Eligore

Finally, Aerith made it out into the open, stumbling after countless caresses and brushes with very specific breezes, bright red. She wasn't far from the edge of the Train Graveyard; she could see Sector 7 from where she stood. It was just over a flat square.

She wasn't even thinking about the people that would inevitably see her just then. After making her way through the sewers and graveyard both like this, while she hadn't forgotten she was naked, she was almost used to it. Even if that would change the moment a stranger saw her.

It didn't hurt that she was also just eager to get away from being haunted by invisible wandering hands.

She took a step forwards, and then a wave of night hit her. Swirling black smoke, glittering with an ethereal magical light, flooded the path ahead of her. Aerith cried out as it engulfed her.

Dimly, she remembered the fairytale. Those the black wind carried away were to live in the Train Graveyard forever and ever.

She was sure it was just a scary story, it had to be, but that didn't make being whisked away by magic black smoke any more comforting an experience.

She glimpsed things in the darkness. There was a spectre, something she was sure was one of the ghosts that had been touching her. She could imagine those spindly, cloth-like arms feeling the way those cold touches had against her intimdates. There was something else though, far above, lit for just a second by ghostly violet fire. It rode an eerie chariot.

A single red eye stared at her as the world around her was filled with nothing but shadow.

Aerith sat on the cold stone ground, shivering. She'd seen a picture of that thing in a story book. It was called Eligore, a creature that fed on the woe of humans in its domain to grow stronger. She realised with a jolt of sympathy that it must be the reason the ghosts were trapped in that place. It fed off keeping them trapped there.

They weren't malevolent. They were just bored, getting what fun they could, and a naked woman running through their prison was a rare opportunity for them. She wasn't sure how much better that made all the groping.

Eligore stared at her. She tried to look back, but was quickly distracted.

A shape was forming in the black fog. After a second, Aerith realized with a blush that it was a memory. It was her, back in the Shinra building, when she couldn't so much as take a shower without half a dozen scientists crowding around her to take notes of every intimdate detail.

Then on her other side, a memory of one of her many trips topside on the train, being selected for a 'random' strip search by one of the guards in the middle of the carriage. Aerith reddened, pulling her legs up to her chest.

Eligore could show her her memories and, she remembered it woud be getting stronger by reminding her of each embarrassing ordeal she'd gone through. Somehow Aerith knew her humiliation had only just begun.