Final Fantasy VII: Reflections - Book 1: Descent

ELEVEN

Four months after I left Shinra and returned to the theater, my life had settled into a peaceful calm I'd never known before. It had taken a few weeks, but I had found myself a nice little apartment just down the street from the Starlight Theater and within walking distance of a lot of shops, restaurants, and other nice places in Sector 8. It also wasn't that far from the Honeybee Lounge, where I occasionally performed when I wasn't doing rehearsals or plays at the Starlight.

Not as a Honeybee, of course, but as Andrea's partner on stage. He continued teaching me, both to build my confidence and help me grow as a performer. The pain of Mom's loss and what I'd gone through back at Shinra lingered, but I was able to live with it. And when I was under the bright lights on stage, acting and entertaining the audience, I could forget about the ache in my heart for a while.

After my first visit to the Lounge and my successful audition at the Starlight Theater, Reeve and Andrea had helped me to get back on my feet, both financially and materially. I'd had a substantial amount of gil in my bank account, but since it was all under my old name, I couldn't just walk in and withdraw it as if nothing had happened. It might have been tracked back to me, letting my father know where I was. So Reeve and I came up with a plan. Before that, though, there was one thing I'd had to do first and foremost.

It's kinda funny that the first fake ID I ever made was for myself. It was fun doing it, I have to admit, spoofing my own old ID like that and making a new one out of it. Then I'd had to hack into Shinra's database and activate it from that end, which hadn't been difficult. Garret hadn't changed much about the system since I'd left, it seemed. Lucky for me, right? Or maybe Reeve had something to do with it. In any event, I was able to make myself a new ID without a hitch.

Once that was done and I had used it to open a new account under my new name, Reeve had used his influence and his contacts inside the bank to help me shift some of my money into the new account, quietly and discreetly, so I could begin building a new life for myself. I couldn't just take it all without it being noticed, so I'd had to make do with only a small part of what I'd saved up over the years, just enough to help me start over, and had abandoned the rest.

Andrea had given me a few outfits like the first he'd selected along with a large supply of the makeup he'd used on me while Meredith, one of the Honeybee girls who had helped me with my makeover that first day, had shown me how to apply the cosmetics the way Andrea had. It was more involved than I'd expected, but it didn't take me long to learn how to do it. Once I had secured my money and gotten my new place, I did some shopping, buying clothes, food, and everything else I would need, and had begun to settle into my new life.

My new apartment was on the top floor of the red brick building it was in, and I would often just stand and gaze out my window, sipping a coffee or other drink and watching the streets below. Sometimes it was crowded, sometimes it was almost empty. I was also glad I couldn't see the Shinra Building from where I lived. It wasn't very far from me, and I'd always found it somewhat amusing that I was hiding right under my father's nose. The last thing he'd have expected. But I still hoped to find a way to leave Midgar someday and get away from him entirely. I didn't know where I'd go, and I didn't care as long as it was far away and some new place I'd never seen before.

I was at the window early one evening when my phone rang. I had just come home a little bit ago from rehearsal and had been thinking of walking down the road to grab a bite to eat from one of the restaurants nearby—there was a nice little cafe just a block or two from me—but it looked like that would have to wait.

I picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, girl! How are you?" a familiar voice answered.

It was Kayla, a friend and fellow actress from the Starlight Theater. We performed together a lot and hung out sometimes when we weren't busy entertaining audiences. We often chatted over the phone, too, so I hadn't been expecting this to be any different. But it would turn out to be so much more than I could've ever imagined.