AN: Just a quick side note…Where are the reviews people??? I'd like to thank my sole reviewer Platinum Angel. Thank you! ^-^;; This is where the story is starts properly, so none of the boring prologue stuff anymore…Here we go!

Chapter 1: Darkness and Death

Fujin's POV

'I have to leave this behind. I can't take it anymore! I just have to get away from all of this. I don't want to stay here. Everything is just going so wrong! I don't know what to do about it either.' I thought as my feet carried me far away from my sanctuary. The one place I thought I could be safe and protected is now in ruins. The people were corrupt. People like that couldn't protect me. They can't look after me and they never could. Their faces haunted my life and my surroundings. Everywhere I went there were the faces. Faces laughing at me, calling me names, frightening me. I ran and ran but I could never escape. I could never bring myself to stand up to the satanic spirits. I cried for them to stop chasing me, forever adding to the sorrow that had built up in my heart.

I tripped and fell to my knees, the cold and wet ground tearing at my clothes and scraping my arms. I lay there in the rain, too weak to pick myself up. I was tried of running, but was exhausted of my feelings. I couldn't stand up for myself or my friends. The only friends in the world I have, and I couldn't even speak up for them. My head was face down on the ground, listening to words flow through my ears. I was tried of listening to such rubbish.

"Silence!" I shouted out to the invisible voices. I gathered the last of my remaining strength and stood up, facing nothing. They were gone. Nothing was left around me, only the stillness of my surroundings. I smiled to myself. I had done it. I had really done it! I turned round with my renewed sense of strength and walked to an unknown destination.

As I walked I noticed that the light was very dim, only squeezing through the small gaps from above. But there wasn't anything above me. There were no trees or buildings or anything for miles around. All there was, was….darkness. I could see myself as if a spotlight trailed every step I walked. But I couldn't see anything else…

I froze as I heard footsteps behind me. They echoed as if they were walking in a cave. The sound bounced off every surface making them seem as if they were coming from every direction. I couldn't see what was coming towards me, but they could see me. The single beam of light that followed me around like a shadow gave me away in an instant in the surrounding darkness.

Something then grabbed me from behind, digging its icy cold hands into my shoulders. I gasped as the cold penetrated my skin through my clothes. Its nails were like daggers as they forever cut into my body. I tried to free myself from the death grip, but it only increased the pain. I felt a wet patch soak through my clothes and I looked round in fear to find the patch of blood getting bigger and bigger. I began to grow cold myself as I realised that I could die if I stayed I much longer.

"Fujin…" the monsters female voice sounded in my ear. "Don't try to run away dear…" Her grip suddenly tightened and I screamed out in pain. "I'll look after you…" The voice began to talk with a vengeful hatred with each word it spoke. "Sweetie…" it shouted in my ear with an evil I couldn't describe.

I was so afraid and scared of the unknown beast squeezing me to death, I didn't see my surroundings change. The heavy darkness swirled and changed to the inside of a deep underground cavern lit with fiery torches. My eyes shot open as I felt a wave of heat brushed past my face. The hands moved to my neck as I tried to break away again. The knife like nails began to cut my throat as my breath became short. The monster lifted me up with the strength of a full-grown man. I felt myself moving in slow plodding steps. I gasped for breath that didn't come to me. The air was so thick that I thought I felt it brush past me. My hands came up to try and pry off the hands of death. As I looked at them they were stained with small rivers of blood that had flowed down my arm from my crippled shoulder.

"Don't be afraid Fujin dear…" I looked down as far as I could, and I could wear I felt my heart skip a beat. There I as being strangled to death at the end of a crevice above a pit of burning lava. The intense heat washed over my bleeding body, making me want to faint. I felt my weak, battered body being turned around in the hands of my enemy. I wanted to scream as I saw the face of her.

Her eyes were blood shot, and wild with a desire for death. Her hair was a mess of black curls, which made her ghostly white skin even more pale. Her dark lips were curled into a dark smile as she spoke her last words.

"I'll look after you…Fujin." A wave of air swamped my neck was freed of her dagger like hands. But I didn't fall to the ground. I kept falling and falling looking up at the guilty culprit of my near death. The heat grew nearer and nearer, slowly engulfing me in the steam and fire of darkness. I screamed as I felt the fire incinerate my body. I plunged deeper and deeper into the pain of death, never being able to escape.

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My eyes shot opened as my scream continued. Sweat was running down my face as I frantically looked round to see where I was. The twisting fires of death had disappeared and I was, instead, sitting bolt upright in my bed. I gasped for breath as I felt as if I really had been suffocated.

Before I knew it Selphie was at my side. Quistis had left a couple of years ago to go somewhere. I couldn't quite remember where.

"Fujin! Are you ok?" She asked, her voice full of worry. I didn't reply as I was still in shock at how real my dream had been. The face…the face…

"The face…Matron's face…"

"Fujin! You're bleeding! And you're neck! Your hands!" I looked round to her white face wondering what she was talking about. Sure I was bleeding in my dream but…

I brought my hand to my face and wanted to throw up. There it was, covered in the exact same streams of blood as in my dream. I looked to my shoulder to find it also bearing the same wound as my dream. Pain chose that moment to shock my weary body. My shoulder stung with the same crunching pain, an invisible force, choking me and increasing the pain of the small cuts already there, grabbed my neck as before.

I didn't want to even believe for a second that this was really happening. Everything was the same: the lack of air, the sharp pain coursing through my entire body and the…

I saw Selphie run out of our room, calling Matron for help. No! I didn't want her, anyone but her! If I saw her again, then I'd surely die. But my wishes were denied as Selphie returned with the demon that dropped me to my death. I screamed again as I saw her and tried to get away from her. I scrambled out of my bed and fell to the floor, tangled in the covers. I threw them off me and ran from the other side of the room scraping the wall like a terrified animal.

"Fujin dear…It's only me…What's the matter sweetie…I won't hurt you." Her kind sounding words were almost enough to make me go running back to her, and cry in her arms, but the fear that had now placed itself so deeply in my soul would not be moved. I saw Selphie crying as she watched my disturbed spirit act the way it did. Matron came closer and closer, her arms outstretched, saying words I didn't hear.

She finally stepped too close to me for my liking, and I bolted out of the room leaving a small trail of blood from my arm. I ran to the back door and tried my hardest to open it, but it was locked. The front door was also likely to be locked. I hesitated about where to go, but soon made my decision when I saw Matron at my doorway. I ran towards the boy's bedroom and flung open the door causing it to bang against the stone wall. I ran headlong towards the window and jumped out of it, forgetting that there was no flat ground outside.

I tumbled down the side of the landscape, down towards the sea. Stray stones cut new wounds in my bleeding arm as I rolled and thudded to the ground. The sand and dirt stung my open wounds, and the chill in the night air froze my skin. But I picked myself up and kept running. Running and running to somewhere I didn't know of. Somewhere that was anywhere but here. I couldn't stay here with that crazed woman who killed me in my dream. As I ran I could hear the faints shouts of Matron calling my name. I could still hear Selphie crying, playing over and over again in my head.

I slowed down, seeing that I was now clearly out of sight from the orphanage. I walked to the end of the beach that lay under a cliff. The humble little cove would have to provide as a place to hide for now. I sat down on the dry coarse sand and wiped my own tears. I breathed in the sea air and filled my lungs with the lost air that it needed. I had never been here in the four years that I had stayed at the orphanage, but it seemed familiar in a way that I couldn't understand.

In all the peace and quiet that lay here, the last thing I would expect to hear now would be that of footsteps. I doubted anyone would even look this far. At least not tonight anyway. But they were. My head whipped around at the faint but distant noise of footsteps in the sand. I could see vaguely who it was. His blonde hair was dimmed in the blue haze of the night, but he was holding something. I waited for I knew who it was.

"What are you doing?" I shouted to him. He waved.

"Looking for you!" he shouted back.

"Why? Why would you even care?" tears were in the brim of being let loose. He didn't reply for a second. If I had had zoom vision I would have seen him wince.

"Because you're my friend!" he finally answered. He was nearer now and I could see him clearly. He stopped and looked at me. A gust of wind blew past my ear and I felt it lead me towards the boy who had come to my rescue. I ran to him calling his name. The tears that were plaguing my eyes fell of their own accord. I ran blindly to him, and slammed myself into his chest. The things he was carrying fell to the ground as his arms came around my back. I cried into his shoulder mumbling the things that had happened. He whispered soft words of comfort in my ear as he heard my dream.

He pulled me back and lightly placed his hands on my shoulders. His eyes were clouded with worry as he gathered me to him again.

"You're going away aren't you?" he said breaking the silence.

"I don't know…" he pulled me away again. He took my bleeding hand and held it with both of his.

"I brought you your things." He looked towards the bundle of my belongings that he had taken with him. There lay my beloved pinwheel and my day clothes.

"Thank you." I looked at him again. I could see that he didn't want me to go. I didn't want to leave him either. Seifer was my best friend here at the orphanage. He was the one that was always there. He was the one I always came to. He understood. He cared. He was the boy I loved!