Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Painful Miracles ❯ Going on alone ( Chapter 17 )

Going on alone

Dante rolled over with a loud groan, blinking the sleep from her green eyes as they focused on the large red letters of her digital alarm clock. The clock read 9:30. Dante blinked her eyes, thinking it was 9:30 pm, but when she looked out the window and saw the sun sitting on the horizon she found it was in the AM. .:Why didn't mom and dad wake me up at 6?:. She thought, throwing back the covers and getting out of bed.

There would have had to be a natural disaster for her parents not to wake her up at 6:00 to train and help with the bar. Dante sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe they decided that I deserved to sleep in for once." She said aloud to no one in particular. She dressed quietly, going about her normal morning routine like everything was as it normally was in the morning. She grabbed her Gun-blad and walked to the door. She pulled on the door, but found it wouldn't open at all. She tugged and pulled and banged her fists on the door, but she couldn't get the door open, nor could she get an answer from her parents when she yelled for them.

"The house must have went into lock down..." She sighed. Her father had installed an alarm/safety system about seven years ago that could hide all the doors below the bar with artificial wall and make it look like a store room for booz and wine and since they lived below the bar anyway, Dante figured it was to keep them from getting robbed. She hefted her Gun-blade onto her shoulder and swung it backwards and then forwards into the door. It cut through the wood fairly easily. She continued this until there was hole in the door big enough for her to climb through.

She climbed through the hole, her legs getting scrapped by the jagged wood and adding to the cuts she had gotten from the glass she broke when that creepy Marcus guy came a few days earlier. She hadn't told her mom or dad about it, but now something was defiantly wrong and she felt she should have. She looked out over the hall way to see that her parents room was covered by the fake wall as well, but Dante knew they weren't in there. She knew because on the door were smeared, bloody handprints and a small pool of blood in front of the door. The pool was smeared as well and the trail of smears was all the way up the stairs. Dante followed the trail cautiously up the stairs and into the main bar. What she saw there made her face pale and she screamed for the first time in her life.

There was blood everywhere. On the bar stools, counter, walls....everything. Bodies of the bar-goers lay everywhere, all mutilated. One guys head was in the TV and his body hung limply from some of the wires that some one had tied around him. Another guy was hanging from the wall with a short sword through his mouth that kept him hanging there on the wall. Various other people had gunshot wounds, were impaled on swords or were hanging from the rafters with rope, wire or shoestrings.

Dante's stomach flip flopped in her body as she swallowed down the bile rising in her throat. Whoever did this had to have done something to her parents as well, but they were nowhere to be seen. Dante walked behind the bar and through a swing door that lead to the main store room. She looked around the room, seeing no sign of either of her parents. She turned to leave and what she saw on the back of the swinging door made her vomit boiling stomach acid all over the floor.

The door swung on hinges in deep need of oiling with Tifa hanging on it. Held there with daggers. Daggers were stuck into her shoulders, hands, thighs and feet and on through her throat and another one through her forehead. Her clothing was torn and her eyes were open, frozen at the instant her life was ended. Dante looked at her mother, tears trickling down her face. Marcus Silver had done this and she knew it. When she found him she would rip out his spine and beat the living piss out of him. The she would sharpen it and use it to cut hit balls off, right before she killed him.

A note was laying on the floor with blood droplets on it. Dante picked it up and read it. It read;

Dear young Strife,

it was a shame I had to kill your beautiful mother. If she would have only told me where you were, she wouldn't have had to die. But don't worry. She didn't go to waist. Oh, and your father, I have him. He's alive for now. If you come to Neiblaham, I just might spare him.

Marcus Silver

Dante crumpled the note, her blood boiling and her emotions running wild. She couldn't decide whether she was angry or sad. Tears flowed like a warm river down her cheeks and mixed with the blood on the floor. The tears seeming to be swallowed by the crimson. Dante took one last look at her mother. She couldn't bear to see her this way.... She walked from the storage room and collapsed at one of the tables and put her head down on her arms and cried. Her whole body trembled with sorrow and hatred. Her heart felt like it was shattering and it hurt. Her parents had always pushed her so hard to be able to take anything, but they never trained her for this.

The sound of feet crunching over glass startled Dante. With lighting like reflexes she adorned her blade and was about to swing when a voice stopped her.

"Please, I'm not the one responsible for this. I'm here to help you." A young man stood in front of her. He had short black hair, deep emerald eyes that shined with the tint of Mako in the darkened room and he was wearing a black trench coat and torn jeans.

"Who-who are you?" Dante stuttered, wiping her tear streaked face. She had to be strong.

"My name is Setsuna MorningStar. I'm going to help you." He answered, taking a step toward her. Dante raised her blade again.

"How do I know that you are telling me the truth? You could be working for Marcus!" Dante lunged at him and Setsuna easily dodged out of the way of her attack made at him in anger.

"I'm not working for him I swear to you. I am against him as you are. Now, are there by chance two other girls here with you?" Setsuna assured her of his hatred for Marcus Silver and took a step toward her again. She seemed to be a little more trusting now, but her guard was still up. "What is your name?"

Dante looked up at him in suspicion. Two girls? Did he mean the ones in her nightmares? They were real people? .:Wow...way weird...:. Dante thought.

"I'm Dante Strife and I'm the only live one in here." Dante sat back down at the table and couldn't help but let a tear trickle down her cheek at her words. Setsuna sighed and sat down next to her. .:Man, if she's all emotional about a few dead drunks, wait until she looks outside:. Setsuna thought grimly to himself. He looked about the blood stained room. It was a gruesome site to see.

A drunk's head had been smashed through the bar television and it looked as if someone had strangled him with the exposed cords. There we red burn marks from where the cords were wrapped about his neck. Another drunk was pinned to the wall with a sword through his forehead and as Setsuna looked at the body, the wet sound of flesh being torn caught his attention. He watch the body of the drunk start to fall as the blade that was still stuck in the wall sliced his head in half. The drunks' body fell to the floor with a wet, sickening thud. Dante's sudden voice mad Setsuna turn to her and took his mind away from the awful site.

Dante wiped her face again and turned her head to look at Setsuna. "Is there anyone alive next door?"

"I'm afraid not. You are the only live on in the sector seven slums, my dear." Setsuna answered reluctantly. Dante glared at him, strong anger apparent in her green eyes.

"You are lying!" She screamed at him. She stood abruptly and stopped from the bar to the house next door. Setsuna sighed heavily, getting up and following her, making sure to keep her out of trouble and almost certain death.

Dante pushed open the front door, listening to the loud creak it made before entering the house. She took a step in, her boots crunching over broken glass and furniture. Bodies lay scattered across the floor, blood streaked the walls. Dante took in a deep breath, the stench of death and rot singing her nose hairs. She checked each body for life, not finding a single pulse, or sign of her friends.

She made her way to James's room to find the door to the closet slightly ajar and bloody hand prints on the door, as if someone had forced someone else into the closet. She pulled the door open slowly and cautiously and let out a saddened gasp. All the clothes that hung on the bar in the closet had been thrown from their hangers and in their place was the bloody, battered body of James. She looked at the small, twelve year old boy who was once so full of life, and so eager to live every moment to the fullest...But now....his neck hung limp to one side, his left arm had been cut off and was dripping blood on the fallen clothes.

Dante bit her lip, holding back the river of tears that threatened to over flow their banks and fall down her cheeks. She reached out and touched the small boys face, whispering a pray to Lifestream, asking it to take care of his small, fragile soul. Her prayers we interrupted as Setsuna called from another room in the house.

"Dante, I've found something!" Setsuna shouted. Dante closed the closet door and followed Setsuna's voice across the house to Rufus' room.

Dante walked into the room to find Setsuna looking down sadly at two blond figures laying over a table. Both bodies were bloody, their innards exposed and falling from their mutilated bodies. Dante put a hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting as she surveyed the two.

"Do you know them?" Setsuna ask, walking over to stand by her, limping lightly from the wound on his leg. Dante nodded slowly, her emerald eyes tearing with sadness, making the Mako within her depths shine.

"Masao and Rufus...." She mumbled, her eyes focus on the two bodies, as if she was hoping they'd wake up, move, something....

Then, suddenly she grabbed Setsuna by the shoulders and shook him harshly.

"Hiro! Hiro! He's not dead! He's still alive! He's in Junon! He'll be back today!" Dante screamed happily, even though her voice was still strained with tears.

"O-okay...." Setsuna said, unsure of exactly what to say at the girls sudden spur of joyousness. "I'm glad for him..."

Then, just as the happiness had come, it was gone. She couldn't wait for Hiro here. Her mother had once told her to go someplace should something like this happy, but the couldn't remember what her mother had said. She had been to busy watching Hiro train in their arena with her dad. She jogged her brain, thinking hard. Then, the light bulb blinked on and shown like the sun.

"THE CHURCH! The old church!" She yelled loudly, jumping up from her seat, startling Setsuna yet again.

"Church? What church?" Setsuna looked at her confused. This girl was up and down like a roller coaster! Sad, happy, sad, happy! Setsuna wished she'd make up her mind about which mood she wanted to be in.

"The old church by the old playground in the slummiest slums of the sector seven slums! Mom said I would find some people there to help me! Even if I had to wait there for a few days!" Dante explained.

" Then do you want to go there?' Setsuna asked stupidly.

"Yes! What have I been raving on for? Not for my health, that's for sure!" Dante snapped, picking up her sword. "But not right away. I think we should go tomorrow. It would be safer, just incase we are followed." Dante nodded to herself and looked at a confused Setsuna. "So lets go!"

Setsuna nodded, following Dante out of the Rufus' house. He helped her onto his Chocobo and then climbed up after her. They rode to Sector 5 and they stopped at a cafe to eat some brunch. The two ate in almost complete silence, only conversing for about 5 minutes over the incident in the bar and Marcus Silver, but Dante had cut it off when Setsuna said something about Cloud. She wasn't emotionally ready to deal with her loss yet. She was stuck in denial, soon to be depression.

When they finished their meal, Setsuna paid the cashier with the money he had found tucked away in the bag Christine had given him and they were on their way again. They remained in Sector 5 and stopped at a small inn called "The Chamber Inn".

Setsuna tied the Chocobo outside and paid for the two to get a room. He handed the key to Dante whom dashed up the stairs to room 25A and went inside, followed by Setsuna whom closed the door. It was a small room, with two beds, one on each side of the room, a bathroom and two chairs in front of a fireplace with a table between them. Dante flopped down on the bed on the right side of the room as Setsuna sat in one of the chairs and started a fire in fireplace with his fire materia.

Dante sighed and sat up, looking over at Setsuna. "First thing in the morning we head out. I don't feel comfortable sharing a room with you."

Setsuna stifled a laugh. "First thing, I promise. And I'm not wetting myself over the fact that I have to share a room with you, Miss Priss." He retorted.

Dante harrumphed and laid back on the pillow, sighing to herself as her body relaxed. All of the emotion she had been holding up inside exploded like a bomb and she began to sob. She buried her face in her fluffy feather pillow so Setsuna would not hear her and cried. Soon she fell into exhausted sleep and nightmares.

Setsuna felt so sorry for her loss, not really knowing how she felt. He was so young when he lost his mother that he barely remembered the pain. All he could do was sit back and watch as his "father" destroyed everything. He could only imagine how the other two girl were going to be like if Dante was so emotional over all of this.

Setsuna thought grimly about what his father had planned for them all. There was a gruesome and bleak future up ahead if he didn't find the other two girls.

But little to his knowledge, one girl was already here in Midgar and the other would be on her way shortly.