It was an average night in the city of Midgar. A slightly green hue could make up the skyline if one were to look up. But tonight Aerith was doing the exact opposite, she was communicating with the lifestream in a back alley of sector 8.

She suddenly got this nagging feeling . The planet was trying to tell her something, something important. For some reason it kept telling her to keep calm… but she was calm, why wouldn't she be? Was something so terrible going to happen that the planet itself have to tell her? She must need to concentrate harder. Focus it whispered. This wasn't good enough? Fine. She would comply. It wasn't like she had much of a choice anyway. She proceeded to close her eyes, focus her breathing, and clear her mind of the day's events, that nasty customer from earlier was gone. The noise from the bustling city behind her became little more than a murmur. She was ready now.

Aerith got this terrible feeling in her chest. Something in Midgar… very close… the reactor? What about the reactor?

"Hang on, I gotta get rid of my garbage before my shift. Be there in a sec," came a voice from just down the alley. There was a shuffling noise. "Just throw it down the plate, dude." A brief pause. " No one'll notice a banana peel in the slums. Heck, there's so much garbage you could almost rebuild Midgar outta it!" Aerith pinched her eyes tighter closed in an attempt to regain her previous state of concentration.

"You sure I won't get caught?"

Aerith was pretty annoyed that her concentration was broken again but if she wanted to hide from Shin-Ra then she had better let it slide . Yes, she was a simple, law abiding, florist that was in no need of trouble.

"Just toss it over already man. It'll blend in." A split second, then "Nah I can't do it."

" Man you need to buck up already. We're gonna be late for patrol and all because you don't have the guts to toss a stupid banana peel down a plate. Gimme that-." Aerith heard a heavy pair of footsteps clanking against the catwalks. "There, see, nothing to it."

Beads of sweat formed on her forehead. Must. Concentrate... Sudden footsteps coming from her right made her look up from the pipe she was knelt at. With a frustrated sigh she snatched up her flower basket and returned to civilization. So much for something important.

Elsewhere in the city that never sleeps…

"Hey Tom, can you hand me that plank over there?" Tom, a middle aged man, was helping his friend build a produce stand in between the slums of sectors 1 and 8. His friend, Louis, was a crop farmer from Kalm, and Tom promised to help sell the produce here in Midgar. And who better to sell to than the down to Gaia people of the slums. Seeing how the soil around Midgar had gone barren what with the reactors and all it made good business to sell where there was no crops.

"Sure thing." He was in a chipper mood today so he decided to hum a little toon as he worked. Tom was eager to get home and spend some quality time with his family, that apple pie he saw on the counter was also quite inspirational.

He bent over to grab one of the many planks needed for the rafters when something hit his shoulder hard. Tom yelped in pain and immediately dropped the plank , which then fell on his foot earning him more pain. Was he being attacked by monsters? He whirled around ready to face the varmint only to find… nothing? Maybe it ran away? When the monster had pounced it had only hit a small area of his shoulder so… couldn't have been very big, right?

Louis heard the commotion and climbed off of his stand to investigate. When he got to the scene of the crime he noted that his friend had a wild look in his eyes. " Louis, be on the lookout for monsters. I was just attacked."

That got his attention. He got his pocket knife ready just in case. Monsters were a very real thing here in the slums and only recently Shin-Ra stopped caring. Whereas just a few years ago they would send SOLDIERS in to take care of the problems. "Bad?"

"Nah, I'll be fine, the little varmint pounced on my shoulder. Who knows what kind of a mess the monsters could make out of our business." Tom said as he clutched his shoulder.

As Louis looked around something yellow caught his eye. He got closer, danger momentarily forgotten. "Man, you should have told me you got a hold on some of these babies." He said as he crouched over the banana, picking it up between his thumb and index finger.

"How far did you have to go to get 'em? Costa Del Sol?" Tom just stood there in confusion. That wasn't there earlier. In fact he cleared the worksite before the lumber even arrived. "Dude, that isn't mine." Then where…?

To this day Louis still gets slimy, unwanted visitors from on high.

so... thoughts, comments, critiques?It's my first time writing so please r&r and no flames, flames are reserved for Ifrit.