Broken Mirror

I have a candle,

And I have,

A spoon.

I live in a hallway,

With no door…

And no rooms…

It was hard to believe it been almost a week since they had obtained the rebel leader's name. Yet they still had no leads on where to find him. Apparently any rumors about a rebel group of any kind had all been simply that. Rumors. The Turks had gotten no call for anything, jobs or otherwise. Although strange dreams continued to surface for short moments while Elena slept. She had almost pushed them aside, that was until her most recent dream. She had kept seeing a little boy, about five. She knew him, somehow in the back of her mind. She recognized him, but from where and how she knew not. Maybe it was just that she had seen him in another dream or something.

Elena sighed as she thumbed through more paperwork. It seemed impossible to organize and file the mounds of paperwork that were laying around the office. Apparently, few of the former Turks had bothered to file it by any order. That, was her current assignment from Tseng.

Reno opened one eye slightly, that only to look at the clock on the wall. Sure there wasn't a current assignment, but he still didn't get to escape coming to the office. He sighed as he gazed at the time, he still had forty-five minutes before he could leave. He sat with his heels resting on the desk, pushed back in a chair so that it stood on but two legs. His arms hung over the chair's arms and down the side, his head resting on the back of the chair so that he stared at the ceiling. An aggravated sigh woke him once more from his half sleep, followed by the thud of something heavy and the whisking sound of papers flying everywhere. Reno sat up, gazing at the floor before his desk, there sat a red-faced Elena surrounded by papers that had once been stacked and orderly.

Whiskey eyes looked up from the mess, growing wide as a lopsided grin curled the redheads lips. 'Oh God!' She knew all too well what was about to fly from that mouth of his. "Having a bit of trouble walking 'Lenne?" He drawled doing nothing to suppress the laughter that was visible all over his face. If possible, Elena's face became a deeper shade of scarlet as she glared at the redhead in embarrassment and anger. "Shut up will you! I had those papers stacked and alphabetized and ordered!" She screeched in a sharp soprano. Reno scowled at her screaming, "Ah, come on rookie, don't scream at me 'cause you're a clutz." Reno drawled as he walked to the door, an infamous smirk curling his lips. He looked over his shoulder at the blonde's face, deciding to take the last few steps out of the room at a run. Seconds after the door clicked shut a heavy stapler slammed into the wood, ricocheting off of the door and thudding to the carpeted floor. Elena sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by papers and fuming daring the redhead to walk back through the door.

It was only a matter of minutes before the door, once more, opened. Beckoning forth a tall man with black hair that was neatly brushed back, his black eyes halting on the flustered Elena as she set yet another stack of unruly papers unto a desk. A thin brow arched questioningly as she looked up to see her boss standing in the door, she could feel the color rushing to her cheeks. Painting them a faint pink as he gazed at her, she could see the half-heartedly hidden laughter on his face. "Do I even want to know why all of those documents and papers you were supposed to have sorted…'neatly' are now on the floor." He drawled, almost in exasperation, this, in-turn only seemed to deepen the pink flush that colored Elena's cheeks a light rose. "I fell sir, over balanced carrying the paperwork." He mumbled almost inaudibly, this earned her a smile from Tseng. "I see, I will clean up the rest of the papers Elena. You go ahead and take a break." The statement was not formal, but still held an authority that brandished any argument. With a grateful sigh she inclined her head before saluting Tseng and hurrying from the room.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Reno sighed as he downed his fourth shot of whiskey, beside him, still wearing his trademark glasses was Rude. Whatever his bald friend was doing his mind definitely was not on the still unfinished drink before him, "Uh…Rude?" The redhead questioned awkwardly. As if realization had struck the older Turk that he had lost all account of his thoughts he cleared his throat, straightening his tie. "Yes." Was the blunt deadpan response. Reno frowned slightly, before allowing a sneer to curl his thin lips "Don't think I don't know where you mind was." He said with a backward glance over his shoulder at the brunette that was seated at a table, by all accounts deep in thought. Reno had learned a quite…useful talent, learning how to decipher a person's mood with a short study of their face. This talent was the fuel of his seeming infinite ability to annoy people beyond measure. He turned back, looking down at his empty shot-glass, a small smile curling his lips. A smile that failed to reach his lips as he lost his thought to memories of days so long ago. ..

She could be no more than 20, attractive and with a figure and looks that could get her any man she desired. But hidden behind a smile that seemed to reach her eyes less and less, was a clash of emotions. Everyday she woke to the same nostalgic order, plan the demise of ShinRa and run her bar, Seventh Heaven. Burgundy eyes flitted to her intertwined fingers which rested upon the polished, worn wood of the table to which she was seated. The smile that usually lit her burgundy eyes with a spark of life that few possessed, curled now into a frown that dulled her deep eyes. Glazed with thoughts and memories, the light that illuminated her wine colored eyes with a fire that was the only thing that kept them going at times, dieing little by little. A knot furled her stomach with anxiety, but the days of nostalgia had long since passed. So desperately did she want to curl up and cry over the loss of her friends, tears that glazed her eyes with a crystal sheen. The day that fire had eclipsed Sector 7, stealing in it's fiery wake thousands of lives. Their screams still paraded in a euphoria of pain through her thoughts, extinguishing the fire of her spirit slowly. A dampened cloth thrown over a weak ember.

She had always dreamed of someone she loved saving her, coming valiantly to her rescue, without thought of how much danger they themselves were placed under. She loved Cloud, her childhood friend, that was what she called it. Love. But maybe that was just a conclusion she had reached because she worried about his safety. They never had been close, not really. She shouldn't have been surprised when he charged after Aeris, the flower girl from the slums. So innocent and perfect, with an air of serenity about her… and peace. As if in the end, everything would be alright, that it had to be. So why did she feel so let down?

Because she had built her hopes up of having someone that cared for her, that saw her each day, instead of looking at her… but in a way that made her think they were wishing she were someone else…

Reno sighed, as he gazed at the now full shot-glass, finding himself uninterested in the fact that with a few more he could dull that flood of memories. Memories that slammed incessantly at his mind, sending barrage after barrage of memories, playing a symphonic lullaby of unwanted nightmares. How he had recognized that look of hopelessness that had eclipsed the wine eyed beauty's face. Knew it personally, with a nostalgic dread that always awakened the orchestra of memories.

Memories of gazing at the reflection of a face filled with that hopelessness. A feeling that laced down to the very fiber of his bones and echoed back with a vibrancy that the memory of such felt as if he were a child again. Gazing at his reflection in a cracked mirror…

- - - - - - - - - -

Elena sighed as she seated herself comfortably upon her couch, a cup of hot chocolate and book at hand. A quick glance through the transparent glass of her apartment window told her that a bad storm was approaching. Giving her much wanted time to read her book.

As word by word slid past her vision, down a never ending page of black script painted across white paper, she found herself unable to take in the words upon the page. Of which she had read and re-read four times, and understood it, nor absorbed it any more thoroughly. With a tired sigh she shut the book with a snap, rising from her cough she set a pace to her bathroom. A nice hot shower should clear her head, as she had not been willing to take anything but since she had fallen asleep. Bearing with it a dream of a memory to which she no more understood the meaning of than if it had been another's memory.

Sliding between the crisp coolness of her sheets and comforter with a grateful sigh, Elena found herself anxious to get to sleep. In all truth she wanted to find out why she kept having these odd dreams, some of them made absolutely no sense at all, but every one of them was about her childhood. Or she was a child within the subconscious world of illusion. Sleep found her almost as soon as she had allowed her head to fall into the soft depths of her pillow….

Everything was white, the floor and the walls and ceiling. There was no doorway, and no way out of this… cubic space. The walls were dirty, coated in stains of which Elena had no desire to know the origins of… or what they could even possibly be.

With a disgusted look she turned to face the wall before her, there upon the wall was a single mirror. Framed in a black wood, the glass surface would have been flawless… had it not been for the fracture that ran from the bottom right corner to the top left, branching out about halfway there to a fracture reaching for the top right corner. She did not need to see her reflection to know that she was a child, but that was not what had interested her… What had caught her interest was that the mirror displayed no reflection, instead echoing forth a darkness that seemed bottomless and enigmatic in it's own right.

Shakily, she stepped forward tracing one of the fractures with a child-sized digit. It was as if she had allowed life into the mirror, or awoken if from a slumber, the darkness reseeded allowing for a distorted reflection to gaze out of the mirror… But not her reflection, they were taller than she… Yet she could determine no detail, other than a pair of hallow, blue-green eyes that gazed into what she guessed was nothingness. Hallow and bitter eyes, that seemed to wish nothing but death upon their owner, expressing every emotion that the distorted image prohibited. Elena moved her head to gaze over her shoulder…

She sat up-right as a resounding thud persistently reverberated through her apartment. With an annoyed sigh, she gazed at the alarm clock, eyes widening as she looked at the time. 8:30 a.m. She was at least an hour late for work, with a muttered 'Shit' she leapt from bed. Running to brush the tangles from her hair, and pull on a crisp suit. Once ready she looked at her reflection, prodding one of the bags beneath her eyes with an index finger, scowling. But it would have to do, Tseng would already be furious that she was late.

Remembering the thud she had heard Elena headed toward her door, pulling it open cautiously she saw no one. Confused by this she looked back into her apartment, there in the middle of her floor lay her book. Thrown carelessly into the floor, open as if someone had been reading it. Suppressing the shudder that fought to quake her body she turned and fled her apartment, locking her door securely behind her before setting of to work.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Elena let slip yet another curse as she looked at her watch while standing in the insufferably slow elevator of the ShinRa building. 9:30, at last the door slid open, at what she knew HAD to be slower pace than they usually chose to open at. Gritting her teeth in frustration as she practically ran down the hall in the direction of their office. Once their she took a moment to straighten her suit, and tame her now fly-away hair before stepping in. Her face flushing in a blush as Tseng's ever calm voice rang through the office, "Nice of you to join us, Elena." With a motion of his hand he signaled for her to stand before the desk. Although she was confused by this she obliged, gazing about the room brought Reno and Rude into her vision, her attention quickly snapped once more to her superior as Tseng cleared his throat.

"ShinRa, has found this…'Sirus', the rebel leader. As it turns out, our theory of it all being a scheme… Turned out to be quite…ahh… true." His mouth curled down into a slight scowl as he opened a document before him on his desk, gazing at it a moment before sighing and looking up from his revere. He looked up at them, clearing his throat before speaking once more. "It turns out that our…'rebel group'. Is not a rebel group at all." Be paused before continueing….


Author's Note: So what did you all think about the cliffhanger ending? I am sorry for the slow update...I might be more inspired to update faster if I got more reviews. I honestly love feedback, critizism and reviews... Oh yes, almost 300 hits and four reviews. XD I'm just joking about the 'inspiration to update faster'. No I love writing this, it is just that I had no idea HOW to write this chapter. I knew what I wanted to happen, I just was at a loss at HOW to make it happen. Or what order for that matter, well anyway I hope you enjoyed this chapter and thank you to everyone who did review. Big thanks to NarcissisticRiceBall for her reviews and everyone else who reviewed. XD

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy 7 or it's characters. I also do not own the lyrics beneath the title, I just do not know who sang the song or what it's title is.