Tidus didn't like being dead. Most of the spirits were content or even happy. They had their family and friends and occasionally they would brush aside the spectral ethers and take a peek at the friends and family they'd left behind. Granted, between the old man, Auron, his mother and Lord Braska, Tidus didn't have any reason to be lonely. He wasn't alone. They just weren't...
"Watching Yuna again?" Auron asked.
Tidus jumped guiltily and allowed the vapors separating the farplane from reality to slip back into place. "She was whistling again."
"Do we have to discuss this every day?" Auron half-smiled and turned to survey the expanse of fluffy afterlife. "It isn't healthy to dwell on what you can't have. You'll never lose that restlessness and find peace if you keep looking backwards this way," Auron said.
"Being dead, I'd hoped to avoid any more lectures on my health." Auron didn't bite on the sarcasm and Tidus threw his hands up. "I just can't stand the way she's hurting. I feel like I abandoned her. She's calling out to me every day."
"You didn't abandon her. There wasn't any other way. You know that," Auron said.
It was hard to argue with the truth. "What about peace and you Auron? Why are you still watching me?"
"I watch, because I care. It gives me peace to watch over you," Auron said.
"What are you going to do when I settle down and become contented?" Tidus asked. He smiled and punched Auron's shoulder playfully.
"Something tells me, I have a long wait. Now come on. Some spirits are trying to get a game of blitzball together, and your mother wants to see a father son team-up."
Tidus grinned. "We'll plaster whoever tries..." He turned back to the spot of ether he'd just closed. It was swirling. "Do you hear that?"
Auron's first instinct was to protect Tidus. He tried to put himself between the anomaly and his friend but an energy wave brushed him aside.
I want this.
"Yuna?" Tidus said. He stared at the swirling point and tried to move back, but it followed him. "That sounded like Yuna, Auron."
"Dear Yevon," Auron whispered. The swirling anomaly was literally pulling at the whisps of Tidus's spirit.
I won't ever ask for anything else. Only bring Tidus back to me!
In an instant the anomaly was gone, as was Tidus. Auron rushed forward to the last spot he'd seen his friend and he carefully brushed back the purplish cloudy ether to see the real world. Yuna was on a beach staring off into the evening sky, whistling. "What have you done girl," Auron whispered. "What the Hell have you done?"
Being stripped from heaven and throw back into reality is not a kind or beautiful thing. In a moment Tidus went through a hundred emotions: fear, happiness, confusion, and everything in between. He passed from an almost peaceful spirit to a very confused, free-falling amnesiac in that one instant. When he finally hit the ocean, it wasn't his most graceful entry, and considering his velocity, it's a wonder he survived the impact.
"Izac, did you see that?" a pale older woman in a simple plaid dress asked. Her sunken eyes remained fixed on the spot in the ocean where she'd last seen the strange anomaly.
"I sure did, ma," a rather tall, dull-looking fellow replied. He brushed his thinning brown hair back and scratched his oil-encrusted brow. "Guy just fell out of the sky over the mining site."
"I know that. Get the boat out there and see if he needs some help," the woman ordered. She clapped her hands for emphasis.
"Yes, 'um," Izac said. He folded his lanky frame into the little powerboat tied to their main vessel and headed out to the site of impact. The bright yellow and blue were an excellent marker and Izac had no trouble finding his target. Tidus was floating motionless, face down in the water. "I'm gonna get 'em Ma." Izac hooked an arm under Tidus's and with surprising skill slid him safely into the boat. "I'm not sure he's breathing ma!"
"Breath for him a little, you idiot," she called. Disgust with the mentally impaired, Izac, was written in every line on her stern face.
"All right then," Izac said. He smiled nervously revealing a double row of extremely yellow teeth. He managed to get two good puffs down Tidus, before he started breathing for himself. "He's coughing and gurgling like Lizzy did, when you got through breathing for her, Ma."
"Good, come on back here. We'll see what the stranger has to say for himself," the woman said. "We'll see what he can afford to pay, for a couple of good Samaritans saving his life."
"I don't know, Ma. He just fell outta the sky. What if he can't pay?" Izac said.
"There's always a way to pay, darling. It's just easier if you have money," she said. "Hand him up to me, baby." The woman was older but strong. She took Tidus from her son with barely a grunt. She ran her hands slowly over his body, looking for broken bones, or wounds, or money. "No money, no broken bones, and no obvious injuries. I think we've found ourselves a miner."
"A miner, Ma? Want me to get the log book?" Izac said.
"Get my book, honey. I'll starting totaling up what our friend here owes us," she said with a crooked grin. "Get those fancy clothes off him when you get back. They'll bring something at market. We'll put it toward his bill."
When Tidus finally opened his eyes on the world again, he was crammed into a tiny bunk, surrounded by the smell of unwashed bodies. The nearest human was less than a foot away and he could see a louse crawling across his neighbor's grease streaked arm.
"Hey, new guy's awake," an older man whispered to his right. "Got any news, new guy?"
"There hasn't been a new guy in two years nearly," another fellow called. "Any of the summoners getting close to bringing a calm? We haven't seen any sin spawn in nearly a year."
"Are we in a calm?" a different man called.
Sinspawn? Calm? "I don't know." The words seemed familiar, but everything was hazy. Why were they asking him questions, he didn't have answers to? Who were they? Who was he? A rushing noise seemed to fill Tidus's head.
"Hey, did Izac knock you upside the head, man?" a youngish black man asked.
"I don't remember anything." Tidus scratched at his chest. The course brown material of his tunic was stiff with dirt and he could feel the lice, crawling in it, on him. Panic was in his eyes and his voice. It was screaming in his ears. "Where is this? Who are all of you? Who am I?" The dirty faces staring at him in the dark seemed grotesque and inhuman. Tidus would have retreated, away from the crowd, but he was surrounded. There was nowhere to run. "Someone? Help me?" Tidus could feel a scream growing in the back of his throat.
"Shut the Hell up man. You're okay, man." It was the black man again. He was smiling and trying to keep things calm. "I'm Hershey. You having a hard time remembering your name?" Tidus nodded slowly. "Well buddy, don't worry. We'll think of something to call you. Bottomline, you either had a run-in with Sin and are having one heck of a toxicity trip, or our favorite imbecile clocked you too hard upside the head. Either way, you here, and you ain't going nowhere."
"Where is here?" Tidus whispered. The terror and confusion, which threatened to overwhelm him, began to feel less immediate almost unimportant. His mind began to protect itself with numbness.
"Here... is Hell," one of the old men replied.
"That's right brother," Hershey said. "I bet you didn't know that Hell was a backwater Al Bhed mining operation."
"I'm a miner?" Tidus asked. His voice sounded distant to himself.
"You are now. Stay strong and healthy, you'll live to be a good miner, maybe even get free of this mess eventually," Hershey said. "Get crazy, get weak, let them get to you, and it's over, you dead, understand?"
"No."
"You will." Hershey settled down into a nearby bunk. "Stay close to me tomorrow. I'll try and keep you alive."
"Why would you help me?" Tidus said. No one else was volunteering to help, or even seemed concerned beyond the fact that he didn't remember any news for them.
"You owe me new guy. I'll be calling on a favor one of these days, and you'll help me out. Don't ever forget it. You owe me."