Chapter 4: On the Prowl
Tifa shivered, goose bumps consuming her skin although she attempted to ward off the cold by rubbing her arms feverously. Glancing around the diminutive room, the source of her discomfort was spotted momentarily. The window located to her right was ajar only by a fraction of an inch, but just enough for a draft of cold air to burst into the dimly lit office. Breaking away from her tedious task, Tifa walked meekly to the window and gently pulled the panel shut.
Frozen in her place, Tifa stared longingly out the window, up toward the stars, which formed the constellations she knew so well. She had gazed upon them with Cloud throughout her life, whenever she most needed that feeling…. a feeling of acceptance and truth that was without worry or fear…. or a security that she could never seem to grasp. It was funny now, in a sad way, that since Cloud had taken her as his wife, she had stopped looking up, waiting for the bad to pass. She had no need, until today.
Jenova was dead; they all knew that, including Cloud. Everything was supposed to be moving forward. Tifa and Cloud had a life, had a town, and had a place where they belonged… together. They all had mourned for Aeris, lost in a battle too complicated to fully understand, and each wished the outcome could have been different. But it couldn’t. Tifa had felt the blow of losing someone she laughed with, someone who helped her when she was in trouble… a friend more loving than a sister. As a result, Tifa had chosen her path thoughtfully: to get up, bruised and scared, and live.
The past was a scary place. Faced with all the mistakes and losses, Tifa shuddered. Alyssa, a girl so innocent, was a part of something bigger than they could handle right now. There were too many memories flooding back, filling Tifa’s head. She remembered Cloud, controlled by Jenova, a mere voice inside his head persuading him and having the power to take him from her. It haunted her with every labored breath she took since he told her he heard voices again.
From that moment, Tifa had been drowning with no salvation in sight. They defeated an organism once, but who knows exactly what they’ll be up against this time…
Why can’t I have a fairy tail ending? Why does Cloud have to suffer?
“This ain’t right.”
“Huh?” Tifa averted her eyes from the sky, turning toward Barret, who sat on the desk chair in the midst of a swarm of papers.
“Look at this and tell me I’m wrong.” Barret, swiveling on his seat, extended a newspaper toward his friend. “Just read the cover story.”
Tifa, still riding on an emotional roller coaster, accepted the paper with a tinge of a smile at Barret. She settled into a chair, facing the very desk on which rested a silver nameplate inscribed, “Police Commissioner Barret Wallace”, and rocked back and forth as she examined the article under Barret’s intense stare.
As with most people, Tifa at first just skimmed through the piece, not wanting to have Barret wait patiently, or as he was, semi-impatiently, while she read. But, her face contorted into a disturbed frown, and she had to keep doubling back to make sure what she thought she was reading was actually on the paper and not some deluded figment of her imagination.
It, of course, was in fact all there, in black and white.
The article was essentially about a vanishing; mysterious and puzzling as well as horrifying. Apparently, the small printed words formed a story of a stern grocery store owner, neither hated nor loved by anyone in his hometown. Skipping the part about his childhood, Tifa resumed her reading when it returned to tell of yesterday morning.
A girl, estimated to be the age of between six and eight, with green eyes and light brown hair, was seen wandering aimlessly on the street and it is confirmed that she entered the man’s store. Precisely what happened is a mystery, but video surveillance tapes capture footage of the child being caught in the act of shoplifting before the power seemingly went dead. The girl ran from the shop, screaming, while no one met the new customer entering the store. Peculiar as this is, a pile of black smothering dust was left behind the counter.
Whoa… This was way over Tifa’s head, but in a strange sense it also seemed familiar, too. Still, the last line made her increasingly uncomfortable as she reread it again and again in her mind….
The
origin of the dust, unknown as of yet, is being tested,
while the search for Rowin Kemp, the storeowner, continues.
“So, what do you think?” Barret
inquired, not waiting for an answer. “A girl, around seven years of age, with
green eyes and brown hair arrives alone in a unfamiliar town. She is seen going into an occupied store, tries
to shop lift food, and is caught. Then,
this girl runs from the store screaming… vanishes from town… and all that’s
left in the store is a pile of dust, no Rowin Kemp in sight.”
Barret paused, leaning back in his
chair, to allow all this to sink in.
“A girl, meeting the same description,
ends up alone in a park in Promise, an hour by foot from Rowin Kemp’s
store. Using the civic database, we
found that she has no record in this town, or with anyone in this town.”
“I know what you’re getting at,
but it’s ridiculous!” Tifa interrupted, her voice gushing with skepticism.
“Alyssa is a sweet little girl, like Marlene.”
“I know, I met her,” Barret raised
his voice in a cold tone.
Tifa was taken aback. Her reference to Marlene was meant in a
positive sense, although with Barret she knew his daughter was a sensitive
subject to bring up. They had been
friends so long, best friends, but still Tifa could not remember ever hearing
that tone directed at her before. She
averted her eyes, facing the office’s hard wood floor.
Barret sighed, running his only
hand over his short, stubby black hair.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered
hoarsely. “It’s just that Alyssa IS an innocent little kid, like Marlene, but I
think she’s in trouble.”
Slowly lifting her eyes from the
ground, Tifa brushed her hair from her tear-streaked face. “Cloud’s in trouble,
hearing those voices again, and Alyssa is too, but this… this has nothing to do
with her.”
“I know your worried for Cloud,
and don’t want this to be true, but we have to consider the possibility that
Alyssa is dangerous, being controlled by something she can’t stop. Look at what happened in your kitchen. She just happens to rest her hand on today’s
newspaper, and bam, instant relinquishment of her
mind to some ‘voices’. I don’t need to
have the background in police detective work to tell me that something doesn’t
fit, or fits a little too well if you’re looking from that point of view.”
“…maybe, but can you prove it?” Tifa asked reluctantly.
Barret opened his mouth to respond, but a scuffling noise in the outer room stopped him in his tracks. This side of the police station was closed, due to repairs, and only Barret’s office remained in working order, not seeing why he had to move all his things just to put them back again. No one should be there. Everyone knew Barret was supposed to be attending a party..
Then, it happened again, but this time seemingly right on the other side of the office door, accompanied by a muffled whisper. Tifa gulped, standing hesitantly in case she was put in the position of having to defend herself while Barret raise his gun, attached to his arm in place of a hand, aiming it confidently at the door.
The doorknob jingled back and forth for a few seconds and then it was pushed open firmly.
Barret, ready to shoot at the intruder, was stopped unwillingly in his tracks. Tifa, too, was stuck in the position she held when the door opened… as if by some sort of spell. They watched the shadow from the doorway emerge into the dim light with a gleaming grin no one but he could possess….
“Did ya find anything yet?!”
Nanaki looked up at Vincent from the stack of papers he had been carefully reading.
“I have found all that I just explained.” Vincent stated bluntly.
Nanaki and Vincent had been clawing through each book and paper related to Jenova’s appearance for over an hour, talking nonstop of one theory after another.
Yuffie knew that they were finding THINGS, but what exactly ‘intelligent’ mumbo jumbo they were spouting was another matter. It was like the two of them were in some sort of smart club with a secret language it took years to learn, and who had the time for that?
“I mean, did ya find what we’ve got to fight? I can’t take lookin’ at these books anymore…” Yuffie responded, trying to make an acceptable excuse for her earlier comment.
“You’ve been looking at books?” Vincent inquired without raising his eyes from the scroll he was translating.
Yuffie opened her mouth, but no reply escaped her lips. After all, she hadn’t really been looking THROUGH the books, although there certainly was enough of them piled around that wherever she turned she was sure to be looking at one, literally.
“This is interesting,” Nanaki announced, his tail waving excitedly through the air. “It is inscribed, somewhat discreetly, that Jenova was found with another organism. This being was apparently decimated and unsalvageable by the scientists.”
“Well, that’s no good. We need a LIVING thing, ya know, so we can beat it back to the hells it escaped from,” Yuffie pronounced, bounding up and down with waving fists triumphantly.
Vincent glanced at her briefly, “Must you shake the room?”
“Hey, this is MY apartment…” Yuffie paused in thought, “Well, I stay here while you’re away even though you pay all the rent, but I buy my own food and stock up the kitchen, so it’s half mine. After all, you’re never around.”
Vincent ran his fingers down his face, scrapping the skin lightly. Originally he hadn’t even considered for a moment sharing a home with Yuffie, but with some persuading and the assurance of his plans to travel, he ultimately gave in. In any case, he might have got a roommate, but also storing space for all his discoveries and written works.
Nanaki furrowed his brow, leaning intensely closer to the parchment. “This does not sound good.”
Vincent, placing his papers neatly on the table, stood up from his chair and walked over to where Nanaki resided, lying on the orange carpet (Yuffie’s decorating choice).
“Medea.” Vincent read out loud. “We have to tell the others.”
“Good luck with that. I just called Barret’s cell and of course he’s too lazy to answer!” Yuffie huffed.
“Or maybe he just didn’t have that option,” Vincent mumbled to himself.