Log of Jonathan Sieger, January 22, 0008
No words can describe the hell that broke loose last night. The earth shook violently, furniture tossed over and fine china now in little bits on the floor. To top it all off, green tendrils of energy fired out of the ground all around the town and headed east to Goddess knows where. The largest strands came up from that forsaken reactor up in the mountains. From what little information Shinra sends us alongside our monthly paychecks about the outside world, the only thing that could have been causing this was Meteor. Shinra tried to destroy it. Did they fail? Is this the end of the world?
It's calm this morning; even the monsters are too afraid to come out. Frankly, so am I. I think everyone else is, too. I'm still in bed as I write this, spending quality time with my "wife". If everything ends in the next few hours, I want to be in her embrace when it happens. Goddess help us.
* * *
Log of Jonathan Sieger, January 25, 0008
Spent most of the past few days in quality time with the "wife", and now I'm tired. I guess the world didn't end, but no one has bothered to come check on us yet. I guess Shinra is dealing with their own fair share of issues right now. Maybe the earthquake caused all the plates in Midgar to collapse on themselves, or Junon was hit with an enormous tidal wave and knocked the entire city off the peninsula?
We can do nothing but guess. Besides, there are so many other places that would take higher precedence over a ghost town with a handful of people. Someone will come check on us, eventually.
* * *
It took a bit of mental preparation, but on the fifth day, Jon finally mustered the willpower to step outside. For the most part, everything looked the same. Granted, there were massive fissures everywhere, even mountains split in half from where the green energy burst from the ground. He saw photos of the aftermath of bombings in newspapers, and the comparison was eerily similar. The town, thankfully, was left virtually unscathed.
Grabbing his binoculars, Jon looked up at the Nibelheim Reactor, where he saw the largest concentration of energy emerge. Through the mist and the jagged, now broken spires that loomed over the valley, Jon nearly dropped the binoculars in shock. The reactor was almost completely gone. What little he could see of it was several hundred feet lower than where it should have been; where it was only a few days ago.
"What the hell..." he muttered to himself. Was this Shinra's doing? What caused that energy to split from the ground? Was it the work of a powerful spell? He hoped that he'd never have to find out. That was the work of gods, and not even gods should be allowed to possess that level of power.
"How does it look?" Freya, his "wife", asked from the doorway to the Inn. Jon turned around and opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn't decide whether or not to say it was okay, or they should just hide for several days again. He just shook his head and threw his arms up in bewilderment.
"Come and see for yourself, if you dare." he replied. Freya removed herself from the building and stepped out into the town square to gaze out at the mountain range. Her eyes widened and she held her hands to her mouth.
"Oh Goddess!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah. Not much of anything left of the reactor or... really much of the mountains."
"I wonder how the others are doing?"
"I'll check Chris at the store. You tend to Claudia." Jon ran to the general store right next door to the Inn and knocked. The door opened slowly, and the first thing that popped out was a shotgun barrel pointed right at his face.
"Woah woah! Chris! It's Jon! JON!" Jon exclaimed, ducking to the side. The door opened up the rest of the way to reveal Chris, who lowered the gun.
"Jon. Good to see you're okay." he said. He appeared to be fine, aside from his disheveled appearance from a lack of sleep. "How's Freya?"
"She's checking in on Claudia. What have you been up to the past few days?"
"Holed up inside, waiting for the monsters to come attacking."
"I don't think they're going to attack. The proximity sensors haven't gone off, and power is still being routed to them."
"What have you been up to? Why didn't you come check on us sooner?"
"I was... busy. Come, let's check on Claudia and Freya."
"What about Stefan?"
"Right, him, too." The two crossed the town square to the small house flanked by two others. The one on the right was substantially bigger, though no one lived there anymore, not since the incident that never happened. Claudia, Freya, and to their surprise, Stefan, were already there. Claudia and Stefan were also fine, though they appeared to be a bit flushed in the face.
"I guess everyone's okay." Jon said as they approached. Chris shouldered the shotgun. "So now what do we do?"
"I say we pile in the truck and head to Rocket Town." Stefan said. "Figure out what the hell is going on."
"Have you seen Mt. Nibel? I don't think we'll be going through there any time soon." Stefan paced back and forth, scratching the back of his head as he tried to think.
"PSSHHH. I don't know, Cosmo Canyon?"
"They're strongly anti-Shinra. Do you think they'd cooperate with us?" Claudia asked.
"We could go to Costa Del Sol, but at that point, we'd be abandoning our post. It's too far to make a round trip before someone realizes the town is completely vacant."
"What do we do then?!" Chris exclaimed exasperatedly. "Just wait here?!"
"That... might be the best idea." Jon said. "Let's wait a week. The deliveryman should arrive on the first of next month. If his schedule goes unchanged, that is. If he doesn't show up... we'll head to Costa Del Sol and find out what's going on."
* * *
Log of Jonathan Sieger, January 31st, 0008
It's been a tense week, waiting for the first of February, but at least we have the courage, now, to step outside. I don't really know what to say, though. Nibelheim is as quiet as usual. No, check that. It's quieter than usual. Sometimes we get the occasional monster, but they've been eerily absent ever since the earthquake and energy fissures.
I haven't discussed this with anyone, including my "wife", but maybe this really is the end of the world? I don't want to think about the possibility that we might be the only humans left on the planet, but that idea has been planted firmly in my head, and I can't uproot it.
* * *
Log of Jonathan Sieger, February 2nd, 0008
Yesterday, we waited outside at the town gates, waiting for the deliveryman. He didn't show up. We waited for a few more hours, still nothing. We waited until sunset, and he still never arrived. As we all agreed last week, we're going to head to Costa Del Sol. Depending on what happens, we might not come back.
I can't help but think about what we should do if we're the only surviving humans on the planet. The likelihood is so slim as to be laughable, but it's a contingency plan we should consider. What if it really is the case? Do we let the human race go extinct with our passing, or do we have an obligation? Do we repopulate?
I'm no scientist, but there are... complications. With just two of us - three men and two women - it wouldn't take long before generational inbreeding becomes an issue. Then comes the issue about food and shelter. The town is still intact, for the most part, but the reactor's fucked. We've been sustaining the electricity with Mako generators, but that won't last forever. Hell, it won't last more than a few months at the most. None of us are mechanics or engineers, so manufacturing a dynamo is out of the question.
I'm going to drive myself sick trying to consider all the possibilities and contingencies. Maybe the best option is to just wait and let the events unfold natu-
* * *
"Jon!" Freya called out from the front of the Inn.
"What is it?" He called back.
"Delivery's here!"
"What?!" Jon shut his journal and stood up fast enough to knock the chair on its back. He hurried out of their room and out the front door to see the white truck parking into place just outside the gate. After a week of crushing despair and pessimism, seeing the delivery truck was a sight for sore eyes.
"What took you so long?!" he exclaimed, approaching the delivery truck. As he got closer, he could see the tires and the chassis were not damaged, but not pristine. The truck was covered in a layer of red dirt and riddled with tiny dents.
"Sorry I'm late!" the deliveryman, Aston, replied. "You won't believe this, but there's a massive crater in the valley leading up to Cosmo Canyon! Road's completely gone! I had to take a detour just to get here. A very unfavorable detour!"
"What do you mean a massive crater? Is that where Meteor hit?" Jon asked.
"Huh? No! No no!"
"Then what happened?"
"I have no idea! Maybe it was a massive sinkhole that opened up when the Lifestream burst out of the ground?"
"Lifestream?"
"Maybe I should take this all from the top. Get everyone else, I'll explain what's been going on." Jon and Freya summoned Chris, Claudia and Stefan to the large abandoned house neighboring Claudia's. There, the six of them sat down around the dining table. Claudia went to make them all a cup of tea as they listened to Aston's story.
"Alright, so Lifestream. It's... energy that the soul is composed of. All life gains the energy of the soul from the Lifestream, and when you die, that energy returns to the Lifestream and takes another form elsewhere. I don't really know how to best describe it, but that's why Cosmo Canyon is so adamantly against Shinra's activities. The Mako reactors have been siphoning energy from the Lifestream in order to generate power, and slowly but surely, it's been destroying the planet.
"Now, that's the context for what I'm about to tell you next. On the 21st, when Meteor was expected to hit the planet, this giant wave of blue energy - I don't know what it was, where it came from, or who summoned it - flew right under Meteor's path and seemed to catch it, but that didn't have much effect. Then the Lifestream burst out from the ground from all directions and went right to Meteor. I couldn't really see what happened next, since there was this enormous flash of light followed by that massive earthquake, and the Meteor... was simply ground up and vaporized."
There was silence around the entire table at the conclusion to the story. Claudia served everyone the tea and sat down, completely silent and unsure of what to say.
"Where was Meteor expected to hit?" Chris asked.
"You really want to know?" Aston asked grimly.
"Duh! I asked!"
"It was expected to hit right on top of Midgar, and for all intents and purposes, it did."
The silence around the table was even more grim. Jon's eyes widened and he looked around the table, feeling sympathy for everyone there. They all had friends and/or family in Midgar, as most of them were from there. Midgar was also the largest city-state on the planet, and the capital of Shinra. To think that it was just... destroyed like that...
"I don't know how many people survived; I'm more than certain a good number of people in the slums couldn't make it out in time. They're still trying to account for everyone. For now, the refugees from Midgar are seeking asylum in Kalm."
"Kalm isn't big enough to take in even half the population of Midgar." Stefan chimed in. "Midgar's population is twenty times the size of Kalm in the upper plate alone!"
"I know, and they're seeking alternatives to house all those people. As if that wasn't enough, Shinra itself is nowhere to be found, and I mean the top executives. The military, bless them, has been running around, doing what they can to help with the relief effort, but there are no official orders by Shinra corporate itself. If the rumors are anything to go by, Rufus is dead. President Shinra is dead. Scarlet and Heidegger are dead. Hojo is dead. The Mayor of Midgar is nowhere to be found, and Palmer scuttled off to parts unknown."
"You know, now that I think about it, who the hell pays us now?" Chris asked. "All the paperwork and accounting was kept at the Shinra building."
"Well that's the question I'll lay to you all: What will you do now?" Aston asked. "No more Shinra means no more reason to be here, but for all intents and purposes, you've been living here for nearly five years."
"I know." Jon muttered to himself. "It's a quandary for sure." There was a contemplative silence around the table now as they all thought about the same thing. While Jon was curious to know the others' thoughts, he was equally curious to know his own. He didn't think much about what the end result of this masquerade was supposed to be. He expected to be told one day that his services were no longer needed and could leave any time he wanted. Shinra's money was good, and all he had to do was answer to the name Jon Sieger and pretend he's lived in this boring town all his life. Now that the end had come, he didn't know what to do.
"Look, we don't have to decide what to do right this moment." he said. "Let's sleep on it for a day or two before we make any final decisions. We can get you a room at the inn, Aston."
"Go ahead and take your time. I have no interest in getting back on the road so soon."
* * *
After they had adjourned their meeting, Jon went out for a walk. Nibelheim wasn't a large town. The square was most of it with a few outlying houses and of course the Shinra Manor that loomed over it from atop the hill in the back of the town. And for almost five years it has been his home. Even though he had been living a lie, this place was sincerely a home for him.
Was he supposed to abandon it now that his employers were all but decimated? That string of logic both did and did not make sense. He had no reason to stay, but he wasn't about to just abandon his home, and especially not because he was simply unemployed. When he still thought it was the apocalypse, Jon already came up with contingencies for eking out something of a living. Since the world still turned, plenty more possibilities opened up. The reactor could be replaced, a new road to Rocket Town could be built, and the fissures where the Lifestream burst out of the ground could be sealed up again. Nibelheim could be made livable again.
But that could only happen if the others agreed to stay.
Jon was outside of the manor when he turned around to look over the town square. He kept reminding himself that it was his home. Over the years, he learned how to maintain the water tower in the center of town, taking notes on visitors coming and going, cleaning the various houses that remained vacant to pretend that the people who lived there were simply out of town on holiday, and above all pretending that it never burned to the ground and its people killed. He's been able to get away with it for five years; he could see himself easily lying his way through the next fifty.
In many ways, his life reflected the timeless aesop of becoming one with the mask. As a stage actor, he knew the best acts were conducted when you thought you were the character. There was more than one occasion where he thought he was actually Jon Sieger, and the fact that he hasn't heard his real name in such a long time probably helped move that mindset along. Whether he should be proud of his performance or afraid of it, he was uncertain.
Curious and eager to hear the others' stances on their final decision, he returned to the Inn to talk to Freya.
"I know how you feel. I've gotten used to living here, too." she said after Jon conveyed his thoughts to her as they folded up clean sheets and stored them away. "But what about us? Technically we aren't married."
"Yeah, but for all intents and purposes, we have been for the past five years." Jon replied. "And doesn't the thought and everything we've done together count more than a piece of paper?"
"I guess so. What about the others? Have they decided on leaving or staying?"
"I haven't asked them yet. I'm still trying to figure out my own final decision."
There was a moment of silence between them as they finished storing the sheets away.
"It will be quieter if any of us leave." Freya said.
"I know. I don't like the thought of it, but we could make this place whole again, and people will want to move here."
"And what about our act?"
"I'll gather together all the notes I've taken and burn them. We'll continue the act all the way to our deathbeds."
"So continue the lie forever?"
"If we can manage it, yes."
Freya fell silent and paced around the room, contemplating the idea. To bolster his stance, Jon continued.
"Look, we were already slated to carry out the lie indefinitely. If Shinra was still around, if Meteor never fell, if the top executives and the President didn't die, we wouldn't be talking about it."
"Maybe. Talk with the others. I'll stay, but only if the others stay as well. We've grown to be our own community in this edge of the world, and I don't want to lose that."
'Okay, so that's one.' Jon thought to himself as he left the inn. He headed next door to the item shop, where Chris was in the back room, tossing a materia into the Mako generator.
"I still have plenty of these things in storage. We'll have a few more days of power, at least." He explained to Jon. "What's up?"
"I came to ask your opinion on staying."
"I've already decided." Chris answered without hesitation. "If any of you are staying, I'm staying as well. I'm the only one who has any knowledge of mechanics, and with the reactor gone, you're gonna rely on this generator a lot more. Someone's going to have to procure supplies, and I'm the only one who knows how to do that, too. If this town's going to have any lifeblood in it, it's gonna need me."
"I've decided to stay. Freya will only stay if everyone else stays as well."
"So that just leaves Claudia and Stefan."
"I've yet to talk to them."
"I don't know about Stefan. He's been eager to leave ever since Meteor fell. And Claudia... well, you'll have to talk to her, yourself."
"Why, what's the matter?"
"I don't know, but during the meeting, I noticed she's been a lot more... reserved, than usual. Something's on her mind, I can tell."
"Alright, I'll have a talk with her."
Jon left the store to Claudia's house, which sat between the steps leading to the Shinra Manor and the large abandoned house. He pushed open the door and stepped inside.
"Claudia? Where are you?" he called out. There was no answer. She must have been asleep, or maybe she didn't hear him. Jon headed up the stairs to the master bedroom and found her sitting on the bed, flipping through an old album.
"Hey, Claudia." he said. "I'm asking around about people's thoughts on staying or leaving... what do you have there?"
"It was here when Shinra rebuilt the town." she said, not looking up from it. "They replicated Nibelheim exactly how it appeared the day before it was destroyed. I don't know how they did it, but this was one of the things that came with the house. I never thought to actually look through it until today."
Jon walked over to the desk near the window and sat down, patiently waiting for her to continue.
"Remember when those eight people came through?" she asked. "Talking dog and cat, girl dressed too light for winter, and a huge guy with a gun on his hand?"
"Yeah... oh god, I remember that now." he agreed painfully. "Two of them started asking some serious questions about the incident."
"Yeah, one of them came to me. Blonde boy, couldn't have been older than 20 or so. He came calling me mom and insisting that he grew up in this house. I was dumbstruck at first. He sounded truly sincere and I was about to believe him, but he wore a SOLDIER uniform. I thought it was another test from Shinra, and I continued on with the act.
"Since that encounter, I've wondered about him. What if it wasn't an act? What if he was telling the truth? There was nothing to state that Claudia ever had a son, but... searching through these photos... the boy present in them looks so similar to the same one who came here."
Claudia closed up the photo album and set it aside, then looked up to face Jon.
"What if he comes back again? I can't lie to his face again, and I sure as hell can't pretend to be his mom. No amount of self-deception could take away the soul crushing guilt I'd feel."
"No, you... I never thought about that." Jon said, and he suddenly had to re-evaluate everything. The one factor he never considered was friends or relatives suddenly popping up. The information he was given for their assignments said nothing about this. They had information about everything about the town and its inhabitants except for anything outside of it. It was a huge gap in the coverup that through sheer dumb luck they never had to deal with until now. And now that he thought about it, how could he continue with the lie? What if friends or relatives came asking about Jon Sieger? He thought about it from their perspective. He'd be more than pissed about it if he was being deceived by an imposter, and rightfully so.
That thought led to more thoughts. He wasn't only lying to others. He was also lying to himself, and insulting the dead by continuing to live their life. And for what? To protect Shinra's pride, a company that was probably no longer around to care? Jon left Claudia's house and took another look around Nibelheim from the square. It wasn't a town; it was a movie set, only without the cameras. Everything functioned like an actual town, but the spirit of one was not there, not after he took a serious step back to evaluate. There was a real Jon Sieger that lived here, who ran the inn, who would hide extra money behind the portrait upstairs, who died in the incident five years ago. He internalized every aspect of Jon's life and followed it to the letter, even hiding money away, until he was Jon Sieger. Until he was the mask.
Except that wasn't a mask. This wasn't a play, and Jon Sieger was not a character to wear like a costume. He couldn't continue with the lie in good conscience, and thinking about everyone else's thoughts about leaving, it seemed like they weren't willing to, either.
"We're leaving." he announced to the group after gathering them in the abandoned house again. He explained to them all of his new thoughts on the subject, and Claudia's encounter with the blonde boy. "There's nothing for us here except misery, and I refuse to let any of us endure through more lies."
"We've been here for a long time. It's going to be difficult trying to assimilate with the real world again." Chris said.
"We'll manage."
"And what do we do with the town? Burn it down again?"
"I've considered that... no, we'd just be doing Shinra a favor. People oughta know about what really happened here, to honor the memory of the people we've pretended to be for the past five years."
"We could still live here and tell people the truth."
"I couldn't look anyone in the eye and tell them that I've been living as their friend or family member for the past five years, and I don't want to cause any trouble."
"So this is it, then? The last day of Nibelheim?"
"Yeah. Let other people decide what to do with the town. We can leave tomorrow morning."
* * *
The rest of the day was filled with purpose. Chris began to stock up supplies for their long trip back to civilization and tossing out anything perishable they weren't taking with them. Jon took the money he was hiding away and helped Chris load the delivery truck. That night, he gathered together all of the notes and information that he wrote down and received over the past five years and stacked them up on the table in the abandoned house. Since nobody lived there, they used it as a conference room for Shinra-related business, and it felt most fitting to leave the information there. Finally, he sat down to write one last journal entry.
When morning came, they all gathered at the entrance to the town. Chris looked back longingly at Nibelheim as they piled into the two vehicles.
"I'm sure going to miss this place." he said.
"So am I." Jon agreed. "But it's time to move on with our lives."
"How will you explain to people what happened here?"
"I've left the truth out for all to see. Anyone who comes here will find it in the abandoned house. The only thing I've removed is our identities."
"So no one will come looking for us?" Jon nodded his head.
"It's best that nobody knows our true names. We're ghosts of Nibelheim, and we'll move on to wear our own masks again."
"Ready to go?" Aston asked, climbing into the delivery truck. "It's going to be a rough ride back."
"Yeah, we're ready." Chris climbed into the town truck and Jon sat down in the backseat next to Freya. They looked at each other for a moment and smiled. Their relationship may have been an act, but the love at some point became real. As they drove off, Jon turned around to get one last look at his old home. He'd miss it, but he had to leave. In the following years, he would never know what happened to Nibelheim, and he'd never lay eyes on the town again.
* * *
Final Log of "Jonathan Sieger", February 5th, 0008
To anyone who comes to Nibelheim and finds this log, please leave it for others to read. The town is now abandoned, as it should be. Five years ago, it was burned to the ground and its residents killed, including the real Jonathan Sieger. I and four others were actors hired by the Shinra Corporation to pose as them for reasons never truly explained to us. Due to shifting events in the world, we have decided that it's time to end the charade.
For obvious reasons, we can't disclose our real identities. We have offended too many people over the years by pretending to be dead friends and relatives. There's nothing I could say to apologize or gain forgiveness, nor will I fool myself into thinking I can. We have decided to leave without fanfare and let others decide what to do with this town.
To you who reads this, if you decide to rebuild Nibelheim, please erect a mural in the town square. Engrave into it the names of the people who lived here so that they will not be forgotten. I have no reason to believe they were ever given a proper burial. We have lived as ghosts, and as ghosts we have moved on, as we should never have been here in the first place, and to avoid trouble from the people we have inevitably offended. If you decide to rebuild Nibelheim, you have our best wishes.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Sieger
Freya Sieger
Chris Quinn
Stefan Sundowner
Claudia Strife
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