Final Fantasy VI and its characters are © Square-Enix. I'm just borrowing them for our enjoyment.

- Celes

- Start of the WoR

Prompt: Endings

Never before had the world looked so bleak.

They had failed, utterly.

Their world was dead, dying, stripped of any dignity by the same madman that had haunted her childhood; the lunacy she had feared in her adolescence and the awe-inspiring raw power of the triad having coalesced into something far more sinister.

She had been completely useless for the last year, her body barely sustaining itself through her powers as it drew in the magic that now saturated the very air. The efforts to keep her safe and healthy on this barren island had drained the only family she had ever known of the last of his meager strength, and her feeble attempts to return him to health had proved futile.

As the cold pain of reality had settled in her gut, she had torn from the ratty shack. Tears the likes of which she had never cried before stained her cheeks as her whole being was focused on getting away, removing herself as far as she could from the deathly still reminder of her loss. Even now, they continued to the flow as the air whipped her hair around, the wind up on the bluffs a mournful howl as Cid's words repeated in her head over and over and over as she realized the likelihood that her companions, and possibly the entire world, were as dead as the beloved old man she had been unable to save.

She longed to hear the voice of another, the sounds to prove that someone was there. The verbal silence was deafening, and she did what she could, fleeing it in the most final was possible as she spread her arms and let herself go.

She strove in vain to recall Terra's timid giggles, Setzer's proud boasts, the spark in Edgar's tone as he delivered a truly banal line, the warmth of Locke's voice as he whispered in her ear, and the sound of Sabin's hearty laughter. They were lost to her, just as much as Cyan's somber discourses, Gau's excited exclamations, Shadow's poignant silences, Mog's high chatter, Strago's worried chastisements, and Relm's playful teasing. All of it, gone.

All she could hear was the wind rushing in her ears as she closed her eyes and waited for the darkness promised by the waves below to claim her.