*Thanks to my friend on DeviantArt, FadedxLight, for making this awesome story cover*

Parallel

A Haunting Memory

It was a dark day, in more ways than one - a sky covered by clouds as rain poured down while she stood there, in the flower fields outside of Edea's House, where it all began: that promise they'd made four years back still fresh on her mind like it was only yesterday.

She was getting soaked, but she didn't care. Given the current situation, there wasn't much she was too worried about. She buried her face in her palms as she dropped to her knees, caving in to her emotions and crying more than she ever had – a stream of tears running down as her friends, Quistis and Selphie, tried to console her. They only wished there was something they could do, but struggled to accept that the reality that they faced was unchangeable. Seeing her breakdown in such a way only made the whole ordeal even harder on all of them.

"Rinoa." Selphie said, as she placed her hand on her shoulder, lowering her head to try and see her face.

However, the young sorceress hid her watered eyes from her friends completely. She knew they knew she was crying - that was obvious…she just didn't want them to see the entirety of it. Her whole face had gone pale and her eyes delivered an endless stream of tears from the heartache she faced. Never could she have imagined this actually happening...at least not so soon. There was still so much to know about each other; so much still left unsaid. She hated that and the regret only pulled at her more with each passing second. She literally felt like she was dying – and she might as well have been. She just couldn't believe this could actually have happened.

"It's not fair! This isn't real. It can't be real." she thought, as she kept crying.

Quistis stood with her arms folded as she stared at the sight before them. It was all too surreal; too unbelievable. How could this have happened? There was no way it could be true, and yet…here they stood all the same. The situation spoke for itself – the grim reality more than any of them could bear.

"Not you. How did this happen? Why did things have to end up this way?" she asked herself, trying to hold back tears.

She turned her head as everything suddenly piled down on her further upon thinking about it.

"Why did it have to be you?" she cried in her head, as she yanked it to the side – the tears finally falling from her face now as well.

The thunder rolled and a flash of lightning lit up the sky – providing a glimpse, and a horrifying reminder, of the whole event. Staring them in the face - that solid, gray tombstone that only served to shatter their hearts as much as they could possibly be, upon close inspection read the haunting words that none of them had ever expected to see – the last of any name engraved on such a sight:

Squall Leonhart

SeeD, Knight, Legend