Author's Note As a message to all my reviewers thus far: THANK YOU! Some of you may not realize just how much a simple review can boost the confidence and esteem of a writer.

Also, for those who are wondering why I portray Aerith in such a way: some of us tend to forget that under that happy, naïve shell, Aerith was and in the same essence, she was not human. She had a mind and, I believe, she also had inner demons, which anyone could have when hearing voices in one's head. And since the game does show vague hints of Aerith's mortality (ex. Gongaga), I wanted to try to delve into that head of hers and bring it out for all to see.

Also, please don't complain if this story strays slightly away from the exact storyline; if I copied the FF7 script exactly, this story wouldn't be very suspenseful, now would it? Basically what I'm saying is that certain parts of this story may be different from the original storyline.

Also, I know exactly who Aerith is with' in the afterlife. I'll leave it to you to find out later. Is it Zack or Sephiroth?

on with the story!

------

Deep within
my heart,
there is a painful past.
Even now,
it aches,
and once in a while, it sparkles...

Look up towards Father Sky,
and embrace the yearning,
depending on Mother Earth,
and being brought up by her....

----- Fushigi Yuugi: "Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon"

------

I warmed up to Elmyra pretty quickly. I told her about the labs, about how Mom and I had been there for basically my whole life. She understood. Of course, because of this, I could never go to school like the other children. Going to school, even in the slums, meant registering your information to the City of Midgar, and for me, it would be like waving a steak in front of those vicious ShinRa dogs.

So I would play outside, wander about and such. I was exploring through Elmyra's backyard one day...

----

The small chestnut-haired child scuffed through the litter of her mother's slum yard, when she felt a light bump on the top of her head. Puzzled, the child looked up, and saw the most peculiar thing.

There was a crack in the upper plate.

Aerith, my dear... do you understand what this is?

"No..." Aerith furrowed her little brow and crossed her arms. "It's just a lousy old crack."

No, my silly daughter. The sun can shine down into your yard. This is a treasure that you must claim.

"Treasure? It doesn't look like treasure to me!" Aerith sighed, "It's just the sun."

What can grow with sun?

"Grass?"

Yes... and what else?

"Trees..."

And?

"Ah... flowers?"

My dear, Elmyra will be able to give you seeds. I want you to plant them here.

"Why?"

Flowers are lovely things, my child. Perhaps you can help others with them.

"Ohhh." Aerith uncrossed her arms and raised a finger to her cheek, tilting her head in thought. "How can I do that?"

That is your decision my daughter. But first you must grow them. No one else in Midgar can do it. It will be your gift.

----

Gift. Haha... well, I suppose it was a gift. Other people would either enjoy them or ridicule me for growing them. Foolish things, humans are. They judge others at the drop of a hat, and yet are slow to realize their own faults. Yes I am human, but I am also Cetran enough to 'even it out,' I suppose. Humans did evolve from us, anyway. They evolved from us because they grew tired of our ways. I suppose it would be considered de-evolution in a sense.

Humans ridiculed me. I died for them. Oh, the irony. Would have made a great play, I think.

I managed to bring those little flowers into the sad world of Midgar. People gawked, they pointed, they stared, they asked if they were real. Being the age that I was, I didn't really do anything. If anyone was nice to me I would let them have one. It wasn't until I grew into my early teens that I began selling them on the upper plate. Mom's legs had gone quite bad and it became hard for her to get around. I became the money maker of our little household, despite her complaints. But we really had no choice.

I managed to bring home enough gil per day for a couple of meals. Once in a while there would be bad business days, and I would sacrifice my own meals to keep mom fed, or to get her medicine. She never knew this; I told her I had eaten up on the plate and brought her food home. They were rough times, but things could be worse.

It was soon after my fourteenth birthday that I heard news: the war was over. I heard so many souls screaming in the Lifestream, those killed in this stupid, stupid war. Wutai was reduced to a tourist attraction. Shin-Ra won. Again. As always. Now to wait for those dictating sons of bitches to take over another town, and another, and another... until the whole world was Shin-Ra. More Shin-Ra meant more of those reactors that they kept establishing... and that meant less Lifestream, and less souls. That meant less life, more miscarriages and deaths and wilting plants and dwindling life... until it was all gone. Shin-Ra would take over the Planet, and destroy the Planet.

And this thought scared my teen self out of my wits.

How ironic that that very same day, that day when the surviving SOLDIERs returned home, I would meet someone who would change my life drastically. A SOLDIER, with bright blue eyes and hair like a black chocobo's wild feathers.

That was the day I met Zack.