The rain began on a seemingly average day, when not a single ominous cloud hung in the sky. It swept into the land quickly and secretly like an assassin, and when it came it brought with it an unspeakable amount of dark-purple clouds and forceful winds. It was a sneak attack on the planet, and it would not end for a very long time. With it came the rumors, and their force penetrated much deeper into the hearts of mankind. Their attack; viral. Their force; relentless. Their name; the man in black.
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It began two weeks earlier. Patty Frothingham was gardening her backyard in a small and worn place known as Rocket Town. Patty tended to her dear garden five times a week, promptly setting about it at nine o'clock in the morning each day. That day was no exception. It was nine fifteen and she was waist-deep kneeling in her garden, pulling any of those pesky weeds she could find that surfaced here and there. She hummed a cheerful melody as she worked, pausing only to wipe the sweat off her brow or take a sip from her bottled water. It was during one of these oh-so-common breaks which she watched as her entire garden - entire yard really - was taken over. The first thought that came to her was that her garden was being swallowed alive by an evil entity hidden beneath the soil of her yard. She thought of the pesky weeds and how maybe they were the creatures hairs. Maybe every time she pulled them, the thing below stirred and came closer to the surface. Oh how foolish she had been to pluck so many! Her imaginative, and slightly idiotic, fantasy came to an end when the rain fell. She lifted her head towards the sky and became the first person to witness the "Clouds of our Doom", as they were later titled by less-imaginative people than Patty Frothingham.
Rows of them poured over the tops of the mountains to the east - purple and military-like in formation. Patty - who never had much bravery in her to say the least - went wide-eyed and fearful. She scurried to her feet and wasted no time heading into her backdoor to get her husband. She left her glass of water outside, which would slowly fill with rain and spill over. Her forgotten tools would rust, and her garden would not need, or receive, tending to for quite some time.
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Where the ocean met the eastern continents western coast, people had gathered, and more were coming in droves. It started when Vaner Norman was peddling his surfboard out into the sea to catch some waves. He was thirty five feet from shore when something dark in the sky caught his eye. He stopped peddling his arms and craned his neck forwards with his eyes squinted. Clouds. They were very dark clouds, and it looked like they were headed in his direction.
"Mother of Gaia…" He whispered to himself. Vaner had seen tides come in the size of houses; had explored the deepest seas on a submarine exploration two years ago; had been inside the North Crater, but Vaner had never had his stomach drop into his knees. Until now. He choked up for a second before quickly getting his board turned around and headed back towards land. It wasn't the color or the form or even the size of the clouds that frightened him, it was the sheer number. The mass gathering of something like that. It made him think of death, and he didn't know why.
When Vaner reached land, he ran to his truck and grabbed his cell phone. His conversation went something like this:
"Dude. Get down here. You'll see. Trust me. This is gonna blow your mind man!"
Within the hour, Vaner and his friend had spread the news like a virus and now the people had gathered on the shoreline to watch the army of purple paint its way across the western sky.
Conversations amongst them had become this:
"What is it?" "Where is it coming from?" "Why is this happening?" "Did anyone hear about this on the news?" "Where we supposed to get rain today?" "Rain? That ain't rain baby. That's the river." "This is Shinra's fault." "Yea! I bet Shinra knows what this is about!" "President Rufus… what a hack." "Don't blame the president, blame yourselves!" "Shut up man!" "Hey! Don't tell him to shut up!" "Rain, rain go away, come again some other day." "Shut up."
They stood out there and bickered back and forth for the better part of the day as more people came. But when the clouds had covered up more than half the sky ahead of them, all but two or three brave souls fled the scene. Vaner was among the first to leave.
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The people at Shinra did not know what this was about. High up in Shinra tower, on the sixty-eighth floor, a group of senators (which was really just a fancy title for a team of powerless men - President Rufus ran his democracy like a dictator after all) sat at a round-table discussion. Their debate was pointless and not worthy of retelling, so it won't be. The one thing they did agree on was that they were facing a possible pandemic of epic proportions, and that things were likely to get much worse before they got better.
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Two floors below them, General Rex Arinthone stood at his office window, watching the clouds come at his city of Midgar slowly but relentlessly. The general had a war leaders mind, and so no plan of defense came to his mind. After all you couldn't fight clouds… could you? One thing he knew was that the stinking dogs (the rebels) would suffer the worse if the rain did manage to reach Midgar. They'd be flooded out of their stinking hiding holes and be forced to surface, and when they did he would be there to put them back down.
Despite the gloomy circumstances, Rex smiled.
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Ten floors down in the military research division of the tower, Denzel was speaking with an old scientist friend of his.
"No Denzel. Never in my life have I seen such a thing. It's a scientific anomaly."
Denzel studied the mans face as he spoke. He was being honest, and that scared Denzel a little bit. He couldn't help to keep his mind from wandering to the origins of this massive storm. Towards the mountains of Nibelheim, where Teioh had told him Marlene was being taken to when they spoke a few weeks earlier. He could have done something then, but he did not. He could do something now, but he could not. Something bad was coming at Midgar, and the entire army had been called onto high alert.
So now as he stood there, speaking with a man that would know more than any other around him, and was being told they didn't know what to do, he feared. He feared and he thought. Thought of Teioh. Thought of Marlene. Thought of Mt. Nibel, and the inevitable oncoming storm. He felt sick.
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A chocobo ranch had been built on the border of a patch of woods, fifteen miles south of Nibelheim. It had been built over ten years ago by a good, hard-working man named Milo Stantz. The man had spent his life working a tough nine-to-five factory job, and through all his blood, sweat and tears he kept his dream in mind. Towards the end of his life, the dream was realized, and the chocobo ranch was built - funded by a lifetime of savings. He lived out the final six years of his life happily, before succumbing to a disease and turning the reigns over to his son, Brilo.
Brilo, who had been running the ranch for close to five years now, stood in the entranceway of his barn with his mouth hanging open. Eleven years on the ranch and he'd never seen such a sight. The chocobos - seven of them in all, one blue - had been lazily trotting around their pen outside, chewing on grass and simply being chocobos. Brilo had gone inside to fix himself a glass of iced tea, and when he had returned, their chocobo world had somehow been flipped upside down. All seven were huddled together at the south side of the pen. The ones nearest to it were being squished up against it, their fluffy yellow feathers sticking out through the wooden bars. One chocobo was actually trying to climb up the others. One of its talons must have broke another's skin, because one suddenly began nipping at the climbers neck and squawking.
So now Brilo stood with his mouth open, and his hair beginning to dampen, because when he came back outside it was raining, he just didn't notice. A crack of thunder broke his shock, quickly making him shake his head.
"Hey!" He now called out, back to life. "Git away from there! GIT!"
The chocobos ignored him in unison.
"Git I said!"
Same response.
He knew his efforts were futile. Even if he managed to get in there and try calming a few of them down, he just didn't have the time to stop them before they cracked right through the now-dampened wood bars that formed the southern fence of the pen.
"Bo's! NO!" He cried at them, grabbing fistfuls of wet hair on his head. The wood splintered, and shortly after cracked. The chocobos spilled out into the forest, barely keeping on their feet as they trampled through the narrow path through the fence. "DAMN!" Brilo cried out and stomped his foot. A wave of mud came up and splashed onto his jeans. He looked down at it, scratched his chin, looked back up at the strange purple clouds above him, and went back inside the house to get his raincoat muttering about rain and "damn bo's".
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North Corel, one of the very first towns to be swallowed whole by the mass gathering of clouds, had turned into a panicked frenzy. The rain fell particularly heavy around the mountains, and had succeeded in turning the ground of the small mining town into a muddy wasteland in that one short hour. At the one hour and twenty minute mark, a piece of softened land gave up its hold on the mountainside, giving way to a rather large rockslide that demolished part of the railroad and was only thirty-two feet away from ripping apart Jemma Stevenson's home. Jemma Stevenson knew nothing of the near-catastrophic rockslide, because she (along with half the town) had already split the scene. Those who left did so quickly and quite angrily. Brock Maching led the first group of twenty-or-so storm refugees (as he called them) out of town, demanding that if the rest of the townsfolk valued their lives they'd get the hell out as soon as possible.
Most listened, and after nearly two and a half hours of heavy, relentless rain, the place had practically become a ghost town. The remained were: Old Man Ghee; Old Man Ghee's granddaughter Lynn; and Old Man Ghee's trusty mutt of a dog - Sammo.
Ghee had lived in Corel since he was seven years old (close to a century ago). He had lived through the good times and the bad. The hard times and the harder times. He had no intentions of a silly storm chasing him away from the town he helped grow. Helped build. So when all the good folks were packing up shop and heading for the hills (from the hills, Ghee thought), Ghee sat on his front porch wearing his overalls, a smile, and an old pipe he had made himself when he was twenty six and had first started the nasty habit of tobacco-smoking. Some of the people that fled past him carrying what silly items from their homes they deemed important enough to merit saving from this "oh-so-dreadful storm" tried coaxing the old timer to come with them. When he refused and called them fools they begged him to at least let someone take the girl.
Lynn, who was tiny but tall for a six-year-old, simply stood by her grandpas side with a determined - if not slightly confused - look on her face and shook her head. She wouldn't leave her grandpa's side. Ghee grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
"Guess she ain't scared of no rain neither!" Ghee stated, barely holding the laughter back behind his yellowed teeth. A few people had actually gathered and planned to take Lynn with them, but when they approached the porch, Sammo - who "wasn't no slouch of a mutt" in Ghee's words - jumped to a defensive position between the two sides, growling and showing teeth. The townsfolk cursed Ghee and called him stupid with senility. Ghee laughed and said he'd have to buy a fancy book to look that word up.
Ghee didn't have to deal with them folks no more though. All them folks had long-since tucked their tails between their legs and abandoned their homes. Now it was just him and his granddaughter. Sammo barked, and Ghee thought the dog was reading his mind.
You too old boy… you too.
Funny thing was that ole' Sammo seemed to understand Ghee more and more as they were both getting older. Ghee looked at the mutt and appreciated the near twenty years of companionship.
"Yep. Storm will be over soon hun." Ghee said, taking his sweet Lynn by the hand and leading her out in front of him. Her petite hand was precious and fragile in the old toughened claw of Ghee. He pulled her gently towards him and she scooted up on his knee.
"I'm scared Gramp" She whispered in that heartbreaking way only a child can whisper.
"Oooooh no baby girl!" Ghee said leaning back and showing her a big smile on his face. "It's just a little storm Lynn! It'll pass and all them folks will come running back up here to us! We're just saving a trip, that's all."
"You sure?"
"Sure? Of course! Hey, if you don't trust me, trust old Sammo there. If something was wrong, don't you think Sammo woulda yanked me outta this place by my fingers?"
Ghee pulled at Lynn's little fingers and she giggled. Ghee smiled with her, but in his head the first sign of danger had crept up into it. Just over Lynn's shoulder, Sammo was sitting at the edge of his porch with his ears perked up and his tail still. Ghee looked at the dog, then followed his line of vision. Sammo was looking at the steep section of mountain a hundred feet away or so from their home. Dark purple, nearly blackened, clouds swept over it and traveled out eastwards behind him. Ghee felt something uncomfortable land in his stomach for the first time.
One half of an hour later, the rain had not quit as Ghee had predicted. If anything, it had worsened and that steep section of mountain began to look like a steep section of death as the land near the bottom of it muddied up and moved around in the rain.
Lynn had fallen asleep in her grandfathers lap as he sang her a song that his old mind could barely put together - several times he hummed out the melody in place of words long since forgotten - and now he had finally realized what the folks meant when they called him "stupid with senility".
"Sammo! Get over her you mangy mutt of a dog you!" He whisper-yelled to the dog who was still perched at the edge of the porch, standing guard like some ancient statue. Sammo turned his neck to look at him, and when Ghee saw the dogs face he thought it really could read his mind.
"Sammo you gotta take her outta here old boy. You know that don't you?"
Sammo had no response but to keep staring at Ghee.
"Yea.. I know you do."
Sammo shifted his position and whimpered a bit.
"Can't come witchya this time boy. These old legs won't make it halfway before I wind up falling down and splitting my senile wig."
Ghee beckoned the dog to him with a gesture of his hand, and Sammo was instantly beneath his hand, licking it while he tried to pet him.
"Lynnie. Lynnie time to go hun." Ghee said, gently tugging at his granddaughter's shoulder. Lynn awakened looking happy, her eyes unfocused and distant. Ghee wished he was wherever she had been five seconds ago. "Girly, it's time to go." He told her.
Lynn looked around and upon remembering where she was and seeing the storm was still going on, a look of pure horror fell over her face.
"Grampaaaaa." She whined and gripped his shirt with both her fists.
"Time to go Lynn. Get busy getting busy now."
Lynn jumped off his lap quickly, seeming to be quite relieved. She took a step forward and her hand instinctively went up to take an adults hand when she reached the edge of the porch. Ghee smiled at that, but there was a lifetime of sadness behind it.
"Take Sammo by the collar there sweety. Sammo's gonna hold your hand."
Lynn looked back at her grandpa confused.
"Go on girly. Take Sammo by the collar now." Ghee repeated, giving a glance down at Sammo's face, which looked old and worn and kind of sad back-dropped by the grey rain. The dog whimpered and Ghee shook his head. "You go on now."
"What about y-"
"I got a special invitation to somewhere real nice!" Ghee cut her off. "Yep, somewhere real nice and pretty too."
Now Lynn just looked curious.
"Where?" She demanded.
"Ooh, yep. Lifetime pass right up to Gold Saucer there!"
Lynn's face lit up.
"Gold Saucer! I wanna go! I wanna go!"
"Sorry kiddo, they only sent me this one pass. Says you gotta be over the age of twenty to use it. Say… you ain't twenty yet are ya?"
"I'm only six." She said sadly, looking down at her feet.
"Well, that means its just me going then. Sammo their don't quite make the cut neither. Just an old timer like me going there I guess."
Lynn looked at him with a solemn face, and Ghee saw a wiseness in her that was years beyond her. There was a silence between them, only filled by the constant patter of rain in mud puddles.
"Go on Sammo. Take Lynn down the mountain now."
"Goodbye Grampa." Lynn said, as Sammo walked beside her, allowing her to slip her hand around his collar.
"You tell your mother I love her very much Lynn."
Lynn nodded her head. Her mother worked in Costa Del Sol. They'd meet soon enough. Lynn hopped off the porch into the rain. Sammo went with her.
"Sammo! Take care of her you old mutt!" Ghee called out to them with a smile on his face.
Sammo looked back at his old master, then up to his new master. Lynn pet him on the head and then waved goodbye to her grandpa. Five minutes later and they were lost behind a wall of misty rain.
Ghee sighed and leaned back in his chair. He thought about lighting up another pipe, but decided against it after some debate. Twas a nasty habit, not worthy of an old mans time. It was that moment that Ghee made an ironic discovery that first made him laugh, then made him kind of sad that he would have no one around to tell it to.
Mankind's biggest flaw! Ghee thought as he wrapped two bony hands around the back of his head and leaned even further back in his chair. We get old and we wisen up… but by then it's too late.
He laughed out loud to himself over that one quite heartily.
A massive landslide consumed the town not ten minutes later.
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Before nightfall of the first day, the sky had been blanketed - the sun blotted out. Darkness fell onto the land like a hungry entity that had been waiting to feast. Rain came to the ground in never-ending lines, racing into the earth only to be absorbed and turn dirt to mud. By the time the sun actually went down and the land was trulyblack, the ocean had risen to an alarming level - threatening to overtake costal towns and villages like Junon and Costa Del Sol. Wutai had been preparing a massive transit movement for the entire village - their island was being swallowed whole by the ocean. Midgar had turned into a war zone after dark. The city's power took a twenty minute hit when a nearby generator was flooded and ruined, and five minutes after that happened panic broke out in the streets and hadn't ended since - not even with the power back on. Shinra soldiers did their best to keep order. It was not enough.
Seeking refuge from the increasingly dangerous streets, a fifteen year old boy from the slum sector of lower Midgar slipped through the black and wet alleyways that had been permanently stamped with a fungus-like odor and littered with cats, trash, and homeless people. He flipped his collar and hunched his shoulders and made his way all the way to the outer wall of the city, where he then proceeded to hop it - much to the amusement of a one-eyed man who had been sleeping under a damp piece of wood nearby. The kid climbed and climbed, and when he reached the top, he slung his left leg over and took in the sight of the city from his perched position. It was dark, to say the least. He turned his head back the other way and got ready to climb down to freedom from the mass hysteria inside those walls.
That is when Tines McMurphy became the first person (like Patty Frothingham before him) to witness a terrible thing.
When Tines got back that night (he never wound up going to the other side of the wall) he slipped into his room and lay in his bed for as long as he could, which wasn't that long at all. He then raced downstairs and replayed what he had seen to his older sister.
That's when the rumors began.
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The second day was not as bad. The rain fell to a drizzle. The clouds remained, laying dormant and quiet in the sky. And as the rest of the planet was getting their act together, trying to regain balance and composure, the small town of Cosmo Canyon was way ahead of them.
It was mostly because they had a leader - a figure to stand behind and let guide them. He would have much to say, and he'd get his chance. People from all over the continent had gathered there by the morning of the next day. Cosmo Canyon had always been a place devoted to the study of the planet and the way things worked. Why they worked. Now people wanted answers, and they demanded them from Cosmo Canyons spiritual and physical leader.
Red XIII had his work cut out for him on the second day.
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