Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ghost Town

Authors note- Hey I had to rate it PG-13 cause of Cid's mouth. But I think I may tone down the swearing just so I don't have to rate this R next time or anything. Also I'd like to thank Anya a ton for helping me out with Cid's character. Hope you enjoy…

Once again I find myself flying the supply ship to one of the dinky little offices in the middle of fucking nowhere.

I swear that Coxley my supervisor has something against me. He always gives me these menial little jobs that no one gives a shit about.

But if I ever wanna graduate up to flying combat or something like that then I'll have to put up with this for a while longer.

Quite how I ever got into Shinra, let alone piloting is beyond me. But I can't imagine a life without this so I guess it'll have to do for now.

My thinking was cut off abruptly by the radio. It was beeping which meant that someone wanted to talk to me; whether or not I'd want to talk to this person the radio didn't indicate. I hit the button to receive the transmission just to get rid of that damn beeping.

"Freighter 14 do you copy?" asked the voice on the other side on the radio.

"This is 14. What the hell do you want?" I yelled.

"Highwind, it looks your destination has been destroyed."

"Destroyed?! What the fuck is going on here?"

"We're not quite sure Mr. Highwind. That's why we called. You see we need someone to check out the situation…"

"And that someone is me." I said grimly.

"Correct. So just do a little flyby then touch down and check things out."

"Always get the bad jobs." I muttered under my breath.

"What was that Highwind?"

"Nothin'. All right so I'll report back if I get a chance. Highwind out."

I cut off the transmission before the messenger could deliver anymore orders. The radio started beeping again but I just ignored it.

I noticed that my pack of cigarettes had fallen off the control panel and scattered across the floor again. I really needed to do something about that, maybe a little pouch or something. I picked up one and lit it absentmindedly. Lately these things had become a habit I fell upon in stressful moments.

People said that they were bad for me but do I care what they fuckin' think?

Suddenly I realized that I was approaching my destination. Just over the hills I could see a pillar of smoke rising out of what was most likely the offices that I had a hundred crates worth of supplies for in the back.

And sure enough as I cleared the ridge there sat the smoking ruins of Lircos village.

It hadn't been much, fifteen or so houses and the office building. And it was even less now, just a bunch of charred frames and one big pile of debris from the office building.

I found a patch of clear ground in the center of the village to set down. After shutting down all systems, except for intruder alert, I lowered the ramp and stepped out.

The scene that greeted me was even more dismal than from the air. From the looks of things someone had strafed this place and not bothered to hang around to see what the villagers thought about it.

At a casual glance it looked like no one had even been here for the attack. But as I neared one of the huts I was proven wrong.

The smell of burning flesh was heavy in the air. Combined with the smoke already thickly laden throughout the village it was pretty damn nauseating.

But I pressed on cause the sooner I got this done the sooner I could get the hell out of here. This place just didn't feel right.

After going down the main street I came to the conclusion that most of the villagers hadn't been in their huts when this happened.

That only left one place, the office building. I walked over there dreading what I might find. And as I'd guessed everyone had been here.

From the overpowering smell of flesh and few scattered skeletons, I knew for sure that this was where quite a few people's lives had ended.

I had gotten all the information I could and, the feel of death lingering in the air was really creepin' me out. So I decided it was time to go.

With one last glance around I turned to head back to the ship and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

Authors note- by the way the title doesn't really have any specific meaning that I've found yet. It's the name of a song and I just thought it sounded cool.