Aeris

The first thing I lost was time.

Then my appetite, and then sleep…then, towards the end, I started to lose my hold on reality.

Possibly the drugs had something to do with it.

They never came right out and told me what they were doing, but I could only assume the green stuff they injected me with day after day wasn't food coloring. It was awful, whatever it was. It made me feel sick. Throwing up my insides until blood came out became a regular thing. The cold men in the white lab coats didn't care. Every day they would come to stick me with their needles and jab at me until I was black and blue. Sometimes they'd mutter their little notes to themselves.

"Specimen A. Blood tests normal. No unusual genetic markers. IMG elevated. Responding well to treatment. Tenderness and discoloration at test site. IMG levels to be monitored…"

Oh sure, tenderness and discoloration. That was the real problem here.

Soon I noticed the world was fading away. Sounds were duller; faces had no features. I couldn't tell the difference between the monsters outside and my reflection in the glass.

Then the lights went out.

At first I thought I'd fallen asleep. The lights never went out. They were out for a good long while too, and when they came back there was silence. No steady whirring from the machines the Lab Coats liked to shake their heads at. No sighs from the other specimens that had already given up crying. I was petrified. Was everone just…gone? Was that possible? If I could somehow gather the energy to push on the door that trapped me inside, would it open? As soon as the thought came to me, I pushed it away. It didn't matter. I didn't have the energy anyway.

The eery quiet was abruptly broken by a pounding of footsteps. It sounded like a lot of them. Anxious voices whispered loudly to each other.

"How did this happen?"

"Who could have done this?"

"The floor, look! Look at the floor! It looks like…like it leads…up…this way…"

Through the glass of my cell, I could four or five people I didn't recognize. They weren't Lab Coats at all. In fact, the man at the front was wearing a black SOLDIER uniform. Of course. Probably investigating the power outage. Weird; I wouldn't have expected the military to get involved in something so ordinary. Then again, I wouldn't have expected a powercompany to ever lose power,either.

The whole group walked right past me without a second glance. They were too busy with their hushed theories to notice me, I guess. One of them – a girl I think – seemed to think better of it and doubled back.

"Cloud!" she hissed. "Come here!"

"What is it?" the SOLDIER asked. His eyes met mine and he shuddered.

"Look at her. She looks sick. Don't you think we should do something?"

Before she was finished talking, he was already backing away. "No. There's something different about her. I don't like it. Her eyes…she reminds me of – no. Forget it. Let's go."

They were gone as quickly as they'd appeared.

The lights went out again.

This time, I knew I had dozed off. I woke up to the same creepy silence as before – only now I had company. A faceless man stood at the now-open door. He didn't say anything; he just stared, his head tilted slightly with interest. For several long minutes he stayed that way. It would have been uncomfortable if I hadn't been so used to it. I expected him to force me to my feet and drag me to the lab as usual. But he didn't. Instead he knelt down, tucked his hands gently under my head and knees, and scooped me up like a china doll.

After that I can only remember things in flashes. A dark hallway. Feeling jostled as he walked – down a stairway maybe? Cool air hitting my cheek. The sound of fluttering feathers. My stomach lurching, like I was on an elevator that was moving a little too fast. That breeze again. My foot catching on something. The low tone of his voice as he cursed out loud. Indoors. Weightlessness. A bed of chocobo feathers. No, lighter than that. A cloud. I was sinking into a cloud, drifiting away, drifting...