A/N: Sorry for the long waiting time for this chapter, things haven't really gone as planned. But now there will hopefully be back to uploading acording to my scheme.

They were all at different levels of unease as they closed the doors to the office of the previously important man as silently as they possibly could. They didn't want to draw attention to themselves if it was not very necessary.

They were all entirely sure that there was not really anything to worry about inside their own well known building, or well, so they tried to convince themselves. They were all warriors and they did after all belong to the best trained force that their world knew of. (At least according to their boss) Such, warriors as them, as all cadets and in front of everything else surly each and every SOLDIER that the ShinRa company held within or outside its walls were to be above such silliness as simple fear of the dark.

They all knew it, but still acted on the instincts of hiding and carefulness that their training had tainted their blood with, to the point where they gripped for their swords when something disturbed them in their sleep even if they were safe at home and unarmed.

Right now were nothing as it normally was however, there was no army to shield behind in times of fear, there was not even a small shelter or a shield! There were the five of them, four who could see in the darkness surrounding them and none who wielded their weapons.

The insecurity was very present in all of their minds and needless to say where they not in any particularly good mood.

Sephiroth where trying to not fall into the darkness of his own thoughts. He didn't know what would happen but he wasn't exactly eager to get to know that either.

Genesis tried to ignore the voices as he had come to the conclusion that doing so would force them to not exist anymore. He had talked himself into that that was the most sane thing to do of all things possible in this growing madness.

Cloud on the other hand didn't ignore the quiet crying in the background, he continued and tried to push away the thoughts that followed in the track of the crying like a starving murderous pack of wolves who have found the scent of a deer. And a rather wounded deer that was.

Angeal was concerned with what that would happen next to them, he wasn't sure of anything now, not of what to do or where to go. He wished he had his sword, he wished he knew what was going on and he wished that it would all just stop. He himself where harbouring no thoughts of revenge concerning he himself, but he was getting less and less pleased with the whole situation to put it very mildly.

The labs had done this. Not only had they tortured Sephiroth to the point were there was no forgiveness to get from Angeal. This fact alone was a good enough reason for killing that little bug Hojo with the means of very, slow, torture and for that matter he wasn't really forgiving towards any assistants or other scientists from down there.

Worse was, it wasn't all.

Not only had they done that, but they had tortured and experimented on so many others. It also seemed like they had in large numbers killed those who deserved to live and let those live who were so dangerous that they were a mortal danger to everyone, Angeal thought bitterly.

His mind burned with fury at the thoughts of what they had done to his friend. They had tortured him beyond any reasonable limit for the "science" they did down there.

He or Genesis had never got any particular details, but it was enough to look into Sephiroth's eyes when he went off to the labs for checking to see the fear that he hid from everyone else in the world. When Sephiroth came back from the lab trips he was, instead of refreshed and healed as it could possibly be supposed for someone to be after supposed healing was he torn up and wounded. He usually wanted the company of no one but the two of them when he came back and were usually very pale and quiet for a week or two. During this time the mere mentioning of the labs, Hojo or anything that could be associated with them made him shiver like a lamb before slaughter.

Zack was surprisingly silent during the time. That was odd considering his usual happy self but no one mentioned anything; the atmosphere was enough to keep their moods down and their mouths calmly shut.

Sephiroth who had been silent for some time finally drew a deep breath.

"I only wanted to add a little something on the topic of the hospital section" he said with something indefinable in his voice that made them all listen to his calm and low voice. "I have never been called there. You two know that before you both basically dragged me away from Hojo's claws I lived there" he said and looked at Genesis and Angeal.

He continued after drawing a deep breath. "There was never any need for me to be sent to the hospital section. As I didn't know about anything else being an option for me I didn't mind. Then, not that long ago after a hard and long mission I returned here. I was tired to the brink of exhaustion, our troops had been decimated to the point where we were twenty returning. I followed the stream of the others and didn't mind. I ended up in the hospital section. It was the first time I was there. I was, to be honest chocked to see the difference."

Angeal said nothing but a small muscle above his right eye twitched slightly as he restrained himself not to interrupt Sephiroth. Naturally was it news for Sephiroth to be taken to a place where there was actual and genuine care for the patients not just a result to achieve and forms to fill out.

Since no one interrupted him, Sephiroth continued.

"I wasn't sent there again and I didn't protest. It simply never worked to protest down there."

He had learnt that simple fact a very long time ago in the means of merciless pain caused by needles and stainless steel in the cruel, coldblooded hands of Hojo.

"But last time we were out all three you came with us to the hospital section Seph." Genesis realized suddenly.

Sephiroth blinked and nodded. The darkness in his thoughts were gone as sudden as it had appeared. Gone were the mix of the thoughts of the deep ice cold depths of never ending torture in the name of science and the, oh so delicate touch of the forbidden, always very deeply hidden thoughts, of revenge.

"Yes I were with you, the time before that I was sent to the labs and the time before that to the hospital wing. Something have changed, I would set the date of the bigger change to one and a half year ago."

"Something is happening here that isn't open to the public." Angeal stated uneasily a wrinkle at his forehead, he didn't like all the secrets that had clearly been hidden within the walls of the very building that they stood in.

"You are right, and I don't like it a bit" Genesis said, nodded a little and all suddenly twitched a little at a particularly rude comment from his whispering fierce demons.

He wanted desperately to shout back to them, to crush them, to burn them to ashes, to make them suffer in any way possible. He tried to defend himself with rage instead of letting the hopelessness take over. It didn't really work as well as he had hoped for since he figured that it was kind of hard to torture something that seemed to be on the inside of his own head. But he thought he could stand it a little better in that way anyway.

"I think we should find some light and try to read that folder" Cloud said. "It might reveal what has been going on here."

"Yes that's a good idea" Sephiroth answered and fingered the folder slightly.

"What do you think of it, Zack?" Angeal said "Where do you think we would find a flashlight of anything around here?"

"Zack what do you think?" Genesis asks as there was no response. That was uncommon for Zack.

"Zack?" Sephiroth looked at him through the darkness with a small concerned wrinkle on his forehead. It wasn't until then that they realized that Zack had been very quiet for a long while. They all looked at him.

"Zack, are you all right?" Cloud asked and touched his friends arm. He was very pale.

"Yes I am just fine" Zack said, slightly absent.

He wasn't. There where someone laughing manically. It frightened him to the point where he thought that his blood would freeze in his veins.

The others didn't press the point; it was after all quite natural to be a bit scared with everything going on around them.

With a slow patience the small group moved forwards to the next office. They found a neat and clean room where obviously no one had been killed. No flashlight though.

After a couple of offices, Zack got more and more impatient. The fact that they still hadn't found a flashlight didn't help him. He constantly looked around himself and twitched from time to time when the distant, mad laughter started once again.

The door of the next office was broken but hard to open; the stench in there was not that bad. Inside the doors they discovered a pile of wreckage, piled up to stop the something from breaking the door. It hadn't worked, the inhabitant of the office where ripped in very fine pieces and where to be found all over the walls, the floor and the ceiling.

"More than one person has taken shelter here." Genesis stated as he looked around.

"By the look and smell of it, this is where this fellow has been slaughtered." Angeal stated "Then some others-" he pointed at particularly bloody parts of the wall "have tried to take shelter here and it has obviously failed."

"The something have made a clean hose here and dragged of the bodies. Here is a shoe and here are marks in the blood" Sephiroth added, he had been taking a look around the room. "And I have found a flashlight, here, standing on one of the whole bookshelves."

A loud growling noise from somewhere way to near them for their liking, interrupted their discussion and their trail of thoughts. They all froze to the spot. No one dared to move. It was something, and it was coming, for them, fast.