Warnings: scientific nonsense, injuries, blood, broken bones and English being my second language.
Dear mom,
IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.
(Just to have it clear from the very beginning, so you can feel the weight of your wrongdoings while reading the whole letter.)
What exactly, you're probably going to ask; but do not fret, oh my only parent! I'll explain it, in tiny details, list it up for you and even enclose my commentaries on the whole matter. You just keep it in mind that you're the one to blame.
I have written about the rebellion in Mideel in my previous letters, right? When over a month ago the citizens protested against building a Reactor near their homes, ShinRa higher-ups got impatient and someone came up with a brilliant idea to send the troops there, to make people cool down; and as you probably have already guessed, the effect they got was completely opposite. So now, The Evil Empire is at war and it isn't going to end anytime soon, because everyone holding a grudge against ShinRa – and that would be over half of the world – is secretly helping Mideel.
And that's why my squad was send today to reinforce one of our crucial bases – and I'm not sure if you realize that particular piece of information's importance. I mean, being stationed there, in ShinRa's crucial base, I could finally have a chance to prove myself in combat, gain fighting experience and show everyone concerned how foolish they were to deny me an entrance to SOLDIER; and once they would realize that, they'd all start wailing at what a gem they had, ignorantly, tossed away and allow me to retake the exam.
But no, now it's impossible and it's your fault, remember that.
Before you start wondering – well yes, I was send to Mideel, but not in the position I should have been.
I was going to take my place in the line, listen to our sergeant's prep-talk and then find a nice, little corner in the airship to be miserable in, due to my motion sickness (it was supposed to pass away with age, so why haven't it done it yet?), but my commander suddenly appeared, out of nowhere, next to me, barked that we need to talk and dragged me to his office. There, an officer I didn't know – he wore hideous, green uniform – was already waiting for us and after making sure I'm no-one else but myself in person – that excited urgency in his voice should have warned my, now that I think about it – he introduced himself as colonel Rally. All the while he was simply elated and extremely pissed at the same time; it would have been rather laughable on any other day, but at the moment it was first and foremost ill-omened.
And it had every right to be, because my, well, now former-commander with that evil little smirk saying louder than words he would just love to straggle me, had not seeing me in this situation made it up to him threefold... but I digress; he informed me it was very unreasonable to intentionally hide from ShinRa my activities from those two years before they let me enroll.
Yes, this is the part when you have wronged me, oh dear mother of mine.
He was so unbearably smug, when he told my how astonished he was upon finding out I had finished a paramedic course in a secondary school below the Plate (and I told you, I should have had used that time, before ShinRa army deem me old enough to join, to work out and gain some fighting experience, but no, you insisted) and then, when he discovered that in exchange for a free room in the school's lodging house, in the afternoons I worked in hospital as an orderly (and that would be unnecessary, had you graciously let me work as a bartender to make a living, but no, once you got the idea I would be raped on the instant I stepped into the bar, there was no helping it). And he went on, humoring me with a fairytale The ShinRa commander and catching a wind of something unexpected about A Certain Trooper's Education.
Because, you see, during one mission in the Midgar area my bunk-mate got badly injured. We had already ran out of Potions, nobody had Restore Materia, Brad was bleeding badly and the other guys seemed to be keen on just gawking and panicking, so I had to save the day and put on a pressure dressing. Of course, a rumor about it was spread immediately, throughout the whole ShinRa Tower, by my squad's self-proclaimed gossip-collectors; and since, I sure, they exasperated it greatly, that day marks the beginning of now constant harassment, I have to endure, by my fellow troopers who are too ashamed to go to the infirmary with their health problems, like they should.
And there was this guy, Barney – he's on a sick leave now – who ventured once, on his night out, to Slums and was worried he might have had caught something, since he was so boozed and forgot about [a crossed out word] protection. I told him I'm not a doctor and most certainly not a dermatologist, silently hoping he will stop bugging me about it and just go to the infirmary. But of course he took no notice of my words and... it's quite embarrassing, even when I'm writing about it; well, my commander happened to walk into me struggling desperately, fruitlessly trying to escape and Barney holding me in place with one hand, while unzipping his fly to pull out his man-flower and start thrusting it into my face, yelling just take a look, Cloud!.
I think it's obvious what assumption was made.
(Barney caught syphilis, by the way.)
But, when Barney, during the testimony, defended himself that he merely wanted a medical opinion, my former commander started checking out my educational background, and even though in my ShinRa enrollment application there is not a single word about that secondary school, or the extended first-aid course the mayor forced all children in Nibelheim to complete, he somehow managed to find out.
What's so bad about it? After Wutaian War all civil consultants said there are done helping ShinRa, so the company is seriously underhanded, as far as medical forces are concerned, that's why. And once they found out about my paramedic diploma, there was no helping it – and I tried everything (furious denial, inspired I joined army to be a soldier, not a medic!, downright insubordination and even pathetic whining) – WITHOUT MY CONSENT I was moved to the medical forces, under colonel Rally's command, and promoted to Second Lieutenant – apparently, medics in army always hold the rank of an officer. Then, they gave me a package with new equipment, told me to change quickly into the new, hideously green, uniform and go straight to the airship, because my squad was ordered to wait for me.
Never before have I been so mad.
When I eventually went into the airship, whole squad was sneering at me and teasing, asking what took me so long (insert sexual innuendo here) and the sergeant looked ready to chew me out for being to sole reason for delaying our departure. Though, once his eyes fell on my new uniform and rank insignia, he snapped at the squad instead – he was pretty scary then, with red face and veins bobbing up on his temple – with that attention, officer on board-piece. My former squad-mates didn't know what he was yelling about, because there was only little old me standing there and fuming darkly; sergeant started growling about insubordination and I decided wisely to set off to find my corner of motion sickness misery, where I'm currently crouching in, writing this letter.
So here's the result of your actions. I hope you're proud of yourself now, mom.
Love (nevertheless),
Cloud