By Tifa Lockheart Nibelheim
Chapter 1: Winding roads
The stars were shining brightly in the nightly sky above
the small town of Nibelheim where she had been born more than twenty years ago.
She recognized every small detail of the so
familiar location; every grain of sand seemed to be in the same place as
before. The only thing that had changed was she herself.
She had matured into a most beautiful young
woman, a young woman who had, a long time ago already, secretly given her heart
to someone.
To someone who still didn't know of his precious
possession.
And there he was, her perfect someone, sitting on
the top of the old well just like when they had both been kids and he had told
her he wanted to go away to join a military force named SOLDIER.
Silently, the young woman walked over to the well
and sat down beside the young man with the spiky blond hair.
She had something on her mind she wanted to tell him
urgently, she didn't know if she could bear to conceal it another day. But she
was afraid, afraid of what his reaction would be.
"There… there's something… I … I want to tell
you…" she finally struggled to say. It almost seemed as if those words had
taken up all of her power, leaving her unable to go on revealing what she
wanted to reveal.
The young man turned around to her, a curious
look crossing his face, a small frown showing on his forehead.
She urged herself to go on, forced her mouth to
form those words she had secretly longed to say for years, decades even.
"I… I love you… I had a certain liking for you
since the day I first met you, but it was not until you went to join SOLDIER
that I realized what I was really feeling for you… What I am still feeling…"
She swallowed.
Finally, she thought, not wanting to exhale
already, still waiting for his reaction on this statement.
Carefully, as if afraid her slightest move could
make him run away, she looked up to him, looked him directly in the eyes.
The young man's expression was some odd mixture
of surprise, unbelief and… amusement!
The young woman frowned, afraid to even think
about what this expression could mean.
The his lips moved, but all she heard was:
"I'm sorry, but", then her brain automatically
shut down to prevent its owner from more serious damage.
He is sorry? What does that mean?
Tears started to form in her ruby eyes, making
her view blurry, like she was looking through a veil or something similar.
"It's true. I may have had a crush on you when I
was young, and maybe it was even more than a simple crush, but that was years
ago. You never even gave me the slightest sign of interest, so I decided I
could give my heart to someone else."
The young woman stood up in shock.
What was he saying?
Sure, she had awaited this, but she had secretly
wished for it to never happen.
So he had given his heart to somebody else.
He had fallen in love with someone else.
And there was only one person the young woman
could think of.
A woman she herself had always called her friend.
"It's … it's…" she succeeded to press through her
lips while biting them with her teeth, slowly giving up to fight against the
floods of tears rushing down her cheeks like avalanches.
"Ya", the young man answered. "It's her."
Out of nowhere, another young woman with long
blonde hair and sparkling green eyes appeared at the young man's side and
rested her head on his shoulder.
No… no, this can't be…
Every ounce of her body cried, not wanting to
believe what was so obvious now.
She stumbled down the well, backing away from the
seemingly happy couple.
Then she started to run, to run faster than she
ever had.
But she could not escape the knowledge she had
gained.
The knowledge, that her perfect someone had
chosen somebody else to be at his side.
The pain stabbed her heart like a dagger.
She had endured much pain in her life, but
nothing could be compared to what she felt in this very moment.
She ran faster and fast, nearing the cliffs near
the small town she had called her home just a few minutes ago, but which now
bore all the pain she could imagine.
With one courageous leap, she jumped off the
cliff, spreading her arms like an angel flying up to the heavens.
No words came over her lips, nothing seemed
important anymore as she slowly neared the rocky ground that would all so
suddenly end this misery.
"Noooooooooo!"
With one incredibly fast motion, Tifa sat up in
her bed, covered with cold sweat all over.
No, not again, she thought,
tears starting to form in her beautiful ruby eyes.
She had already had this nightmare once, but she
had thought it was just because of all the stress she was going through lately,
after the defeat of Sephiroth.
But this time, the nightmare had been more than
real.
Tifa could still feel the stab of Cloud's
rejection in her heart, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that
it had all just been a bad dream, not reality.
But she couldn't convince herself.
Uncontrollably, she started to sob into her
pillow, the tears running freely now.
This had always been her greatest fear, her worst
nightmare: that she would tell Cloud about her true feelings and that he would
reject her because he was in love with Aeris.
Tifa feared that this nightmare had been more
than just a simple dream, but a premonition of what would most likely happen.
It would only have an end if she told Cloud what
she felt, but now she feared it even more than she already had before.
How was she ever to plug up the courage to do so
when she had dreams like this?
Tifa turned around, lying on her front, her face
buried deep in the pillow, which was beginning to soak.
Why did all this have to happen to her?
Hadn't she been going through enough pain in her
life?
Why her?
***
"Hey Teef! Breakfast is ready. You should come
down now if you want some, otherwise Cid will create the same mess like
yesterday and the food will be uneatable!"
Cloud frowned as he got no answer.
Normally, Tifa was the first one to be up and
prepare the breakfast for them after tidying up the mess they had created the
night before.
As carefully as he could in order not to wake his
friend, he went up the steps to Tifa's room at the end of the small corridor.
Softly, he opened the door, just to see his
friend was still lying in bed, clutching her pillow like her whole life
depended on it, and with eyes so red that he simply knew she must have been
crying at night. A thought that didn't please him.
After a short moment of reflection, he walked up
to her and touched her gently by the shoulder, shaking her slightly.
"Tifa", he whispered. "Tifa… it's already past
ten. You slept through!"
Suddenly, the form started to stir under his
touch and ruby eyes, surrounded by a shade of red, opened to look Cloud
directly in the eyes.
This was followed by a reaction Cloud wouldn't
have awaited at all: Tifa opened her eyes wide, like in shock, brushing away
his hand, backing away from him as fast as she could.
Unconsciously, Cloud took a step back and held
his hands up high, trying to calm his friend.
"Tifa, what's up? What happened? It's just me,
Cloud!"
Tifa was still breathing very rapidly, but in his
eyes he could see that she recognized him. Slowly, she calmed down and, closing
her eyes, she exhaled.
Cloud looked at her with deep concern showing on
his face.
"Are you alright? You know you can tell me if
anything is wrong!?"
Tifa shook her head, her eyes still closed.
"No, it's nothing, really. It was just a
nightmare I had."
Although this seemed to be an acceptable and
plausible explanation of her reaction, the concern stayed in his mind, as well
as the frightened expression on her face as she had woken up to see him.
"Can I do something for you? Do you wanna tell
me?" he asked gently, offering more help than he had actually given her over
the past few years.
Tifa opened her eyes, facing him with a slight
smile forming on her lips.
"No, thanks. I just need to be alone now."
Cloud frowned.
Be alone? Why that?
Obviously, Tifa could read his thoughts, and no
matter how depressed she was at that moment, she had to once again laugh about
his sometimes-occurring slowness.
"I just wanna get dressed, ok?"
Cloud grinned sheepishly and scratched the back
of his head, slowly backing away towards the door.
"Oh ok. Didn't think about that."
With these words, he left her room and closed the
door beside him.
As soon as he had left, Tifa's expression
dropped. The smile soon vanished from her face to be replaced by a pained
expression.
Slowly, she rose out of her bed and walked over
to a drawer picking the clothes she chose to wear that day: a black tight skirt
that went down to her knees and a sleeveless white shirt, along with black sandals.
In front of the mirror, she corrected the small
bulges in her skirt and shirt and combed her long hair. After a few minutes –
she had never spent lots of time with clothes or stuff like makeup – she walked
out of her room, down the stairs to join her friends at the breakfast table.
As she sat down on her seat between Barret and
Cloud, her face showed the same cheering smile as always when she was with her
friends.
She could never allow them to see her unhappy, it
would make them unhappy. Tifa was, and had always been, the cheerleader
of the small bunch of weird people that had saved the planet.
After she had greeted everybody, she poured
herself a cup of hot, steaming coffee and slowly let it wash away the last
remains of sleep that rested in her body, and with that, the biggest part of
memory of the nightmare.
Her day looked a lot brighter when she had
finished her breakfast.
"Teef, you look like you didn't have much sleep
last night, did ya? Maybe ur gonna make yourself a good time and me and Cid will
clean up the kitchen today."
Barret offered in his rough, but still friendly
manner.
Immediately after he heard his name, Cid jumped
up, almost dropping his cigarette onto the floor.
"Hey, you ******! You talking about me! Why
should I clean that ***…"
Yet as his gaze met Barret's eyes, he stopped
cursing and sat down again, not wanting to start a fight with his friend, who
was some taller than him.
"No, you don't have to…" she started, but as soon
as she saw the expression on Barret's face, she knew that her protest wouldn't
be a success.
"Ok ok", she said with a small smile, sighing at
her friend's stubbornness.
Grateful for that chance, she got up from her
chair and left the house in Kalm all of them were momentarily staying in.
Greeting some people here and there, she walked
through that little town and left it through the northern exit, making her way
to the beach.
She had always liked the beach, almost as much as
she liked the stars.
The clear blue water let her mind drift and flow,
and her way of thinking seemed so much easier when she was near this element.
Carefully, she sat down in the soft white sand,
hugging her legs, her gaze directed towards the horizon.
And once again, she had to think about that
nightmare. Somehow, it always seemed to come back to here.
When those nightmares had started, they hadn't
been very real, and just occasional, maybe one dream in a week or two, but now
they came more often, nearly every night. And none of her dreams had been as
real as the one she'd had that night.
The fear and pain of Cloud's rejection in it
still haunted her, the dagger still stuck in her heart, twisting and turning to
cause even more pain.
Tifa sighed.
She had to do something against that pain, though
it was again easier said than done. Now, she was even more afraid to tell Cloud
her true feelings, because she was almost sure that he would reject her.
But what else could she do…
Thoughts and ideas started to turn in her mind,
developing winding roads, displaying possible scenarios of what might happen.
And there it was, this one solution.
It seemed too drastic, too radical…
It actually was…
As she sat in the sand, pondering about what she
should do, she did not notice the day slowly ending, preparing for another
night…
***
And there it was again.
This image of Cloud and Aeris, standing there,
she resting her head on his shoulder.
And again Tifa began to run, began to run towards
the cliff to set and end to her pain, to the misery she was going through once
more, every night.
She leapt forward, losing ground under her feet,
falling free, her arms erected from her sides.
Tifa rushed up in bed. The same dream like the
night before, and even more real now.
Her heart ached, her head ached.
Her body did not seem to want to go on enduring
such misery and torture each night, it was rebelling.
"I can't go on like this", she whispered to
herself, breathing so fast that she was close to hyperventilation.
Jumping up out of bed, she grabbed her everyday
clothes she had worn every time they had battled. She immediately got dressed
and was about to leave her room in a rush as she noticed a picture on her desk.
It was a picture that had been in the newspapers
some days after they had saved the world.
It showed the whole bunch of heroes, all gleaming
with pride and a bit of shyness.
Tifa had always liked that picture.
It showed happiness.
It showed the world as it should have been.
After some seconds of hesitation, she took a
small piece of paper, a pencil and hastily wrote down some lines, before she
finally left her room with no intention of coming back soon.
***
"Teef, you slept through again!" Barret shouted
up the stairs.
It was really not like her to sleep that long,
and he secretly hoped she hadn't had another bad night like the one Cloud had
told him of.
Slowly, he walked up the stairs and opened the
door to Tifa's room, expecting her to be in bed, still sleeping.
But to his surprise, the room was empty. The way
it looked, it had to be left in a rush, the drawers with clothes still open,
her bedcover scattered on the floor.
"Hey guys, has any of you seen Tifa leave the
house early this morning?" he shouted down the stairs, resulting a "No, not
me!" echo.
Concerned, Cloud stepped up to Barret and entered
Tifa's room.
"You know where she is?" the bulky man asked the
former SOLDIER.
Cloud just shook his head.
"I don't know, she didn't tell me anything."
He looked over to the bed to see it all in a
mess.
"She wasn't doing well lately. She kept having
those nightmares. That's the only thing she told me."
Barret sighed, concern showing on both his and
Cloud's face.
As Barret put the cover of the bed back onto it,
Cloud went over to the desk, his gaze locked on a small piece of paper he
hadn't seen there before.
As he got closer, he realized it was Tifa's handwriting,
lying just right under the picture from the newspaper Tifa liked so much.
He grabbed the small piece and as he started to
read, everything in him froze.
"Hey buddy", Barret said, looking over Cloud's
shoulder. "What's that?"
Cloud handed him the piece without looking at
him, he just stood there.
Barret read the clear handwriting, his reaction
similar to Cloud's.
"No…" he said. "She can't have done that…"
Dear friends,
I'm sorry, but I have to leave you. I have tried
very had lately to suppress those feelings that came to me, but I cannot go on
like this. After all, it was just a matter of time, so please don't blame
yourselves. I wish you all the best.
But I have to go, I have to go my own winding
roads in life, whether they are lonesome or of short duration I don't mind.
Don't try to find me, you never will. And it will
be better for you if you won't.
Never lose your faith and always be as happy as
on that day this picture was taken.
Always remember me as your cheerful and happy
friend,
Tifa