"Bring Cloud to me."
Who Wants Not To Be Forgotten
Crimson Release
Chapter 4: The Urge to Wander.
Mumbling sleepily to herself, Alex kicked her legs until the blankets that had twisted around her small frame during her restless sleep loosened enough for her to wriggle out of. Sitting up on the floor, the quivering teenager glanced around the crowded bedroom, still only dim with a minimum of early morning light filtering in through the drapes. Despite the thump that had sounded when she had toppled out of bed, it appeared that none of her roommates had woken up - most of them had grown used to her dreamy misadventures, and could sleep through most of Alex's 'dreams'. Seeing as how there were no sleepy eyes trained on her, Alex hauled herself back up onto her mattress while pulling her blanket up over herself so that it hung over her head like a hooded cloak, and crouched beneath the hidden material. From beneath her pillow she withdrew black book. From the coils she plucked a black, ballpoint pen, which she clicked into use before flipping through pages, which were all obviously read and reread according to the tell-tale signs of the worn, creased edges. Once she found the place where she had left off just a few nights before, she peeked out from beneath her hooded hiding place, and was satisfied to see that there was still nobody awake or looking her way, and so she ducked back beneath the blanket and began to scribble away, filling up several pages with the description of her dream, while it was still fresh in her mind.
The collection of her dreams was an extensive one, Detailed in every aspect - scenery, sounds, colour - or the lack thereof, sometimes - And the journal was thick with these disjointed memories. Once she had finished, Alex critically scanned the pages, rereading and solidifying the memory of her dream in her own mind, as well as on paper, adding a few side notes here and there, before slowing herself down to really absorb the ending.
"It wasn't until tonight that I heard her voice. She sounded so young, and yet so... old, somehow. Her voice was hollowed by her own death as well as with those whispering others that I hear sometimes, and it made me feel kind of cold, all over. She squeezed my shoulder, something she also has never done before, and told me his name. Cloud. But somehow, I already knew it. I just couldn't remember before now."
A sound of creaking floorboards, which she should have heard when they began across the room, caught her attention, and she snapped the book shut, quickly shoving it under her pillow, before sitting up from under her blankets. Wide eyes gleamed in the darkness, staring her down with an agitated glare. Alex sighed, and reached down to scoop up the patrolling mouser, and stroked between it's pointed ears. "You startled me, you bad cat." The girl mumbled, and nuzzled her nose against the soft patch of velvet fur above the tabby's little pink snout, seeing that the cat had forgiven her for bursting out from under the blankets so suddenly. The kitty purred and crawled up into her lap, satisfied to keep the orphan awake by forcing her to rub around her ears and down her lean flanks. Sighing, Alex let her gaze travel around the room, not needing to count the sleeping forms to know the room was a bit too small to hold all of them comfortably. Alex lived in one of the residences founded by Tifa Lockheart, which of course was funded by ShinRa Inc. While the residences were all designed in a similar fashion, this was one of those that were overcrowded with orphans of the plague. Junon was a large city, and so had lost so many more than the smaller places, such as Kalm and Corel, to the Crisis sixteen years ago. There had originally been three orphanages maintained in the Junon district, but one had burned to the ground in a mysterious fire a few months beforehand; the newly destitute children had overwhelmed the remaining two orphanage's, making the living arrangements just a little more cramped than most of the other residences. Of course, the lost building was supposed to be rebuilt, but ShinRa had yet to authorize the extra gil needed in order to begin construction - the typical negligence of a corporate king.
Alex had not minded the intrusion of their home as much as some of the others when a busload of children had been dropped off to take "temporary residence" alongside the rest of them in Ward 13, as she kept mostly to herself, anyway. However, as time went on, it felt like the walls were shrinking in on them whenever they were all grouped in their overcrowded bedrooms, and so like too many animals kept in too small a cage, fights often broke out, especially among the younger kids. Fortunately, Alex shared a bedroom with children between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, so there was less trouble, but the sounds of the others could be heard through the walls whenever a fight broke out, and it bothered the rest just the same.
Scrutinizing the wall clock through the predawn gloom, Alex sighed, seeing that it was as early as four in the morning. She wouldn't have had to of been up until eight. Yawning, She retrieved the journal from beneath her pillow once again and flipped to an entry she had written three weeks ago. She scanned through that one, and the next one, and all of the ones she had written up until the one she had written tonight, seeing the same hints in all of them. The dreams she had been having had been shorter lately, but they all had the same content. The path The Forgotten Lady had taken with Cloud eighteen years ago, when they had first escaped Midgar and had made their way from Kalm to Junon. A detailed path, played backwards, showing her the way to Kalm.
"Bring Cloud to me."
It was obvious to Alex, especially after the command she had received in tonight's dream, that she was supposed to leave and find Cloud, in Kalm. For what purpose, she had no idea, just as she had no clue as to how she could accomplish such a feat on her own. There was no way she could convince any of the caretakers to escort her to Kalm - nobody would believe that an urge to wander which was fueled by strange dreams was reason enough to skip school and travel across the countryside - not to mention the money it would cost to take an airship or a boat. If she was going to do anything, she was going to have to do it herself, but how? She had no real training when it came to fighting. She seemed alright whenever she picked up something she could use as a staff, but she also knew that the woman from her dreams had preferred that particular weapon, and so that undeveloped skill wasn't exactly hers. She supposed she would be okay with offensive magic, but she had none of her own. The creatures around her area weren't all predators, but there were enough that were that shook her confidence a bit whenever she thought of trekking to Kalm on her own. Still, that wish of the Forgotten Lady had intensified to a need, buried deep in her subconscious, and she could practically feel it itching in the back of her mind. She couldn't put it off any longer.
Giving the cat one last scratch behind the ears, she shooed the disapproving animal off her lap and slid off the bed. Quietly, She snuck across the room to the closet and pulled a few things from the hangars. Retreating back to her bed, she ducked underneath her bed to pull out her backpack, which she emptied, stowing her school books under her bed. She stuffed the backpack with clothes that she needed, and lastly the journal she kept hidden under her pillow. It didn't take long to go through her personal affects, choosing a handful of trinkets that had some meaning to her, which included a piece of clouded mint coloured materia. The materia was one of her most precious belongings. Her mother had bought the materia off a shady street vendor during the Crisis; he had assured them that mastered curative materia was the only way that the Star-Scar syndrome could be purged from the body, and her mother, who was very ill by this time, had spent their savings on the tiny orb. Of course, the magic did nothing to restore her mother's strength, and she perished with the stone clutched hopefully in her hand. Alex had taken this as well as a picture of her mother and father from her mother's belongings, and was left alone in an empty house which stunk of death and disease for months, until the Crisis had been averted, and the orphanages had been set up.
Tucking the repacked bag under the bed, Alex slid back under the covers and closed her eyes, having occupied herself long enough to have let the shock of her intense dream fade from her body. She was tired, and so she fell asleep quickly enough, while thinking of her plan to run away. She fell into the dark embrace of sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, and returned to Ajit, where the Forgotten Lady stood waiting, the feeling of her approving smile enough to chill her warm body, even outside her dreamworld.