How often does a person get a second chance? An answer will depend on the person answering. If one feels they have been cheated by the fates, they will answer: "There is no such thing as a second chance." If one has been treated well by the fates, they will answer:
"Second chance? There are many more than two." But if a person doesn't believe in fate, in heaven, in hell, in God, in the devil, they will find themself answering: "A person creates their own chances." And the person who answers thusly finds themselves at the bottom of a very heavy load of responsibility; they are responsible for what they experience in life. They will totter around under their burden, eyes searching fervently for chances, looking for a way to step on the other man to get to the top. And if the other man lets himself get stepped on, it is his choice of a chance missed. If the other man reaches up and pulls the first down to use him as a stepping stool, he has taken his chance and used it well. For this man there is no such thing as mercy, as 'lending a helping hand'. Their motto is 'Look out for #1'. Often, these people find themselves, at the end of life, standing alone on top of their hoarded treasures and experiences with a chill wind blowing their empty, billowing soul.
Fate is a mysterious lady; she takes pity on one while scorning another. Her affections change as rapidly as an erratic rabbit. As a rule, she seems to ignore those who ignore her. But every once in a while, you hear of a case where fate blesses or curses those who doubt her existance. And some of these turn and believe after much blessing or cursing, unable to explain their luck or misfortune any other way.
Fate is the devil's handmaid at play, but like the devil himself she must bow in the presence of the Creator, letting Him correct her play when a prayer for a soul injured by her games reaches His all-hearing ears. But she is not deterred. She claps her hands together in pleasure, spinning man around and around before her, alternately loving and hating until the incurable disease known as death takes her toys away. But birth supplies her with more, their lives almost a flash before her, the turning globe bringing them from childhood to frailty within a century or less.
But, sometimes, the process of aging bores her and she uses her tricks to fool it, picking one man out of a few billion to play the trick on.
And it was truly fate that had Vincent Valentine pegged out as such a man.
Midgar. A city fated to die while the rest of the planet survived. The belief in this was so strong that even those who didn't believe in fate sometimes found themselves saying it to the man on the barstool next to them as they drank the weight of their burden out of their mind.
Some said fate had made Midgar possible only to destroy it. Some said the devil had done it. Some said the city had been too evil, and God had done it. But, even when certain beliefs would clash causing heated arguments, it was unanimously agreed that, no matter what the reason, Midgar was dead never to be rebuilt.
Neo-Midgar was built not long after, though many had been against the name. Calling the new city after the damned one was like bringing a curse down on it from the beginning, they said. But the name wasn't to be changed and soon the incenced objections had dwindled to murmured prophesies of doom. People migrated from places as far away as Wutai to settle in the near-replica of Midgar, and soon the city was thriving. No slums existed here; no plates, no reactors; no Shinra building dominating the view of the sky from the streets. In place of the Shinra building stood an imposing stone structure, the Metropolitan Building, where the representatives from each sector would meet once a year to discuss what was to be done for the good of the city.
Jobs were plentiful. Opportunity ran rampant, available for those quick enough to grab it. Many religions were represented within the sectors, though few of these worshipped fate. The consensus in Neo-Midgar was that people made their own fate. And so, it was looked on as a fairly heartless place by the towns and villages that populated the rest of the world, a place where a man would go only if he was ready to step on his fellow man. Those who didn't step were stepped on.
But those who didn't step did exist in Neo-Midgar; and most lived miserably, unwilling to leave the city and their dreams, hoping against hope that fate would be kind to them before the turning of the world brought around the day of their death. And those who said they weren't miserable were lying. And those who said nothing felt nothing. Had they said they weren't miserable, they would've been telling the truth.
Sector six. MiraCletus. It was not the largest populated of the sectors. It was not the most prosperous. It was not the worst sector. It was in the middle with a few of the others, though in the middle-bottom. If a sector was left out of a discussion, it was usually sector six. Named after Mira, a flower that bloomed only in sector six, and Cletus, the name of the constellation most prominent in the sky above this sector during the time the Miras bloomed, it was fairly uncluttered by the flashy lights of commercialism, dominated chiefly by residential blocks intertwined with industrial zones. The commercialism of Neo-Midgar was to be found in Ubanis and Tetrach, sectors two and three respectively, where one could buy almost anything the mind, heart, or body desired. None of the religious orders set up in either Ubanis or Tetrach, though they would glady accept the gil of one whom fate had blessed at the casinos.
Trains and subways ran day and night from sector to sector, noisily racing from one place to another, much like the people they carried, rattling windows and making the taller buildings quiver in their wake.
The buildings of MiraCletus were some of the oldest. Although it hadn't been the first sector built, sector six was one of the last places where things changed. In sectors like two and three, a structure was considered ancient if it lived out five years. In six, the oldest building was a twelve-storey lodging facility constructed less than a fortnight after the completion of Neo-Midgar. It was in good condition, not even in the seventh month of its tenth year. Its apartments were clean and spacious, and every one that had been put up for rent after a boarder had moved out was grabbed up within the week. It was fairly quiet; most of the apartments were singles, detering families with children from moving in.
The floors were carpeted thinly in a sidewalk gray material that ran down the halls and spilled into each room like so much dried cement, covering the bare floorboards underneath with an emaciated layer of matting. The walls and celings of each chamber were sanitarium white, the doors a dull, dirt brown. Empty, each room was like the ward of a hospital, a place where a man could be put in a straight jacket and left to lose his mind. Full of furniture, potted plants, hanging pictures, and other trinkets, the rooms became less so, taking on the personality of the renter.
Except for one room.
No pictures, no plants, no heirlooms. Barely any furniture, save what was absolutely necessary. No curtains on the windows. The most notable features of the apartment were the mismatched bookshelves lining one wall of the living room. Each shelf was haphazardly stacked with books of different sizes and colors, adding dischord to a world of gray and white unpretentiousness, made that way only because of the barrenness of the chamber.
A sound pervaded the silence of the apartment, floating through the empty calm as the only sign of life. A running shower. In the stillness, it seemed somewhat out of place.
The door to the tiny bathroom was closed to keep the heat in. The mirror was fogged up with steam while everything else was covered in a blanket of moisture, making it look like the walls were sweating. A bland white curtain sheltered the tub.
Water hit the linoleum of the bath like needles. That which didn't hit the tub pelted against the chest of a pale, lanky man standing with his face to the spout, his eyes closed. Water dripped from the fingertips of his right hand, and from the claw-like digits of the golden metal left arm that had replaced his flesh and bone from the elbow down. Clumped strands of his black hair streamed down his shoulders and back.
With slow movements, the man leaned forward, crossing his forearms and resting them on the water-stained tiles. The water fell on his hair, running in rivulets down his face and neck like a downpour of tears, dripping off of his nose and chin.
His burden lay heavy upon him.
Even in sector six, the heavy boot of rivalry existed as one man stepped on another, straining for a site where they could see over their problems to their dreams. Often the younger men had heavier footwear than the older. A factory situated amongst some decaying buildings, run by an elderly gentleman who'd had it passed down to him from his father, father's father, father's father's father; it was not strong enough, ambitious enough to fight against the crushing heel of competition. Downsizing was the word he'd used. The list had been posted on the cafeteria door for all to see. One after another, the men had glanced at it, wishing not to see their name. Some smiled, high-fiving their buddies. Some trudged through the door, shoulders slumped, the realization of how little time two weeks notice really was pushing them down with every step. This was a recognition they knew no one envied.
Almost the last name on the list. It was in alphabetical order. Valentine, Vincent.
The water hitting him couldn't dissolve the burden. He twitched his aching shoulders and turned the shower off.