Cloud's alarm went off and pulled him out of his restless sleep, sweat still on his skin from the dream. Every day for at least the last two weeks he'd woken up that way, a nightmare of fire and pain turning into the dark Midgar morning in an instant. He could never remember anything specific, and he didn't want to.
The clock was still buzzing and he smacked it, shutting off the alarm for the morning and maybe for good. There was the sound of coughing from outside his door and Cloud's head sunk into his pillow a little, his empty eyes staring at the ceiling. More coughing, capped with a faint rattle. He should have set the clock for a slightly earlier time – there was already a line forming for the floor's cramped washroom.
He didn't really mind only having the sink at the end of the hall to clean himself. During the first week in the city, he had money for a hotel, buying enough time for Tifa to find him an open room in a collapsing housing block near her bar. At night he had been afraid to sleep, and in the morning afraid to use the shampoo in the shower. Closing his eyes meant he might open them to find a platoon of soldiers waiting, ready to gun him down.
No, that wasn't right.
Men in blue suits, then, ready to haul him away to a basement somewhere and get to work. Cloud put a hand to his head, trying to collect his thoughts. His eyes closed and then immediately snapped open again, and he felt two quick heartbeats in the space of one. It turned out the fear wasn't entirely gone.
Cloud let out an irritated sigh. What was a top-notch warrior like him doing having bad dreams and feeling scared, anyway? He had battled Shinra's best – the Planet's best – and lived.
A scar throbbed once as he thought about it, sending a small shot of pain from his chest to his back. It felt the way he imagined being run through with a sword would feel and he tried to think back to the fight on Mount Nibel five years before. He was in the reactor, facing down Sephiroth, and then it was just a blur with a soundtrack of screams until he was at the train station. Somewhere in that blur was a pair of spectacles, and black hair, and a cliff overlooking a city. That last image was probably just a childhood memory.
Voices in the hallway suddenly rose in an argument before a few thumps cut them off. As the coughing resumed, Cloud rose from his bed. He checked that his sword was still hidden under the mattress, and his fingers ghosted over the hilt like it was still new to him, as if he hadn't fought with it for years.
Cloud pushed the feeling away, scratching his leg before grabbing his toothbrush and deformed bar of soap. Even though they were amateurs, just the first stepping stones on his path to become a real mercenary, he still wanted to be somewhat presentable for Tifa and her little gang at the bar. He stepped over a figure lying in the hall and got in line.