[Author's note: This Chapter is rated MA: Mature Content (18+). Scenes of extreme violence, not suitable for sensitive or young readers, will follow. Please skip this Chapter if you are not entitled to read it. The most important event is: Noah and his mother have to flee occupied Landis to the Archadian Empire, while Basch escapes on his own to Dalmasca, as mentioned in Final Fantasy XII.]

Waldgott Town, 687 (o. V.)

I had not been able to fulfill my promise to the Drimers. Basch was not accompanying me for the visit. Well, he went to Waldgott as well, but he escaped midway to go to Bolesław's Weaponry, as during the good old times. It seemed he would never get tired of endlessly watching the same weapons. But since that made him the happiest boy in the village, I let him go and promised I wouldn't tell Mom.

Very little had happened since my last visit to Cirla and Margit – I only had a couple of funny stories at work to tell – but I wanted to go nonetheless. I was curious about what happened after the parents read the professor's praising letter about my paper, but that was not the main reason. Did Cirla and Margit keep the same dreams for their future, or had they changed their minds already? Was Cirla still blindly in love with the same girl for years, or did he understand he didn't stand a chance? Or maybe it's the girl that understood her luck and decided to take her opportunity. That would be so cute. Did Margit cook that light cake she had told us about so many times? Did she request her mother's help to do it, or did she become a great pastry-cook by herself? What about the dancing class? Mom told me recently it was supervised by the Empress herself. Did Margit know she could meet the Empress? Or maybe she did meet her since the previous time. What about her weight loss? Well, that was none of my business. But you know what? I didn't need a reason to go see them. They were my best friends after all – apart from Nareszcie of course.

At the entrance of the city, I recognized the cart and its driver and the chocobo, the ones that led Naria and I to Waldgott the first time we went to sell goods there for the harvest. I waved hello to him and he replied with a slight nod, his face all grim. What could he have? Maybe he was sick. Or that everybody had greeted him that morning and he was tired of answering. But I felt something else in his look. As if he was… worried. Why? I had no idea.

All above, several airships were spanning the sky; they had strange and rather modern forms. Those were certainly the new models from the East Ivalice Company, for the aerodrome was not far away. There were more airships than usual, and some of them were not too high above our heads. Maybe that was what's bothering the cart driver? I should ask Cirla about that, maybe he knew something.

I arrived at the private housing estate where the Drimers lived, and turned at the first street. I noticed, with some surprise, a group of people running away and shouting, but no one was following them. The estate seemed perfectly calm otherwise. I kept on walking and eventually turned at the street the Drimers were living in. I rang at their door and waited for an answer, but it didn't come.

'Err… Mister Drimer? Cirla? Margit?'

I walked along the chain-link fence and stopped at the little steel door that was guarding the garden: it was slightly open. Did a member of the family forget to close it?

I waited ten full minutes, during which nothing happened, then decided to go inside. The house was very quiet. After having rung multiple times, no one had opened the door: they were certainly all gone on a little family trip. However, after randomly checking the grass, I noticed a familiar head.

'Margit!'

I ran towards her.

'Where is your brother? Cirla!'

No one answered while I was taking the few meters that separated me from her.

I let out a big laugh: her body was entirely underground; only her head topped the soil.

'Why are you hiding in the dirt? Are you playing hide-and-seek with Cirla? I thought you considered yourselves older than that!'

I kept on laughing until I reached her, but her head didn't move by a single inch. She was looking at the opposite side, so only the hair above her neck was visible to me.

'Hiya! It's me, Noah; I'm here!'

She stayed motionless.

'Fine then, I'll pull you out of here.'

I kneeled down and put my hands down her chin, then carried out my word.

I would never, in all Ivalice, have expected what I saw.

The head came up alone.

Narrow red threads were still attached to it, the skin had been harshly ripped, and when I looked at my hands, they were stained with blood.

I screamed for several seconds and let the head fall on the grass.

'No… NO! MARGIT! NOT YOU!'

I randomly shook the soil under the grass and stumbled upon the rest of the body. The beheaded body.

'No… What's happening… What can I do?'

I yelled the parents' names but this was certainly pointless: it was so atrocious they had to be aware already. But on the other hand, they hadn't shown up during all this time. Were they both outside calling for help? Something was going on.

'Cirla!'

I ran towards the house in all haste.

'Cir…'

As soon as I began calling, I saw him. His body was pierced by a spear which end was hanging on the outside wall. Blood was flowing straight from his heart, down along the white immaculate wall, in width-varying lines. I followed these lines and found the said heart, at the bottom of the wall. It was pierced as well, but still beating. I raised my eyes once more and noticed the rest. The rest was the deep gashes all along his arms and legs, the bloody hole at the missing heart's place on his chest, and… and then there was his head. His ears had been completely sliced from it, his nose was bleeding as well, the mouth bore a large cut across the two lips, and the once-clever eyes had been utterly torn out from the skull. The eyeless head was, by some miracle, slightly risen up, so it was as the vision of horror was observing me.

I screamed even louder and went to the other side of the house, where the main door was. Seeing it was wide open, I didn't stop and entered. I, maybe naively, kept on calling the parents, as I was jumping on the stairs, rather than walking on them normally. With extreme fear, my head pivoted right and left before I kept on running through the main hall, right to the room I had never entered before, but that I had the urge to check at that precise moment: the parents' bedroom. I quickly opened the door and realized the truth: they weren't there.

'Raaaaaaaah! What the hell is happening here?'

I stomped on the ground, not even fully feeling the tears that were falling down my cheeks, then tried to calm down. Nothing could be solved by screaming and getting angry. But my heart couldn't stop beating at a crazy pace. I took a look left and right again, then remembered, with mixed feelings, a wide office where the Drimers used to work together. It was located on the other side of the hall, next to the room where I used to study with my friends – and where I would never study anymore. I walked there with trembling feet, then gasped and opened the door completely.

'No… No!'

The couple was lying on the ground, holding hands and almost smiling. As usual, the mother was wearing a beautiful skirt and a simple white shirt while her husband had his elegant blue suit on. Unlike their children, their heads were unharmed. I felt like I had all eternity to look at their serene expressions. From a first look, all I could tell is that they were sleeping – on the cold ground, so a bit eccentric way to sleep, but still sleeping. I looked better and noticed the several shots each one of them had all across their chest and belly. It took the killers almost twenty bullets to get rid of each one of them. Each one of them, each incredibly active contributor to the Landisite economy, each kind and caring parent, who even had success wishes for a poor boy like myself… was dead and would never wake up from their peaceful slumber.

This time, I was desperate. I let my arms fall and my knees' strength slowly faded away too. For a moment, I saw everything. I saw the Drimer parents naturally getting up, in that same office where they were lying a few seconds ago, and walking down the stairs to go to work. Mrs Drimer had her lovely smile on her face, and Mr Drimer was waving goodbye and asking his children to take care. The said children were there too, of course, in the room next door. They were working on some important paper to show to the Archadian professor. And, of course, they were talking to me. The three of us were laughing. Nothing could disturb our joy. Nothing.

I suddenly heard a shot in the street. Immediately, other shots could be heard as well. People were screaming and fleeing from something. I turned my head towards the window; every vision of peace had disappeared. I saw the dead bodies of the parents again, and when I reached the ground floor, I couldn't avoid passing next to the torn body of the promising young man and the lonely head of the cheerful girl. I saw the moment they died in. I could hear their cries…

As soon as I reached the garden's open door, everything began to take place in a sort of fast forward mode.

As soon as I reached the garden's open door, in the outside world, I saw a little boy being slain ten meters away by a lone man with a giant axe. The child was running and crying just before the blade hit his neck.

As soon as I reached the garden's open door, an entire troop appeared behind the kid slayer. They were wearing similar clothes as him, and were holding all manner of weapons in their hands.

As soon as I reached the garden's open door, another group of men came from the other side of the street. But this time, I recognized them from their armors: they were the Landis army. Dad's army.

As soon as I reached the garden's open door, eventually, one of the Landisite soldiers, probably a captain, ran ahead of the group and stabbed the body of one of the foreign men, who had taken a step forward as well, with his spear. The body collapsed between the two groups, then there was a silence. Suddenly, the army captain let out a scream and invited his comrades to strike, but the strangers decided to flee in all directions.

The captain looked kind of relieved. He sighed, ordered a portion of his men to follow the strangers, and lowered his sight to me. I gasped as he walked towards my place.

'This is war, my boy. The Archadians came and are making a razzia in northern territories. Their regular army began their invasion from the villages south of here, but these ones are no army, no!'

'They are Urban Units!' shouted a soldier behind him. 'I heard of them! They are the vilest of all the Empire rats!'

'They can kill widows and orphans without regret! What are they doing here, Captain?' asked another.

'Silence!' the captain said. 'For now, all we have to do is protect Waldgott's citizens, before the Empire reaches the capital. Move, boy! If you're from Kalthof, you should make haste and get back to your peers before fights begin there.'

And the group went away, leaving me alone in a world that never was.

Out of some impulsion, I let myself kneel on the ground and realized I had been afraid to breathe. I breathed in and out, in and out again, feeling my lungs replenish and the sound of air leave my mouth in fragile harmony. I was about to get up again when I noticed something white near the body of the fallen Urban Unit member. It was a piece of paper. I looked at the silence around me, then I knelt until I reached it and put it in my pocket before standing and taking a larger look at the town's buildings around me.

War.

Invasion.

Began in villages.

South of…?

'Mom!'

Without thinking, I took a step aside and began running in turn.