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Never Again: Chapter 14

After six months of living on his own, Zidane was finally getting the hang of independent life. Surprising even to himself, independent life meant living off of the things he stole. He started out his thieving career with simple pick pocketing, mostly in big crowds where no one would think any different if someone would "accidentally" bump into you. As his skill and confidence grew, he could snatch a wallet off of a lone person in a dark corner and disappear before the victim knew what hit him. He was also able to swipe a few necessities from the general store, but he usually had to buy something along with his stolen possession so he wouldn't look too suspicious.

After six months of living in Lindblum, he also knew the whole city like the back of his hand. He even found out where Millie and Howard's house was. He was thinking about visiting the nice old woman and her husband, but guilt struck him down. He felt ashamed of what he had been reduced to. He didn't want Millie to see him like the thief that he was. This sounds like a lot of thinking for someone so young, but when you're alone, you have to grow up pretty fast. So, he obviously passed up the opportunity of living with them until he was officially old enough to be living on his own. Instead, he spent his nights sleeping on the floor of the church in the industrial district. People usually didn't bother him there; it was a church. People there thought he had as much right to be there as they do.

The best part about living in the church was not just fact that people would leave him alone when he slept; there was a pub next door where he could get "free" breakfast. Every morning Zidane would visit a man he had dubbed "Pops" and would order his breakfast. This is where the clever skills of a thief came in. Zidane would eat especially slow and try to start a civilized conversation with Pops. If Zidane played his cards right, Pops would talk so much that he would forget if Zidane had paid him for the meal or not. This worked on some occasions, but most of the time Zidane had to pay with the money that he stole from the person sitting next to him.

Aside from the self-loathing, life was going pretty well for Zidane. Zidane's official plan for today was to suck up his fear and improve his thieving skills by stealing from the local store without having to buy something along with it. It took a lot of preparation time before Zidane would attempt the task. No matter how hard he tried, his face didn't look innocent enough. His nervousness didn't help very much, either.

Zidane looked at the clock through the window of the store he was about to steal from and took mental note of the time. He wanted to remember it for something that resembled a scrapbook. "6:47, I've wasted enough time. It's now or never," he said to himself while heading off towards his destination.

His destination just happened to be a weapon shop. The things in there were usually too big to fit in his pocket or stuff under his shirt. This was a true challenge. He started to browse around for something nice. "If I'm gonna do this, I might as well do it right," he thought to himself. A glint of silver caught his eye as he made his way closer to the shelves lined with various weapons. "Nice daggers. Now what do I do?" He quickly glanced at the shopkeeper who was boredly eyeing the other customers, waiting for someone who needed his help or was going to buy something. "The perimeter is heavily guarded," he joked to himself. "But I still need a distraction..."

Zidane then noticed the rack of weapon polish and polishing rags a few feet away from him and came up with an idea. He pondered it for a moment before making his final decision. "It's not like people have time to sit there and polish their weapons anyway..." He casually walked over to the rack and "accidentally" tripped and knocked the whole thing over. The loud crash had brought him attention from the entire store, including the shopkeeper who started to head toward him to clean up the mess. "Oops," Zidane said out loud while he tried on his most innocent face. The customers turned their glances away from him and back toward their own business. "I'm so sorry. Here, let me help you with that," Zidane said while starting to kneel down in an attempt to clean the mass of broken bottles and spilt polish.

"No...Uh...no. Just leave it to me. It's my job after all," the shopkeeper answered. Zidane stood up and started to walk away. He heard the man sigh with relief that the clumsy little kid was gone.

"Now, back to business," Zidane said to himself, glancing back at the daggers. He gently lifted them from their perch on the self and waited till the coast was clear, and by the looks of the busy shopkeeper, it was. He casually made his way out of the weapon shop, congratulating himself on his most recent accomplishment.

After leaving the shop, he turned a corner to get away from the hustle and bustle of the local market, so he could have some time to himself to give his new daggers a closer look. Meeting his requirements for the examination, he slipped the daggers around his waist where they would be safe. "This calls for a celebration! I wonder if Pops if up for it," Zidane said to himself before he walked away to the aircab station.

Ignoring the looks he was getting from various people, Zidane stepped off the aircab and walked down the main street of the industrial district toward Pops' diner. He definitely wasn't ready to turn if for the night back at the church. He felt a little bit guilty from stealing. It's not the best thing to do before freeloading in the local church. Visiting Pops was the best way to celebrate, or so he thought.

Upon reaching the swinging doors of Pops' diner, Zidane heard some disturbing noises. He laid his hand on the door while trying to decide whether he should come in or not. He pushed on the door a little but backed away again when he heard a couple of crashes followed by a slur of curses. The curses died down for about a second so Zidane took another step closer to the door. Then the curses started again. They seemed to be getting louder with every breath Zidane took, as if the person cursing was getting closer.

Zidane was too confused to come up with the idea to just walk away from the diner and pretend like the whole thing didn't happen. So when the swinging doors flung open, one of them hit Zidane right between the eyes and knocked him on his back.

His world faded to black...then to blue...really bright blue...

Author's Note: No, I don't know when the last time I updated this was. All I know is that it's been a really really long time. My computer had some issues that I had to fix before I could use it again. Some stupid wire came loose. Oh well, nothing a pair of scissors and some electrical tape can't fix. I blame the wire on the flying monkeys, so go complain to them.

-Insomniac-