The eighth in a series of writing prompts I'm working my way through.
In which Cloud is tired and his memories are plaguing him.
No warnings. Cloud and FFVII belong to Square Enix.
Weeks
The Golden Saucer is flashy, it is bright. Colours and sounds and people are resonating around Cloud, shoving their way into his head without permission. It's fake and tinny and his temples are throbbing.
He'd really like to rest right now.
He leans against a wall, just for a second – 1st,1st,1st, the inside of his brain yells at him but he tells it to be quiet because even SOLDIERs get overwhelmed sometimes. …don't they?
And anyway, he's an ex-SOLDIER now.
Yeah.
He tries to shut out the endless grating loop of the 'cheerful' muzak and casts his mind back to the top of a train, cold night air whipping against his face, the metal hard and slippery under his boots. Weeks ago now. The dusty, bustling darkness of Midgar seems like an entirely different world, a time when all he'd cared about was the money and something to fill the seemingly infinite days with.
It's another life for him now. A lot's happened in quite a short time if he thinks about it and he feels like he's being shoved roughly along a path designed for him, like there's some higher purpose rapidly unfolding everything into its predestined place, dragging Cloud along in a maelstrom of confusion and loss. He has a sneaking suspicion he's supposed to save the world.
Will he really have to? Will Sephiroth really try to destroy everything in his path with that long, curved Masamune and those slitted glowing eyes?
Even if that was his intention, would Cloud be able to make any kind of significant effort to stop him?
A sudden memory hits Cloud, one that slams into his brain and causes his knees to buckle. Suddenly he's fifteen again in an ill-fitting recruit's uniform, and it's a chilly morning in a snow-encrusted training field somewhere near Kalm.
The other infantryman, gangly and thin but much taller than Cloud and with much more upper-arm strength lunges forward in a clumsy but aggressive attack – Cloud manages to bring his sword up just in time and the sound of metal scraping angrily against metal tears through the chilly, crackly air. Even with his defence the attack is too much for him and his knees give out – he lands heavily in the wet, freezing grass, snow melting and soaking into his trousers.
"Hah!" the other boy cries, and Cloud bends his head in shame.
"Let's try again," he mutters.
"Nah. Only one of us is going to get into SOLDIER, and somehow I don't think it's gonna be you, Nibelheim boy."
Cloud lifts his head, twenty-one again and back in the Gold Saucer. The muzak replaces the heavy breathing of young recruits and the clash of Shinra-issued training weapons. Reality fuzzes into focus.
The…memory, vision, whatever it was bothers him. He'd never been that weak, that incompetent, beaten by some thin string of a boy. He'd aced his tests, he'd flown through them – too enthusiastic in his youth, but they'd seen his potential and they'd known he was what they needed.
He'd never been as frail as that boy in the training field, mud and melted snow staining his clothes.
Right?
Oh, there are so many gaps, so many holes in his memory and so many disturbing things that slide into them – and there's always that ache, that feeling of loss, the memory of blood in his hair…
"Come on, Cloud." Aerith's sweet voice breaks through and he blinks at her. She smiles cheerfully, small white teeth glinting. "Let's go. I want to have some fun."
"Alright," Cloud says, letting her take his calloused hand in her small, soft ones and drag him through the crowd and the lights, on to god knows where.