Author's Note: This is set in Crisis Core, so think back to the times before Sephiroth went insane and what not~ when Zack and Cloud were just regular SOLDIERS going on missions. The only thing you really need to take note of is that doesn't fit in with Crisis Core is how I changed Cloud's past. Otherwise, enjoy!

Cold.

Blue eyes slowly strained to open, waking to nothing but an empty white blur. Wanting to drift off back to the unfeeling dead state he once existed, he struggled to let his eyelids fall back over his weary sight, a task that should have come with welcoming ease to his gradually fading conscious. Yet, as unrested as he was, he found himself staring off at the blizzard surrounding him, his eyelids seemingly frozen halfway over his eyes. The bitter wind stung his skin as it viciously blew over his limp body, leaving him numb to most senses, all excepting that dead, cold feeling. The ever falling snow clung on to his face in small clumps, giving him a bittersweet taste of the icy softness as the amount threatened to bury him underneath its mass. His once light blonde hair was now covered with white specks of ice, the spikes of his hair falling gently towards his frozen, unfeeling face.

Am I dead? Or is this all just some twisted, hell-like nightmare?

Answers to these, he couldn't provide, but he felt an overtaking sense of surrealism as he lie there, staring off into a blinding space he was still unable to identify.

Cloud.

His name. He never exactly liked it; he never understood why he'd be named after something so unattainable, something so heavenly that it seemed more like part of a blissful dream. He, on the other hand, was just a teenage guy, an average (though a bit weaker than most) SOLDIER. Sure, he could swing a sword and defeat a few monsters here and there, but there was nothing really special about him, he thought.

So then why…why on earth would I have such a strange name?

Cloud never knew his parents; he never actually knew where he came from, really. All he knew was that he just kind of appeared at a kind woman's doorstep one bleak, rainy night; staring with wide, emotionless eyes at a light he never knew existed. He was only eight years old then, when his foster mother first found him. Anything before that one moment…is just a blank screen. Whenever he'd try to bring up a memory of those first seven years, he got nothing. It was like a vacant space in his mind where his childhood was supposed to be. The only memory he had, the only clue he had to his forgotten past, was his name.

Cloud Strife.

Cloud.

He felt as if he were slowly fading away from his existence in this inimical white world, yet…a voice kept repeating.

Cloud.

The voice persisted, growing louder and more demanding, as if waiting for a reply. Cloud could hear his name being called, but for whatever reason, whether exhaustion or fear, he chose not to respond. Despite a lack of acknowledgement, the voice kept crying out, it's firm tone echoing out over the howling wind, growing closer with every reverberation of the name.

"Go away." Cloud thought, the side of his face nestling closer in the deep blanket of snow. "Why should you care?"

As if reading his inner rejection, the echoing of the voice came to an abrupt halt, leaving only the sound of the harsh wind whirring through the air. With the voice no longer an annoyance, Cloud buried his head further into the snow, welcoming the numbness that that rushed to the left side of his face.

Crunch. Reluctantly, Cloud sluggishly rotated his head in the slightest, turning his eyes to the source of the disconcerting noise.

Boots. The black shoes stood out like a flashlight in the flurry of white, crunching the snow beneath them as they made their way towards the limp body they were seeking. Any part of the person above the boots, Cloud couldn't see, and definitely hadn't enough interest to find out.

Instead, he watched.

His half way open eyes remained locked onto the steady pair of boots that were making their way towards him. After each step, the snow shifted underneath the heavily built shoes, the resulting noise echoing in Cloud's frozen ears. Crunch. Crunch.

"I told you to go away." He thought, his mind forming a response, yet his mouth too lazy to speak it. "I don't need your help."

The boots stopped.

Feeling satisfied to have stopped the annoying entity, Cloud turned his face back to his patch of snow, hoping to just become dead to this cruel, cold space. The boots never moved, remaining only inches from the buried head beside them. His focus never shifted, yet Cloud felt as if the one above him was looking down on him with disappointed eyes, glaring at him as he pitifully curled on the ground in defeat.

Get up.

The voice ordered, its strong tone resounding clearly through the raging storm.

Get up.

"No." Cloud spoke, his numbed throat straining to choke out the single word. He might have had more to speak out, more to inquire, but upon feeling the cold air stinging his throat, he chose not to. Becoming frustrated with Cloud blatant disregard for it, the voice grew louder and more overpowering.

Get up, Cloud, get up!

No response.

Cloud felt his eyelids finally coming to a close, bringing upon the desired relief of rest. He felt as if the world around him were slowly fading away, and he welcomed the impassive darkness that awaited him.

Why bother? Cloud's thoughts slurred, his mind itself gradually losing functionality. Why try to save me? Worthless…pathetic…

"GET UP, CLOUD!"

As if set on fire, Cloud was thrown back into reality, a steady hand grasping tightly onto the collar of his jacket, lifting his torso up to face the owner. The motion was executed so quickly and forcefully that Cloud's mind had little time to register what was happening, and all he could do was blink dubiously as he felt the warm breath melt the ice on his skin. His sight became sharper, allowing him to make out the image of a shadowed face nearly an inch from his own, the charcoal hair it possessed falling back and forth towards the head with each angry pant. Hidden underneath the mask of silk-like hair, he could see just a hint of two electric blue eyes, seeming to glower right through him with a smoldering glare of unpredicted worry. The intensity of the stare gave him an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, but Cloud didn't move away from it. He wasn't sure if it was the fear from the glare or the warmth of the aggressor's breath that kept him still, but all he did know was that his tense body remained motionless, frozen under the raging blue eyes.

"You…" The voice seethed, a bit shaky from the mix of anger and stinging cold air down its throat. "Are you that worthless that you'd just throw yourself away like that?"

Cloud recognized the voice: it was all too familiar for him not to, but even so…he couldn't get the name. He knew the hair, the way it hid the man's face when he wanted to conceal his emotions. He knew those eyes; he knew the way they shined with a youthful happiness as he free fully wandered the Shinra building without a care, or the way they could shine with a sort of contemplative melancholy, giving him a look of someone far beyond his years.

Of the most, he knew the voice; the gentle voice that could warm his heart with just a single "Hello"; the strong voice that could lead and inspire an entire troup with ease.

"Embrace your dreams."

Even so, his mind couldn't form a name. Why was it, that he knew the person so well, admired him completely in his reality, yet couldn't recall the simplest detail about him this surreal nightmare? He snapped out of his thoughts as the hand gripping onto his jacket began to shake him, desperately trying to keep him from entering the icy state of blackness.

"Cloud! Answer me!" The voice quivered irritably, becoming more anxious as every frozen second gradually passed by. Cloud blankly stared back at the shadowed figure, his wide eyes watching, unsure of what to reply back. "Are you worthless?"

Worthless. Cloud's cold trembling mouth slowly moved open, his mouth taking action before his brain even processed the word. The hand on his jacket clenched urgently onto collar as if futilely trying to hold on to something it knew was a lost dream. Before a sound could leave Cloud's lips, the blizzard around them suddenly increased in power, the snowfall turning so violent that vision was all but an icy blur. Blasting wind tore away at the sky, creating a disastrous white haze, a natural catastrophe ready to obstruct any victim in its path. The terror overtaking him, Cloud frantically reached out for the hand that once held onto to him so insistently, but cried out in panic as he stretched forward only to fall flat on the cold, barren ground. His last glimpse of the familiar entity he got was the figure's body turning to pieces, blending in with the snow as it was swept away in the wild disaster. Cloud's fingers clenched around the snow beneath them in vain, his once unfeeling eyes now streaked with cold tears. There was no one left in this terrifying nightmare but him now; there was no one left to hear his cries of agony as he lie face down on the barren wasteland of ice. But this was what he had desired in the first place…right?

Alone.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Cloud's eyes snapped open, his body sprung upwards in a chilling sweat. His hands fearfully gripped at the silk blankets surrounding him, his heart pounding furiously as the alarm clock rung its daily tone of aggravation. His tensely slammed the alarm clock off, running his hand through his unruly hair as he tried to calm himself down.

"Another nightmare…"

Hastily scrambling out of his bed, he rushed to the tiny bathroom in his quarters, his shaking hands fumbling with the knobs on the sink. Waiting for the cool water to come pouring out, he sloppily splashed the moisture on his face, hoping to pacify his high-strung nerves. His hands languidly slid down to his cheeks as the frosty drops of water fell from his head, creating tiny puddles on the tiled floor. His panic-stricken eyes looked back to the mirror in front of them, Cloud inwardly cringing at his reflection. He looked like a complete mess, his wet hair jotting out wildly and his facial features blanched like those of a person suffering from the flu. This wasn't the first time his morning appearance had been so pitiful either; recently, most of his mornings had started out the same way, him waking up from a heart-wrenching nightmare. The worst part about it was that he could never remember the dream once he woke up, all he knew was that it always left him with a petrifying fear, one that took him hours to recover from.

Stumbling out of the bathroom, he wearily flopped back on his sheets, blankly staring up at the ceiling, his heart continuing to beat rapidly in his chest. It scared him to think that these recurring nightmares could have such an effect on him, yet they never seemed significant enough to distinctly recall from memory. Going through his mind, his futilely tried to bring up any detail he could about the horrifying dream, but the only thing he could pick up was a blurry image of Zack.

His eyebrows furrowed together, wondering why Zack would automatically come to his mind when trying to remember something about his nightmares, seeing as Zack was the farthest thing from a nightmare a person could possibly get. Thinking about it now, he decided, he should probably ask Zack what he thought the strange illusions meant, though, he smiled a bit, knowing that Zack's first reaction would probably be along the lines of "What in the world are you eating before you go to sleep?" Lazily rolling over, Cloud glanced at his cell phone on the nightstand to see the tiny red light blinking to alert him of incoming messages. Reluctantly stretching his arm out to grab it, he habitually flipped open the top, clicking on the inbox.

Are you seriously sleeping in again? You're lucky you've got me here to cover for you, or else you'd be stuck cleaning out the labs all week or some other twisted thing Lazard would come up with…

Anyways, whenever you roll out of bed, come on down to the main floor! We've got a mission together again, even if we do have to be stuck with Sephiroth! I tried telling him to cheer up a little, but he just gave me this weird look that reminded me somewhat of an angry gorilla…don't ask.

Talk to ya later, Cloud!

(PS. I told Lazard that the reason you were sleeping in was because you had indigestion…act kind of sick and wobbly when you get down here.)

Cloud made himself a mental note to buy Zack a book of good excuses for his birthday.