was going to break and give in to their twisted beliefs as easily as Tifa, they were wrong. Dead wrong.

However, as she was being led down the hallway in the same direction all the cold air was going towards (or rather, being sucked towards)- she couldn't help the terrible feeling that was rising up in her.

Another scream was heard from some far-off place as Marlene took one last look back at the room she had came from. The cold air pushed the hair from her face and made her squint her eyes, and as they slowly rounded the corner into uncharted territory, the door of her prison rolled out of view. She never thought she would feel this way, but she longed to be back in the room.

The dark unknown lied ahead.