The flames were all around her. An inferno that screamed and consumed all in its path. Wooden houses collapsed into piles of burning remains. Malformed figures of ashen flesh fell to their knees, wailing for a mercy that would never come, their hollow eyes melting away in the heat.

Lucrecia had fallen, begging for it to stop. For these poor people to run. But they never heard her, it was as if she didn't exist– and it always ended the same way. The flames. The screams. The suffering.

And in the middle of it all stood his ethereal presence. Long, silver hair of a gentle stream flowing over the violent flames. A black coat donned upon a powerful, beastly frame. As everyone and everything screeched and burned, he was completely untouched. The inferno did not dare harm him.

With unnatural grace, he twirled and danced with a blade longer than he was tall, cutting down anyone who tried to run from his fury. Some died instantly, a head severed from their shoulders, or a blade of steel piercing their heart. But most died in agony, bleeding out from the gaping wound of a missing arm, or grasping at their own intestines spilled from torn-open bellies.

Lucrecia begged him to stop, but he'd not listen. All he knew was rage, and all he did was kill. It was only when there was no one left to eviscerate, when every single person lay crumpled in a pool of their own blood, that he paused. His fingers tapped thoughtfully at the hilt of his blade, and he began to turn.

The thin hairs at the back of Lucrecia's neck stood on end as she caught only a glimpse of his pale face, half-obscured by the long strands that dripped from his silver mane. She could only watch and cower, tears burning into her cheeks as she froze.

His eyes were like nothing she'd ever seen. Filled with a frigid rage that burned brighter than any of the flames billowing around him. Glowing intensely in the night as two pinpricks; a green hue framing slit pupils that seemed more reptilian than they did human. Frighteningly beautiful and beautifully frightening.

Before her towered a dragon of death, divinity and despair; and she was but a helpless insect scrutinised under his gaze.

A pain throbbed in her torso. She clutched at her stomach, hitching a sob as she shut her eyes and kept a hand over the child that had been growing within her for the past nine months. However futile it was, she'd do all in her power to protect her son from the beast's burning rage.

But, upon opening her eyes... she was no longer greeted by the sight of those haunting orbs. Nor did she feel the heat of flames licking at her fingertips, or the warmth of blood spilled from the innocents around her. Around her were neatly tiled walls, and before her a toilet she was leaning over. The village of Nibelheim had not been tainted by a single flicker, and the mansion housing her was secure.

Her hand shot up from her stomach and covered her mouth as she gagged, beads of sweat trickling down her reddened forehead.

You're safe, Lucrecia thought to herself, the bitter taste of bile rising in her mouth. You're safe. Sephiroth is safe. The village is fine.

She coughed, bearing much of her weight on a single moist hand barely managing to grip the toilet seat. Her sides heaved with rapid breaths as she urged her heart towards calm.

'Unforeseen side effects' indeed, she sighed, thinking back to the meeting with Doctor Gast. If only there had been a way to know that those side effects would involve horrifying, violent visions from the moment of her child's conception. They had been subtle at first, lasting only a few seconds during the first few months– a bit of blood on the wall here, a flicker of a flame there– slightly disturbing, yes, but not something she couldn't deal with. She did not expect, however, for them to become full-blown hallucinations, so vivid and frightening that they had occasionally caused her to fall unconscious. She hoped this would not impact her child's development– and, as far as they could tell, his growth had been healthy so far. More than healthy, in fact.

Child... she pondered, biting her lower lip. Doctor Gast re-entered her mind, specifically his words of warning regarding the potential of her emotional attachment to the specimen. She'd tried, she truly had– in fact, such detachment had been easy for the first few months. But as this life, (((her son))) , had grown within her very flesh, and she began to feel his every movement, every little shift and turn... it only grew more and more difficult. She still forced such emotions out of her mind, for she could not afford to think of him as her son, but as 'Project S', 'Project Sephiroth', 'the specimen' and so on.

Many had doubted this experiment. Though Doctor Gast did not speak it directly to her, she could see it in his eyes that he had hesitations with her being the mother. Her once good friend and assigned bodyguard, Vincent Valentine, had been one of the few to explicitly tell her that this was wrong . But how could he speak so? He was no scientist; he'd not be able to truly comprehend the good this project would bring to the world. Yes, she was willing to create and experiment upon her own child if it was for the sake of something so much greater– a choice not so difficult when one weighed up the pros and cons.

(((Even now... you still have doubts))).

She gritted her teeth and hauled herself up onto her legs. It was still painful, she just noticed– like knife-tipped fingers were gripping at her abdomen. Her breath shuddered. Was this a precursor to another hallucination, or could it be...?

Could it be that it was time?

She stumbled from the lavatory, leaning on the walls for support. Her fingers pressed against her stomach; the pain was only growing in intensity. There was no doubt about it now, today would be the day Project S would come into the world.

The morning was still early. As she called for Professor Hojo and he came running, a small group of doctors escorted them down to the mansion's basement in organised fashion. They laid her out upon a makeshift bed; it was uncomfortable, but Lucrecia was far more focused on the growing bursts of throbbing pain around her abdomen. Indeed, it would be within Nibelheim's very mansion that Sephiroth would be born.

The birthing process took hours. Though Lucrecia was administered a variety of different drugs to aid with it all, her cries never seemed to stop. No matter what the doctors gave her, it seemed to have little– if any– affect with the pain. Day turned to night as the sun began to set and grey clouds gathered over the town, shrouding it under a blanket of darkness. Lucrecia's cries mixed with the sound of crashing thunder that shook the walls of the room. Professor Hojo noticed as the process was reaching its climax and approached to hold her hand, giving it a squeeze.

Lucrecia's vocal cords felt torn and tattered during the final few contractions– but finally, her child was freed. She whimpered with ragged breath, legs trembling as she watched the doctors gather around him and obscure her view of him.

"Is he... is he...?" she murmured weakly, and Hojo nodded with a sneer.

"Yes, my dear. You have delivered Project S. Now, wait here. I must see this specimen."

Lucrecia's fingers grasped at air as Hojo's hand slipped from her own. She looked up to the ceiling, tears brimming in her eyes. She could hear Hojo muttering something to the doctors, the patter of the rain above the mansion, the shudder of her exhales.

But her baby was silent.

Her heart felt as if it had stopped. Panic struck her veins as she sat up, fuelled by a surge of fearful adrenaline. "M-my child," she tried to stand. "My child!"

One of the doctors ran to her as her legs were about to buckle under her weight, but all her focus was on the ones that remained crowded around her baby. She desperately tried to read the expression on their faces, on Hojo's, but all she could see was a worried confusion.

"Careful, Professor," the one by her side spoke, holding her tightly in his arms. But she reached out towards the group, towards her baby, weeping in horror at the silence that haunted her.

Is it all right? Aren't infants supposed to cry when they're born?

Professor Hojo, I don't know what's wrong. Project S may be having respiratory issues

Fix it, you fool!

"T-tell me what's happening!" she demanded with a terrified voice. She couldn't see her child, was he alive? Why was he not crying? Tears fell from her eyelids and tainted her cheeks, could it be that he was stillborn?

It looks to be breathing. How is this possible?

Ah... fascinating, very fascinating. This specimen is already so full of surprises! And look at those eyes.

Lucrecia's spine prickled when she saw the change of expression on Hojo's face. A look of concern and confusion moulded into a sharp-toothed grin. Eyeing his own child not as his child, but as an object.

The doctor by her side hauled her back onto the bed, holding onto her as she refused to lay down.

"Professor, you need to rest."

"Let me see my baby!"

Hojo raised his head, light flashing across his spectacles. It was impossible to see his eyes through them, and the only sound that Lucrecia could hear was that of her own panting. The room had gone deathly silent.

"Do you forget, Lucrecia?" Hojo shifted to look at her; his expression emotionless. Though he was the child's father, he looked anything but.

"This is our project. Doctor Gast warned you not to get emotionally attached to the specimen."

Lucrecia's eyes flitted down to Hojo's arms, where he held a bundle of cloth. Inside, she could see movement, the faintest flash of pale skin as her child shifted.

"Give him to me."

"Why are you so desperate to hold it?" Hojo snapped, glowering down at her with a sneer. "My dear, you knew this would happen."

" Marcus, " Lucrecia spoke. Her mind felt as though it was fading, every muscle in her body worn, her bones old. Yet her drooping eyes hardened with a look of determination.

"I just want to see him. Please."

"Then look."

Hojo ground his teeth and did not move, holding the infant close to his chest. Lucrecia stared at him, weakly reaching out her arm as he remained just out of reach. He was still completely silent, but she could see from the rise and fall of the fabrics that he was indeed breathing. Such abnormalities were perhaps to be expected of this new being she had nurtured in her womb.

As little Sephiroth stirred again, his eyes peered past the cloth he was wrapped up in. The thunderous storm outside rumbled as they locked with his mother's own. They were vivid emerald in colour, with the subtle brightness of a gentle glow– and, right at their centre, were the slit pupils she had grown all too familiar with.

But they were nothing like the ones she saw in her visions. The being's eyes were full of broken rage, a hungering desire to burn the world into nothingness. But these ones were so innocent, so young and full of life.

Was he truly destined for the horrors she had seen him do? Was that... being in her visions what he was bound to become?

"Enough of this," Hojo hissed, closing his arms around the child to hide him from his mother's view.

"Give him to me," Lucrecia repeated, her voice breaking. "Let me hold him."

"I think not, my dear," the professor smiled bitterly. "You've allowed your personal convictions to blind you from what is greater. This is not your child. This is the specimen you helped create for Project S. But now that you have allowed your biases to affect you, I will have to question your place in the continuation of the experiment."

Lucrecia's heart dropped as Hojo turned away, whisking her very child away without second thought.

"Sephiroth!" she wailed his name, starting forward and instantly falling to the ground. One of the doctors rushed to her aid– but Hojo shot him a cold glare. He considered Lucrecia for a moment, and she could see the disappointment in his eyes. They'd bonded over their shared love of science and passion for knowledge– but she knew he'd see her as weak, as foolish as everyone else, for allowing emotion to get in the way of 'what must be done'.

It dawned on her. Sephiroth only existed due to the frivolous wishes of herself and the other scientists. He was not born from two loving parents, nor would his fate allow for warmth or nurturing that most other children knew.

He was just an experiment. One who only existed for the sake of ambition.

An experiment made of her flesh and blood– and her one and only son.

"Do not let her follow," Hojo hissed to the doctor, and left with the others.

Lucrecia screamed in maternal agony, but no one listened. The doctor tried to console her, but she pushed him away, watching her baby be taken further and further from her sight. Her eyes burned with tears, they spilled upon the floor below her and carved rivers into her face.

She was his mother, she had to be there for him, to give him the love he deserved. To hold him and protect him from this cruel, lonely world. His eyes, which once so frightened her, she now only wished to behold. Others might fear him, goad him for being different– she could not allow him to be alone, entrapped in cold labs and made to do test after test, with no one to offer their warmth.

But her choice had been made, and there was no going back.