The room was small, and it was dark. It smelled like any other filth ridden bathroom in the slums would. Old and stale - like a carton of milk that's out-lived its expiration date. A single seventy-five watt light bulb (although the layer of dirt encasing it made it look like a twenty watt.) swayed back and forth over the center of the room. A cockroach darted from spot to spot on the dirty floor aimlessly. It scurried over to the underside of the sink that hung in the lower left corner of the room, pausing next to a large black boot. The cockroach must have had lady luck on its side - because if it were any other day, his pointless journey would have came to an unsuspected end right there. On this day though, the owner of the boot was currently in a bit of a trance.
Cloud Strife stood hunched over the sink, his arms extending straight down, allowing his fingers to grip the porcelain edges tightly. His head hung low - his eyes stared off into nothing. At the moment, he wasn't in the slum bathroom. He was in Aeris' church in Midgar, and he was surrounded by everyone - and everything - he had ever loved. His eyes drifted around the warm churches large room. Tifa. Barret. Red XIII… everyone. They were smiling, and he was happy. He cringed a bit. The last time he ever was.
He lifted his face to the mirror. His dreamy look shifted into a narrow-eyed, concentrated stare. He wasn't in Aeris' church. Not anymore. He was in a scummy bathroom in the slum sector of Midgar, and twenty years had passed since the day in his head. He looked angrily at himself.
Why do you do that to yourself? It's cruel…
He almost had to laugh at his own face. What once would have been a mean stare that could have sent a chocobo running back to its stable, was now just a pathetic old mans worn and wrinkled face. Tight lines pulled at the corner of his aging blue eyes. At least they used to be blue. They, like the rest of him, had seemed to fade away now - leaving two dusty, gray/blue marbles in their place. His hair was shorter now, and the once bright blonde had also faded off, into a sickly-looking pale yellow color. Strands of gray were starting to show themselves around his roots. It should have made him sad. It should have told him that he needed to get out of the hero business, and go off to some old-folks retirement home to live out the rest of his days getting sponge baths and playing shuffle board. It should have told him he was just too old to be trying to save the world.
But it didn't.
He accepted it. It was just the planet's way of trying to slow him down. A new challenge of sorts. He looked at his arms sticking out of his vest. What once was strong is now flabby. His eyes floated towards his hair. What once was spiky is now dull. Then, his eyes locked onto their reflection in the mirror. But what was once a hero… still is.
And with that thought, he sharply jerked himself to a proud stance. His hand found its way over to the side of the sink, grabbing an old friend that was leaning up against the tiled wall. His sword. The only thing he had that he could truly count on anymore. Sometimes, he wished he was more like it. If its age began showing, if it's blade had began to dull, all he had to do was sharpen it right back to its youth.
He smiled at the thought. Keep dreaming Cloud. In the meantime, there's work to be done. With one swift movement that hadn't aged a bit, he swung his sword around to his backside and slid it into it's sheath. He picked up his arm and waved to his reflection in the mirror. He was saying goodbye to the old man who had doubted himself. There was no room for that sort of thing on the battlefield… doubts would only get him killed. He turned and headed to the door, pulling it open as he got there. The stench of the Midgar slums was a welcome scent to his nose. Anything was better than the rotten stink of the bathroom. As he began stepping out, he noticed something under his foot. He shifted the boot to the side a bit and looked down at the small black cockroach who had worked its way back over to that side of the room. He waited as the cockroach scurried out into the streets of the slums. Cloud grinned. I don't blame ya, buddy.
He caught a fleeting glimpse of the old man in the mirror as he walked out of the room, and then he was on his way.