Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Painful Miracles ❯ Memories ( Chapter 22 )

Memories

Icarus sighed as she walked beside Cali. The two had fought their way through the bustling crowds in the Shopping Central of Midgar and were now making their way towards the front gates. She couldn't help but feel a slight bit of hope as she walked. She was on her way to find her father and the thought almost brought a smile to her face. Almost.

But there was one thing that kept her from a total smile and that was the fact that they were being followed. A young brunette on a Chocobo was following them very closely. Icarus couldn't understand why she was being followed in the first place. First it was that strange girl in Shopping Central that was staring at her and now a crazy brunette with a bird. Icarus felt her hands curl into tight fists as she tried to control her anger. If she transformed now, every guard in Midgar would be after her.

"Icarus, we're being followed..." Cali whispered as he leaned close to Icarus' ear.

Icarus nodded slowly. "I know. She's been following us since we left the Shopping Plaza."

"You know, she looks a lot like the brunette woman you said was with your father on the mountain... Maybe she's related." Cali reasoned.

Cali's words made Icarus stop abruptly and she stared at him for a moment. His words replayed in her head until she turned around, her eyes locking with the Mako green one's of the brunette. And as they stared at each other, both frozen to their spots, Icarus felt a painful stinging sensation in the back of her mind. She let out a pain filled cry as she clasped her ears with shaking hands. She fell to her knees, screaming in agony as flashes of Sakura's memories cut across her mind. Each memory came and went with a wave of nausea as Cali settled next her, holding her shoulders.

Sakura, whom had been following who she thought to be Vincent Valentine, let out a cry as she to clasped her head and fell from her Chocobo. Visions of nightmares and haunting images flashed across her mind as she screamed.

Hiro was startled by the screams as he rested on the chocobo. He felt nauseous as he crawled off the Chocobo to rest beside Sakura. He knew he couldn't do much for her in his state, but he'd do anything to stop the screaming.

"Icarus!!! Icarus!!!" Cali tried his best to yell over the screams as he shook Icarus. He was oblivious to the people in the streets that had stopped to watch the chaos unfold. The only thing left on his mind was stopping the awful screams.

Icarus continued her piercing screams as her brain felt as if it was about to split from the pain. Her hold on her ears had tightened to the extent that her fingernails were leaving crescent shaped cuts above her ears. The horrible scenes that flashed before her eyes made her heart pound. It was like the slideshow from hell as the final vision set into place.

All to abruptly, the pain in Icarus' mind subsided and the world seemed to black out except for a small vision that was slowly becoming clear in front of Icarus' eyes. It was of a woman in pink, the very woman she had seen in the mountains with her father and she standing in front of a broken church. She was standing with four other people. Their heads were down, as if in silent prayer.

Her heart fluttered as she recognized one of the people to be her father. He was clasping the shoulders of a young child, a young girl to be exact. The young girl was wearing a long black dress and a crimson bow tied her unruly hair back. Icarus instantly recognized the child as being herself seven years ago. She also recognized the young, chocolate haired girl standing with a spiky headed blond and a large breasted woman, as the girl standing in the shopping plaza. There was another young brunette that she acknowledged to be the very woman that was screaming with her now.

And as abruptly as the vision came, it switched to a fast paced movement that swirled away from the church, through a abandoned park and to the very place they were now, as if the vision was giving them distinct directions to this church.

Sakura was sharing the same vision Icarus was having. They had both stopped the horrible screaming and were both blacked out to the world.

"Sakura...Sakura..." Hiro wheezed, trying to wake the oblivious Sakura. When she did not awaken to his calls he looked up to Cali. Cali only stared back as he too could not get his fair to wake. His eyes turned away from Cali, who was currently pulling Icarus' arm around his shoulder and slipping an arm around her slender waist. Her head bobbed as he began walking away from Sakura and Hiro and through the crowed.

Hiro shook his head as he lifted Sakura's delicate body into his arms and pulled himself up onto their chocobo. His body couldn't take much more of this strain, especially under the influence of ShinRa's poison. Yet as much as his body ached and burned, he couldn't just sit by and not aid Sakura as she had aided him. He knew he couldn't make it to a hospital, but he had to do something.

His mind throbbed as he steered the chocobo in some random direction and replayed the little display that had just happened in his head. He could remember Sakura screaming…how could he forget… about a church, as did the other girl that was screaming. His thoughts continued as he racked his mind. He knew nothing of Midgar, or even where to find a church. Until Sakura woke up, he would just have to wait.

***********

Sakura let out a soft groan of pain as she opened her Mako swirled eyes. Her head felt heavy as she sat up and surveyed her surroundings. She was surrounded by trees in what seemed to be an abandoned park. There were large iron play structures that had long since lost their child appeal as they lay in broken heaps and rusted in the warm sun. The sand that had once been a luscious tan was now gray and riddled with litter. A large, once pink Moogle slide was now brown and look as unsafe as the rest of the playground. Sakura sighed, feeling as if at one point in her life she had been here before; only it had been different, more magical.

Sakura looked over her shoulder when she heard a hard cough and found Hiro passed out of the bench, looking worse. She had to do something, but… She shook her head of all negative thoughts and her mind traveled back to the vision of the church.

The vision seemed to a moment of the past that she and the woman she had shared. It had been a memory of a sad moment, almost as if the people had been mourning their lost loved ones or family members of some sort almost seven years ago, though Sakura felt as if it had never happened. Her memory became very vacant if she thought back past two years, almost as if she had only existed in the times she could remember, but she knew, just by the vision that she had existed and that gave her the sudden burst of hope to continue on. She had to find the raven-haired girl and that Church, not only to soothe her own heartaches, but help Hiro as well.

***********

Cali sighed softly as he watched Icarus writhe in his arms. They had taken up residence in a small, quiet restaurant so Icarus could rest and he could feed his grumbling stomach.

He gently brushed Icarus'soft raven as her head rested in his lap. Her soft moans of pain and nightmare filled his mind with question. How long would she be asleep? What had she seen in that vision? What was going through her mind now? His mind was a mess with unanswered questions and cat-like curiosity.

"Fa…ther…" Icarus whispered softly as her head gently thrashed in Cali's lap. Cali gently touched her forehead, trying to calm her aching mind and quickly pulled his hand away. Her forehead felt like an inferno. Cali signaled for a waiter.

"May I trouble you for a cool glass of water and a towel?" He asked. The young waitress nodded her pretty blonde head at him and was off to retrieve the requested items.

The waitress quickly returned and gave Cali the items he had asked for. " Here you are sure."

"Thank you." He waved her off politely and she nodded as she left him. He dipped the towel into the glass of ice water and wrung out the excess water before folding the towel neatly and placing it on Icarus' forehead in hopes that the cool, soothing water would calm her raging fever. The remedy seemed to be working as he rested his head on the back of the leather booth seat. He closed his eyes and gently drifted off into a restless dreamland.