Final Fantasy VII: Lifestream - Book 2: Aftermath

FOUR

We got back to Evergreen Park about fifteen minutes later. The trip had been thankfully uneventful, with no bandits or monsters to bother us. Not that we couldn't have handled them, but it would've taken time to fight them off—time Jessie might not have. We had taken the longer back road instead of the collapsed expressway for that very reason, not to mention Marissa's bike. With all the ravines and debris, there was no way she could've driven it through there.

People still huddled in the clearing nearby, but others lingered here in the park as well now, and it looked like some were even trying to get back into Sector 7, too. That tunnel Cloud and Wedge had mentioned. Others were going into and out of it, probably to search for lost friends and loved ones just like we were.

"Ready, Tif?" Cloud asked me as we went up to it.

I took a breath and nodded. "Yeah. It's still so hard to believe... it's gone. Shinra... they did it to us again, Cloud. Just like back home. Tore it all away from us, same as before."

He laid a hand on my shoulder. "Not all of it."

I followed his gaze to where Barret, Wedge, and Lena stood not far away as Marissa parked her bike by the tunnel entrance. And I thought of Biggs, resting at the Leaf House. We still had our friends, and I knew we'd always have each other, too.

"Yeah," I agreed. "They didn't. Not this time."

There were still two good friends missing from our circle—Aerith and Jessie. But we would get them back. We'd save them. I wasn't going to let Shinra keep them from us. And I saw the same thing reflected in Cloud's eyes, the same determination. I drew strength from it, knowing it wouldn't falter or fail. No matter the questions I still had about him, I knew he was still Cloud, my childhood friend.

Then we all went into the tunnel. It was narrow, with dirt walls and pipes running along the metal grating that made up the floor. Here and there, the passage was choked with debris that had crashed through the ground, and at times we had to squeeze our way past it, but we made it to Sector 7 without much trouble.

Or what was left of it.

"Goddamn..." Barret breathed.

He wasn't kidding. The slums were a wasteland of rubble, shattered buildings, and small fires. Smoke hung in the air, and half the area was totally buried, crushed beneath the weight of the broken roads, homes, smashed cars, and other debris that had fallen from the plate. The steel sky was gone, at least over Sector 7, and above us hung the real thing, a blanket of stars hovering in the night.

People from around town—neighbors, friends, customers—walked around the ruins and dug at the debris to find anyone they could, alive or not. The wounded sat or laid here and there, so many of them, while others looked after them as best they could. And then... there were the dead, their bodies for the most part thankfully covered with old sheets as soon as they were found.

"Hey!" a voice suddenly called to us. "Over here!"

I looked up at the owner. "Wymer!"

He was there, with his blue cap and brown beard, trying to move a large piece of concrete—a huge chunk of what might've once been part of a parking garage up on the plate—just enough to free a woman who lay trapped underneath it within the wreck that must've once been her house. She was still alive, but barely.

"Can you guys gimme a hand?" he asked.

Cloud nodded. "We're on it."

He, Barret, and Wedge hurried over, each taking hold of the debris to help lift it enough for the rest of us to pull the poor woman free. But as I knelt down along with Lena and Marissa to do that, I gasped when I suddenly realized who we were rescuing. She recognized me too, her eyes filled with sadness and regret.