1Final Fantasy VII: The Calling of Life

Chapter 1

Cloud Renters the World

Cloud Strife awaked to the sun shining directly into his eyes, adding to the headache left over from the previous nights of drinking. Groaning shakily, Cloud got up from his ramshackle bed and walked to the bathroom to wash the alcohol, filth, and sweat off his body from the preceding evenings actives. As soon as he entered the bathroom Cloud walked straight to the shower and began to adjust the water level so that he would be able to wallow under it painfully. Fuck the headache, Cloud thought sardonically. It's pointless to even try and numb it with aspirin. The headache was a daily routine, and anyway it'll be gone by noon, he thought almost mechanically. When Cloud had finally finished tampering with the water temperature, he shed the stained shirt and boxers which he had worn as sleeping garments and stepped under the nearly scalding sluice of hot water.

The water was hot, nearly unbearably hot. Yet, Cloud accepted it. It's my punishment, he thought darkly, for being too weak to save any of the people that I had truly loved. He watched as each one had been killed, unable help them. First Zack, to the bloody fucking SOLDIERS, then Aires to a Jenova possessed Sephiroth, then the last, and most painful, Sephiroth to himself. It had been Jenova's last dying vengeance on the principal person that had defeated her. He wished that he could have died instead of having killed Sephiroth, but Jenova had raged and screamed in his blood until his body had preformed the Omnislash sealing Sephiroth into his mako grave till the end of time. It had been four years, eight months and six days since that horrible, unforgettable nightmare.

Cloud shut the past away in a box in the back of his mind, as he exited the shower. He had a slight tinge of pink as he as he dried the irritated and inflamed skin with a rough fiber towel. He walked into the living room of his apartment, stark nude, as he began the daily struggle to find a decent outfit to wear. Though truly, he could on longer see the point in it, even as he pulled a pair of clean boxers followed by a pair of flowing only mostly clean, black pants. Cloud stared at his reflection in the mirror, a reflection he had not truly seen in nearly three months. He still looked nearly exactly the same as that atrocious day.

There were only a few small and minute changes that his eyes noticed as they roamed over his body. The first was his clothing. He had begun to wear black. Black pants, black shirts, whatever, almost as if he wished to be come a shadow unnoticed by all, even himself. Most of the time this was true; the rest of the time he just wanted to die. The second, were his eyes. The eyes that had once been so filled with fire for adventure were, now darkened by the ever present reminder of his past. Last, was his hair. Hanging, slightly bowed under the weight, caused him to decide that he finally needed a haircut. As the last statement ran through his mind he thought yet again, why do I care? To Cloud's surprise the simple answer instantly dropped out of his subconscious, because he was all that connected himself to the ones he had lost in the past. It was a painful, but an accurate statement that he was using himself to live in the past with their memories.

Drearily, Cloud remembered why he no longer looked into mirror like he just had any longer. Softly, he gave a sigh of resignation as he pulled a clean shirt from off his bed. If he wanted to get a haircut then he was going to have to leave the sanctuary of the small dilapidated apartment structure. He had known that he was going to have to leave at some point but, had not thought that it would have been so soon. Still, he was running out of the extremely potent vodka that he had been using to muddle the turmoil caused by his mind. So if he didn't go out today then he would just have to do it later. So, why don't we get the horrible experience over sooner rather than later, he told to himself.

Slowly, prolonging the decision as long as possible, Cloud finished buttoning up his shirt. When he finished he turn around, steeling his mind, and walked for the door. When he reached the door he opened it and reentered the world outside his apartment for the first time in months.

Shadow- Wow... this is really depressing...

Ace- No shit Shadow, everything you write has a depressive note to it.

Shadow- That's not true!!!

Ace- Fine, prove me wrong, name one thing that you wrote that was happy?

Shadow- Happy???

Ace- Yes Shadow, happy.

Shadow- Well... um... uh...

Ace- Well?

Shadow- I'm thinking!!!

Ace- I was right, see?

Shadow- Fuck you Ace!

Ace- My, my, my... What language we have!

Shadow- Fine! It'll get better. I didn't say happier, I said better. Are you happy now?

Ace- No.

Shadow- Gahhhhh!!! Fine in later chapters it'll be happier. Better?

Ace- Yes, a little bit.

Shadow- Good for nothing sack of shit...

Ace- I heard that you asshole!!

Shadow- Good!!!