Disclaimer: I don't own final fantasy or any other reference that I put in here. I only own the things that I make up!

Ch. 2 After the Storm

Elle's parents rushed her out to the car. Both of them were worried about her, but knew that it would be very difficult to get her to the hospital. It was across town and there was still a lot of traffic from the evacuation. They were suppose to have left before today since it was suppose to make land today.

Like most people nowadays they had no plan. There was one in place for something like this, but no one was really prepared. Many of them had forgotten what a disaster really was. Disasters were just something that did not happen.

They found that no matter what people were told to do a few idiots on the road was enough to make a huge traffic jam. It made it almost impossible for anyone to go anywhere. Her parents thought that by taking side roads they would get there faster, but even they were packed with cars. Her father cursed over and over ignoring the looks from his wife. She did not approve of that and got onto them all for it. They actually had a swear jar and he had a lot of money in it.

At the moment she was not too worried about what he was saying. She kept looking at her daughter unconscious in the backseat. She wiped away the tears and found herself cursing at the other drivers. She eventually just rolled down the window and started yelling at anyone and everyone. He looked at her and smiled. For once, maybe she would add some money to the jar.

"Move your ass, you idiot!" She yelled a few times. There were only a few people with their windows down around them and they were giving her odd looks. She didn't care. Her daughter was hurt and they could shove it for all she cared.

"Jeez lady! What's your problem?" Someone finally said. They couldn't see Elle in the backseat or the tears in her eyes. They could see that her father was driving pretty aggressively and they were trying to force their way over. Some people let them in hoping for a peaceful end to this.

"I'm trying to get to the hospital and so help me if my baby dies I'll blame all of you!!!" She said glaring at him. Her eyes were swollen from crying so hard and she could hardly speak at all. The display scared most of the people who saw and heard her.

"Is it really that bad?" He asked. He looked up at the sky and noticed that the storm was nearly gone. He could hardly believe it. It had looked so menacing and from the news reports he had seen it was big and they could hardly tell what it was. "The storm is almost gone." He said in awe.

"Who cares about the damn storm! My daughter got electrocuted!" She yelled back. She hated that storm and was glad that it was gone. Her only priority now was getting Elle some help and they were still quite a ways from the hospital. It was the only one in their area that they knew could handle this type of problem. They also knew that this was the only way to get her there. They would only have a skeleton staff by now.

"Sorry, but doesn't look like we're moving at all." He replied a little afraid of what her response might be. He only had his wife with him and she looked scared enough.

"If we could get over to the shoulder maybe we could get by everyone." Her husband said. She thought it might be a good idea. They were a lane away from it and they had not idea what it looked like on the shoulder. She decided to ask him and his wife looked out the window. They were on a slight curve so that made it a little difficult to see.

"It looks clear most of the way." She said. He told them and they really started to force their way over. It gave them some hope that maybe they would be able to get her some help a lot sooner than later. They had no idea what kind of damage the shock could have done to her.

It took almost twenty minutes for them to get in to the next lane and by the time they got there they were not the only ones with that idea. Someone else had decided they wanted to use the shoulder as well and they weren't about to stop for them. They waited thinking about poor Elle. If they got in an accident now they might never get her any help. All of them would need help.

They got onto the shoulder and many people behind them followed suit. It was not something they liked since the people behind them were also in a hurry. Elle's mom was getting annoyed with them. They were getting a little too close to the car and she was about ready to yell at them. She was growling at them, but decided not to lean out the window again. It would be a little dangerous at the moment. The only reason no one had passed them is because of the ditch.

It wasn't very far to the end of that road and they had to turn onto another hoping that as they got closer things would be easier. In a way their thinking was right. Everyone was trying to get out of town and those that realized the storm was dissipating were trying to turn around and go back home. The roads closer to the hospital were a lot clearer and it only took them about forty-five minutes to get there.

Once they did they ran in with Elle and banged on the bell trying to get someone to come and help them. "Hello?!" Her mom said over and over. "Where the hell is everyone."

"You know...you're going to have to put a lot of money in that jar when we get back." Her husband said mischievously. She glared at him and that shut him up. After a few minutes someone came in.

"Sorry for the wait. There are only a few of us left here. We had someone we couldn't move giving us some problems." She said trying to sound cheerful. "How can I help you?" She said after gathering some things. Both of them started talking at once and she could see Elle unconscious in her fathers arms. "I can see that she needs some help. Why don't you sit down and fill this out. I'll go get a doctor to help you." She said quickly.

They did as she asked and tried hard to calm down. They were a little panicked at the moment. Her mom had to fill out the papers and she could hardly see so he ended up reading most of it to her. Finally the girl returned with a doctor and a stretcher for Elle. They were both very relieved to see her finally getting some help.

"How long has she been like this?" The doctor asked.

"Over an hour. That's about how long it took us to get here with all the traffic." The doctor wrote it down and asked the girl to bring the papers once they were done filling them out. "I'll come get you after we know more."

Elle woke up to something she definitely did not expect. She thought she had died and was going to whatever afterlife there was. What she was looking at now was not that at all. She thought maybe it was some kind of dream and that if she woke up everything would go back to normal.

"Maybe I've been playing too many videogames." She said. She was standing next to Sephiroth and Cloud and they were all looking at a cameraman taking their picture. She was in Nibelheim. Everyone in the area was frozen. She appeared to be the only person that could move. She walked around and touched the buildings and found them real enough. The people too seemed to be real. It suddenly occurred to her that something was off. It wasn't anything around her. It was her.

She looked at herself and could not remember wearing those clothes. They had to belong to someone else. She noticed that she had a purse and looked through it to find a mirror. She was glad to have one, but what she saw did not make her happy.

"I don't believe this! I'm TIFA?!!!!" She shouted in shock. "How did this happen?" She said still starring into the mirror. She found it almost impossible to look away and very hard to believe. Even after seeing all of this the part where it was all a dream was very appealing to her. She did not want to believe that somehow she had gotten stuck in the game. No one was playing and the game appeared to be frozen. "Now what do I do?"

She just wandered around in utter frustration. She just could not believe that something this ridiculous was happening. She kept looking around for something...anything that would tell her it was a dream. Unfortunately there was nothing for her to find. She finally gave up and sat down pouting. There was nothing she could do as far as she knew. Someone would have to play the game to make anything happen.

She looked around aimlessly and noticed that something new was there. It was a little menu. She instantly recognized it as the save menu. There were two ways to save. One was in the game itself and the other was in the net. It was stored on her server. That's what someone was doing. She guessed that it might be her brother. She got mad when he turned off her game without saving. It was the only time he ever saw her really mad.

After that was gone she noticed a number of things start to happen. Everything became dim. The sky started to disappear and turn black. She strained her eyes to really see what was happening. The sky turned into a bunch of numbers before becoming a black mass above her. After that everything outside the area she was in did the same as the sky. In a matter of seconds it was gone and the area around her went after it.

At first she was unsure what to think Then it occurred to her that her brother had turned off the game. This was the result of that action from the inside. The data was being moved to wherever it was stored. It made her wonder what was going to happen to her once she started to disappear. It was starting to scare her. She really had no idea would happen and she could not imagine anything good. Then again she did not have a very big imagination to begin with.

One by one the people around her started to disappear into nothingness. She knew that there was nothing she could do and eventually it was going to happen to her. She watched as Sephiroth was the last one to go before her. It took a second for her to realize that she was now starting to disappear. She hadn't felt anything.

It started in her hands and then she noticed that her legs were disappearing as well. She closed her eyes unable to watch herself disappear like that. It was hard enough to know that it was happening. She had seen it happen to everyone else so she was well aware of what was happening. She kept her eyes closed for a little bit and then opened them wondering what she was going to see.

She started by looking at herself. There was just a ghost image of herself left now. So I guess that I didn't completely disappear. Just Tifa's body did. She thought. She looked around. She was in what appeared to be a large corridor. The floor was black and there was a net of green lights pulsing above her. Every once in a while they would go off into another corridor and from there it was red. It seemed to go on forever in every direction. She didn't bother to pay attention to them.

She also noticed that there were other things wandering the corridors with her. They were videogame characters. They all ignored her. No matter how much she tried to get them to notice her nothing would happen. They just walked around for a while in a little area that she guessed was designated for them. "I guess this is where the game data is all stored. Looks like all the games I've played." She said.

It suddenly occurred to her why the color changed when the reached the side corridors. They represented dormant data. The green lights were taking the data to computers all over the world and she guessed that each one had a storage space that looked exactly like this. She sat down for a minute to collect herself. All of this was very interesting, but it was also very overwhelming. It was too much for her to take at the moment. She decided to take a nap for now and wait for something to happen.

Author: Well...there you go. My own representation of what storage on the net is like. I'll get to the rest of it eventually. Well...now you know what happened to her...sort of.