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Clash
of the Titans
Prologue
"This Glassy Surface"
Hanson: This Time Around
Don't wander through this
glassy surface
Expecting to find more than
me
'Cause what am I without a
purpose
But a lone mirage to see
Midgar.
A
city with a disease.
A
city with deep shadows in which a sea of purposeless people hide their
meaningless natures behind the guise of the slums' working class. The slums' nighttime working class,
that is. The whores, the pimps, the
dealers, the pushers—a plethora of worthless, purposeless people who only
pretend to be leading lives worth living, never dreaming of liberty because the
idea is totally inconceivable to them.
They were born without dreams, without destinies, born into the cage of
society with their wings already broken.
They cannot sing; their voices have been tainted and torn up by screams
and roughened by pollution of both the body and soul. They cannot run; to them, there is nowhere to run. Life has not smiled upon them kindly; it has
hardened their hearts and stolen the remnants of their pride until they can
hardly be called human due to their inhumane acts. They rot in their cages by their own will. They are vessels of darkness, hollows shells
molded into the shapes of self-destructive creatures called humans.
And
tonight, the girl is among them.
The
filthy street is, for the most part, silent as she strides down it, long legs
moving with an unusual confidence not native to these parts. Her movements are not provocative or
inviting, but neither are they dominating and threatening. She moves with a simple grace that seems
exclusive only to her as she passes almost artfully between patches of light
and darkness on the battle-ridden street.
Jet-black hair with so many fiery highlights that it looks a deep
black-red underneath the lamplights hangs down to the small of her back. It hides her face with an eager darkness
that rivals the shadows of the slums, barely allowing the soulless onlookers
out on "business" a glimpse of her unnaturally pale skin. Her clothes are normal for this part of
dilapidated, wartorn Midgar, but are out of place on her for some reason. Black fishnet hose through which the white
pallor of her skin can be seen. Black
boots with high heels that cover her muscular calves. A slinky, almost transparent dress that is too tight and too
short to fit her properly. Her pale
shoulders are left almost bare by the low cut neckline of the outfit, but once
again, the inky black hair swoops down to cover them as protectively as the arm
of a loving husband.
She is a beauty. She is fresh, young, and dressed like any other whore, yet no one approaches her. She does not belong here, though this well of lost souls, these streets of heartless ghosts, welcome her eagerly. She is an outcast among the outcasts, and she knows it as well as all the others do. She is faceless, nameless...purposeless as the rest.
Yet
no one knows her here. The cutthroat
thief on the rooftop does not know her.
The pimp watching her under the streetlight as she passes doesn't know
her. The harlot moaning in the dark
alleyway with her drunken client does not know her. The murderer disposing of his nightly kill in the dumpster does
not know her. The drug dealer in the
shadows with his "delivery" does not know her.
All
they know is that she does not belong; she is not one of them. For even though she is purposeless like
them, even though she is dressed in their garb, she is not yet soulless. Her wings are weak and fragile, but not
broken. No cage can contain her even as
she wanders meaninglessly over the vast wastelands of her own soul. Her presence in their bottomless well is
searching, calculating, a light in the darkness that they cannot understand or
look upon. She exudes a peculiar aura
of danger that is unmatched by the beastliest of beasts all around her. They are all apprehensive of this titan who
wears their skin and clothes. But she
makes no threatening moves and just passes them by without a trace of fear, so
they go about their nightly business without aim or end, not knowing her and
making no attempt to do so.
But
the man stalking the girl knows her. He
has a purpose, albeit a dark, heartless one, but he has one, and so he
terrifies them more than anything. He
leaves terror and sickly fear in his wake.
The
cutthroat thief slinks back onto his rooftop for fear the man will see
him. The pimp under the lamplight fades
expertly into the shadows. The harlot
shudders and guides her blissfully oblivious client deeper into the
alleyway. The murderer contemplates
jumping into the dumpster with his lifeless victim, but freezes like a deer
caught in a pair of headlights instead.
The drug dealer saunters away with his delivery hidden in his jacket
coat.
The
dark man pays them no heed; his only purpose is the girl, to catch the
girl. She is crafty, sneaky. Her clothes are stolen. Her skin is borrowed. He knows she is no human. Already twice he has attempted to recapture
her and failed. He won't fail again,
but if he does, then he'll dust himself off and try again. He must fulfill his purpose.
The
girl is aware of him. He never escapes
her detection for an instant. She is
afraid of him, but doesn't show it.
Instead she feeds the fear to the maw of the echoing, empty void in her,
the void that her purpose could have filled, if she had one. But she did have one at one time; this she
knows, just simply knows. "How" is not
part of the question. Yet the girl
feels almost beyond a doubt that though her time to serve the Planet had passed
for the time being, it will arise again.
She will wait; she can be very patient when needed. It is why she has managed to survive in this
unfamiliar yet aching familiar place called Midgar. Yes, her purpose will soon reveal itself to her again, and she
will be whole and happy and complete.
And if it doesn't...then she will perish, a soulless empty shell like the
pitiful caged birds of this ghastly slum with bars of poverty and frozen
hearts. She has the deepest sympathy
for them all, for the thief, for the pimp, for the harlot, for the murderer,
for the dealer. She would help them if
she could, but she cannot, not now, not when the stakes are so high...
The
girl, who had been keeping a casual, unhurried pace until now, suddenly
disappears into a dark, deserted alley and breaks into a run, keeping her
footfalls silent with seasoned practice.
Her midnight hair streams behind her; the shadows hide her face. She does not know why she runs, but what she
does know is that she's moving towards a more congested, busy part of the
Midgar slums. She knows that the dark
man is following even though she cannot see him.
What
she doesn't know is that she's about to meet her soul mate.
