Cloud Strife was a quiet man, if you could call him that. After all, he was, essentially, still 16, the age he was before he was subjected to a mako-induced coma—he was simply stuck in a 23-year-old's body.
He didn't expect much out of life anymore. He didn't expect anything, if he was to be honest; the gods had already taken the things he cared about most: his lover, Zack Fair, and his best friend, Aerith Gainsborough.
His childhood friend, Tifa Lockhart, would try to cheer him up during times of depression, try to get Cloud to let her in, but it was futile. He had locked himself up since the death of his former SOLDIER First Class mentor.
Cloud knew his… acquaintances, as he considered them, in AVALANCHE were concerned about him, but he just couldn't bring himself to care any longer.
He had always been a quiet boy, but lately his silence had been caused not from shyness, but from the horrors of his past finally setting in. Their roots had festered in his mind for years, and he couldn't pull them out, couldn't stop thinking about everything that had happened no matter what he did.
Sephiroth, the former SOLDIER First Class General, the monster who burned down his hometown, murdered countless innocent people in cold blood—the bastard haunted the blond's dreams, taunting him.
Zack, his best friend of only a year before the tragedies of the Nibelheim incident tore Cloud from the conscious world. His platonic lover of only a few months before Shin-Ra took him away—the man was always whispering in the back of his mind, edging on his descent into madness.
Aerith, the sweet, innocent flower girl who was unfairly taken from the Planet before her time. The young woman who had once comforted him, understood him, accepted him regardless of his past or problems—she was always inside him, clawing, pleading with him to join them.
He didn't have anything left. His life was pointless. He'd done his duty to Gaia. Couldn't he rest now, away from everything and everyone?
He'd barred himself in his room nearly four days ago, refusing to come out for anything. He was going insane, and he didn't mind it a bit.
"Cloud, please, please, come out. We all miss you. We miss you so much. The kids, me, Yuffie and Vincent and Cid; everyone! Even… even Rufus and Reno are worried about you! Please, Cloud, please come out, let us help you."
He could hear Tifa's muffled voice through the two doors between them, disregarded her as he stared blankly. He ignored her begging and Marlene's sobbing, paid no attention to Denzel's angry cursing, the boy yelling at him for being a coward and abandoning them.
Cloud silently stared at his reflection in the mirror; he didn't recognize himself any longer, saw nothing worthwhile.
He stripped down and sank into the scalding waters of the bath, simply lying in the water, registering the pain the water caused and relishing in the ability to feel.
Water. Aerith's resting place had been the lake in the City of the Ancients, and Cloud remembered as she slowly sank, the cool liquid devouring her, sucking her down to its deepest depths.
Water. It had drenched him and Zack as the latter lay dying, mere miles from their intended destination. The rain had mockingly cascaded down, mixed with his tears as he sat helplessly by his lover's side, powerless to do anything but watch.
He grabbed a small object from the side of the tub-
'Finally giving up, Cloud? Hmph, I'm surprised you lasted this long,'
-watching it glint as soft sunlight streamed in through the window above. There was a deafening crack from outside, and Tifa's voice came closer.
'Come on, Spike, you can do it,'
The bathroom door shook, refused to budge with the counter in front of it. He watched with a sort of morbid fascination as crimson liquid poured from the incisions he made-
'That's it. You're doing a wonderful job, Cloud. We're so proud of you,'
-first in light droplets, then in heavy streams, as he deepened them.
His baby-like face, which had been blank throughout the whole ordeal, twisted into a sick, bitter grin as his vision began to darken—first around the edges, then to the center until he could see and feel no more.
'I can be happy now, right?'
~*~AUTHOR'S NOTE THING~*~
if this fic were a person i would beat it over the head with a baseball bat until it died tbh i hate it more than anything i've ever written :-) i don't quite feel like deleting it yet though so i just sort of tried to fix it? make it even kind of good? do SOMETHING with it but this is unsalvageable if i'm to be honest lmao oh well. also this is silly cause tifa would have just busted down that door the minute cloud refused to come out and yelled at him and this never would have happened but shhh let's pretend she forgets she's super strong for a while okay