Motion Sickness

-

Being in a car usually made Cloud feel like he wanted to vomit. Now, even without sitting in the back of a rusted old truck he would have been nauseous, if he was in a state of mind to think of it that way. The feeling was somewhat like being drunk—though Cloud had never had the time—or maybe somewhat like being punched in the face and the stomach for about an hour. His head hurt. There was at least one voice talking aloud someplace far away about something. It was familiar, a man's voice, and that was about all he could figure out. It wasn't something that could be heard; maybe something from another world, and this was only a sixth sense detecting its presence.

Cloud was somewhere else. He was suspended in water, surrounded by a bright, opalescent green light that completely enveloped him. First things first: Cloud moved his arms and legs around until he felt less like he was floating and more like he was swimming. With little effort he jetted through the water, his legs propelling his body forward and his arms clearing the path. It was an utterly motionless motion, and here he didn't feel nauseous at all. He was free.

The best part about this place was that there was no one else around. The dull, complete silence echoed loudly through the water, with only an occasionally bubbling sound and an ethereal white current washing through like an inbound train on its first run. Sometimes a low faint buzzing or humming noise sounded, like that of hundreds of voices filtered out through a thick curtain, then disappeared.

Cloud landed on a large platform of rough, uneven brown rock. When his feet touched he no longer felt waterbound but instead tied to the rock, with each step his feet hastening to touch ground and move on. He said some things aloud that were lost in the tides of the water. It felt good to be here, like finally having ripped off the chains from his feet or the manacles from his ankles, like finally bending the bars and leaping out of the cage.

Cloud began to walk. No reason, no rhyme, no purpose—but it felt good. There had to be a reason, Cloud thought, else why would he be doing it? Strange, the vibrations through the water resonated his thoughts like dull green ripples, and he could hear himself louder when thinking than he could when opening his mouth, and decided to keep his mouth shut. Maybe the walking didn't have a purpose, but it felt like it did, and it felt good to do.

What is this place? I don't remember walking here. Don't remember anything, for that matter. Might as well keep walking, I guess.

The rock path began to slowly climb upwards, creating itself more and more through the water the further along Cloud walked. On the surface, it was a normal rock path, but further on, as its incline became steeper as if rising towards the surface, it became evident to Cloud that the path had an end somewhere, and wasn't in it only for the journey.

Walk, walk. Walk, walk. Walking never made Cloud nauseous. Walking made very few people nauseous, to think of it. Few things made Cloud nauseous. A car, yes, airship—no, he had never been on an airship, though he assumed it would feel much the same.

The stone path began to wind around like the coils of the great serpents that swam past through the clear water. For a time, the rock gave way to a path made of white and gray seashells until returning almost instantly to its usual dull brown rockiness. The whole time Cloud walked diligently, without stopping to rest or to look back. Already he had left his home and his loved ones, behind, at the bottom of the path where the rock had only begun to tilt upwards. Down at the bottom, assuredly, his family, his friends, they would all be waiting for him when he descended the spiral eventually, eventually.

When the path finally leveled out, there were sounds imperceptible to him, perhaps because of the white water sealing them out: The sound of a young woman's voice, kindly; the sounds of a small town, candid; a grown man warning him to watch himself; the sound of a photograph snapping, one taken of a girl, a man with long silver hair, and one with blond spikes.

The path was now straight, and flat, but from looking off the sides it seemed no further up than the straight, flat path below, only further along the line. Cloud walked faster now, his legs accustomed to moving his body through the world, the way his feet slid through the water and pressed firmly against the rock. At some point the brown rock suddenly turned a smooth, pure white, and leveled off to a circular platform, and lying on the ground in the center, for apparently no reason, was a green-white orb, almost indistinguishable from the waters around him. It was rounded, smooth, perfect in literally every way, almost crystalline in appearance, and Cloud bent over effortlessly and held it in his hand.

Huh? What is this? This is…Materia, isn't it?

The lightest touch from his fingers and the sphere broke apart into many pieces, drifted away by a sudden white current fast as the wind that blew by his rough, spiked hair.

What…happened? he thought. That doesn't make any sense.

Cloud felt something noticeably odd: The pieces were inside him. They were as real to him as his image was, as real as anything could be in this opalescent world. They lived inside him.

Do you remember how you were made?

The sudden question was in the form of a voice rippling through the water and completely enveloping him in sound. It sounded like Cloud's thoughts, it had the quiet uncertainty that the little toy soldier had in his little blue uniform, but it also sounded so alien to him, as if it was coming from someone else, as if anyone else even existed here, here in his little happy paradise alone.

Do you remember how you were made?

The thought wouldn't go away. The voice, furthermore, would not go away; in fact, the voice seemed to resonate through the water as nothing else did, sending surges of water swirling around the world, arcing in and arcing back. It seemed to be coming from all directions, from every angle, even from the surface of the rock. The voice insisted.

I…well, I… Cloud answered after a moment, in a voice that was most certainly his own, and only his own.

Do you?

Cloud looked and turned around awkwardly, more for sensory than for discerning where the voice was coming from. It was coming from everywhere, after all. The water was everywhere, after all. Well… Cloud answered.

Do you? the voice said, perfect, patient.

I don't, Cloud replied, and shrugged. I don't know if I do or not. Does it matter?

It does not matter, came the answer, half his own and half someone else's. You could be born anywhere. As long as it does not matter, maybe you were born where you were born. Or maybe you were born somewhere different.

I don't think it matters, Cloud answered.

Maybe not. But maybe there is a higher purpose for you to seek. Isn't there a reason? A reason for your existence?

A reason? I don't know…

You do not care? the voice said. It was almost sublime this time, in tone as well as in melody.

Yeah…yeah, no, I don't care, Cloud replied. I don't give a damn. As long as I'm alive and feel well, I couldn't care less.

No matter. The voice said. I could give you a reason. That will not be a problem.

What? Okay. Yeah, fine.

The voice waited, then, And what about you? What do you think?

I just want to live. I just want to exist. Cloud answered.

The wish of everything, of everyone.

Cloud stopped, started walking again. I do what I have to. Whatever is needed of me.

A moment. There was some sound from the voice that sounded almost like a laugh. Do you even realize, you stupid, stupid fool?

Hm? Cloud said, walking on. He furrowed his brow in irritation, as if he could even feel irritation, or frustration, or any real emotion in this place, this perfect, perfect place. What do you mean, 'realize'?

That I am your left and your right. That I am inside you on a molecular level, on a sub-molecular level, and in spirit. I am no one, and I am everyone. I am good and I am evil. I am a calamity, the bringer of life and the bringer of death. I am absolute. You are only everything I shape you to be. Without me, you would be weak, insignificant, stupid, and you couldn't tell heaven from hell. I am the one who binds the strings around your limbs and puts the collar around your neck. You are…a puppet.

…whatever, Cloud said.

-

"I wouldn't know. I've never had motion sickness."

That was such a little thing, a little detail about himself. It too changed when he changed. He was not motion sick anymore, and this was a cure better than any tranquilizer.

-

"Hey, what the hell do we do with this one?"

"Huh?"

"There's another guy over here on the ground." The soldier pointed his left index finger at the man crawling and groaning on the ground, and held his gun with his right hand.

The other soldier turned and looked, still kicking the first man—an obviously dead man, one with spiked black hair and a SOLDIER uniform—in the ribs. "Alive?"

"Yeah."

"Kill him!" The other solider said, putting his hands in the air, exasperated, as though it were the most menial task on the planet. "Just shoot the bitch so we can leave."

"Yeah, but look at this guy. He's just crawling around, muttering and sputtering."

The other soldier quickly rifled through the dead man's pockets and stood beside his friend. This was a plateau, a stretch of ground far above sea level, with the blackened shell of the big city behind them. A daft and stupid breeze blew through and rattled the soldiers' bodies, an unexpected bit of cold on an otherwise decent day.

"Hmph," the other soldier said, looking over at his buddy. "Another spiky-hair? Heh heh…yeah, he looks pretty stupid. Like a fish outta water. What a goddamned idiot. I guess all those tests those guys did musta screwed him up good. Gave 'em both the hair, you think?"

"Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. Sheesh, what do you think they did to them? I'd heard they were stuffed in those tubes for years! Something along those lines, at least. You know anything about that?"

The soldier took out a cigarette, lit it, and smoked, puffing out into the wind in the crawling man's general direction. "Not a friggin' clue. I'll tell you what, though, I wouldn't want to be either of em'." He took another drag, dropped the cigarette on the ground, stamped it out with his feet and ground it into a loose patch of dirt.

"Hey, you wanna leave him? I think I'd feel bad killing such a pathetic guy. Not like it would do any harm, but, you know."

"I was gonna say put him out of his misery, but hey." The other soldier shrugged and tapped his shoulder several times with the long end of his rifle. "Let sleeping fish lie, I guess."

The guy broke into sharp, raucous laughter and the other one quickly followed suit. In the whole time they had watched, the crawling man had gone only about two feet forward. The soldiers left on motorcycles, leaving one quickly fading plume of exhaust behind. By the time Cloud had reached his hands out and grasped the handle of the sword, the soldiers were already nothing more than insignificant specks out on the distance, probably still laughing or talking about how silly it was to screw around with Shinra. They would have been surprised to see him stand and lift the sword above his head.

Damn it felt good to hold the sword. Somewhere in his mind, Cloud still imagined a replication of the wonderful place he had never seen, never been, wanted so badly to go to and would surely go to in due time. But now he could walk while awake, too, even if his legs did tremble under the weight of his body. He was free. Free! And damn it felt good to hold the sword.