I assume that, if you're reading this, you're reading my fic, and I thank you for that. This fic, however, is in the process of some crazy rehabilitation, and for that I apologize. My chapters are also incredibly short. I cannot apologize for that, as my laziness is the only one I can blame, and there ain't nothing I can do about that.

-----silec

A golden sunset, the last one to be seen. An aura of red encircling our apocalyptic punishment, a second aura, of blinding white, doing little to stop it. Streams of green light, everywhere, encompassing everything that I knew and all that I never would. The planet is dying now, in the greatest peril, and yet it is saved for eternity. My friends look on, speechless, at the spectacle of luminescence below our sputtering, failing lady luck. We are going to die, I think, and I know, but damn, this is beautiful.

Billows of smoke pour from our engine, and the crank of broken gears, trying and losing, is increasingly audible. I see her, and she has water in her eyes. There is a look, that she is thinking deeply, and that she's not completely there. She stands, with a worried, gloved hand to her chest, and the other clutching the rusted railing of the deck. I want to ask her why she is crying. I want to hold her, and never let go until I die. But I don't. I can't. It's all I can do to place a hand on her shoulder, and look into her eyes. She's so beatiful. But I've never seen such sadness, such worry in her eyes. I grip her hands in mine, and give her a hard smile, the only kind I have to give.

I trace my eyes around my meager crew, preparing in my mind a doomed pep talk. But as I open my mouth, time is slowed to a snail's pace. I see everything through an outside being. There is nothing I can do. I see the deck of our poor lady luck collapsing, the railing folding in upon itself like a paper tube. Each chip of metal, each spark flies off in slow motion. My crew dive beneath the flickering terminals and shield their heads.

But not her. She is gone, off in some other land, questioning all there is to be questioned. The railing folds upon her unknowing hand, and a dull crack emanates from the broken fingers. Only then does she wake up, the tears in her eyes relinquishing their hold, streaming down in laggard droplets. Her arm jerks back in pain. I see the railing tumble town into the abyss. She trips, the hollow sound of her knees hitting the iron floorboard echoing above the sounds of chaos below and around me. She casts a hand in my direction. I see her mouth form the letters of my name, as she calls out in frightened desperation. But I do nothing. I only collapse onto my hands and knees and cry.

My crew, my friends, see the predicament. They rush forward to help her, pushing past my deadened, kneeling form, but it's much too late. Through it all, I raise my chin and notice an image. The red, fiery meteorite. The glowing holiness surrounds it in vain. That golden sun, illuminating it all, an eternal audience that cares little for the tired plot line. And she, the beauteous subject of the portrait, my love, my only, clinging by her nails to the remainder of our ship's floor.

Her legs dangle helplessly over torn metal and circuitry. Her tear-stained face looks at me. That final look. That one look, and then time restarts.

She is over the edge.

She is gone.

An empty and barren desert. There lies a girl, unconscious, her face buried within the endless sands. Her arms outstretched, she seems to be hugging the Earth. Her hand is twisted and scarred, among other things, and she appears to be, among other things, very much dead. A lone chocobo, one of the few survivors, trots up to her, and give a tentative peck to her forehead. And another, when she does not awaken. The chocobo lets out a resounding "kweh." The girl wakes up, and coughs up a large amount of sand.

"Hey, there's a girl over here!" comes a shout from the distance.

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His face is in his hands, and he sits upon a moss-covered boulder overlooking the wind-swept beach. Nature, in many aspects, seems unaffected. He won't speak to anyone, not even his friends who are doing their best to console him and each other.

He doesn't want them to see him cry, even though they know that's obviously what he's been doing for the past hour. But they leave him alone and instead hopelessly attempt to repair the fallen aircraft. Yuffie hovers about the area, tending to people's wounds, physical and emotional, as best she can, but is failing miserably. There's nothing they can do.