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- Tony

Chapter 3: A Survivor.

He woke with the sun and to the sound of Auron banging pots and cupboards below him, and it felt like no time at all had passed since his head hit the pillow. He sat up a bit too fast and his head hurt for a moment, still recovering from the dreams populated by Rikku and the wild man and the bleak things in his imagination that had no name.

"Damn," he said, and then he nodded as if in agreement with himself.

He stretched and yawned and for a minute he just sat there, inhaling the old aroma that hung in the room and letting memories of childhood flow through his head. Not a lot of them were great memories, but he had been an innocent kid then. Life had been simple and without questions; this dark world of flowing scarlet rivers and the beauty between a woman's thighs, of drunkards and smooth-talkers and lawmen and Indians and smoking six-shooters; it had all been kept away from him. And now that world had swallowed him whole, and he didn't know what he was fighting for or why he worked so hard to survive, new thoughts that became more and more imminent to him as the days went on.

Downstairs bacon sizzled in the pan Auron held, and a glass of goat milk sat at Tidus' spot along with a plate that had two steaming eggs sitting on it.

"Sleep well?"

"Pretty decent."

"Are you planning on leaving right after you eat?"

"I reckon."

They ate in silence, Tidus savoring the first hot meal he'd had all week, and Auron's mind clearly somewhere else. They played cards once they had finished, with Auron winning both times as usual, and after this Tidus thanked him and made for the door.

"You got a hat?" Auron called after him.

"No sir."

"What the hell do you do when it rains?"

"It ain't been raining."

Auron shook his head in disbelief and pointed to a wide brown one on a rack that Tidus recognized instantly.

"Take that one."

Tidus' mouth fell open in shock. "Aw, hell sir, I couldn't take that one! It's yer fav-"

"Take it," Auron repeated. "You need it more than I do."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Tidus looked over the hat and brushed his fingers over it as if it were some sort of mythical artifact that he was privileged to touch. Slow, and unsure, he lifted it up by the brim and gently placed it on his head. Auron smiled from his seat.

"It suits you."

Tidus wasn't sure what to say. He was still caught off guard. "...Thank you sir."

"You better get going if you want to make Bevelle."

"Yessir."

He rode south out of town, opposite the way he came in. Things got grimmer, down that way. He saw a corpse on a doorstep, pale, eyes rolled back in his head, flies buzzing around the charred, crimson flesh on his stomach where a bullet had forced through. He saw a blind man clawing for his stick in the dirt, which someone had broken in two. He saw an old man and a little girl walking down the street, him clinging to her hand and holding her close as if he was the waif, looking nervously all around them. The little girl just smiled and laughed and talked, the portrait of innocence in a part of town where innocence didn't exist.

The sun was still high up when he got out of Luca, and it beat down on him relentlessly, searing his already burnt flesh and causing him to drink from his canteen more than usual. He stopped after awhile and looked about at the scorching pale ground and dying plants. He took an apple from his bag and bit into it and let the juices run down his chin for a moment before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Shit.

He spat and tipped his hat back a little ways and sighed.

This is goin' to take a helluva lot longer'n I thought.

Sometimes as he rode he would close his eyes and shut out the sun and the sweat and the thirst from his mind and imagine the sea. He'd only ever seen it once in his whole life; Auron had taken him to the edge of Spira when he was just a lad and shown him the great blue giant that spilled out into the rest of the world, lapping against the shore in those soft, simple beats. A symphony of tranquility. There was no bias, no emotion, no interpretation in those waves. They represented nothing. They just were. Hopefully someday he'd see them again.

There were trees on the horizon that promised of the Bevelle ranch. It wouldn't be long now.

As he guided Cid up the little slope that the ranch sat upon, Tidus noticed something odd. Crawling up the slope beside them was a dog that looked identical to the one he'd seen after his run in with the wild man. He nearly swore it was the same one.

Come on, dumbass. That don't make no sense. How in the sam hell could he have got himself all the way out here?

The bizarre trio trudged over the hill like wounded soldiers and Tidus took off his hat to wipe the sweat from his face, and as he did so he glanced up and a horrific sight met his eyes. Spread out on the ground like a blanket a little ways in front of him was Braska, who was fully naked, and the dark rivers of blood that had been flowing from his forehead and where his genitals used to be were still fresh, pooling in neat little puddles next to him. His face was frozen permanently in the expression of a scream. Tidus breathed deeply and kept riding.

Braska's wife was leaned against the barn next to a smear of blood that ran clockwise down the building's side. A knife stuck out of her ribcage and blood was still caked around her mouth and underneath her there were tiny droplets where she had spat it out.

When he got to the front of the house he dismounted and the dog sat in the dirt and let his tongue hang out and bounce around. He gently touched a hand to the door and gave it a gentle push. The house had been untouched. Chairs sat neatly around a dinner table, which was surrounded by unopened cupboards. Tidus shook his head and gripped his chest because it had started hurting. He kept walking into the perfect home and glancing back out the door at the perfect family that had been destroyed outside it. On one such glace, his foot caught the leg of one of the chairs and he tripped and fell to the floor.

It was then in the cupboard beside him that there came a little squeak of fear, a small, feminine noise that made him turn his head. He eased himself up slowly, and gently pulled upon the golden handle and watched as a young girl was revealed.

She looked about his age. Chestnut hair fell to her shoulders and crowned a pair of big eyes that were different colors. Her face was smooth and innocent but streaked with tears. Tidus stared at this beautiful, innocent creature and almost began to cry himself.

"Mister, please don't shoot me."