A/N: This fic comes as a sequel to the previous one called "Noone nowhere". If you haven't read at least the first 5 chapters of that one, then it will be difficult for you to understand what's going on here, because it starts rather abruptly, taking the action from the very end of "NN" chapter 5 and showing what happens further on with some of the characters involved there too.

Music listened while writing this: Craig Armstrong – "Escape"

Disclaimer: I don't own them red sexy guys, nor anyone else from FF7; not even Hojo, lucky bastard! Geeez!!

BLOOD RED WAS THE NIGHT

Prologue

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a blowtorch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

Soul Asylum – "Runaway Train"

„NOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

- - -

The kid is howling.

- - -

OK, I don't know why I call him that. He's probably not far from the age I had when a certain individual messed me up – and biologically speaking I'm still there.

- - -

I kept an eye on him lately, between intermittent periods of slumber. I never made any contact with him though, but he seems to be aware of my presence here.

In the last few days I thought at some point that I heard him speaking with someone else too, but until then I had the impression that he was only talking to himself.

Oh yes, he used to do that a lot. Sometimes I found it rather annoying, but I didn't really blame him. This place gives everyone the creeps and I am probably responsible for that too, even if only partly.

A very small part though in my opinion. The major one comes courtesy of that greasy scarecrow who ruined my life and everyone else's who ever fell into his claws.

Makes me wonder if this kid isn't by any chance one of them too. What's about loneliness that scares him so bad?? He's howling songs day and night indiscriminately and – bah! – it's not that he sings bad. Amazingly enough, he doesn't. Damn, the kid sings so well in fact that he could make a career any time out of this. Only he takes the coolest songs I've ever heard and horribly slaughters their lyrics replacing them with endless variations of filthy swears aimed mostly at Hojo, old man Shinra and a Hollander guy whose name sounds somewhat familiar to me as well.

Not that I mind the cursing thing that much. To be in SOLDIER or the Turks, one has got to know at least the standard set of curses and he damn well knows them all. It's the way he aggravates my headaches with his never-ending blabbering while he keeps on rummaging through Hojo's useless piles of intellectual garbage that fill countless lines of shelves in the basement.

Hmpf! He won't find anything there, don't I know that already!

Yet this time it wasn't him who woke me up. Chaos had already reacted to the smell of fire and death, so I was wide awake.

I lay here in the dark with the lid of my box pushed aside and I inhaled the overpowering stench of blood and burnt corpses, while the smoke was steaming in the air, almost palpable even in the pitch blackness of my underground cell.

Chaos was squirming and churning down the deepest recesses of my being but I was still reluctant to move and see what was all about.

So what if the whole bloody world was burning outside?

Blast them all, it wasn't my damn business. They could go to hell altogether for all I cared, I was already there to greet them at the big less-than-pearly gates.

This whole wretched place could burn down to ashes, my time-traveling sarcophagus could handle that anytime. Oh, the joy of immortality! Bow to you Hojo, walking doom of my life!

How I wished at times that something in this hellish artifact would simply break down one day, turning me into a mere handful of dust before I even knew it...

Then the kid started to scream.

- - -

It made my hair stand on end.

Not the scream in itself. I was already more than used to his howls.

It was the unbearable grief that ripped the air coming with it and twisted something inside me, can't imagine what and why.

Before anything else, I found myself getting out of my box and now I am climbing the steep and rusty stairs leading to the library, one by one, my ragged cape sweeping every step with a sandy swoosh.

He's right there up the stairs, fallen on his knees, forehead almost hitting the floor.

Still howling.

„NOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

Well, read and rip! Let's see if someone will be interested in finding out whatever it is to be found out from such an idea.