Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 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 3rd, 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