FINAL FANTASY VII
What Is Left Behind
I : Gongaga
The warm country air around the reactor was an acrid mixture of old fuel and crabgrass. Many years after its explosion, the desolate Gongaga Mako Reactor still smelt of the by-products of making mako energy—scorched weeds, decayed soil, rusted iron, and forgotten dreams. Charred debris littered the barren field just on the outskirts of the village, and though the smoke is gone too, sometimes you can almost smell the faint lingerings of fire. The clanging from the machinery is gone as well, but today there is a different clanging going on at the ruins. It is the clanging of wayward stones and pebbles striking the broken steel and concrete from the rockfight between Gwendy and myself. More sounds join in with the percussive banging: the laughter of adolescents enjoying the ever-shortening days of their youth; the yelps of injured shins and elbows from projectile damage; the calls of carrion birds high in the air, just below the sun.
Gwendy's arm arced back to lob a decent sized stone at me, her hand gripping much too tightly to have any proper accuracy with the launch. I didn't need much grace back then to dodge her throws, which were usually as dangerous as they were wild. Still, I ducked behind my fort—an assortment of squarish rocks stacked up against each other for blocking rocks—and readied my counter-attack. As expected, Gwendy's missile thudded against the ground, several feet short of her intended target, and took a nasty bounce upwards over the fort. Before she could hide behind her fort, I retaliated with a handful of pebbles. Gwendy's smart, but sometimes her arrogance gets the better of her—she built her fort with crescent-shaped stones, stacked alternatively on top of each other. The spread of pebbles made short work of her ambitious try at defense.
"Dammit, Izek!" she swore aloud. "I'll get you for that! Get ready!"
Scattered amongst the rubble were oddly shaped and faintly colored rocks. She picked up one without thinking and hurled it at me, this time with grace. I had been too busy gawking at my handiwork to escape her throw, and her attack caught my shoulder. The sting I expected to feel was instead replaced by a burn, and when I looked at my shoulder, jaw dropped, my entire sleeve had caught fire. Gwendy freaked out, clearly not intending to hurt me that much.
"Izek! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry!" Crying and flailing her arms, she ran up to help beat the fire down. Only my shoulder ended up getting burned, but I lost the right arm of my favorite sage green jacket and part of my scarf. Oh well—the scarf had been fraying from age anyway. A little singeing would give it some character.
"It's alright, Gwendy. Just a little burn. I'll get my mom to look at it when we get home."
I started looking for the rock she threw at me. Discolored rocks were a common find at the reactor, but most kids were afraid to play there because they'd get in trouble. Parents worried that we'd end up getting hit with radiation or something stupid like that. Gwendy and I would often take back the rocks with the deepest colors, planning to make a necklace or something out of them. Some of them made small noises, like humming or whispering. Others were warm or cool to the touch. But never had one burned one of us before...
After a few seconds of scouring the dead grass, I found the culprit: it was a mild green in color, like looking at a bush in sunlight. It seemed to have a fiery glow inside it, and tingled with heat when I picked it up. Gwendy must've not noticed it in her hurry to throw at me.
"What do you think it is, Gwen?" I held out my hand to show her. "It's kind of hot. Be careful."
She touched the rock with her index finger, at first reeling back out of reflex. She touched it again, this time feeling the warmth underneath her fingertips.
"Huh. Nothing else we picked up did that. Wonder what makes this one so special?" Gwendy prodded her chin, mimicking some philosopher no one remembered anymore.
I gave it a quick toss up into the air, catching it with the other hand, mulling the same question around. After what seemed like a minute, I turned my attention back to her.
"We could show your dad. I'm sure he knows something useful besides famous authors of children's stories." I always teased Gwendy about her book habits back then, but in jest. We were the kind of friends who picked on each other's guilty pleasures, not caring how much it embarrassed the other.
"Yeah, and then we can get more advice on knitting from your mom," she slung back, not missing a beat. We stuck our tongues out at each other, and laughed all the back to the village.