Shera's Diary
Chapter 22
Anomaly
By Kristen Gupton-Williams
Dear Diary,
It was absolutely impossible to sleep last night. I'm too scared over what might be happening to Cid. I sat up and just watched the television. The newscast said that there were still many people in Midgar, despite the impending disaster. They said that some have opted to send their children to the outskirts, but have stayed themselves.
I foresee a lot of orphans in the near future if the world doesn't end.
…and that's a big if.
So, I sat and I watched, I watched and I prayed. I prayed for Cid, I prayed for his friends. I prayed for the people too stubborn to leave Midgar. I prayed for the children that had.
There wasn't much else that I could do, really.
Then, at around four thirty this morning…
The television went dead. All the channels.
I went to the radio and heard a report saying that there were now vortices spiraling down from that meteor, and that they were ripping up the upper plate of Midgar. That, in turn, had destroyed the television transmitters there, thus ending the signal.
So, it has begun.
It's now almost noon as I'm writing this. The radio reports are getting more frantic. There are now tales of a mass exodus of people out of Midgar. Only now do they realize the foolishness of having stayed there so long. The problem is? The town only has a few ways out and now they're so crowded with people…
God, I don't even want to think about it…
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Dear Diary,
It's almost midnight.
The radio is now dead.
There's so much interference in the atmosphere from that meteor that all signals are completely garbled. If I felt alone before, now I feel completely abandoned. Not even the short wave radio to the airship is responding in the least.
I always wondered how I would feel if I really thought I was going to die from something out of my control.
Now, in that moment, seeing the world falling apart around me…
No… I don't truly believe I'm going to die. I can't… because if I die, that means that Cid failed.
Somehow, I know he won't fail.
Perhaps that's some sort of primitive coping mechanism in a dire circumstance? To hold onto whatever hope you can to keep from panicking? That could be but…
I don't think so.
I'm honestly calm inside now. I have been since about… four this afternoon. I could, off handedly, blame it on the fatigue of being up for two days. Still… there's just something inside of me that says everything is going to be all right. Despite what my outward senses are telling me.
Cid won't let me down.
He never has.
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Dear Diary,
Two thirty in the morning…
I was standing out on the porch, looking at the sky. The whole thing, in the darkness, had taken on a strange red glow. As I watched, though, there was a bright flash from the north, and what looked like a pillar of fire shot up into the sky. From the top of that, streaked away something that looked so tiny to me at this distance…
I have no idea what it was, but it caught my attention.
That eruption from the north, though, it fell back downward, adding a white glow to the horizon in that direction. There seemed to be a change in the air after a while, and then the strangest thing that I have ever seen began to take place.
In the sky, all around, came these green tendrils through the atmosphere. They interlaced with one another, all heading west toward Midgar. I walked out onto the grass and couldn't help but notice as faint green wisps were coming up out of the ground all around. Those tiny, ghost like strands, looking like nothing more than Cid's cigarette smoke, drifted upward, joining the other streams of energy in the sky. Lifestream… it's the Lifestream itself.
The planet is doing something on it's own behalf. I can't possibly know what…
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Dear Diary,
It's five in the morning now.
The sky is black.
No more Lifestream… no more red to the west, white to the north.
It's just complete and absolute darkness. Sunrise will be at seven fifteen this morning. Part of me wonders if even that will pierce this veil. There's not even any sound out.
It's incredibly eerie.
The fact that I've been up for two days straight is sinking in. I'm going to go lie down for a while and try to get some rest. I hope Cid won't mind, but I'm going to try sleeping in his bed. I can't stand the thought of being in mine right now.
I just want him home right now.