A/N: Another short one! Shadow has tons of room for character development, but the game really handles none of it... so we'll see if I can do anything further without breaking canon. Anyway, enjoy!
Shadow's Escape
Onward he ran, little more then a black blur racing across the crumbling landscape. He'd held off that mad clown, Kefka, for as long as he could, but as the world itself seemed to come apart around him, Shadow knew that his time was running out. Honestly, he wasn't certain where he was running to, if there was anywhere left to even go. All around him the ground was splitting apart, whole chunks separating entirely and falling into the sky below, and his chances grew slimmer by the moment as he had to take more creative ways to avoid falling to certain doom. Were they still waiting for him, those that called themselves 'friends', or had they been forced to flee, lest the airship they so relied upon be caught up in the chaos around them? Perhaps they had not even made it to the ship in the end, caught upon the falling ground and dropped into the open air below. Or perhaps the ship itself had fallen prey to the debris all around, forced to abandon the island and land or be smashed upon the earth below? Shadow was, perhaps, the only one left alive, running in vain toward a goal that no longer existed.
Yet still, he ran.
It'd been a long time since he had to trust and rely on anyone else, yet now that was all that he 'could' do. By risking his life to buy the others time to escape, he had connected himself to them in a way that he had no other, not in 'this' life at least, and he still didn't quite know why he'd done it at all. Maybe it had been her eyes in his head, a source of conscience that he'd lost many years ago, forever, or so he'd thought. Yet somehow their paths had crossed again, even ended up on the same journey, with the same goal. He'd thought that it didn't matter, that it was mere coincidence, that she was nothing to him...
He'd been wrong, and because of it, he was now closer to death then he'd ever been. Yet, provided the world didn't end, his actions may have kept her alive, and he couldn't bring himself to regret them. After fighting for more then just money – for a reason, for a life – Shadow felt less like himself, and more like the man he'd once been. The pull of normalcy, or what passed for it under the circumstances, tugged at him, reminding him of what could have been... and perhaps could still be.
He squashed the thought, harshly. A ruined world, or a dead world, provided no opportunity for profit, no means to make a living, and for that reason, and that reason alone, would he continue to aid the others in their quest. This was the life he'd chosen, and this was the life he'd live: a life with room for himself, and no one else. He would survive, and he would continue on, no matter the state of the world or any of those in it.
Returned to the Shadow he'd become, he pushed all thoughts from his mind and focused solely on survival: speed, awareness, determination. The ground veritably flew beneath his feet as he pushed himself to move faster. He would reach the safety of the airship, return to the land, and put this whole folly behind him.
And if there was no ship waiting for him, then so be it. In a life that allowed for no mistakes, his first would rightfully be his last. Such was the way he had chosen...
… and there could be no turning back.