It was past midnight when Cid Highwind woke up from his unconcious state. He had been going through unreal nightmares. Visions of what he had seen earlier that day. Except it was after him. It was hunting him, like helpless prey, it stalked him. When Cid awoke, he had sweat running down his face, covering his body. Blood and mucus was dried around his nose from the collision he had had with the run away moon he dimly remembered as his navigations console. And the console itself was screwed to hell. He had no idea what had happened to Yuffie, and in his state, he probably wouldn't have cared. He had no idea that in less then two hours, everything surrounding him would be gone. He heard something move, a rumbling in the corridor, and he felt it. He felt the beginning of the end comimg...

* * * * *

It was past 1:00 AM now...

Cid was running from a nightmare, but not one of sleep, but one of the real world. In only a few moments, he would be killed by his nightmare...

Tifa and Cloud had already finished their meal, as well as what was left of the pie, and were now watching a movie, more or less, but mostly they were just making love on the couch.

Barret was tossing and turning in his bed. In his nightmare he was shooting everything he had into darkness, hitting nothing. It was the darkness hitting him, Marlene was having much similar dreams of the darkness...

Red XIII hadn't been able to sleep the whole night. Something was terribly wrong, and he didn't like it one bit. The Planet was in danger, as well as it's people.

Vincent was still aimlessly roaming around the Shin-Ra Mansion, now totally absorbed in his longing to have someone with him... anyone. Perhaps one of his old AVALANCHE pals...

Reeve was no longer at the Mall of Midgar. He was at the Bumble Bee Inn, checking into one of their most luxurious suites...

As everyone was doing their own thing, whether it be sleeping or a consious action, they would feel the cold chill go up their back, short, calm shivers running through their bodies. As Cid fell into the dreaded silence, they would all hear his scream, and they would never know it happened, until it happened to them...

* * * * *

As Cid heard the noise from the far corner out in the corridor, he couldn't help but remember. Remmeber the dreams. Remember what he had saw. He thought maybe it had decided to come after him after all. Maybe he wasn't home free yet...

He began to get out of his seat, and realized to things. The first thing he realized when he began to stand up. He was still fastened into his chair. When he realized that, he hurried to get out of the restraint. He was becoming afraid of the noise. As he got the last restraint off, the other thing hit him; the Highwind was standing on it's nose, and he was not known for defying gravity. He fell from his chair straight down. He screamed, and on his way down, he grabbed a handle of some sort, and held on for dear life. He just let himself hang there for a moment. He was to old for this sort of thing. As he felt he could pull him self up, he heard more noise. A rumble, then a crash of equipment. And it was much closer. It ran past him, and broke out the window in the front of the Highwind.

Something was up there.

He began to let himself down slowly, looking for something else to hold his weight. If only he could make it to that busted window.

As he thought this, the thing threw it's head out over the edge. He could barely see it's pitch black against the light black and gray shades behind it. It's eyes were glowing a peircing green.

"I've found you..." It seem to say, inside his mind, and he was sure it was the creature, and not just his imagination. Soon... It hissed, evil and low in his mind, and he knew at that moment it would jump on top of him, and rip him limb from limb. He didn't quite like that picture, so he let go of the handle.

He fell, watching the eyes glow as he fell the rather short distance. But how far it seemed to him. He was aiming for the edge of the window, were all of the glass shards would be at the bottom. From there he would climb down the side. Tonight was a good night for climbing, he thought ludicrously to himself.

He had no such luck as to land on balance. He hit the window's edge, and heard the cracking of his ankle. His ankle had shattered into at least five peices, and when the edge of the pain hit him, it was brutal and horrible. As he fell, he barely cared about the ground that was rushing up to meet him. The only thing he cared about now was his ankle. The pain was all to much like death, and even though he didn't know that yet, he would soon...

The only thing that saved him was pure luck. His foot caught on a peice of metal sheet. It had peeled off in the crash, obviously. His foot caught for only a second. Of course, like all good things, there was some price. Of course his bad ankle had to get caught. It tugged for the second he was there, pulling it apart even more, and he screamed at the agony. Then the sheet metal peeled off with Cid, and they both fell to the ground. Cid landed, and it was to his suprise that it was somewhat cushioned. The sheet metal landed near by, on end, and it would have impaled him if it had landed on him.

He began to push himself upward with his hands, and the pain jolted through his ankle again. He looked under him, and saw the cushion clearly now. It was Peter Redman, on of his townsmen. Peter was dead, lying in a pool of blood. He had been impaled with some kind of spike at least twenty times, leaving a gorey mess of barely recognizible flesh in a blood puddle on the ground. Cid threw himself backward with his hands, not feeling the pain in his leg anymore, only freaked out by the body of Peter. He leaned his head to his left, and began blowing chunks everywhere. After he was empty, he kept on like this for at least two minutes, dry heaves racking his body.

He stood up now, shifting only balanced on his good leg, barely capable of coherent thought. The pain was sharper and more defined, but he was more concerned with the bodies.

Men ranging from their late teens to mid 70's littered the ground, dead by whatever means killed Peter. It looked as if though they had been searching the Highwind, for him perhaps. But there were explosives oddly attached to the hull of the ship. He saw his house, and began to hobble toward it. He was going about he speed of a walk, his house at least fifty yards away. After about ten yards, he heard a large thump, and that was all he needed to put it together.

The creature had killed them all. And it was after him now. He looked back for just a second, and that was all the motivation he needed. It was behind him, walking, but fast enough to catch him if he didn't start moving faster.

He began walking faster, or at least attemping it, and that itself was a struggle. When he was only five yards away from his house, he felt it behind him. It had caught him. He kept moving though, trying for more speed. Then heard a razor edge swing behind him, and his back opened.

Blood began to pour out of his back, and he felt his insides jostling toward the opening.

He had reached the door now. He opened it, slipped in quickly, and literally slammed it in the Hunters face. He leaned against the door to rest for a moment before arming himself. And what a mistake.

As soon as he leaned himself against it, A spear of blackness shot through the door, and straight through Cid's left shoulder. Cid screamed in agony, and pushed himself away from the door. He stumbled to the kitchen, and saw Shera. He heard the tea brewing. She was sitting there, as if she had heard nothing.

He hobbled quickly toward her, and when he got there, he turned her around to face him. Now he could see what was wrong with her. She was dead.

Here face had been mauled to shreds, and if she hadn't been in his house, he wouldn't have known who it was. At that thought, as if on cue, the Hunter busted the door down. Cid grabbed his lance, ready to fight the Hunter. It barged into his kitchen, and Cid lunged. Ignoring his pain, the shattered ankle, and his extremely bad day, he lunged at full speed. The attack had no prevail.

The Hunter grabbed the lance, tore the lance from his hand, and grabbed Cid by the throat. He carried Cid this way over to the teapot, opened the lid, and shoved Cid's head into the boiling tea.

Cid screamed as the boiling tea engulfed his faced. He would have died in a few seconds anyways, if the scream hadn't been cut short by the Hunter. As it held CId in the air, it turned it's other dark hand into a twisted spear, and began rapidly punching it through Cid's body, pulled it out, and shoved it through again. He did this about 20 times within five seconds, then threw Cid's dead, bleeding body across the room.

As Cid's soul was drawn toward the LifeStream, it changed direction, and was drawn to the Hunter, then absorded by it. Cid's soul let out a final scream, then fell silent.

The Hunter left Rocket Town, omly looking back to shoot a ball of fire. The fire hit the explosives, and all of Rocket Town was incinerated. So much for Rocket Town. The Hunter continued to where he was headed. The night still folded it's wings around Midgar, and Barret would soon wake to see that his nightmares were reality...

* * * * *

As the ashes of Rocket Town fell on the country side, darkness spread across the land, as if the ashes were seeds of evil, and what had happened to the Wutai area now was happening to this countryside, and now, the area Cid's soul had protected belonged to the Hunter. The monsters rose, and went out in the dark. Now was the time for killing...

Hunter copyright of Raven-Chan