Well this might actually be my very first serious fic on here! I have used Dagger's name out of FF9 but just because I think its so cool. However this is not the Dagger from FF9 in this story. This is placed very loosely in the FF7 section as no FF7 characters actually appear in it but it is set in Midgar. Very short one shot I wrote quite a while ago for an English assignment.
The fetid, stifling arid air of the Sector 6 Midgar slums was filled with the choking fumes from the plate above, the pollution from one of Midgar's many reactors filtering down to the slums and becoming trapped in the claustrophobic pit below. The air was so hot and polluted you could almost see the thick haze of pollution drifting and winding through the narrow trash filled alleys and makeshift shacks. The dusty ground underfoot was hot. The streets were crawling with people, like worker ants in a giant nest. The girl called Dagger with the pale face, high jutting cheekbones and her limbs clothed in dirty cotton rags walked through the mass of people. She was looking for food. Looking for opportunities to stretch out her grimy hand and grab something hot, quick as a flash. Begging all the way down here in the pitted, poverty stricken slums wasn't profitable. Down here everyone was poor and any money you were lucky enough to happen upon you kept for yourself. The only people in the slums who seemed to have any money at all were the drug dealers who sold death to kids and took your life as payment if you couldn't pay up.
Dagger thought she might try her lucky on the plate where the wealthy few with jobs and well fed children lived. She'd be joining ranks of other homeless children doing exactly the same thing, begging just for the means to survive.
When you finally stepped onto the highway any notions of trying to blend in and not be recognised as what the rich people liked to term as 'slum trash' quickly left you as you smelt like 100 years worth of accumulated trash. Dagger's clothes, much like all the other slum children's, were grimy and torn and she was one of the lucky ones who owned a pair of shoes.
Dagger wasn't the only one who had decided to try her luck at begging on the plate. She was surrounded by lots of other slum children whose home was a cardboard shack or a toilet roof and who rested their heads on a concrete pavement with 1000 other children every night.
Dagger felt a cold palm place itself in her equally cold palm and when she looked down it was into a pair of big, blue eyes set into a young face.
"Have you seen my mommy?" the little girl asked, still holding Dagger's cold hand in hers.
"No sweetheart"
The big blue eyes looked hurt and disappointed, "Oh, Daddy told me to go look for her before he went away but I can't find her". It was a young voice filled with young innocence and Dagger couldn't help but feel full of pity for the little girl who had no parents. She wondered how long it would be before that young innocence was hardened by the streets. That was if she survived long enough.
It was a bitterly cold night, colder than usual and the rain came through Dagger's cardboard shack and made her home soggy. She shivered unhappily. Her home eventually succumbed to the rain and crumpled into a soggy mess around her. Dagger was forced to walk along the dangerous streets in the pouring, icy rain.
Approaching Carlton Street Dagger could see a group of youths up ahead. Dagger thought she would be better to turn around and go another way but they had already seen her and if she turned around now they'd be more likely to come after her. There was six of them and as they drew near they looked more like the typical gangs that ruled these streets. They were looking her way. Dagger could feel her heart hammer and every step seemed deafeningly loud on the pavement.
"Hey! You!" one of them called out.
'Oh no' Dagger thought. A car, a black one came roaring up the road. Something was aimed out the window and there was a bang and one of the youths fell to the ground with a crimson hole in his chest. The car sped away in a flash while the other five youths opened fire on the departing car. Dagger tried to run. The next street seemed so far away. The sound of guns. A sharp pain exploded in her back and she fell into the gutter. There was the sound of sirens in the distance and the five youths all scattered and ran off in different directions. The sound of sirens was getting closer and it was all Dagger could hear, getting fainter and fainter even though they were really getting closer. The darkness was threatening to swallow her up. She tried to fight it back but all her strength was gone. The rainwater in the gutter turned red with her blood and Dagger turned her weary head and watched her life being swept down the drain. The sirens got closer and the Dagger knew they were going to be too late. The water, stained red, continued to be swept away down the drain in a river. The darkness got closer and finally swallowed her up.