Hey everyone, I'm submitting two chapters tonight. Both of them are short so you can decide to read one now and the other later or read them one after the other as one longer chapter.
Thank you so much to everyone who added this story to their alert lists and to those of you who took the time to review. I'm so pleased to have you guys reading along for this sequel. On another note, I'm very sorry it has taken me so long to update. My job really picks up in the summer months here as it's mostly seasonal (outdoor work) so I work longer hours and don't have time to write through the week. Adding in all the commute time I'm working and driving back and forth from work for about 14 hours a day, which leaves me with basically zero time to do anything outside of work and sleep until the weekend. Fun times. I'm just really sorry you all have to wait so long for updates. I'm trying to work on chapters on the weekends so I'll get stuff out to you as soon as I can.
Hope all is well with you guys!
Update July 14: So I was REALLY tired when I wrote this chapter (see reason above) and when I re-read it after submitting I realized there were a HUGE number of inconsistencies when trying to connect this to the first chapter, so I went through and changed some things to make it all better lol. So, if you are re-reading this chapter and think some things seem different, that's probably why. Man, I need sleep.
~Three~
"Vincent?" Cloud repeated the stranger's name when it was said to him from somewhere nearby. "Are you locked up too?" he asked, though he already knew the answer to expect.
"Yes," Vincent said.
"For how long?" he dared to ask, somewhat afraid of what he'd be told.
"It has been…years," were the words he heard and dreaded.
"Why won't Hojo let you out?" he questioned next.
There was a momentary quiet and then Vincent's response. "He does not know I am awake."
Cloud thought carefully about his words before he said them. He thought it may be overstepping his bounds with this stranger but he had to ask. "Don't…don't you want out?" he asked.
Another bout of short silence.
"I'm not sure anymore what it would be like to be out," was his strange answer that made Cloud truly wonder how long the man had been confined to that box.
"Anything's better than this," Cloud stated surely.
Vincent didn't agree or disagree. Instead he advised softly that Cloud should rest and conserve his energy.
Cloud didn't know if Vincent went back to sleep after that but the few inquiries he made over the following hours went unanswered. While he would have preferred Vincent continued to talk with him, knowing someone was at least nearby and he wasn't entirely alone, comforted him in a small way.
He was worried from the moment he was locked into the box about how long he'd be left in it. It had been for days the first time, so he thought anyway. Maybe it had only felt like days. Maybe the fact he had no way to gauge the time made it feel longer. He felt that way now, like minutes were as long as hours. The headache he'd woken up with that morning and which plagued him through most of the day was still sitting heavy in his head. It seemed so much worse while he was lying in such a small space, with very little air circulation. It was hot, feeling almost unbearable when he let his mind focus on it for too long. It was too dark to see anything. It was infinitely worse than the seclusion of his cell. With Vincent quiet, and feeling unable to sleep himself, there was nothing for him to do but to think and dwell on the things in his past and possible future.
He had spent a lot of time since being remanded to Hojo thinking of his past days in the lab, always waiting for those terrible things he'd experienced before to be repeated. The anticipation had been torturous. He thought of Genesis a lot as well. The man's betrayal, and ultimately his own as well. He knew what he'd done to the people who cared about him must have felt like betrayal for them. He had struggled with that, feeling that his return to the lab was some sort of punishment for taking for granted what he had. For not being able to see the mistakes he was making, the wrong choices.
Though he tried to stop himself, not one day went by that he didn't think of Zack. He never allowed himself to wish or hope he'd come after him. Even if he didn't feel that was the last thing he deserved after choosing Genesis over his friends, he didn't want Zack anywhere near Hojo and his lab. As angry as he had been at Zack, and in some ways still was, for all the lying and deceit from him, he would never be able to stop caring about him like the brother he felt he was to him. The only thing that would make his situation worse now was knowing Zack was in there with him, in a position where Hojo could use Zack against him the way Galen had used Marlene and Tifa. There was no way to be sure Zack even knew what had happened to him. He hoped he didn't know, because he knew Zack was stupid enough, and cared enough about him, to attempt a rescue.
At some point, hours after he'd been put in the box and left to lie sweating in the dark in the tight space that didn't allow him any real movement, he heard the door to the room opening again. He waited for the smallest of illumination from any form of light but it didn't come. Instead, there was a single thud on the lid of the box and a voice he was familiar with spoke. It was the same voice he'd heard every day for however long he'd been in the lab. It asked him those same questions he'd been asked every day. Who he was. Who he belonged to. He suspected that if he wanted out of the box he needed to answer those questions. He held himself back. His resistance was all he had. The minute he gave in to those questions, gave those answers Hojo wanted, everything would change, and he suspected it would get worse. He'd had a moment of weakness back in his cell earlier, thinking he wanted to give in. He couldn't submit. He was stronger than that. Or at the very least, more stubborn.
The one who he had come to dub his "interviewer" didn't stay in the room long. He only gave him a minute to respond before leaving once again. Hearing the sound of the door shutting renewed his anxiety again and had him begging to whatever god would listen to help him. He tried not to let his emotions get the best of him again, taking some slow breaths as he tried to come to grips with the fact he was probably going to spend the entire night in that box, if he hadn't already. He had no idea what time it was now.
"Vincent?" he said in a questioning voice, hoping the man would reply.
"I'm here," his calm, deep voice answered him.
"They aren't going to let me out until I answer those questions," Cloud told him.
"What happens then?" Vincent asked.
Cloud shook his head a little to himself. "I don't know. I'm scared," he admitted. "Tell me how you do it, Vincent. How you live like this."
"It's not living," was the man's unsatisfying answer. There was quiet between them until Vincent spoke again. "May I ask you some things?"
"What?" Cloud asked.
"It's been a long time since I've seen the world outside," Vincent claimed. "Could you tell me what it's like?"
"Okay," Cloud agreed softly.
Over the following few hours, Vincent asked him questions that he answered, happy to try and take his mind off of his circumstances. He thought it would make him sad to talk about the world he'd been taken from again but somehow it helped him, to remind him his reality wasn't the only reality and he had something to fight to get back to. It helped to tire him out as well. Helped him to find at least a little sleep and when he did fall into a deep slumber, was able to dream of something different. Something outside of his world of anguish. He dreamt of sunny fields of grass and wildflowers that he felt were familiar to him. Something from a place he used to call home. There was no sound and it was just him but it felt peaceful, not eerie.
The fields gave way to what he felt were true memories, memories of his mother. He didn't know how old he was in the dream but he felt younger, happier. He heard his mother's voice before he saw her. Heard her singing from the garden outside their house. Saw her with her back turned to him first before she was turning and looking at him with a bright smile that lit up her vibrant eyes. Her hair shone like the sun in the summertime. She was like an angel. He didn't know how he'd ever been able to forget her.
"What's wrong?" she asked him. Her voice was so soft and cradling as she said "What is your name?"
"It's me," he told her. "It's Cloud."
He reached his hand out toward her as he felt himself suddenly moving backwards, away from her. "Wait!" he called but it became quickly harder to see her, to hear her. He realized why when he became aware that he was waking up to the sound of another voice speaking to him from outside the confines of his coffin back in the lab. His interviewer was back, asking him what his name was. He had been so deep inside his dream he hadn't heard him come in the room. Feeling disoriented and like he'd been dragged from his mother back into hell, he only muttered some profanities at the man outside the box.
He was a little startled at the sound of a thud towards his feet at the end of the box. He tried to look down toward his feet to see what it was but he couldn't see anything. He heard a sound though, which he couldn't decipher until he started to feel an overwhelming cold sensation suddenly. A moment later he realized it wasn't just cold but wet as well. From somewhere at the end of the box, water the temperature of near freezing was pouring in. Outside the box, the man asked him again what his name is but he didn't answer him, too preoccupied thinking about what was happening. The box began filling with water quickly. In under a minute it was already beginning to fully submerge his arms at his sides.
"What is your name?" the man repeated.
Inside his head, a voice he was sure wasn't his spoke.
C4. Say it.
"What is your name?" the man pushed.
"Why does it matter?!" Cloud found himself asking back as the icy water was climbing over his legs and rising to his chest, so cold it struck him with pain. He tried to somehow make himself float above it. It wasn't working.
"What is your name?"
Say your name, the voice in his head commanded. Say C4. Say it.
"Let me out!" he found himself shouting just before the water rose high enough to cover his tightening chest. The feeling of the frigid liquid had his breath getting trapped in his lungs. He tried to take in deep breaths, tried not to panic and begin hyperventilating. He knew logically Hojo wasn't going to let him die like that but he also didn't know how far he'd let it go. Maybe he would drown him and resuscitate him. The man was crazy enough.
It's C4, that voice was speaking again from inside the walls of his skull, encouraging him to give in.
"Please!" he called out, feeling the water at his neck. He strained to keep his head up in the box, as high as he could lift it toward the lid.
Get me out, Cloud, the voice warned him, becoming more authoritative, striking in him something that made him feel he had to listen.
"What is your name?" the man outside the box asked again, his tone never changing.
"Puh-please," Cloud begged, the water reaching his ears and the sides of his face.
Get me out! that voice seemed to scream from inside him. He felt like it was ready to burst out of him physically, blowing his head open in the process. He had no choice. No other option. No way to resist.
"What is your name?" he was asked once more, though he barely heard it from the water in his ears. He couldn't keep straining his neck to keep his face above the water to keep breathing. The tip of his nose was pressing into the lid of the box above him.
"C4!" he called out, already about to repeat it as many times as it took to save himself. "It's—"
"Who do you belong to?" that persistent interviewer asked him before he could say it again. The water had stopped pouring into the box.
No one, he thought to himself. When he didn't say anything, he felt the water begin to move around him again as more of it was being forced into the box. For a moment he lost his ability to keep his head up, dropping it below the water. He was fully submerged for a second, until he was able to force his mouth high enough to take in a breath and protest as loudly as he could, "Wait! Shinra! It's Shinra!" The water stopped flowing in once more. He couldn't hear the last question he was asked but he knew what it was.
"What is Shinra?"
"Home," he called out just once, just loud enough to be heard before he felt the last of the strength in his neck muscles give out and he found himself entirely submerged again, unable to do anything other than hold onto the breath that was left in his chest. It wasn't long before the water was emptying again from the box, flowing out faster than it had entered, finding him free to breathe again. He became aware of how badly he was shaking from the cold then. When the lid on the box opened his eyes were flooded with fluorescent lighting. He shut them fast, reaching to cover them with his hands.
As he was lifted and pulled out of the box he felt as though he was being pulled from a frozen lake. More people entered the room, though he didn't try to see who. Once outside of the box, and on the floor next to it, his hands were forced from his face as someone took his soaked shirt off of him. After that a thick blanket was thrown over him, which he grabbed onto reflexively. He buried his head under it, trying to get away from the light that burned his unadjusted eyes. He drew his arms and legs into his body, trying to get warm again while he felt only numbness in his fingers, toes and face.
Hands were on him, forcing him to turn over after a minute. He felt something against his left leg that he hadn't felt on his right as someone cut away the wet material of his pants to get them off of him, leaving him naked under the material of the blanket that was tucked around his shivering body tighter.
He was lifted from the floor after a few minutes, and hoisted onto a gurney that was wheeled out of the room, back down the hall outside. As he felt himself moving, Cloud thought about Vincent and wished he could take him with him.
When he was brought back to his cell he was moved from the gurney onto the small bed. He was able to open his eyes then, seeing he was accompanied by two of the clones, one of the lab assistants and the doctor, who checked his vitals before he was left alone in his cell. The clock in the wall told him it was just after noon. He hadn't even been in the box a whole twenty-four hours, but it had felt like it. Slowly, he managed to get himself under the covers of the bed for additional warmth. As he started to feel his pulse evening and the feeling returning to his now burning toes and fingertips, he looked around at his cell. He was surprised to see it had been cleaned up after the mess he'd made in it the day before and that nothing had been taken away. He'd expected the cell to be stripped of everything not attached to the walls or floor. There was a clean set of clothing at the foot of the bed for him to change in to. Even if he wanted to, he couldn't make himself move to put them on at the moment. Still, he wanted to wait until later when the shower had come on and he'd been able to clean himself before changing into the fresh clothing. Even though he'd been soaked with that cold water, after those hours in the box sweating profusely, he still felt disgusting.
He fell asleep after a half hour, feeling exhausted from the night before. If lunch had been brought to him, he missed it, only waking when he heard the sound of the shower coming on in the late afternoon. He dragged himself up from the bed, still feeling cold from deep inside his body. He didn't really want to get wet again, afraid after what he'd endured earlier, but the water was warm. It was warmer than he thought it usually was but he couldn't be sure. It did help to bring his body temperature back up to where he was comfortable again and was able to dress himself in the clean clothing he'd been given.
He emerged from the shower to find a dinner tray had been pushed under the cell door, earlier than usual, though he wasn't upset about it. Hunger pains had wracked his stomach shortly after he woke. After eating, he curled up in bed and fell back asleep almost immediately, hours before the lights in the cell were to go out, feeling like all the hours before had been just some strange dream. He slept heavily that night, only stirring once or twice for a few moments before drifting off again. When he woke in the morning, he opened his eyes and looked up toward the clock in the wall across from him to see what time it was. He thought it had to be before six as the clones hadn't come for his daily beating. He was shocked to see the read-out of 8:14 staring back at him. That could only mean that the clones hadn't come for him. When he thought about it, there had been no voice the night before, asking him those three questions he'd been asked every single day. Of course, he'd answered them the day before. That really had changed things. But he wondered now what that meant for him. What was going to happen now?
