Chapter 6 - Dreams

Kako lay in bed that night, sleep eluding her. Her mind refused to let her relax. She kept seeing the stranger's face, his eyes, feeling the touch of his hand on her arm.

"Want to play?" His voice reverberated around her brain. What was it about this guy? After all, he wasn't that unusual. She had seen many young bloods walk in off the street trying to prove their worth, and some of them even tried to flirt with her, but she had never given them a second thought before. And what was that comment about her mother all about? She was sure he had said . . . thought it.

She had always been able to hear her mother's thoughts from as far back as she could remember. She used to have whole conversations with Tifa in her mind when she was little, but Tifa had discouraged it when she got older because Cloud reacted so strongly against it. She remembered something her mother had told her a long time ago; a story about how Tifa had been given a drug before Kako was born that changed them both. It wasn't a subject Tifa liked to discuss and Kako grew up thinking that it was somehow shameful that she and her mother could converse without speaking.

"But its not just Mom's thoughts I can hear now," she thought. She debated with herself about telling Tifa what had happened at the school, but decided that she better not; she didn't want to upset her mother nor did she want another lecture about talking with strangers.

Honestly! She was almost seventeen now. You would think her parents would trust that she could take care of herself. "I mean, I am about the best student at that school. I know how to defend myself," she thought. Not a day went by that Cloud didn't warn her not to talk with strangers, especially with strange men. It made making friends hard and she was often lonely.

She finally drifted off to sleep, thinking of the stranger. She started to dream. She walked across an endless field of flowers beneath a white, featureless sky. Her bare feet stepped on velvet petals, crushing stamen andreleasing their scent to rise to her face. It smelled on innocence and sunshine. She could not see anyone else near her although she felt the presence of someone . . . familiar.

"Kako, you must make yourself ready," said a voice in her ear. It was a woman's voice and it sounded like the distant strains of music carried on a soft summer breeze. Kako turned around to see who the owner of the voice was but no one was there.

"Who are you?" she asked unafraid.

"I am Aeris, an old friend of your mother and father," whispered Aeris. "You must make yourself ready."

"Ready for what?" she asked.

"The change is coming. You will need all your strength and skills to face what's coming," replied Aeris.

"What change? What do you mean?" asked Kako, fear growing in her mind.

"Like your mother before you, you will need to fight her."

"Fight who? I don't understand," whispered Kako.

"Jenova!"

The sound of the word shattered her dream and sent her to a deep dark place. She found herself wandering a strange and frightening landscape; a blood red desert that smelled of sulfur carried to her on hot dry winds. All around were canyon walls and rock towers that rose into a dark red sky where she could see three suns; two large and yellow and one smaller but brilliant white. She stood on a promontory overlooking the canyon below. Her long white hair blew around her face and shoulders. She brushed it back out of her eyes and looked at the man standing by her side. She could see the side of his face as he gazed out over the canyon they stood before. He looked familiar . . . where had she seen him before? He turned to look at her and smiled. His long grey hair covered his face but she could see his pale eyes. His eyes . . .

She woke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed, sweat poring down her face and back. She put her hand to her heart and felt it thundering in her chest. She struggled to remember the details of her dream as it slipped away from her. All she was left with was the feeling of dread and terrible loneliness. She got up from the bed and walked into her bathroom to splash water on her face. Her hands trembled as she turned the cold water tap on. She soaked a face cloth and pressed it to her face. The cool damp cloth felt good against her hot skin. The cold of it shocked her back to the present and pushed the remaining fragments of her dream back into her subconscious. She walked back to the bed and stripped the sweat-soaked sheets off the mattress. She changed her nightshirt, wrapped herself back up in the blanket, and lay back down on the bed to try and get back to sleep. She tossed and turned for the rest of the night, never able to capture sleep again.

She rose with the sun and took a shower. She was exhausted, having had only a few hours untroubled sleep before her dream woke her. The experience had left her feeling under a dark cloud and she said little to her parents at the breakfast table.

"You look tired," said Tifa.

"I didn't get much sleep last night," Kako replied.

"Bad dreams?" asked Tifa. Kako didn't respond. She just kept her head down and finished her eggs. Tifa reached out to her daughter with her mind but ran up against a cold dark wall where she usually found a sunny, open mind. Kako cleared her dirty breakfast dishes and turned to walk out of the bar, saying nothing to her parents. Tifa watched her back as she disappeared out the door.

"Something's eating at her," she said to Cloud after she had left. He looked up from his paper and snorted.

"She's sixteen, something's always eating at her," he responded.

"No, I don't think that's it," murmured Tifa. She recognized the haunted look in her daughter's eyes.