I

Chapter 10

- Why did you run away?

- I can't believe you gave up like that!

- I thought that you were stronger

- Yeah, you defeated Sin after all!

- You must answer my question!

She felt like she was holding the weight of the world as Lulu, Wakka and some other guy were pressing her. She knew that guy,... he is one of the many people who went to Besaid looking for answers.

- Just leave me alone! - She ran away from that place; she didn't really know where she was, but she run. She was now at Besaid's temple, at some empty room.

"I thought that you knew all about this here, smart guy"

- But I don't! Leave me alone! - she said, as she turned to the person who said that. But there was no one there. The room was empty. "Who is there?..." She was sure she heard someone talking.

- Why don't you answer me? You know the answer, you are the High Summoner! - it was that guy again. She ran again; she got out of the room and was now running in some Luca's Blitzball stadium's corridor.

"How can a Faith be in nowhere?"

"Maybe because we are somewhere after all!"

"That voice again... and another?" - She stopped running and looked around. Again, the corridor was empty. "Who is there?..." The voices she just heard were strange; she couldn't tell if they were from a man or a woman, from a child or from an adult... they had no voice tone.

- Come with me. - She got frightened with that sudden voice and turned around. This time there was really somebody there; and she could definitely recognize that voice. It was Seymour. - See, I was right... You said you didn't understand, but you do. By dying, the suffering ends. Now, come with me. - He extended his arm to her, his hand was opened, an evil smile on his face. - Come join this spiral of death. It's that what you want, right? - he giggled evilly.

"Yeah, yeah. I know about that "dream city" deal"

- What?... - She closed her eyes. "Again that voice..."

She opened her eyes and was now at the Mi'hen Highroad; there was no one there... She was finally alone.

"What now?" She looked around, trying to find some sense to her life...

"Just perfect" It was that what she wanted. She wanted him... But there was no one around. She felt lost again, standing alone, with no direction...

"How did this happen? How did I fall so far behind? Why am I searching for perfection? That's impossible, it's something that I just won't find..."

She sited heavily on the dirt road

"How do you know we have a soul?..."

"Who is there?!" Although she was starting to get really angry with all that was happening, she didn't said that loudly, as she already knew that there was nobody around. And for her big surprise, someone answered.

"What?! Another voice?" Another voice? What did that mean? She was the one being followed by voices!

- Stop doing that! Who are you?

"D-doing what?"

- Stop following me! – Was the voice acting stupid with her? - Where are you? Show yourself! - now she was really pissed.

"Following you? What are you talking about? I don't even know exactly where I am. Where are you?"

Not sure of where he was? He had to be somewhere, right?

- That... makes no sense... Who are you?

"I'm not really human..." Not human? A Faith maybe?...

- Are you a Faith?

"No... actually, I used to be a dream of the Faith...Hmm... Where are you?"

A dream of the Faith? What the hell does that mean? "I must have gone insane..." She opened her eyes and looked to the floor. There she was, sitting in the middle of the Mi'hen Highroad, talking to herself... or to some kind of dream of the Faith... She began to feel tired, she wanted to give up... wasn't she supposed to be dead? Then, why care about her mental sanity? She continued talking to that voice.

- Mi'hen Highroad... What do you mean a dream?

"It's... complicated..."

- Well, I have time... - Weird, she wasn't feeling the voice's presence anymore... - Are you there?

No answer.

And there she was, sitting in the middle of the Mi'hen Highroad, completely alone... She thought about what was happening... Besaid, the people always asking her impossible questions... And how she ran away from all that, She felt emotionally weak running like that, like she had left herself down,... all because she ran.

"Why did this happened? When did I loose my sense of purpose? When did I lost my strength?..." Lost... alone... empty. Those were the feelings she was having right now "Can I regain what's lost inside?" She knew the answer for that one. She knew what was lost inside. And he was not coming back.

"Lady?..."

"Lady Yuna, are you with us?"

That was why she was on that situation. That was why she had no roads left to run.

Suddenly, she felt an unbearable pain on her left shoulder...

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- Lady Yuna, can you hear me? - the white mage was checking if everything was alright, when he noticed that his patient was beginning to get conscious. - Lady...

She started opening her eyes and was trying to raise her right arm.

- Hurts... - the mage had to stop her arm from going to her left shoulder.

- No... I know you must be feeling some pain, but you mustn't touch it.

"Some pain? Is the guy joking?" The pain she was feeling was almost unbearable.

- Make it stop... - She could hardly speak

- Just wait a minute. - with this the mage turned back and went to a table where all sort of medical instruments were on. He returned with a needle - We're sorry we couldn't give you this earlier, but you must be conscious before we can use it without taking unnecessary risks. - The mage injected some liquid in her arm and she felt the pain getting better. She was still in pain, but at least she could think clearly.

- What,... who was there? - she looked around, trying to find someone else than the white mage.

- There is no one here but us, Lady Summoner. In fact, you are lucky I was here when you woke up...

- But, the voice... he said he was... a dream? - she was trying to remember the small dialogue she had with that voice - He mentioned the Faith...

- Lady, there was nobody here, you must have been dreaming. Now, wait here, I'm going to call the healer. And don't touch your left shoulder, okay?

- Hm... okay...

The healer left the small room. She looked around again, now inspecting the place. She wasn't sure of where she was, but she was definitely at some hospital.

"A dream of the Faith... What happened?" She tried to remember how she got there. "So... Seymour was at Mi'hen,... no, at Luca... "How could that be? "Maybe it was a really a dream... Weird..." She remembered the dream; Seymour, Luca, being at Mi'hen Highroad... but that voice... she could swear that really happened.

- Thanks' Yevon, you are awake. - the healer entered the room, followed by the white mage that had been with her some minutes ago.

- I was checking the room, and I noticed she was starting to become conscious. I had already given her a Analgesic

- Okay, Zorbas, you may leave now.

- Yes, sir. - with this the mage abandoned the room.

The healer examined some documents he had for some moments, and then directed his look to his patient.

- How are you feeling, Lady Yuna?

- Weird... A little foggy. My whole body hurts, specially the left arm... it hurts a lot... - the healer got close to her bed and examined her left shoulder. - Where am I?

- Hmm... Your shoulder looks fine - "Fine? Are these healers all crazy?" She had already looked at her left arm, her shoulder was covered with bandages and plaster, and was hurting like hell - I'm Dr. Homes, healer of the Bevelle Hospital.

- So, I'm in Bevelle?

- Yes, m'Lady.

- How... did I get here?

- I was expecting you to tell me.

- What? - Yuna looked at Dr. Homes as if he was some kind of insane person - How should I know?

- Calm... First things first. What is the last thing you remember?

- Hmm... I was,... at Mi'hen, there was this voice... - she closed her eyes, trying to remember the details.

- No, no, no... Zorbas already told me about that dream,... before that, what do you remember?

- A dream?... No, it was real, that voice... - she shocked her head slowly - maybe... before that... I was at Luca, Maester Seymour was there.

- Maester Seymour? - the healer raised an eyebrow.

- Yes,... wait, he is... dead... isn't he? - Yuna raised his head and was now looking to Dr. Homes.

- Yes, he is. Can't you remember anything besides that dream? You were found at Besaid beach's shore...

A sudden flash went through her mind. Besaid, the nice wind, the cliff... "Shit...". She shocked her head violently.

- Something's wrong, Lady?

- Yes. - "Why am I not dead?"

- Do you remember anything?

- I... think so... - Now what? What was she going to say? That she tried to suicide? "No way..." She tried to make up something, to make it look like it was an accident. "They mustn't know..." She didn't like the idea of lying like that. "They mustn't know... that her guide gave up..." She thought that that was a good excuse for lying; but deep inside, she knew why she wouldn't dare to tell the truth... she was ashamed.

- I remember... being in Besaid... - The healer was writing something on some notebook - I was,... at a cliff, near the beach, the wind was strong... I think I fell down. I don't remember...

- That's great. At least you remember something. - and again he started writing on his notebook, which was really starting to annoy her "Is the guy writing every line I say or what?" - I think it's better for you to rest now. - Dr.Homes finally took his eyes from his precious notebook - Lady Yuna,... I want you to know that I'm really relieved that you are alive. I think that the whole Spira is. - he gave some steps towards the door, and just before he walked away, he turned back - By the way, your guardians are very worried about you; they usually come to the Hospital to check on you twice a day. They should be here in some hours.

- Okay... thanks' - she said looking down to her hands. Then she heard the doctor closing the door, leaving her alone in the room.

"The whole Spira? Great..." she let out a long sight. "How long am I here?..." She scouted the room with her eyes for some calendar, but nothing. Only a clock... "Well, there is no much sense on having a calendar on an Hospital room after all"

She let her head fall heavily on the white pillow of her bed (act that she immediately regretted, since it caused a sudden strong pain in her head) and closed her eyes.

"Now what?" She was tired of asking that to herself lately, but she couldn't help it. She thought about that day, at the cliff; trying to run away... Then, Kimahri's words started to echo on her mind "Apology is running. Yuna never run away." Where was that Yuna? The one that never run away? the one who was always smiling? the one that was determinate to do anything for Spira?

"What have I become?"

She then realized how much she had changed in the past months. Before the pilgrimage, she had a reason to live, to fight and fake smiles; but now, everything seemed pointless, dead. Even she was feeling dead inside... it was exactly that that lead to the suicide attempt in Besaid, wasn't it?

Her entire body hurt. That was a good sign, at least it meant that she was still alive, that still felt something. That seemed a lot contradictory, considering that she wanted to be dead.

She opened her eyes, only to see a dead white ceiling. She looked around, just to see the dead room, with a dead table, and a dead clock on the wall. She felt like nothing in there was real... it was all dead. She closed her eyes again, and focused on the pain, the only thing that was real, trying to forget about her emotional pain. But she remembered everything; even with that intense physical pain, she couldn't forget her pilgrimage... him... She thought again about how he changed her life... In that moment on the airship's deck, he was everything, everything she cared... but in the end, everything went away...

She remembered, one of he people who went to visit her (and ask her another impossible question) said she was everything to Spira, that Spira was her empire...

"You can have it all, my empire of dirt" That was how she felt about Spira: a whole empire of dirt; and she was the one wearing the crown of dirt, sitting on a liar's chair, pretending she could actually be Spira's guide. But in reality, she was nothing. The only thing she had was a handful of broken dreams and thoughts that she could not repair.

"You will find a way" Lulu's words came again to her mind. When she said them, Yuna believed that she would find her way, that, with time, that feeling of emptiness would disappear.

"But you are somewhere else, in the Farplane... I am still right here."

She wished she could start again... a million miles away.

"I would find a way"

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"You are saying that you didn't hear her?"

"Err... no. Nobody's here! Just you, me and the Faith... Now shut up and let him finish the explanation."

"But..." He decided to follow the other voice's advice and shuted up. There was no use, none of them had heard that voice! And the voice seemed to have faded. He would let the Faith finish, and then he would think about it.

- Like I was saying, the people from your Zanarkand never really existed, and now they are nothing.

"So, that definitely means that we are something! You see? I told you we were something! And now what?"

"What do you mean, "now what"? It's over... you heard the Faith. No body, no world. We are stuck here!"

"No! There must be some way!... It just... can't end here..."

- Since you have a soul, I think it's fair to you to have a chance to really live.

"You see!? This isn't the end!"

- But you still need a body. We could create bodies for you with pyreflies, but that would never be a real body. And we couldn't hang it on for much time.

"So, what can we do?"

- You can do nothing. Just be here and wait.

"Wait?! For what? How long?!"

- Wait for us, Faith, to manage to do a real body for you. How long? I don't know. I must go now. Remember: just wait.

"Bah! Like we could do anything more..."

End of Chapter 10

When I started to write this FanFic, I never thought that it would have more than 10 chapters; but this is the 10th already, and the story isn't even at the middle. Actually, It's just starting! I have lots of new chapters in my head, this thing is gonna be huge... I'm going to add action to the next chapters (not to the "right next" (like the 11th, 12th, etc), but action chapters will show up with time...)

By the way, some lines of this chapter come from two great musics: Something I Can Never Have, by Nine Inch Nails ; No Roads Left, by Linkin Park

Go listen to them; they are awesome xD