A/N: I'm back! This, as some of you may recognize, is a re-write of my old fic called Edge of Retribution. I've planned the whole thing out better, and thus avoided the plot holes that were prominent in the old version. Yay!

I realize that it starts out rather slow, but I promise that it picks up. Please review :)

Rated T for language and violence.

~PROLOGUE~

Several drops of sweat beaded down my forehead as I regarded the multiple-choice test question in front of me. Tap tap tap went the pen in my twitchy fingers as I scanned the possibilities. Which answer? Well, option 'a' was out of the question, and 'd' didn't even make sense, leaving two options up for debate.

Total and utter panic; this is why I loathed multiple-choice tests! Come on, focus. I didn't much care for tests such as this, but this one I felt was imperative to my future well-being.

I gulped and looked up from my paper at the students littered around me. Nearly all of them had their heads bowed to the notes laid out on their desks. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.

Why class had to be held in this dungeon of a room, I would never figure out. The pungent aroma of seafood pasta probably didn't help the matter. I cast a glance at the instructor sitting at the front of the room, who glowered at me through a mouthful of pasta. This is what I got for sitting in the front row.

Disgusted, I immediately brought my attention back to my own work. Two possible choices; it shouldn't be this difficult, dammit!

Suddenly, a shadow and a hand appeared out of nowhere and snatched away my precious questions.

"Hey! What the he-" I choked on my words upon seeing a pair of glowering steel-gray eyes. Aw crap, I'm in for it now.

The TA scanned the magazine article with beady eyes and his frown deepened. "What kind of friend are you?" He paused to glare at me before continuing. "You're at a party. Your best friend's boyfriend makes a move on you, what do you do?" He grit his teeth at me before glaring back at the magazine clutched in his skinny fingers. "A: flirt back, it's harmless after all. B: explain your loyalty to your friend and walk away. C: Slap him across the face and immediately tell your friend. D: don't do anything, it's none of your business." He stopped reading and took a deep breath. I sunk deeper into my chair.

What kind of friend would do nothing? Honestly!

"I didn't realize we were studying for a Flare exam, or I would have brought my own copy."

The TA (James, or Jake, or some such name) slammed the magazine in front of me with enough force to cause my hair to jump. Here it comes. A quick desperate gaze around the room revealed my friend Rachael giving me a sympathetic frown.

All hell broke loose then. Or perhaps it was just James blowing up. Same thing.

"I'm sorry that my class isn't interesting enough!" his face puffed up like an angry cat, "But-there's-a-reason-I-come-here-at-9am-everyday! IsweartoGodyouwillbe-" At that point, his voice got so high-pitched and quick that it was basically gibberish.

I was in no mood to listen to J-babble; why I'd even bothered going to class was beyond me. Instead, I found myself wishing I'd overslept during my nap out in the courtyard, or at least had someone else hand in the end of term assignment so I wouldn't have to sit in this sweltering classroom for two hours with Jerkass Jake. It was the final tutorial for the semester, and pointless from the moment he had stepped inside:

"Morning, class! I thought we could do something fun today. You're all to write an evaluative paragraph about me." He'd flicked his greasy hair out of his eyes. "Of course this has nothing to do with the course, but I thought it'd be a nice way to end the semester. Aren't I just a tool like that?"

Well, he hadn't said the last part.

Now, as a lovely shower of spittle rained down on me, I flinched and put a hand up to shield my eyes. Oh my God, how long has that been there? Sticking out from between his two front teeth was something green and leafy looking. It was quite enchanting in a car-crash kind of way, what with the way it kept bobbing with each word Jake spoke. Must. Not. Stare…

He banged his hands on the table and leaned in closer. I instinctively pushed back my chair.

"Since you don't have a scholarship to maintain, you think you don't have to do the assignment, huh?" He glared at me for a few seconds, as if expecting an answer. But I realized this was one of those rhetorical questions so I just stared at him blankly, fighting the urge to pinch my nose. I mean the guy's breath reeked of onions.

"We can't all run to daddy for money, we pay for school out of our own pockets," he spat.

My eyes widened as his comment sunk in. "Excuse me?" I abruptly stood up.

He looked around the room, then lowered his voice, "You're nothing but a spoiled rich kid who doesn't deserve this education. Now get the hell out of my classroom."

My immediate response was to introduce his glasses-covered eyes to my fist, but I didn't do that. Instead, I picked up my books and laptop and started packing them in my bag. My mind screamed silent insults at Jake, but I bit my tongue. There were about twenty other students in the classroom, all of whom I could feel staring.

"You need to floss, by the way!" I screamed, and triumphantly walked out. Not the best of insults, but whatever.

Sighing, I shook my head and stepped out into the fluorescent-lit hallway. The squeaking of my boots on the linoleum floor was the only sound that sliced the emptiness of the narrow hallway, as I made my way towards the double metal doors leading out to the courtyard.

Who the hell does he think he is calling me spoiled? Just because my parents were doctors and we lived in a nice house and had nice things… okay, maybe I was a bit spoiled. But all that had changed once I'd started university and moved out. Having my parents invest in my tuition costs was one thing, but letting them pay for my rent and living expenses didn't seem fair, especially since they hadn't wanted me to move out in the first place. But I had to move out, there's no way I'm commuting all the way out here for school. I mean have you looked at gas prices nowadays? And no way am I taking the subway!

I sighed. The price of gas wasn't the reason I'd decided to move out and I knew it. I'd needed some space from my parents, guilt or no guilt, but thinking about that always led down a depressing road straight to a tub of Ben and Jerry's chocolate-chip-cookie-dough and solitary confinement in my bedroom.

I shook my head vigorously, as if the thoughts would simply fall out of my hair and onto the floor, and pushed on the humongous building door.

At the exact same moment, someone thumped me in the back with an accompanying "Hey!"

I turned around to face Rachael, who wore an amused smirk on her freckled face. She opened her mouth, but I cut her off.

"It's not like the assignment was gonna be marked," I whined, "and be sure I use the term assignment very loosely."

She shook her blonde head and clicked her tongue. "Don't get your knickers twisted. I'm just amazed at your insubordination." She grabbed my arm and led me out the doors, and we were suddenly hit with the smell of damp grass and dew.

I rolled my eyes at her vocabulary, but couldn't hold back the grin that tugged at my lips. "Why, thank you. It's about time I rebelled. It's not my bloody fault my dad didn't hire him!"

Rachael nodded in agreement and gave me a sympathetic smile. Our TA for Social Psychology, Jake, had applied for an internship with my father about a month ago, and had been super nice to me – until Dad hired someone else.

Rachael and I stepped onto the stone pathway that stretched from the school building towards the off-campus residence building. Fog snaked over the school grounds in thin wisps, moving almost ominously through the Willow barks overhanging our path. The sky threatened rain with gray clouds that menacingly hovered above our heads. I instinctively pulled the hood of my U of T sweatshirt over my hair.

"I wish you could stay for the weekend." Rachael turned to me and we shared a long, suffering look about the latest injustice done by my overprotective parents: making me go back home right after exams ended.

"It's okay, you can spend some quality time with, uh, Mark."

"Mike."

"Yeah." I turned to her apologetically, but she brushed it aside. Rachael knew I couldn't remember a name to save my life. Besides, it wasn't as if I'd actually ever met the guy she'd been dating for two months. I proceeded to point this out to Rachael, but she just shrugged in response.

I scoffed. "You know, all this mystery is really off-putting. I mean, it's not as if I'm your best friend and practically tell you everything about my life, even when you-"

"Nate, shh!" Rachael put her hand up in my face.

I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth to deliver a sarcastic retort when I realized that her attention was clearly elsewhere. She stood gazing intently between the leaves of a willow tree, as if expecting it to spontaneously combust or something. But all of a sudden, the leaves rustled, followed by a popping sound, and Rachael jumped back right onto my foot.

She turned to me, surprised.

"What the hell?" I cried.

Her celery-green eyes wide, Rachael pointed between the trees. "I think I saw something."

I narrowed my eyebrows; half wondering if she was just pulling my chain, but she genuinely looked scared. I turned and pushed myself within the thick leaves to find –

"Nothing." I faced Rachael. "What did you see?"

She shook her head and gulped. "I don't know. It-it was probably nothing. This fog, it makes me nervous." She gave me a weak smile.

Before I could stop myself, I chuckled. "I knew we shouldn't have watched that killer fog movie."

Rachael shuddered. "I still hate you for putting me through that, by the way."

"How else are you gonna get over your fears?"

"I'm not going to get over it. Plus, I've vowed not to watch ambiguously titled movies anymore, especially if you want to watch them."

I mock-gasped. "After all the effort I go through to download the movie…"

Our horror-movie banter continued all the way back to our residence apartment building, which was housed just across the street from campus. It was, unsurprisingly, deserted, and I found myself wishing the weather wasn't so crappy. Most kids had finished their exams, and should have been outside, lying around in the backyard or having barbeques or other end of term activities. But no, most students were cooped up indoors, or had gone home for the summer holidays already.

"I can't believe we're officially done first year," Rachael whispered as I followed her into our apartment. She flung the keys on a table by the door and traipsed into the living room to collapse on the couch. "I should totally kidnap you for the summer!"

I laughed. "Yup, and my parents can send out search parties and have your ass arrested." I yelled back as I unlaced my boots in the hallway.

"Nah, they'd never find us! We'll be like Thelma and Louise, except younger and cooler… and you know, without the crime stuff."

Smirking, I shook my head. Rachael and her analogies. With a little difficulty, I peeled off my chunky rain boots and stepped into the living room to be hit with a sudden chill. "Did you turn the fan-"

Splat went my bag on the carpet as my eyes fell on the woman. She stood by the window, and if Rachael hadn't been gaping open-mouthed at her, I would have believed she was a trick of the light. At first she appeared to be trembling, but a second later I realized that she was strangely translucent; I could see the maroon curtains through her, like looking at a distorted coin through murky water. She stepped forward at a glacial pace, as if sudden movements would shatter her.

Paralyzed by her stabbing, tawny gaze, I stood rooted as she slowly walked towards me, her form flickering as if she were the unreliable glow of a faulty light bulb.

Familiarity. Where have I seen her before? My mind would not produce the memory, like déjà vu, except I was certain it wasn't just a trick of the mind.

She was only a couple of feet away now, and reached out her arm as if to touch me. "Give yourself to the sorceress." Her voice, low and snake-like, drifted across the room and wrapped around me. She inched closer…

"Hey!"

A sudden pop sliced the air as the woman disappeared, a millisecond before a cushion went flying through the air where she had just been standing.

I snapped out of the hypnotic daze.

"I knew it! I knew I wasn't just imagining it! That's what I saw in the trees! Who – no, what the hell was that thing? Did you see, Natasha? Did you see her wings? Oh my God, I've never seen anything like that! What if she comes back? What if-"

"Rachael!" I grabbed her by her narrow shoulders and shook her. "Here, sit down." I gently sat her down on the couch, keeping a firm grip on her shoulders. Feeling unusually calm, I tried to wrack my brain for the memory that would not appear. "Did you see her come in?"

Rachael stared at me, and then shook her head. "I was lying on the couch when all of a sudden there was a draft. I thought the window must be open, so I got up and – and – look, that's what I saw before too!"

"Before?"

"When we were walking home!" Rachael sat bolt upright and brought her hands to her cheeks. "What if we're being haunted?"

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Rachael…"

"Think about it, Nate, how else do you explain a woman who disappears into thin air?" She got up and started pacing in front of me. "She was a ghost!"

"No…" I bit my lip, because something tugged at my mind. Two years ago… with Noah… driving home, then suddenly swerving to avoid someone standing in the middle of the road, hitting a tree, the smell of exhaust fumes mingled with blood... then darkness, except... that woman, she was somehow connected… I rubbed my temples to free the sudden sharp pain. This was the first time I'd remembered details about the accident.

Rachael watched me with narrowed, concerned eyes and sat down again.

I gulped. "Look, can we just forget about it? I – um – we're not hurt or anything, so there's no use thinking about it right?"

Rachael frowned, and then nodded reluctantly. "Okay… but there's no way I'm staying here alone. I'm gonna call Mike."

"You mean I finally get to meet the infamous Michael?"

Rachael shook her head as she flipped out her cell phone. "Are you kidding?" She punched in a few numbers and mashed the phone to her ear. "I'm going over to his place. Hey Mike? Look, I need to stay with you tonight." She got up and walked away into her room, all the while gibbering on about ghosts and haunting.

Left alone with my thoughts, I sighed and leaned back into the suede couch. I flipped on the television, but my thoughts invaded. The sorceress… Who was she and what did she want with me?

Several hours later, I parked my Volkswagen Bug in the freshly paved upper-year students residence parking lot. A short row of townhouses faced the lot, and students shuffled around, packing things in their cars, or waiting for their rides to arrive.

My stomach curled uncomfortably as I scanned the students to find Trevor. On my insistence, he'd agreed to drive back home with me, and in the process ditched his friends for the weekend. Back home, we practically lived next door to each other, so it made sense to make only one trip. I shook the guilt away. It's not like he really minds.

I pulled out my cell phone to call him and my stomach instantly dropped. Nineteen missed calls? Aside from about two, they were all from my parents. I ignored the notifications and dialed Trevor's number.

Soon enough, Trevor emerged, struggling, from the front door of his town house.

I immediately went over to help him. "Gee whiz, couldn't find bigger suitcases?" I asked as I took one of the cases from his hand.

"Hello to you too, Grassy."

I raised an eyebrow. He was usually cleverer with his nicknames.

He shrugged. "Short for Grasshopper. Gimme a break, I just wrote an exam."

He was right, of course. Poor kid had written his calculus exam this afternoon, one that I was sure had been brutal. I asked him how it went as we dragged the suitcases to my car.

"It's finished is all I care about."

I nodded and opened the back door, and with a grunt, managed to haul the suitcases inside, both of which practically took up the entire backseat.

Trevor "helped" by slamming the car door so loudly that I openly cringed. For a tall, skinny guy, he sure had an awful habit of putting strength into the most inappropriate activities. God knows what he's like in b-.

"OKAY, well I'm gonna go and drop my key off." With that, he practically jogged towards the Residence Adviser building, but not before giving me a sort of disgusted smirk that plainly said, "Yes, you idiot, you did just say that out loud."

Whoops.

As I strapped myself into the car, my mind drifted to thoughts about the previous year. Leaving home and starting university had felt like a giant, foggy bubble had spit me out into the throws of freedom. I couldn't entirely trace the exact time my parents had become overbearingly protective, but I felt like they'd completely changed around the time I turned eighteen. I guessed I couldn't entirely blame them either, they'd already lost a son. But don't they get that they're just driving me away? I mean, the point of my moving away had been to gain some independence, but eight months of my father choosing my courses for me, and my mother keeping a microscopic eye on my study and social habits proved that I wouldn't be gaining that coveted independence anytime soon. It also doesn't help that they call me, like, a bazillion times a day either.

SLAM!

I jumped about ten feet and turned to glare at Trevor as he strapped himself in the passenger's seat.

"Hey, it's gonna rain, we probably shouldn't take the highway," he said, totally oblivious to the fact that he'd most likely just shattered my eardrums. He started to run his fingers through his curly brown hair, which was puffing up because of the humidity.

I nodded, started the car and pulled into the main road. Sure enough, raindrops soon started drizzling down onto the roof of the car, accompanied by low rumbles of thunder.

Watching Trevor fiddle with the CD player automatically brought a smirk to my face, because knowing him, he'd take five hundred hours just to pick a song. Several minutes later, he finally decided on an instrumentally-heavy Coldplay song and settled back in his seat. He whipped out his cell phone and started texting away.

I chewed on my lip, wondering whether I should mention what had happened earlier. I wished Rachael hadn't been there, because then I could have just brushed the vision of that woman off as a post-exam-stress induced hallucination or something. The Sorceress… why did I feel like I'd seen her before?

"Hey Trevor," I called hesitantly.

Without looking up from his phone, he grunted.

"Um, do you remember-uh-"

He snapped his phone shut and turned to me, tilting his head, dark blue eyes narrowed questioningly.

I hesitated, took a deep breath, and decided that, yes; I did have to bring it up. "After the accident, did I ever, you know, say something weird?"

A long, awkward pause before he answered, "You mumbled a lot. Why?"

I exhaled slowly.

"Wait, are you remembering something?" he asked eagerly.

I glanced briefly to find him watching me intently. This was the first time I'd even mentioned the accident since it happened. Fixing my gaze on the road ahead of me, I continued, "I don't know… did I ever say something about… a woman?"

"You were saying a whole bunch of things."

"Like what?"

He didn't respond, and when I turned to look at him, he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Trevor, what did I say?"

"I-I don't really know. You kept mumbling about how you couldn't save him in time," he met my wide-eyed glance and hastily added. "It wasn't your fault Natasha!"

I shook my head impatiently. "What else?"

"That's pretty much it. The doctor wouldn't let us visit until you calmed down. Are you remembering?"

I released a deep breath, swallowed, then said, "No." I glanced at Trevor, and seeing him disappointed, added, "I just had flashes of it. Like, trying to avoid someone on the road, then crashing…" an involuntary shudder overtook my body and I swallowed the lump in my throat.

The drizzle had now become torrential, rolling down the windshield and drowning out the serene music with bullet-like tapping. There was a distinct lack of other cars on the road. The road beneath the tires was rough and slightly bumpy. Roars of thunder pierced the night, along with flashes of lightning that threatened to consume the sky with every clap. I wiped the fogged-up windshield with my sweater sleeve and squinted into the night. We were driving over a bridge now, I noticed, even though the headlights only allowed up to five feet of visibility.

"Here," said Trevor as he turned the heating all the way up, soon filling the car with vanilla-scented air freshener that was clipped on to the air vent.

"Thanks." I sent him a small smile, hoping he wouldn't ask me any more questions.

"You shouldn't feel guilty, Natasha."

I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "I know." But I do.

"He wouldn't have wanted you to." His hand came to rest on my shoulder.

I looked at him then, mouth open to tell him he didn't know how it was; that I'd crashed the car when Noah hadn't even wanted me to drive; that I was responsible for his death, so what if I couldn't remember the details? That I'd killed my brother and nothing anyone could say would erase that. I wanted to tell him all of it, but one look at his concerned, sincere face convinced me that he'd been holding off saying those words for a long time.

Slowly, biting my tongue, I grinned, then nodded to let him know that I appreciated what he said, even if I didn't believe it.

When I turned back to the road-

Ba-bump.

Her.

I gasped and swerved to the right. Trevor screamed something, but the screeching tires cut him off. No… my breath caught in my throat as the car sped out of control until-

CRASH!

A flash of white consumed my vision as the airbag exploded, pinning me to the seat. I fervently batted the cursed object away and turned to the only thing that mattered: Trevor.

He wasn't moving.

My breath caught in my throat, but a moment later Trevor shook his head and turned to look at me, eyes wide and shining, and I remembered to breathe again.

"Are you-" I cleared my throat and tried again, "Are you okay?"

"What happened?" His voice trembled.

I gulped. "I-there was... I don't know." I unbuckled my seatbelt with shaking hands. "You're okay?"

He nodded. "My head kinda hurts, but that's it. What about you?"

I absently nodded, fighting back the urge to throw my arms around him and apologize.

Instead, I gulped down the lump in my throat. "Stay here, I'm going to see how bad it is." And without waiting for him to respond, I flung the door open and pushed myself out into the drenching rain. "Could you call home?"

He nodded, and when I was sure he had busied himself with his phone, I locked the car and shut my door.

The sky split open in thunderous flashes of lightning as rain pelted down in torrents, making everything darker than it should have been, and soaking me almost instantly.

The crash hadn't been so bad; only the front bumper having been really damaged. It was unhinged and dangled dangerously between the car and the cement wall of the bridge. The passenger side headlight had shattered from impact, and the other one kept flickering ominously. Exhaust fumes curled in the wavering light, mingling with the heavy smell of rain in an almost intoxicating way.

A shiver ran through my body and I wrapped my arms around myself.

Footsteps, then, slow and squelching, directly behind me.

"I thought I told you to sta-"

Horror stopped the words in my throat as I turned around.

Enchantingly translucent, the woman stepped closer in her glacial, gliding gait. She wore an expression of glorious victory on her face as she gazed at me with binding, tawny eyes.

I stood rooted, unable to utter another word, unable to look away from her flickering, see-through form. Raindrops seemed to fall through her, leaving her magically dry while everything around her succumbed to the drench. Her naked feet seemed to glide above the ground, while the hem of her long, scarlet dress swished behind her.

My breath caught in my throat as I noticed a pair of ink-black, feathered wings casually sticking out of her back.

She smiled, then, a gesture that was both beautiful and terrifying, and I knew at that moment that this was the last face I would ever see. She reached for me with long, pointed fingers, and lay her cold, hard hands on my temples. Why is her touch so prominent?

I squeezed my eyes shut in the desperate hope that when I opened them again, this wouldn't be happening; that I'd be back in class, or still sleeping safely in my bed. But what one wishes and what one gets are often entirely different, and when I opened my eyes again, the last thing I did see was the woman.

A dull tug prodded at my head, as if an invisible hand was trying to reach in and grab my thoughts. But then the tug became sharp, stabbing pain, spreading throughout my body. Tingling numbness replaced the pain, as everything became far off; I felt as if my soul was being sucked out of my skin.

Over-encompassing darkness pressed into me from every direction conceivable, before I lost control of myself and lost consciousness.

A/N: If you've made it this far, you'll notice that this is an OC fic, where an unknown falls into the FFVIII world. Boo! Hiss! Is it worth reading ahead? One way to find out, right?

Reviews will be highly appreciated and cherished for all eternity :)