In a morgue was a young man with black hair with a noticeable gray tint to the beginning of the hair that remained black and brown eyes. He was wearing a white shirt with a red tie, a bulletproof vest with "Coroner" marked on the front and back of the vest, black pants, black shoes.
He looked at himself for a moment in the mirror so that his reflection was facing the viewer.
"I am often asked which character I dream of autopsying." He said, taking the VR headset on the table while turning to the autopsy table. "Well, I suggest you find out." He says before putting on the headset.
Suddenly the room was covered with a blue light before it disappeared, leaving the young man without the helmet, and on the autopsy table was a young woman.
She had her long light brown hair braided with a large pink ribbon; in that ribbon was a white orb. A segmented fringe framed her face, and her eyes were closed. She wore a pink dress that reached her shins and buttoned up the front, and a red bolero jacket that could be zipped up and had zippered pockets and a belt at the bottom. She was wearing brown boots and has metal bracelets on her wrists and on the edges of her jacket sleeves.
One detail about this young woman would have alarmed anyone if the room wasn't a morgue: she had a gaping wound in her stomach, as if she had been pierced by a blade.
"And here we are, as if we were there!" Said the young man taking a glass plate where appeared a medical file with a photo of the young woman and her name: Aerith Gainsborough. "I suffered so much at the time..." He said as he put the plate down. "It's time for me to close the wound." He says.
"In 1997, an adventure which will mark the players forever landed on the 'Playstation 1: Final Fantasy VII by Yoshinori Kitase. A dense scenario, charismatic characters and a technical feat for the time, real cinematics in animation, which gave the work a rare intensity on console." Began to explain the young man before taking a polaroid camera. "The graphics have not stood the test of time, but there is something that makes the game timeless: its scenario. We follow Cloud a mercenary soldier, serving a group of resistance fighters opposed to the Shinra, a multinational company that draws spiritual energy weakening the planet. An adventure that will change not only his existence, but also that of all the souls in the universe. If the story stood out by its maturity, it is especially the characters who will mark the spirits..." He says.
He struck a pose in his explanation to take a picture of the young woman with the Polaroid.
"Along the way, Cloud will face one of the greatest antagonists in video game history: Sephiroth, whose ultimate goal is to become a god. His silhouette through the flames will haunt players forever. Iconic because of his long silver hair and disproportionately long sword, Sephiroth is a terrifying and ruthless fighter." He said, putting the photo out of the Polaroid and put it where his tools are placed.
"And among his victims: the young Aerith, whose death will remain one of the most moving in the history of video games." He said before putting the Polaroid and seize a thread and a needle.
"Early on in the game, Cloud meets a young flower seller who comes to his aid: Aerith. With a sweet and caring personality, this touching character will become a key part of his team." He said before starting to stitch the wound in the belly of the young woman to close it." She will have a role of caretaker, her death after several hours of play will leave an even greater void in the player. He said.
"While Aerith went to the city of the elders to invoke a power capable of protecting the planet, Cloud ended up finding her, on her knees, praying. And it is in this soft and soothing atmosphere that Sephiroth appears from the sky. With his shining blade, he pierces her body. Aerith collapses. A moving scene, carried by a melancholic melody, evoking forever the disappearance of the young girl. Perhaps the first tears, shed with a controller in hand." He said as a tear fell from his eyes, lodging in the wound.
"After Sephiroth's departure, Cloud will carry Aerith to a lake, he will immerse her body in a religious atmosphere, the girl will then sink to the bottom of the waters, where she will rest forever. But how could the death of a video game character evoke so much emotion? It is true that it was particularly violent for the public of the time. While violence has become a major part of video games today, in the late 1980s, consoles were mostly seen as a juvenile pastime. Besides, the icons of the time had a design close to that of cartoons." He said, pausing in the closure of the wound.
"But gamers in the 80s eventually grew up. And Sony understood this. In the mid-90s, the Playstation 1 offered more mature games, giving birth to cult licenses in the video game landscape. These games, aimed at an older audience, contained many violent scenes. Aerith's death was the highlight of this era: a striking scene, symbolizing a new era in video games. Violence is not the only evolution of the time, Aerith's death hides another one. And what if this time, we were not quite in a video game anymore? In most video games when a character dies, he is reborn and the game resumes. Death is part of the gameplay and dying gives us another chance to succeed. But not this time. By sacrificing Aerith without being able to resurrect her, an important character that you had played with for dozens of hours, dies for good. A twist worthy of the greatest scenarios. By creating a strong emotion, the creators wanted to charge the player with intense anger, which would give the rest of the adventure a stronger flavor. The effect will work wonderfully, the player will pick up the controller again, driven by a furious desire to fight Sephiroth. But a scenaristic effect is not enough to create emotion. One of the major evolutions of the Playstation was the arrival of CDs to replace cartridges. With their greater capacity, they allowed the integration of cinematics into the game: small pieces of cinema that allowed the staging of key passages of the game. Final Fantasy VII has taken advantage of this evolution and Aerith's death scene is a perfect illustration. Between efficient cutting, moving staging and lyrical music, never before has a death scene been so well orchestrated in a video game." He said while his expression was saddened as his speech continued.
"The death of Aerith is the arrival of cinema in the video game. The video game was an entertainment... Now it is a show. After the success of Final Fantasy VII, the saga specialized in cinematics. A license more and more close to the cinema which will even lead to the movie Final Fantasy: creatures of the spirit, in 2001. Today, the quality of cinematics in video games never ceases to impress us. Offering ever more spectacular scenes, making the border with cinema more and more blurred." He said as his expression seemed more relieved as he returned to closing the wound.
"Now, 23 years after the flower girl's death, the prayers of all her fans have been answered: Aerith is coming back to life." He said with a smile as he finished stitching up the wound.
"Mission accomplished." He said as he placed a flower on the corpse before placing his hands on it as if she were holding them. "Come on, reality awaits me. And she's not nearly as pretty as Aerith." He said as he removed the helmet, Aerith disappeared from the room. "See you soon, and remember: No death is in vain." He said as he put the helmet down.
"And cut!" Said a person who was watching the return of the camera that filmed the whole scene as the technicians, boom operator, and cameraman begin to pack up the equipment. "Frankly, you have nickel Arthur. The shot of the tear, was a beautiful improvisation." He said to the young man in Coroner's outfit.
"Uh... Thank you..." Said Arthur somewhat perplexed by wiping his eye where the tear flowed.
Turning his head he could see that the Polaroid photo had finished developing, revealing a photo of Aerith.
But instead of a photo of the actress disguised as her. It is the character as she appears in Final Fantasy VII Remake on the photo, in the same position as the actress.
That disturbed Arthur who by instinct took discreetly the photo before leaving to change.
He ended up leaving the studio wearing jeans and a coat, he went to a red car that seemed to be his, sat in the driver's seat and started.
A few minutes later, he was home. He quickly put down his things and turned on his TV and Playstation 4 where he inserted the Final Fantasy VII Remake installation CD.
Once the installation was finished, he changed the CD for the game and started it. While the game was starting he looked at the picture for a moment before putting it near his controller.
The game's intro cinematic began, showing Aerith's face directed at the viewer/player, she began to speak without her voice being heard. Suddenly the green light that illuminated her face became strong enough to blind Arthur who ended up fainting.
When he woke up, he found himself in a room whose floor and walls looked metallic with many computers and research devices. In front of him was a skinny middle-aged man with a long black ponytail. He was wearing small round glasses and a white blouse, a white oxford shirt, a blue tie, gray pants with a brown belt and gray shoes.
Arthur was about to speak, but he felt a violent blow on his head, making him lose consciousness.
When he opened his eyes, Arthur saw that he was now lying on a swing in front of a wooden cottage. He stood up and looked around more carefully until he saw Aerith, with her back to him, crouched down in front of a field of flowers that she was observing while holding a basket.
He found this strange, but in order to learn more about what was going on, warily approached the young woman.
"I didn't think this world I almost destroyed could have such beautiful things." She said, intriguing Arthur. "I'd like to see what else it has to offer now. You'll be my eyes, okay?"
And with that she turned around revealing to Arthur that instead of her beautiful green eyes, there were blue eyes with cat-like irises with green outlines: the same as Sephiroth's and the people infected with geostigmata in Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
Flashes began to flood Arthur's mind: there were images of Sephiroth, Genesis, Angel, Zack, Cloud, and finally Aerith praying in the church where she first met Cloud.
He woke up suddenly, making him realize that what he had seen was only a dream. Now he was floating in a tank filled with a green liquid with an oxygen mask connected to the top of the tank by a pipe, allowing him to breathe. He was tempted to breathe a sigh of relief when he realized that he was still wearing his clothes.
He looked around to find only a guard with a rifle and a scientist. He decided to stabilize himself with one hand and his feet, and with his free hand began to hit the tank, which to his surprise broke with a single blow.
The guard who had been chatting with the scientist until then turned to aim at Arthur who quickly disarmed the guard before knocking him out with the butt of the weapon even though the sound of cracking bones would have made him suspect something else if he had heard it.
The scientist was about to raise an alarm before Arthur grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him towards him.
"What have you done to me!" Asked the young man.
The man simply pointed to a computer screen displaying a file on an experiment. Having obtained the answer to his questions, Arthur knocked out the scientist and walked over to the screen to read the file displayed there. The name of the file: Project Adagium.
While reading the file, Arthur ended up putting a hand over his mouth, shocked. He continued reading the different reports to learn more. Once this was done, he turned behind him, and saw two weapons: a platinum colored longsword with a wing ornament on the guard and a red decorated blade, and a sort of hilt with a guard and at the top, a sort of point that seemed to conceal something.
Deciding to fight for his survival, and for something that became his ultimate goal from that day on. Quickly, he took the two weapons and the access card of the scientist and quickly passed all the access points until he was outside the complex in which he was locked up.
A few months later, now trained in the handling of his two weapons, he was ready to put his plan into action.
He was now wearing a black trench coat and striped pants, a red scarf and a gray and white hooded coat with a flower pattern. His sword was on his back, and the strange handle was hidden under his coat.
He was currently behind a young man who looked barely older than him with spiky blond hair and wearing indigo pants with a sleeveless shirt and a belt. Both were standing on the roof of a freight train...
