Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Only When It Rains ❯ Prologue ( Prologue )

Ok this is like the first part of my monster, monster Final Fantasy 7 epic opus. Many parts to come and probably sequels if I can ever get my lazy ass around to finishing it. ^.^ Feedback much needed and craved. I cannot write more parts if I think no one's reading it because then I am unmotivated. So motivate me please!

Prologue

You can tell much about a place through seemingly trivial things. Like the rain. In some places it's greasy, falling in a grim drizzle. Some places it's wet, falling from leaden clouds. It's warm other places and when it falls you feel refreshed has if the rain rejuvenated your spirit. Then there's the rain that falls hard and is so cold and brutal that your skin stings then slowly goes numb. In fact, everything goes numb, even your soul. It's this rain that causes despair, depression, and death.

It was this type of rain that had descended on the Nibel Mountains. Lightning broke the sky, shattering the stillness to hundreds of shards. The light it gave threw the mountains into stark relief. It also showed the young woman running down a path. She looked frantic and her clothes were so soaked they had molded to her body. She was hunched over, using her body to shield the small bundle she held tightly from the cruel rain. She slipped and slid, her feet not finding purchase on the path that had almost entirely disappeared. Swept away like the woman feared she would be.

Beneath the tremendous crash of thunder a smaller more plaintive sound could be heard. Someone was crying, but their tears and cries were all swallowed and combined with the storm.

Her eyes were wild and anxious has if expecting an attack at any moment. The sick words of a man she had once trusted rushed back to her. "You can see the child" he'd said. "Only when it rains." His acidic laugh followed her has she ran through the mountains. He was going to move his whole twisted project to another, more secure, location soon. She was sure there it wouldn't rain...

At last, far below her, she saw, between the slashing, dagger-like rain, the yellow twinkling lights of a town. They looked so warm...so welcoming to the nearly frozen and delirious woman. Clutching the bundle tighter to her chest she descended down the slippery path. There had to be some place down there she could hide. Hide from that evil, vindictive madman.

The first building she saw was a giant, old mansion. She stumbled down the road, the torrents of rain lashing her frozen limbs has if it were trying to pulls her back to that evil place. But she wouldn't let it. She doggedly marched on, even has she felt herself getting more numb. Blackness nibbled at her vision as she forced her exhausted body farther than it wanted to go. She clutched the bundle tightly to her chest. Her arms were cramped and frozen in that position.

The mansion was huge and surrounded by a slowly deteriorating stone wall. There was a heavy metal gate blocking the drive up to the old house. The mud was slick almost liquid and flowed down the hill, washing over the women's feet. The house seemed to mock her from its hill, daring her to tempt its gates.

She reached the gate at last and tried desperately to open it with her meager strength. She threw her shoulder and back against it roughly trying to get it to open. But she had been running for a very long time and her body could barely stand. There was a slight groans from the hinges of the gate has it gave barely an inch. Her whole body started to tremble from the cold wetness all around her. The exhaustion was starting to catch her, but the bundle still clutched in her stiff, numbed arms forced her to go on. She contorted and squeezed her aching body through the gate. She was careful not to disturb the bundle too much and doubly sure she didn't hurt it.

She raced up the path has fast as her weary legs could carry her. It was a stone drive so the mud was less slick and the ground more stable. She raced onto the verandah, taking shelter from the rain under the overhang. But the storm wouldn't be denied. A harsh wind blew throwing the stinging rain at her again. Slumped against the doorway the woman barely had the energy to lift her arm to pound on the door. Then every last once of energy drained from her, and the exhaustion caught her. She slumped against the door, her eyes closing.

Another lightning bolt ripped the sky to pieces, the harsh light outlining her figure as is slumped still standing against the door. In the silence before the tremendous crash, clear as day, a baby's cry was heard. It came from the bundle in the women's still clenched arms. Then the thunder swallowed the scream...or maybe it mimicked the pitiful cry.