Ring around the roses.

Talli sat awkwardly in her chair, leaning over her desk pen in one hand, a half eaten cheese and pickle sandwich in the other. Her pale blue eyes scanned lightly over the page in front of her for the fifth time as she planned what she was going write in her report. She brushed back a few strands of mousy brown hair that had escaped from the ponytail tied loosely at the nape of her neck.

So far this whole expedition had been a failure, first there transport had broken down not far from the crater meaning they had to hike the rest of the way in the icy conditions, it had taken them close to a day and a half to reach the base camp. Her report was due later that afternoon but she had nothing to report. Nothing had happened, nothing had been found. Not unless the head office wanted to hear about snow and ice. Talli tapped the tip of her pen on the page and took another bite from her sandwich.

Feeling a slight chill at the back of her neck as the door to her small office swung open, Talli pulled her eyes away from the empty page in front of her and turned to see who had entered. A young man stood there his grey eyes open wide, his hair and face were wet from melted snow. He wore the thickly padded snow gear that the expedition team had to wear. There was a heavy dusting of snow on him.

"What's going on, you can't come in here without," Talli started but the young man cut her words short.

"Listen we have an emergency down there, It killed the two men I went down there with," He spoke fairly quickly, clearly he was deeply distressed by whatever was happening in the crater. "There's…there's something down there."

"Oh my god." Talli said in shock, raising her fingers to rub her forehead as if trying to digest what he was saying. "How? I don't understand. What exactly did you see down there?"

She looked up to see the man begin shaking, so badly in fact that he dropped to his knees. His eyes bulged from their sockets as he stared at nothing, the colour draining from his face. "It's voice. That song…I can't get it out of my mind."

"Whose voice? Tell me, who did you see down there?"

He looked up at her with fear in his eyes. "It was her…it was Jenova!"

"Get me the images on the big screen now" Yelled Andrew Simpkins, his face turning a deep shade of red. "Come on, this is an emergency situation here people." It had been over an hour since the report had been made that the Jenova might still be alive at the bottom of the northern crater. The whole base had assembled in the main hall to view footage of what had actually happened from the recording made by the young man who had made it out of the crater alive.

"Sir we have located and fixed the problem. I am uploading the video footage for you now." Called one of the technicians from somewhere in the back of the room. The whole room fell silent as the lights dimmed and the picture began rolling.

The tape.

The screen began as black and white fuzz but soon enough the picture started. The shot was of someone's boot.

"Hey carter I think that things on." A woman's voice could be heard off screen and the camera moved up to show a tall woman with short blonde hair held with a bandana stood laughing.

"I'll never get used to these things," Carter said from behind the cam.

"Hey come on now, we're not here to mess with camera, we got to get going. There serving waffles today an' I don't wanna miss out." Called another guy, walking up from somewhere behind the woman. He was a dark skinned man, a little taller than the woman and very muscular.

"Yes Richard." Carter said laboriously

The woman could be heard giggling. "An' that goes for you too Sarah."

She immediately stopped

The camera fuzzed for a moment.

The image then continued, now from deeper inside the crater.

"Carter, are you filming this?" The woman's voice could be heard, as the footage rolled images of a cave emerged.

"Hang on let me zoom in, you can't see that stuff from this far back." Carter called back as the picture zoomed in, as it did it became apparent that it wasn't a regular cave. The walls oozed with strange brown foam.

"This is amazing…" the other man said as he wandered past the camera. It went dead again.

" Carter…Hear me…Cart…me," There was no picture on the screen but the muffled voice of the woman could be heard.

For a slight moment the screen flicked on again showing a sideways tilted image of a pair feet. The image disappeared as quickly as it had started.

The footage rolled on once again. This time the focus was on Richard.

"What the hell just happened?" he yelled.

"Richard, Where's Sarah?" Carter called moving the camera around the cave.

The two guys began yelling as the screen went black again.

"This is Richard Prince, head of the crater expedition team." Richard looked gloomily into the camera. " Yesterday we wandered into a cave of some sort. Soon after, our equipment malfunctioned and we suffered what seemed like a black out. When the lights finally resumed we found that Sarah Otis was gone. We decided to look for her but to no avail. That was until this morning. We have found Sarah but…" His voice broke and he rubbed his eyes with his hand and looked at the camera once again. "We wandered back into the cave where she had gone missing yesterday. We, found her there…suspended from the ceiling by the strange yellow froth. She was missing both her legs and her left arm. Both her eyes were missing also. She was still alive when we found her but, Sarah Otis died only a few minuets later." Richard nodded.

The camera shifted slowly towards Sarah. Her naked body could be seen covered in blood from her wounds. Her mouth gaped open, her dirty blonde hair now filthy with the strange ooze from the walls. Bone protruded from her fresh stumps and blood continued to drip to the ground.

The camera walked all the way around her, taking images from all angles.

The shot returned to Richard.

"I decided it was best we," He stopped for a moment looking at the ground sadly. "That we took these images for the purpose of looking over them on our return to the surface to try and find something on her that would show us more. Show us who or what did this to her."

He took a deep breath "Sarah was a truly great member to our team and will be greatly missed by all of us."

The screen fuzzed off once more.

"Carter…me…are you…help…after you…both…you." Once again Sarah's voice could be heard, but the camera wasn't turned on.

" Carter get you're ass over here." The camera shook then quickly focused.

"Over there, do you see it?" The camera zoomed in on something over by the pathway leading to and from the crater. A woman came into view. She stood sideways to them in a loose white dress that flapped excessively in the breeze at the top of the crater. Her hair was about shoulder length and rich chestnut in colour.

She seemed to notice them watching and slowly began to turn towards them. As she did the picture distorted slightly. For a slight moment a woman's face was seen closes to the camera then back to the image of the woman in the distance turning to them. The picture distorted even more and the woman began walking towards them, swaying her hips seductively. The image began going haywire to the point that there was no picture.

" Richard…Richard where are you?" there was Still no picture.

" Dude, this isn't funny. Get out here."

" Ring around the roses," A haunting voice began. The sound of carters breathing became heavy now.

"A pocket full of posies," An image of the feet flashed on the screen again.

" A tissue a tissue," The voice stopped for a moment. Giggling was heard and the image returned showing the weird cave once more.

Silence followed and a shadow could be seen dancing on the cave walls, then another and another. Carter turned to see what was behind him to cause the shadows. Nothing. He turned around once more to find Sarah and Richard fastened to the wall directly in front of him. The woman in the white dress was knelt in front the now naked Richard slicing into the side of his leg with her bare hands, humming a strange tune. She giggled once more turning her head to glare behind her directly into the camera lens.

"We all fall down."

The film ended.

Everyone in the hall sat paralysed.

"What was that thing?" Talli said, looking over to Andrew.

Andrew just responded by shrugging and slumping down into a nearby chair.

"Maybe it was her…Jenova. Or maybe even a reincarnation of that bastard Sephiroth." He suggested.

"Carter said something earlier about seeing Jenova down there. Do you think that woman is the one he meant?" Talli asked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"Could be, we'll have to look over the footage again to be certain," He would have continued but a young nurse began calling out to Talli.

"Miss, miss there's an emergency down in sick bay. It's Carter." A young nurse yelled in desperation, rushing over to Talli. "He's going in insane down there."

It didn't take Talli and Andrew long to get across to sickbay. A loud scream could be heard from one of the nurses in Carters room. Talli stopped as the nurse ran out of Carters room holding her face tightly as blood poured from a dangerous wound on her cheek.

They rushed into the room.

The walls were coated in yellowish brown foam discoloured in places from the nurse's blood. Carter sat on his knees in the centre of the room, his back to both Talli and Andrew. His hands were draped at his sides and he rocked ever so lightly, muttering something under his breath.

"Carter what's wrong?" Talli said rushing over to him. "Carter? Speak to me." As she leaned in closer to him she heard the words he muttered under his breath.

"We…all…fall…down."