A Stranger in a Strange Land

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I must be invisible

No one knows me

I have crawled down dead-end streets

On my hands and knees.

Cause I'm a lonely stranger here

Well beyond my day

I don't know what's goin' on

So I'll be on my way.

Lonely Stranger–Eric Clapton

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You know that place between sleep and awake? In that place you're not exactly sure what you see is real. It's the same with all of your senses. It's also the same when you are between being dead and alive. The thoughts you think, the sights you see, and the sounds you hear can either be real, or apart of your subconscious mind as it works its way into hallucinations, and eventually death. It's even worse if you die of hypothermia.

She had been this way for two hours now.

Sometimes she thought about how she had gotten herself into this mess. After all, wasn't she driving on her way to a party at her friend's place? Or so she thought. She's not really quite sure of anything anymore. There was some kind of accident, although she doesn't really know what happened. There was this bright flash of light, and then I was out in some field, she thought to herself. She was trying to reconstruct the events leading up to her present state, although she wasn't quite sure what was reality and what wasn't anymore. She was afraid, and she was dying.

She thought about a lot of things, past and present. And sometimes she cried out in the winter afternoon. The thing she thought about the most, was her

Mom.

Where are you?

She was like this when they found her. It was the beast that found her first. He was the tall, powerful blue Ronso. He had sensed something was near. If it weren't for him, she would have surely died.

But it was the young blonde-haired guy that took initiative.

"Lulu, get us a fire going. I think she is going to die."

To the young girl, this was all apart of her reality, which wasn't much of a reality anymore. She thought they were more hallucinations from people of her past

But I don't know these people, some sane part of her mind thought. But wait, that one voice, it does seem kind of familiar.

It was then that she felt immediate warmth from somewhere close by. And that frightened her more. She was somehow drawn to it despite her constant shivering. Again, she heard voices that seemed real, but couldn't be. Some girl, whose voice she did not recognize but seemed sincere, said "Stand back."

It was then that curaga was cast upon the poor girl.

To her, having never felt the mystic power of curative magic (or any magic for that matter), it was a rush that she had never felt before.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!!" she screamed at her rescuers. The scream was more of fright from the unknown than it was rage at anyone. She had no idea what that strange healing power was.

"Wah. What in Yevon's name did you do to her Yuna?" That was Wakka. Although she had no idea who he was, she felt some kind of warmth and friendship from him. But she had never heard that island accent before.

"Nothing." Yuna said innocently. "I just did a standard cure."

"Well" the Auroch said, "It sounded like you killed her."

Tidus, the young blonde-haired boy she had first seen, knelt down beside the still trembling girl. "Are you ok?" was all he said.

The girl, now seemingly all right, but as confused as ever, tried to say "Yes," but it came out slurred and in three syllables.

Calm down, she told herself. There has to be a perfect reasonable answer for all of this. But still she was afraid.

"Yes," she repeated. This time it came out more coherently. "Thank you."

She was still confused and couldn't shake this disoriented feeling, but that small sane voice in the back of her head told her it was going to be all right.

She tried to stand up, and that just didn't work out as she collapsed back onto her knees.

"Easy there." Tidus said as he put his arm around her shoulders to steady her. "Take it slow."

For Tidus he couldn't help but be confused. They had just beaten an incarnation of Seymour and his monstrous companion and he was beat up. Going up the Gagazet Trail took its toll on Tidus, as well as all the other guardians. For lack of a better word, he was exhausted. Seeing this girl was the last thing he had ever expected. Although there was no reason for him to ever know her, he couldn't shake this feeling: She seems familiar.

Oh well. The young man thought to himself. You'll figure it out once she gains the strength to talk. He watched as she tried to stand up again. She wavered a little bit as if she was going to fall down again when Kimarhi reached his furry blue hand out and steadied her.

"Thank you" said, still looking down.

She turned her face up to look at Kimahri. It was then that she let out a scream of terror at the big blue beast.

Oh my God, what is that thing? The girl thought. Is it going to eat me?

Before Kimahri could express his nice intentions, the girl fell again trying to step back from him.

And this was how Faith met the summoner and her guardians.

Authors notes:

1–The characters, places, events referred to, etc., are copyrighted by Squaresoft.

2–This story however is created by me.

3–Faith is my character, don't use her in any way she wouldn't appreciate.

4–My goal for this fanfic is to look at the last events of the game, and a hypothetical story line afterwards, from another point of view. In other words, the story from someone else's eyes but Tidus, although I will be using his thoughts in a first person sometimes. Just for character development purposes.

5–Any comments, complaints, bashings, etc., hit me at rune_paradigm@yahoo.com, or just put it in a review.

6–Final Fantasy X Rocks. Bring down somebody's GPA and introduce this game to them.