MIDEEL
1.
The small town of Mideel had woken up under its trademark crystal clear summer sky.
Today the morning bustle through the narrow streets of the settlement was somehow quieter than ever. Maybe it had to do with the fact that, after the turmoil in Edge, the WRO had issued severe travel restrictions and enforced a strict curfew on worldwide transportation, because otherwise the town centre would have been usually crowded with tourist and out-of-towners who typically descended to Mideel to enjoy its renewed hot springs and its pristine seaside.
Therefore the roads, usually busy and packed with visitors, where mostly empty today as whoever had the opportunity had already made their way back home with the first outbound transportation available, avoiding the risk of being stranded in Mideel. Save for some local townsman who had risen early to carry out some chores or some vendors setting up their store nonetheless, the atmosphere was quiet and silent.
To most of the townspeople, it was a welcomed hiatus. They did not mind the visitors, as the local economy relied primarily on that, but an increasing slice of the population was becoming increasingly worried about the effective hosting capacity of a place which was no bigger than a mid-sized town. Mideel was already coping with the aftermath of the reconstruction of the settlement, after it had literally caved in during the events related to the Meteor and the Jenova Crisis. The inhabitants were more aware than ever that the place where they stood was their home, and not just a tourist attraction like the Golden Saucer.
Aaron Ruava, a middle-aged man standing on the threshold of his household in the southern part of the town, knew that too well. He also knew that, behind the profitable and somehow amusing trademark feature of Mideel stood the power of the Mako. Mideel indeed was remarkable for being one of the places on Gaia were Mako flowed so close to the surface to actually heat up the water springs standing right on top of it. It was the agitation of the Mako (and the intervention of the Weapons) that had forced men like Aaron to flee at first and then to sweat and work hard to reconstruct their village.
He reached for his hay cap with his hand and adjusted the tilt to shelter his eyes from the rays of the morning sun. Aaron was a fisherman who had finally managed to make a living out of his activity by delivering the fruits of his labour to the restaurants and eateries that had recently sprung up around Mideel. Weapons or Mako, his duty was to show up at the beach and provide food for his family, who was till soundly sleeping inside.
His daily routine was to check the nets laid out from the piers at first, to see if some daring and oblivious fish got tangled between the wires. Then he would have brought his small boat out of the workshop and set for the sea to actively look for some valuable prey. It was the perfect season to catch some prized tunas, and Aaron wished himself good luck as he closed the entrance to this own premises behind him.
He set towards the littoral south of Mideel, on a dirty track that the Town Council had actually planned to pave. A move, Aaron suspected, dictated by the will to appease the touristic lobbies pushing to turn Mideel into the seaside version of the Golden Saucer. A move against which most of the local townspeople (Aaron himself included) had moved a staunch opposition.
Without even realizing it, like most of the times, Aaron had already reached the half-point of the route. His eyes squinted, as in the distance he spotted someone running towards him.
The figure in the distance grew closer. It was a young boy. After a couple of moments later, Aaron recognized him as the young son of a family of fishermen to whom Aaron was well acquainted with
"Hey, Kean" Aaron waived the young lad "Are you training for the school's track team? Under this sun? At this time of the day?" he chuckled
"You've got to come and see it for yourself, Aaron!" the boy simply replied, his voice broken by a shock of unknown origin and panting like the air had been sucked around him.
Something turned on in Aaron's mind
"Did someone cut the nets loose again?" Aaron asked, alarmed. As a fisherman who had to mind the rival, powerful fishing corporations and the occasional strife between small fishermen, that was his chief concern
"No, it's way worse" the boy frantically shook his head "I've never seen anything like that in my life…"
Aaron thought that probably something very serious was underway. Kean Wilson came from a family of sturdy people who had never had a history of drinking habits or unfair practices. They were well respected by almost everybody. To be honest, everyone pretty much respected everyone else in Mideel. So Aaron was not really prone to think that the young guy in front of him was exaggerating of, worse, fooling with him. Apparently there was something that had happened, worse than someone meddling with his equipment, maybe
"Can you tell me what happened, then?" he resolutely asked "It seems like the Reaper just knocked at your door, Kean!"
"Just follow me, Aaron…" the boy uttered, before turning away and running towards the beach again
"Oh, boy! At least wait for me…" Aaron exclaimed fruitlessly, as he finally resolved to step up his pace. A feat quite hard to accomplish giving his not so young body, his wooden slips and the fishing rod perched on his shoulder.
After a brief run, Aaron finally came with the last bend of the track in sight. It was the last dash before the beach would open up in all his magnificence: a stretch of white sand arranged in a crescent, washed by a sea as blue as the sky above it. Near the border with the vegetation stood the huts of the fisherman and the sheds where their equipment and boats were stored. And, much to his dismay, some venues that sold souvenirs and snacks for beachgoers. They were the trailblazers to resorts built right on the waterline, in his opinion.
He finally got past the bend and prepared himself to whatever could appear in front of him. Too bad nothing could prevent his old and frail fisherman's heart to ache at the sight of the nearly apocalyptic vision which unfolded before him.
The waterline and the adjacent sand was stained black, and even the sea close to the beach was darker than usual.
Aaron stood there, speechless and agape, staring at that inexplicable eyesore. He immediately walked closer to what at first he thought was an oil spill drifted on the Mideel coastline.
No man so deeply connected to the sea could stand the vision of a multitude of what turned out to be dead fishes washed ashore, with some of them still fluttering on the sand, as if they were fighting to hold life within themselves.
As Aaron looked more carefully, it could tell it wasn't only tunas, barracudas and tarpons but also jellyfishes. He looked closer to a point where several people had gathered to contemplate the remnants of a dolphin, lying on its side.
A tear was forming in the corner of his eye. The entire fauna of the ocean had formed a black banner running the exact length of the beach. A banner that could mean a huge loss of profit for some, a mortal wound to Gaia and the ocean for others. Aaron was among the latter.
As he approached further, he could the see that virtually half of the inhabitants of Mideel had descended to the beach to witness that gruesome spectacle. A row of WRO personnel, the remnants of the local garrison after most of the forces had been quickly dispatched to Edge or to other major cities to deal with the aftermath of the attempted coup-d-etàt, was cordoning off the area
"Please people" a WRO soldier with the ranks of sergeant was shouting on top of his lungs "A veterinary crew is en route from Junon and they will take the matter in their own hand. I urge you to go back to your houses and…"
"I'm not going back anywhere!" a man countered angrily, waiving his fist in the air "We've got food to bring to our tables. What are we going to eat if you don't let us go at sea?"
"Sir, as far as we are concerned" the WRO sergeant replied, grabbing a handkerchief to pinch his nose and shelter himself from the stench of dying, rotting fishes "it might not be safe to bring seafood on your table!"
"Bullshit!" the man finally shouted as he turned his back at the graveyard and the men guarding it.
Soon, as more people had converged to the beach, the whole picture became more confused and chaotic.
Fishermen sit in a circle, heads between their hands.
WRO soldiers being given surgical masks.
Children poking dead fishes, before WRO officers gently (at the best of their abilities) chased them away.
And finally Aaron being approached by Kean once again
"I told you" he meekly said "You had to see it with your own eyes"
"You were right" Aaron replied, just as sadly "I can't believe it"
"Some of the fishermen out there say that the currents will probably bring in more dead animals by noon" Kean explained "I don't really know what has caused all this…"
"Me neither…" Aaron whispered
Suddenly an invisible force made every person, regardless of age or position within an organization, turn towards the sea. The force surely could not be seen, but it could be heard.
It felt like a multitude of airships were taking off distantly from the bottom of the sea.
A WRO officer reached for his radio, as he stared towards the horizon
"Did they already sent in the survey vessel to investigate?" he asked to his counterpart at the other end of the wire
"Negative!" the voice cracked back "The survey vessel had to be brought ashore to have some fixing done but…"
Statics interrupted the communication. The WRO soldier frantically pushed the PTT button, hoping to resume the talk.
Meanwhile, the pattern on the sand was slowly changing, as the grains of sand were slowly translating away from the water.
The ground was shaking.
At first it was something unnoticeable. Even the birds feeding off the corpses of dead sea animals did not even took off.
But then the jolts grew in intensity and even the sturdiest palm tree began shaking
"Oh, no!" someone cried, as the quake grew more and more discernible "Not again!"
"Not again what?" Aaron shouted back, as the thundering noise crawled from the sea to just below their feet. Someone was even thrown on the ground as the shock came unexpected and took people by surprise.
Aaron Ruava knew too well that it wouldn't have been over simply with the earthquake waning off. As every respectable man of sea, he knew that a large quake out at sea, so powerful that most of the huts nearly crumbled down to the ground in peaces, meant only one thing.
He ran inland, leaving his beloved fishing rod on the ground behind him. The WRO officers did just the same, vigorously urging everyone to do the same.
He just hoped that the earthquake had woken up his family too. He just hoped he could make it in time.