Prologue
Day 1
Girl
Location Unknown
THE sound of her shoes pounding fast and hard echoed against the stone pavement in the abandoned alley. Her long, distorted shadow chased after her along the wall, dancing under the pale light. Labored breaths tore from her throat with each bone-weary step, and the moon lit the sweat glimmering on her skin.
Thoughts raced through her mind as she fled for her life. How did I get chosen for this? She should’ve been living a mundane kind of life, yet now everything had changed. This insane battle to save both her beloved and the island she grew up on all began a mere ten minutes ago.
Truth be told, she still didn’t grasp what was happening. She didn't understand much of it after hearing the whole explanation either. But she knew one thing for sure—
I have to take this and run! The girl unfurled her right fist and dropped her eyes to the three centimeter red cube secured in her grip. She had discovered that the very fate of her island depended upon this cube, which is why she nabbed it and fled.
Through eyes stinging with the sweat dripping off her forehead, she made out a tall stone fence ahead. Someone she hoped to avoid stood in front of the massive fence.
The girl skidded to a stop and shouted, “JAIR!”
Jair eyed her and replied with disinterest, “And what should I call you?”
Illuminated by the moonlight, his face seemed to float in the dark alley. From what little she could see, he appeared to be in his late-teens. His black hair caught the moonlight and his eyes glinted with an icy gleam.
He seemed almost disappointed in her as he continued in the same flat tone. “You don’t seem to be her. But what should I call you then?”
“Lovel. Lovel Sinclair. I won’t let you call me by any other name.” Determination filled Lovel’s voice.
“Lovel, then. Return that cube to me,” he demanded with bitterness lacing his words.
“In your dreams, psycho!” Lovel yelled, shooting him a death glare. “Who do you think would be dumb enough to just sit back and watch you get away with your evil schemes after being told all about it?”
Jair eyed Lovel suspiciously. “You’re definitely acting out of character. You aren’t someone who would say something like that.”
“These are my words. I’ll say them all I want. I’m me, after all.”
“So it appears. Regardless of how you came to be that way, the fact remains you are not the woman I desire… In which case, I’ll use force to put an end to these unfortunate circumstances,” Jair concluded and pulled something from his chest pocket.
It was a tiny black cube resembling Lovel’s red cube. He buried it in the ground at his feet.
“…My name is Jair. In the name of the 72 gods, I give thee the name Adamah.” The dirt where he buried the cube glowed as if responding to his voice. “Live as one with me and return to dust with me. I order thee to take the cube back from that woman!”
The ground expanded and bulged suddenly at his command. Arms shot out from the mass of dirt and a head sprouted from the top. In the blink of an eye, it took on a human form.
Lovel sharply inhaled and tilted her head back to take in its full size. A dirt giant standing over three meters tall towered before her.
“That’s a Clay Golem…!”
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“Not quite, but close enough. Get her, Adamah,”Jair ordered.
The giant called Adamah obeyed. Lunging with a sudden burst of speed that caught Lovel off guard, Adamah swung both fists down and slammed them against the ground where she had been standing. A torrent of dirt and dust flew in every direction.
Sliding safely away from the impact zone, Lovel kicked off and charged the Golem. Leveraging her momentum, she delivered a flying kick right into Adamah’s face. Then, nimbly landing on its arm, she made a mad dash up to the head made of dirt as the giant slowly rose back to its full height, where she launched off from behind it.
Lovel’s lithe figure soared through the air, cutting through the night sky. Sailing right over Jair’s head, she landed on top of the stone fence. The two turned to face each other and their gazes met. Lovel looked down at Jair who still stood on the ground below.
“Where do you think running will take you, Lovel?” Jair spat. “You can’t do anything with that!”
Lovel pinched the red cube between her fingers and showed it to him. “It’s better than letting you people have this dangerous object.”
“You don’t understand its value. That’s the last piece needed to move Sephiroth.”
“Sephiroth, eh? You can’t move that monster without this, right? Just like that Adamah you’ve got there.”
A dark shadow fell across Jair’s face. “What are you planning to do…?”
“Since you can use that Adamah thing to do your bidding, shouldn’t I be able to do the same?”
“Lovel, don’t tell me you’re planning to use Sephiroth?!” he gasped in shock.
A triumphant smile broke across Lovel’s features. “Damn straight. I won’t let you people get away with what you have planned. Now that it’s come down to this, I’ll just find that monster first.” She spun away as she gave her final declaration, “And I’ll save this island from your grimy hands!”
Adamah charged for the wall as she spoke. A thundering crash came a second later. Crashing into the wall sent tremors down the stones to the fence’s foundation, but the structure held fast. Adamah’s body crumbled back into dirt from the impact.
Lovel could no longer be found atop the fence. She had dropped down the other side of the wall right before Adamah rammed it.
Tiny fragments of dirt rained down. Jair stared long and hard at the moon shining in the sky above the stone fence while the dry sound of his crumbling Golem filled the alley.