Chapter 4

She awoke at dusk, the last rays of orange sun glaring into her eyes and making her wince. Tifa sat up and looked around the empty bedroom as the sheets fell into her lap. Kali was not in her crib, and she had been tucked into her bed. Pulling her feet out and swinging them over the side of the bed, she leaned down and grabbed her boots that she had kicked off the night before. She slipped them back on and then stood, stretching slowly. The sounds of voices from downstairs drew her attention and she moved out of the room, standing at the base of the stairs.

"Do you want another plate?"

"No, thank you."

It was Cloud and Michael. She also heard the baby gurgling and squealing. No sound of Gariel. Tifa shook her head and closed her eyes against fresh tears that threatened to spring up. She told herself she should be happy his family had come for him, but she just couldn't shake the feeling...

"You're awfully quiet for a kid."

"I'm not a kid."

"Oh, really? Then what are you?"

She heard more of the conversation as she descended the staircase. When she reached the bottom, she also heard the clinking of plates and silverware.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"You don't look as if nothing's the matter. Are you upset that your friend left?"

She turned right, into the kitchen/dining room area. Cloud was getting up from the table with a plate in his hands. Kali was in her highchair, wearing half of what appeared to be dinner. Michael was idly picking at the food on the plate in front of them. When she entered, Cloud turned from the sink and gave her a tight-lipped smile.

"Hey, Tifa."

Kali looked up from her mess: "Gah!"

Michael kept his eyes to the moving fork.

"What time is it?" she asked, slipping into the chair at the far end of the table.

"Almost eight," the blond answered, bringing around a full plate of mashed potatoes, corn, and steak. He put it in front of her along with a fork and a knife. "What would you like to drink?"

"Cloud..." she sighed. "This is my house. I'm supposed to offer you a drink."

"You've had a few surprises. I'm just taking care of you," he said defensively.

Oh, and, where were you before you came back here to hide? she thought unkindly. Making a face, she looked down at her food.

"The Xero Faction is real," Michael stated. Crash! Tifa looked over to Cloud. He had dropped the glass he had been filling with juice and he was staring at the young boy with a mixture of fear and shock. Tifa cleared her throat and picked up her fork.

"Michael, you shouldn't repeat things you might overhear..."

"They're real," he insisted, turning his dull blue-gray eyes to her. "And they're here. They're coming for him."

Cloud gave a slight whimper. Tifa stood and slammed her hands down on the table. "Michael! That's enough, young man!" Abruptly, Michael also stood and dropped his fork, his distant gaze skipping briefly over the two adults in the room.

"She's being used," he muttered, and left the room. Tifa watched him go incredulously. Kali began to wail after him. The older woman turned her gaze back to Cloud, who still stood frozen by the countertop. Making an exasperated noise in her throat, Tifa abandoned her dinner and came around to the cabinets, crouching and pulling open one of the small doors beneath the sink. She grabbed a rag and shut the cabinet, snatching up the garbage pail and crawling over to the red glassy mess on the floor. She began scooping up the larger pieces of glass and dumping them in the pail beside her. Cloud still hadn't moved. She worked around his feet, licking her lips and struggling to keep her temper from flaring. She had never been this upset before. The smaller pieces of glass were proving harder to pick up and finally she gave up trying with a frustrated grunt. This noise seemed to snap Cloud out of his panic attack.

"Tifa...?" he asked timidly.

"Can you put the baby to bed, Cloud?" she said without looking up. He hesitated, then she watched his feet cross over to the highchair and she heard Kali hiccuping angrily as Cloud lifted her and left the kitchen. She threw the rag into the puddle of juice and started scrubbing, all the while listening to Cloud's heavy footfalls reach the top of the stairs, turn left to enter her room, and stop at the crib. The baby screeched and she immediately heard him shushing her. Eventually, the cries subsided again. Tifa stood and wrung out the pink-stained cloth in the sink, dampening it with a gush of water from the tap before she knelt once more. "OW!" she yelped and pulled up. Her knee had found a stay piece of glass. Sucking her teeth, she pried it out of her skin with two fingers and tossed it into the garbage beside her. She examined the wound closely: for a small cut, it was bleeding profusely. Droplets of dark red plunked down into the juice and glass bits, mixing in the mess at her feet. She made a face at the floor and caught her upset expression in the reflection of the puddle. The blood swirled into its center and clouded and Tifa suddenly felt like she couldn't look away. She watched as another drop of blood rolled off her knee and landed on a stray piece of glass she had overlooked. Suddenly, in her mind's eye, she saw the exact same thing, except enlarged to fill her vision--jagged teeth of glass lay strewn across the floor, dark blood coating some of the pieces. Then, her eyes widened as the picture changed and her reflection became Gabriel's, his own eyes wide and unseeing. She yelped and leapt to her feet, the rag falling into the puddle and knocking her out of the hypnotic vision. Clutching her chest, Tifa leaned against the counter and sucked in a sharp breath, blinking and looking around the room as if she had never seen it before. Cloud entered and gave her a curious look.

"Tifa, are you alright...?" he called.

"Michael..." she gasped, a hand coming to press against her racing heart. "He said..."

"What about what he said?" Cloud stiffened. She shook her head and started forward, passing him and striding for the front door.

"I... I have to go."

"Go where? Where are you going?"

"I have to see it..."

"See what? Tifa, you're scaring me."

"They're coming for him'."

He shuddered: "I think I know what he was talking about--"

"No," she pulled open the door. "Watch them, Cloud." She stepped outside. "And don't let anyone into the house. Not even me." She slammed the door behind her.

"Tifa!" Cloud yelled after her but she started to run. Tifa scurried up the path to her front porch and paused briefly on the main street, her eyes darting around. Only a handful of people had lit their lamps, Gramp's Inn and the General Store among them. She ran to the latter and pushed open the door. Cozy, fire-lit walls greeted her and the daughter of the owner smiled at her from behind the front desk.

"Hi, Tifa. How can I help you?" she chimed.

"Did someone come in here asking for me?" the other woman asked in a rush, her chest heaving. The younger shook her head, her eyes studying Tifa in concern.

"No, not here..." Tifa ran out before she could hear the rest. She took three running steps and knocked loudly on the General Store's wooden door. They would be closed by sunset, but this was important. On her third knock, the owner himself answered the door, looking slightly ruffled.

"Tifa," he blinked in surprise, intentional rudeness forgotten. "What's the matter?"

"Sir, did someone come here earlier today, looking for me? Very early."

"Come to think of it..." he said, lifting his eyes to the sky in recollection. "While I was opening shop this morning, I saw a pale woman limping by here. She looked dead tired if you ask me. She must have felt me looking at her or something because she turned and looked back and I remember shivering..."

"Did you talk to her?" Tifa asked eagerly.

"Well, I asked if she needed anything," he continued, "and she said something that I couldn't understand. It sounded garbled and static-y, like she had lost her voice. I told her if she was looking for a place to stay, the inn was next door but she shook her head and kept on walking. She looked lost."

"Is that all?"

"Yeah. She moved on to the next building."

"Thanks."

Tifa rushed down the steps and started for the next building over when a sudden blazing fork of lightning came from the sky beyond the mountains and illuminated the ancient, run-down building at the edge of town. Feeling an unexplainable shiver, Tifa looked into the dirk-caked windows of the old Shin-Ra Mansion. Lightning again flickered hungrily across the sky and from within the building, for a split second, she thought she saw a pair of white, colorless eyes staring back at her. She straightened and made her way to the ancient gate, her shivers increasing in intensity as she drew closer. Over-grown grass and weeds covered the cracked path to the rotten steps of the mansion. In her childhood, they had assumed it had been haunted. Only half a year ago was that belief discredited, thanks to her friend Vincent. But looking at it now made the stories come true all over again. She felt like she was seven again, creeping up to the huge, dark double doors and reaching for the faded brass doorknob as her friends urged her on from the gate. She had been the only one brave enough to enter this place at night. And now, she pushed the door open, just like all those years ago, and stepped inside the cold damp dark that infested the abandoned two-story house. On rusted hinges, the door squeaked closed and shut behind her with a definite booming noise, making her jump nearly out of her skin. Tifa reached back for the door handle and couldn't find it, so she stood facing the darkness, trembling as much as when she was seven.

"H-Hello?" she whispered nervously. "Is...anyone in here? Hello...?"

The blackness swallowed her words and as much as she tried to pierce the darkness with her eyes, the void denied her. Slowly, carefully, she tip-toed forward, using her toes to feel out for any imperfections in the floor before she moved onward. She proceeded like this until her boot kicked something that thunked softly. A sinking feeling suddenly gripping the pit of her stomach, Tifa knelt and felt around her. Her hand hit something solid and she ran her fingers along the length of it, stopping as she felt something cold and wet on whatever it was she was touching. Lightning flashed, lighting up the interior of the mansion; she had mere seconds. Blinking, she looked down at whatever it was she was touching and let out a shreik that was drowned in the roar of thunder that followed the brilliant flicker.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Again she was plunged into darkness. Tifa lunged to her feet and bolted, stumbling over the stairs near the center of the main room and landing hard on the second story platform. Gasping for breath, choking in dust and stale air, she tried to get her feet beneath her but her boots skidded helplessly in the layer of dust on the wooden floorboards. Finally, she made a running tumble into the north wing of the mansion and turned into the right hand corridor. She hit the second doorway leading into the empty bedroom and clung to it, sobbing as she drew in shaky breaths. He was dead. Dead. "They're coming for him." How could he have known? How could this be...?

"Oh, Gabe..." she wailed, clinging to the wooden frame. "Gabriel, I'm so sorry..."

Beyond the doorway, in the bedroom she was looking into, the secret passageway was illuminated from the eerie green light that came from deep within the bowels of the house. The door in the wall was ajar. Shaking, sniffling, wiping a hand across her burning eyes, Tifa left the body of eight year old Gabriel on the first floor of the mansion, and stepped forward, mechanically descending into the basement laboratory.