prologue: Illustrated Bible Stories for Children
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As far as I remember, the skies of Traverse have always been plagued by the dull hues of Darkness. Of course, not any normal darkness – not darkness that is greeted by daylight on a comfortable, timely basis – it's darkness that is so procrustean that it often and easily exposes and displays fear in ones that bask and/or live in it. Darkness that is so forbidding that armies upon armies of leeching Heartless find hospitality and comfort in it – wallowing and wading in a ideal blend of insecurities and emptiness.
And they love it. They adore it. And they love every ounce of energy they absorb from the very core of a being even more. Thus, the heartier the heart, the better. Although the nature of the Heartless make them scour for the more wholesome of hearts to host upon, Traverse is full of people with nothing. No desire, no hope, no future, which is a problem – although not too big - for them. So, in Traverse, as the number of Heartless increases and the numbers of those with actual hearts diminish, there's only one essential goal for the Heartless in Traverse – to survive.
It's not a very challenging goal, seeing that it's effortless for such creatures to thrive in such a forsaken place. Like stated before, the darkness here isn't anything normal. The darkness in this town is not the same darkness that haunts kids to sleep - it does so much more. Among other things, it reminds us that we arenobodies – just merely fodder for these sinister creatures.
And that, of course, is far, far worse.
Other than hosting copious amounts of 'fodder' for the Heartless, Traverse is a permanent sanctuary for people that had been forced into wanderlust. None of our pasts had ever been written in such a place such as Traverse, but at the very moment we enter this town, our present, which slowly turns into our future, permanently gets engraved onto a mental epitaph. A mental epitaph that, in the back of our minds, tells us that we're all the same. Thus, personalities in this town don't really clash and there's none of that lovable soap opera drama around these parts. Annual events and celebrations get blurred into others of previous years, making memories impossible. Even milestones like weddings and funerals pass by without the depth of actual human emotion. Children grow faster in this town, never knowing humor or innocence.
And it's all because of the Darkness. It's the Darkness' fault.
Nomads that have made their home here know, from prior experiences in other worlds, that the sun is the essence of spirit. It is the center of the so-called circle of life. It is the root of the food cycles and food webs that we were taught about in grade school. It emoted the worlds, and made it somewhat of a brighter place.
The sun was definitely something that everyone and anyone could connect to in an infinite amount of aspects. The sun is our one common denominator amidst the streaming pool of emotions, diversity, and life.
But here, in Traverse... where is it?
"Over there!" Yuffie squeaked, pointing toward a corner of the 2nd district where the Dalmatians (of all things) lived. I rubbed my eyes and lazily looked toward where Yuffie pointed. Nothing. Not that I was expecting anything, I thought bitterly to myself. I was clearly growing wearier.
"Yuffie, yew jackass, stop it. We're all goddamn tired an' we're tired of yer bitchin'," Cid snapped, apparently as weary as I was. Yuffie turned to him and glowered at him, while he merely yawned. "Argh, why the hell did I even believe this bullshit?"
Me, Yuffie, and Cid were atop of the abandoned gizmo shop in the second district. Why? I have no idea. Aerith had apparently told Yuffie that the sun was going to rise, and Yuffie, taking anything she heard as a cold, hard fact, got into hissy-fit and somehow convinced Cid and I to come out and watch the sunrise with her. How? I really don't know... though Yuffie did keep repeating her favorite adjective – romantic – in her demands to a point where we were actually convinced that anything Yuffie deemed romantic was, indeed, romantic. I know - I wonder what I was smoking... let alone why I wanted to actually see something 'romantic.'
Regardless, here we were. Yuffie insisted that we would wait during the early night for the sun to come up because it was supposed to be 'a gradual process that can be duly captured if only you see it out through the whole cycle.' Never having the patience as a blasé teenager to actually watch a sunrise, I accepted her claim. Besides, as much as I hated to admit it, I missed the sun. And, whether or not I thought the sun would actually come up today, I wanted to see it. It's hard to imagine a Traverse that's actually lit by something other than streetlights. The mere presence of the sun I was accustomed to and often ignored in my own world seems so foreign now – I wanted the same feeling in such a place. God knows why Cid stuck around, but he was still there. As well as several freshly burned out cigarettes littering the rooftop of the building. I've always suspected that his 'badass' attitude was merely a masquerade for gentle-hearted yearning. And, as of a few hours ago, I had proof. The proof wasn't marked by headstrong credibility, but I thought it was convincing.
Yuffie looked over to Cid, and glared at the cigarette in his hand. Ignoring his last comment, she put a nasty frown onto her face, and pointed at the burning object. "Cid, how many packs of cigarettes did you smoke today?"
"..." Cid put the cigarette in his mouth. A stream of smoke wafted from his nostrils as he lightly exhaled before he answered. "A lot more than I'd usually smoke, mind yew. I was on a smokin'-diet before this. Ye know how I'd always chew on that muthafucken twig all the time?"
"Smoking's bad for you!" Yuffie said, forcing faux-concern into her voice. "Second hand smoke is also very deadly!" she added as an afterthought.
"Thanks fer the public service announcement, Einstein. Leonhart's already stoned from it – look at that glazed look on his face," Cid bit onto the cigarette to keep it in his mouth as he flashed an openmouthed grin at me. His teeth were, surprisingly, white. I stared. "Ye see? Didn't even get a reaction from deh bastard."
"I..." I began. "Well, your arguments are always interesting," I said, mostly to myself, nodding slowly. Cid chuckled harshly.
"Suuuuuuuuuue... Don't keep yer eyes on my sexeh visage – ye need to keep yer eyes peeled at the sunrise, remember?" Cid, who was faced toward my figure leaning against the wall, turned slightly toward Yuffie, giving her an obvious glare. She didn't notice.
To somewhat of my surprise, instead of looking at the sky, Yuffie's head was leaned down, toward the ground, as she watched herself dwindle her thumbs. Cid started laughing. Yuffie immediately looked up to him.
"What's so funny?" she asked innocently. A mischievous glint surfaced briefly in Cid's eyes.
"Leonhart confessed his passionate love t'wards yew," Cid said in a soft voice.
"Cid." I said, giving him a sharp glance. Cid winked at me, quickly enough for Yuffie not to notice. I rolled my eyes.
"Really?" Yuffie said, her wily eyes wide with anticipation. The both of us stared at her for a good ten seconds before Cid burst into loud laughter. Yuffie immediately grimaced at Cid - who was on his knees, holding his stomach - and kicked at his hip, hard. "That was totally not funny!" she growled. "Start being serious!!! We're supposed to look for the sun!!!!! CID!"
"Face it, Yuf. Good ole Aerith was lyin' to yew. The sun ain't gonna come anywhere. Aerith wanted te use yer innocence to an advantage this time. Things sure get goddamn dull 'round here, y'know?"
Yuffie opened her mouth in protest, but no words came out. Suddenly: "Then why are you here?" she said in a bitter, almost caustic voice. Cid cringed as Yuffie's words slowly processed through his mind. I craned my head forward, to Cid's direction, as I waited for his response.
"... Dunno," he answered, and took a large puff into his cigarette. "... I like the sun," he said after awhile in a very un-Cid-esque voice. Ah... my suspicions were right! Grinning, I continued watching him, wanting him to do something more than show interest in his shoes. His head was held down as he resumed smoking. When he looked up from the cigarette, an earnest disposition that was definitely more Cid-like outlined his face. "But seriously, we can easily go te other worlds te see the sun in alls its glory instead of vegetatin' here. Like... Agrabah has tons an' tons of sunshine. And..."
"THAT'S A GREAT IDEA, CID!" Yuffie roared, interrupting the moment of a genuinely determined Cid and his seemingly deep monologue. "WHY DON'T WE DO THAT??? IT'LL BE SO MUCH FUN! WE CAN TRAVEL ALL THE WORLDS... AND... AND... WE CAN GO ON A ROAD TRIP!! OOO MAYBE AERITH WILL COME WITH US!!"
I stared at Yuffie in disbelief. A 'road trip,' during such dire times where a sudden Heartless strike was inevitable? I continued staring at her. Her mind was so simple – so one-track. Added to that, she didn't even take notice of Cid's unusual behavior, to use the situation as black-mail/general Yuffie-taunting material. Was she kidding? Although I already knew the answer to my question, I shook my head in disbelief. I was about to counter her suggestion, but that was when...
"Sounds like a GRRREAT idea, Yuf!" Cid said, roughly patting Yuffie on the back, with no hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Yer good fer somethin', after all! Hee! ... Just kiddin' 'bout the useless thing..."
Yuffie ignored Cid's apology and turned towards me, her brown eyes dancing anxiously with hope. "You should come with us, Squall!" Yuffie said, grinning from ear to ear. "It'll be fun!"
I was never a person that was adept with rejecting. As a kid and a teenager, I hated the idea of rejection and betrayal, so, as a result, I was reclusive. However, as I grew older and I was forced into social situations, I realized that it wasn't easy for anyone to reject, since feelings on the receiving end would always be damaged, all to various degrees. I looked over to Cid. He was smiling ardently, the cigarette burning happily in his mouth. With no sort of real outside consent, I looked Yuffie straight in the eye and nodded.
The hope in her eyes turned into a bright shimmer of pure mirth. Although my relationship with Yuffie wasn't particularly deep, there was a sense of self-satisfaction as I watched her smile.
"...Okaaaay then. I guess we'll talk about this s'more t'morrow, mmkay? I'm hella tired... I'm out!" Cid mumbled, and walked toward the ladder leading to ground level of the second district. As Cid disappeared from behind the Dalmatian's door, Yuffie turned to me and gave me a peculiar look.
"Cid has these weird mood swings, doesn't he?"
"What?" I looked back at Yuffie. So she did notice Cid's odd behavior... I was about to ask her how she thought of my 'hiding behind a mean-ass disposition' theory, but I stopped myself at the last second. Talking to Yuffie in an affable manner just seemed... unnatural.
Yuffie, who probably didn't expect (but wanted, or else she wouldn't have bothered.) a proper reply from me, gave me one last look before she jumped from the side of the building all the way down to the ground.
All alone, I sighed to myself and looked up to the eternal night's sky, with no such hint of even faint lighting, save the bright stars. Yuffie was the type of person that liked wishful thinking and, well... liked living life itself. She planned countless aspirations and expected so much out of herself. Of course, hardly anything got off the ground. But she kept on planning, hoping life would make an expected turn for the better out of one of her plans. This trip was just another one of her plans. The trip was just another endeavor at holding onto the excitement of life, excitement that can only be grasped onto during the fleeting years of youth. The trip was another thing that gave her some hope for being someone different – someone who mattered. Maybe if she did break the barrier between Traverse and the rest of the world, it would just work out for her. Darkness did have a certain effect on people... as the sun does. But unlike the darkness, sunlight had a positive influence. Yuffie's vibrancy would mix well with sunlight.
Maybe Yuffie knew about the contrasts between light and darkness. Maybe this plan of hers wasn't like any other of her plans – was it was her plan to breathe life into her other plans, so she can finally advance toward her ultimate goal? Or maybe that was just too much for her to comprehend, and she was just giddy from the thought of doing something new and adding to her bland lifestyle?
Without any definite answer to my own question, I went toward the same ladder Cid climbed down and descended toward the ground. The dim moonlight was shining over my shoulders... substituting something that I wanted more.
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ending notes: I've had an obsession with rewriting stories I've written... because, well, they sucked. The concepts behind them were not bad, actually, but shaping up the plot was something I needed to do to 'improve' the stories. At first, the original THIS IS A FIRE DOOR NEVER LEAVE OPEN (which was called Earthshine Babylon) was my one of my favorite fics that I had written.
But then, I actually read through it. ...Hah.
I'm not particularly happy with this chapter (it's certainly better than the last first prologue), but I dunno how to improve it. Since I've been editting this story every night for the past week, I think I should at least take a stab at improving the first chapter. So... criticisms, please? Thanks.
Oh yea, to former readers of Earthshine Babylon: yes, this prologue is different from the other prologue. I found it somewhat, er, steadfast in the previous version, so I wanted to fill that gap. I hope that this chapter satisfies you guys better. Thanks for keeping up with my horrible antics!