Third time I've had to fix the formatting. Definitely do not care for this website. Hopefully it'll take this time.

It took Aeris a moment at first to figure out whether or not she was dreaming.

She was certainly lying down. Perhaps she'd simply dreamt getting into the tank?

She sat up and looked around - definitely still hazy. Her arm hurt like mad, too. Maybe not dreaming, then.

Still, her surroundings were a bit clearer. She was in the enclosed space again, and this time there was a light coming from somewhere across from her - a hole, perhaps. She stood still for a moment and took stock of the sensations she was experiencing again. She moved her left thumb, then her forefinger, and then her middle finger. They definitely felt like fingers. She opened and closed her hand - was it a hand? Maybe she just wanted to believe it was one.

She noticed something else that she hadn't before, perhaps because she wasn't quite convinced she was awake. Her muscles felt tense, as though she were crouched at the bottom of a pool, ready to push off. As she walked over to the hole, her body felt strangely light.

She reached forward, and found more space behind the hole in the wall; it was an opening after all. She heard a noise behind her, and it suddenly occurred to her that the hole had been a perfect rectangle, but she had already hauled herself up and her moment carried her out the window and onto the ground below. She was surprised at the ease with which she landed. She'd certainly never been that physically able on her own two feet.

She had two feet, didn't she? Two something, anyway.

Flat. It was almost perfectly flat. It could have been a natural migration trail but for the structures lining it on either side. The sky - and it had to be the sky, the space above her was so large - sprawled out before her. It was spattered with stars.

This was more than she could have hoped for in a thousand years. She hoped they'd finally gotten imaging sorted out. Zack would probably lose his mind at what she was seeing, if the notes she'd been making hadn't gotten everyone riled up already.

The structures were blocking her view, though. She'd have to find somewhere higher up.

She took a few steps forward. Apart from the pain on her right side, she still felt strangely energetic. She cautiously broke into a careful jog.

It felt incredible. Aeris wondered if maybe that was why people ran for their own enjoyment, if it felt this good. She went a bit faster, and the ground seemed to fly under her feet, every movement effortless, the kind of running she'd only experienced in dreams, when she'd been able to will herself to wherever she wanted. She was certain she couldn't run this fast herself.

She still felt light. Perhaps the gravity was lower here? Only one way to find out.

Aeris ran another few steps and leapt into the air.

She must have sailed about five metres up, and for a moment she was certain about her gravity theory until she began to fall again at about the speed she was used to on earth. She felt her heart abruptly jump into her throat as the ground hurtled towards her. She twisted about in mid-air, trying to get her bearings and managed to stumble onto her feet atop one of the structures as her weight settled again.

My legs are like a bouncy castle was probably not the most scientific note she could have taken, but she wrote it out anyway. She broke into a run again, noting the perfectly flat surfaces she was sprinting across. It all felt so effortless.

Aeris reached the tallest building she could find and turned her gaze skyward. There were so many stars here - the kind of sky she'd seen once or twice out in the country, far away from any light pollution. She began focusing intently on a particular patch of the sky, making a note for them to retrieve an image. The quality would probably be terrible, but anything for them to study would be worth straining over a grainy, blurry picture compiled from brainwaves from several hours. She began categorising each patch of sky, making her own observations about what she could see. The world continued to sharpen painfully and blur around her at the same time, but she was certain she saw something move out of the corner of her eye...

Then that something was in front of her, towering over her and filling her vision. Whatever it was, it was big.

OUT PLEASE NOW, she wrote. A moment later, the lid was popped to the tank and she was pulled out of it. Zack joined Lazard in helping her out. Both of them looked ecstatic.

"We got visuals!" he blurted out. "I mean, they're not done rendering yet, but we finally got something! If we can get a few more for comparison we could get a lot of info about the orbits of -"

"Forget the orbits," she said, tripping out of the tank. "And the sky and everything. I saw one."

Zack stared at her. "Saw what?"

"...No idea. But listen - I think - I think there's people over there."

Tseng left his place at the desk and approached the three of them. "How do you know?"

"You saw my report, didn't you?" she said, gesturing frantically to the screen. "I'm telling you, there were buildings - I have hands, I'm almost certain I did."

"We found aliens?," asked Zack, whose eyes had somehow managed to become wider. "Like, alien-aliens? Not just a bunch of animals?"

"I don't know what else it could be. We have to -"

"It's entirely possible you could be anthropomorphising your data," said Tseng. "You're walking on what you've called legs, and running down what you wanted to call a street. A dog isn't smiling when it bares its teeth."

"Yeah, well, if you're so smart why don't you tell me what it is? I'm doing my best. I still can't see anything properly," she said, suddenly trailing off. "Maybe whatever I'm looking through doesn't see very well." She allowed Lazard to hand her a towel and began to pat herself dry. "I ought to ask."

"This seems a whole lot of conjecture," said Angeal, who was the only one that didn't look impressed. Zack made a derisive noise in the back of his throat.

"Man, did you leave your sense of adventure back in Germany or what?" Zack gestured wildly to the screen. "Aliens, Angeal!"

Aeris gestured to Zack pointedly. "See? Someone gets it. Besides, I know what I saw. Look, I'll show you - "

"Tomorrow, you'll show us," warned Lazard. Aeris grunted.

"Fine, tomorrow then."

"...I do believe you saw something," Tseng added. He had gone back to staring at the screen with an intense look on his face. He left the room without another word.

"Do you think the reason your chest hurts now is because something laid an egg down your throat?" added Zack.

"I haven't seen that movie," replied Aeris. "And if you're going to make fun of me..."

"I'm not," he said, and he sounded serious. "Just... first contact. Man." He shook his head. "I didn't think we'd get this far."

"I did," said Aeris. Zack turned to look at her, and she shrugged again in response.

"My parents were willing to stake their careers on getting this far," she continued. "It had to have been for a reason."

"Is that what you believe?" he asked.

"Of course it is. I didn't have any reason to think they'd be wrong, and I especially don't now. Do you?" Aeris stood up as well and yawned. "Need a nap."

She shuffled off to the showers, feeling Zack's eyes on the back of her head the entire time.

This time felt different. The strange "blackout" she'd experienced, she'd attributed to her brain making up stimuli where there were none. She quickly posed a question to Tseng about it in the notes, because she wasn't sure if the human brain could conjure up the sudden cacophony of millions of voices whispering into her ears. It was gone as quickly as it came. Anything was possible if you were hallucinating, she supposed.

Her weight was supported by something, and the area she was in was well-lit. A brief glance around seemed to indicate it was the same area she'd been in the day before. She then turned and looked to her left.

There was something there, undoubtedly. About the size of... actually, she wasn't sure what size she was here, but whatever it was, it was as big as her. She made another note to begin compiling images as she studied it herself. It was making some sort of noise, or perhaps the noise was coming from behind her. Its face - and she immediately scolded herself for calling it a "face", because that was an assumption she didn't have much evidence to back up, and of course humans naturally wanted to see faces where there weren't any but she could have sworn - was moving. It was almost definitely alive. It was close, too; she could have reached out and touched it...

...and then it reached out and touched her. Her world tilted around her as it seemed to grab her and flip her over itself before slamming her into the ground. Hard.

She felt her arm (which she had definitely decided was an arm) being twisted up behind her back, and for split second she almost asked them to pull her out again. Then she hesitated.

This was for real. There were actual sentient lifeforms here that she was actually (literally) in contact with, and she was the only one in a position to gather information about them. If it was worth billions of euros in investment, it was certainly worth a bit of danger as well.

Her resolve faltered slightly when whatever it was behind her settled its weight on her back and began limiting her air supply. She began to struggle against whatever it was - it seemed fairly light, but it was clamped onto her quite firmly, and the pain she was presently in didn't seem to be helping.

Perhaps she'd leave this bit out of the report until she was done fighting for her life. If her team pulled her now, who knew when she'd get another look at them?

There was more noise around her, and then several more of them appeared nearby. She reared back to throw the one on her back off and flipped over, getting a good look at each one.

You're safe, she reminded herself. Whatever happens to you here you'll be fine. But the pain she was in felt quite real, and the things that has just began to fan out around her were definitely bigger than her. Another thought occurred to her as she felt herself being picked up, and the noise around her increased: would they kill the one she was using? It was still injured from whatever it had fallen off of. Perhaps it was being culled. If it died, that was the end of the project.

She began to struggle harder now, and found herself surprised by how easily she was able to tug herself out of their grasp. Perhaps they weren't very strong. Or perhaps they were a different sort of thing than she was.

Then she noticed the surface she was on. It was soft, and as her hand latched out she grabbed onto something that sturdy and woven and -

Woven. It was fabric.

Upon further consideration, it occurred to her that she seemed to be wearing clothes.

This settled it.

Any plans of escape were immediately put an end to when one of them got their hand into her other arm, the one that was still unusable.

The pain was incredible. The closest thing she'd felt like it was when she was eight and she'd fallen out of a tree and gotten a dislocated shoulder for her trouble. Someone on the other end clearly must have noticed, because the next thing she knew she was waking up in the tank, still sputtering and thrashing.

She shoved a very worried Lazard away from her and blurted out, "I found a blanket!"

There was a moment of stunned, and probably confused, silence.

"Or a - or a coat, or a toga, or something. They've figured out textiles. They're intelligent. They have to be." She was breathing heavily. Whether it was from the psychological effects of being choked or excitement, she wasn't sure.

Tseng was the first to speak up. "Are you sure?" he asked severely. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I know I am," she said. "It has to be."

"Did they say anything?" asked Cissnei.

"Might have. I don't know, my hearing's sort of funny. I think they might've been angry."

"Hostile, you mean?" asked Lazard.

"I don't know yet," she said. "Maybe they're panicking. Maybe we did something culturally unacceptable."

"Have you tried to say anything yet?" asked Cissnei. "Do you know if they use a verbal language at all?"

"You keep mentioning fingers," pressed Tseng. "How many? How do you suppose your bones are arranged? You've mentioned bipedal locomotion a few times. How is your balance affected by it?"

"We can't use it," interjected Zack suddenly. Everyone turned to look at him.

"We can't really prove it's a blanket," he said glumly. "All we have is your word of mouth, and some blurry pictures, and whatever meaning you apply to anything you find. No one's gonna believe it if we try to publish this."

She glared at him. "You think I'm -"

"I believe you. Everyone here probably believes you. But you don't have to convince us."

She looked around at the others, NC fluid still dripping from her hair.

"...We did it, though," she said, and there was an edge to her voice now. "I saw them. We - they can't just throw out that much data. We found aliens, Zack."

"No, like, I know, and that's really cool, and we're all really happy, but -"

"He's right," said Angeal, speaking up. "All we have is things we've gathered on our own. What we need -" and with this he stood up and approached the board, "- is a message back."

He picked up a marker and began making writing two lists: THINGS WE CAN GUESS and METHODS WE COULD USE.

"Let's think," he said. "We want to send a message to an unknown party. We cannot use symbols of any kind, because they may not recognise them. What do we know about this party?"

"They have eyes," said Aeris, "assuming our contact point is the same species as they are. I'm the same size, about."

Angeal marked "VISUAL MEDIUM" in the GUESS category.

"You said they might be mad, right?" asked Zack.

"Almost definitely mad," said Aeris. "I was attacked. I think."

Cissnei looked at her incredulously. "What in the world did you do?"

"I don't know yet. If we figure this bit out first we can ask."

Angeal reluctantly wrote "HOSTILE (?)" under GUESS, then added "TEXTILES" as an afterthought. "I think that's about it. Any methods we could use?"

"The hydrogen line," said Zack immediately. "That's always the go-to, right?"

"It would be," said Tseng. "But those were always broadcasted as a signal, to be used in another signal. We also have no way of knowing what that is. It's another universe, with potentially another set of natural laws entirely. Perhaps a three here is a two there."

"...Something like that could explain the bug we keep finding," Zack admitted. "But we still can't nail down what it is. Figuring out the laws of physics of an entire universe we've had limited access to could take months. Maybe years."

"We're not thinking about the content of the message, either," said Aeris. Her teeth were beginning to chatter from being soaking wet and cold for so long, but she ignored it. "We need something more than the hydrogen line if we're to avoid my being choked again the next time we visit."

Lazard looked at her in alarm. "You were -"

"I'm fine, let's stay focused," she interrupted, causing Lazard to shake his head in disbelief. "Primes, maybe. Though I suppose that could have the same problem as the hydrogen line."

Angeal nodded and wrote down "SPIN-FLIP" and "PRIME #" under METHODS. It reminded her a bit of a teacher in a lecture hall, until she realised that was almost certainly what he'd done at some point in his life.

"Anyone else?" asked Aeris. "We'll take anything we can get."

There was a pause, and then Cissnei whistled five notes. That got a brief chuckle out of everyone present except Tseng. Perhaps he hadn't seen the movie, or maybe he just didn't "do" jokes.

"It's not a terrible idea," mused Aeris. "There's mathematical basis in it. Five hundred hertz is still five hundred hertz whether it's on Earth or on Saturn, so a B is still B."

Cissnei leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Thank you. I try."

"Only within the same universe, though," said Zack. "We're back at the hydrogen problem again."

"We haven't even figured out how we're going to convey this either," added Lazard.

"Or what we're going to convey," said Angeal, nodding. "Something that potentially tells them about who we are without it being construed as a threat."

They continued throwing ideas back and forth across the next fifteen minutes. Aeris and Lazard unconsciously found themselves humming the five notes, and then blaming Cissnei for getting it stuck in their heads. Cissnei looked more than a bit smug by this point.

Eventually she found herself thinking about the song itself. It hadn't just been the five notes, had it? There had been the rest of the conversation. And if an alien culture had picked music as its medium, it was perhaps a very prevalent part of their culture. A good way to send a message that would be understood while telling the receiving party about themselves... assuming they had ears, or any concept of what "sound" was. Would a B be a B in a different atmosphere? What about an atmosphere with different gravity? Was five hundred hertz still five hundred hertz in another world? Was she breathing oxygen? Was oxygen the periodic element with eight protons?

She frowned. It would have to be, wouldn't it? Because...

She got up, and walked to one side of the room, and counted the steps. Then she turned around and walked to the other, heel to toe. Then she went back the other way. Fifty steps. And then fifty steps. And then fifty steps.

"...What are you doing?" asked Zack, which got her to look up and realise she was being stared at.

"Walking. I've been walking."

Zack turned to look at Cissnei uncomfortably, then back to her. "...Yeah. That's - yup."

"No, you don't understand; I've been walking."

Another period of silence. Aeris rolled her eyes.

"Movement is consistent from point A to point B, every time. I can take twenty steps in one direction here, and I'll be twenty steps away from where I started," she explained. "It's the same way in the other world. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to navigate at all. I'd find myself walking backwards, or not moving even if I was moving.

"Therefore," she said, quickly snatching up another marker, "a one is still a one. And so a two has to be a two, because it's two ones, and a three has to be a three. But let's focus on one, the thing that we know exists."

"So hydrogen is is hydrogen because it's gotta be," said Zack quickly, picking up what she was saying. "Because hydrogen is hydrogen because it's the element with one proton. If it had two it would be helium."

"Binary is an option, then," said Angeal, and immediately wrote it down. "Is and is not are non-negotiable states."

"That still doesn't tell us what we're sending," said Cissnei.

"Yes, it does," said Aeris, writing furiously. NC fluid dripped onto the board several times, and she wiped them off on Angeal's uniform and received an indignant glare in response. "Because there's another constant that's found in nearly everything in the world, and if one is one and two is two then it'll be in theirs as well. Any intelligent species with a basic grasp of mathematics - there!"

Aeris took a step back to allow everyone to admire her handiwork. Simple, to the point, and (hopefully) posing a question that required a response.

"You think that'll work?" said Cissnei, who also seemed to recognise what she'd drawn.

"If they keep off you long enough for you to convey it, it should," said Tseng. "Only do the first part for now. See what happens."

"Get some rest first," said Lazard, throwing her a towel. "We'll try again in twenty-four hours."

Aeris did take a short nap due to the sedative, but after it began to wear off she found she was too wired to actually sleep. She lay in bed, still trying to come to grips with everything they had discovered over the last several hours. If she was right about what it all meant, anyway.

Apparently she wasn't the only one lying awake, because there was a knock on the door to her room.

"It's me," came Zack's voice through the door.

"And Cissnei," added Cissnei. "We were talking and I told him you had snacks."

She opened the door and gave them both a questioning look, then sat back down on her bed. Cissnei sat next to her, and Zack took his place on the desk, rather than using the chair right next to it.

"Tired?" he asked. Aeris shook her head.

"Me either," he continued. "You'd think we would be since we've been at this basically nonstop."

"There is too much to think about," said Cissnei. "What do you think it will be like?"

Aeris pulled the blanket closer to her. Even after the shower she still felt a bit chilled - it seemed 90% of her time here had been spent soaking wet. "There would be a big cultural exchange. Everyone always thinks it'll lead to... I dunno. The end of racism. One-nation world, or something."

"Not if they want to start a war," said Zack. "We could be contacting something that wants us dead."

"They already know we're here, though," said Aeris. "So the best we can do is run damage control."

Nobody said anything for a moment. The prospect that they had just potentially started a war was not a pleasant one.

"...If they have weaving," began Cissnei, "then do you suppose they have art?"

Aeris shrugged.

"Why does that matter?" asked Zack.

"Any culture that has art is good, isn't it?" Cissnei looked at the floor nervously.

Aeris considered this, then nodded. "Definitely. So it'll be fine."

Zack scratched the back of his neck. "'Good' is kind of a complicated concept..."

"Not when it comes to starting a war," said Aeris.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Zack. "Killing is bad, right? Unless death isn't a concept to you, so you have no frame of reference to why it wouldn't be right. It's wrong to have sex with someone when they don't want to, unless your whole species mates passively with... spores, or egg piles, or something."

"...Do you notice anything on your body that could have been used to lay eggs?" said Cissnei after a moment.

Aeris shot her a look. "That's disgusting. I wasn't exactly paying attention."

"Maybe you should have," said Zack. "Important scientific documentation. Someone's gonna have to write this stuff down. Tseng would have a field day." He looked at the drawer under the desk curiously. "Next time just rummage around downstairs for an ovipositor or something."

"You don't have to be that lurid about it," she said sharply. "And that seems extremely rude."

"What, you think it might be in your mouth instead?"

"I brought you in here for snacks," said Cissnei quickly, before Aeris had a chance to reply.

"Snacks. Sure." Aeris reluctantly scooted herself out of bed and got out the two containers she'd brought in. "I have licorice allsorts and gummy bears."

Zack went for the gummy bears, as predicted. Aeris had a few more of her allsorts before putting the container away - the restocking period was coming, but until then she wanted these to last.

"The UN is gonna lose their shit," said Zack, who appeared to be strategically de-limbing his bears.

"We'd have to come up with laws for this too. Currency exchange, if they have money. Who gets to say what to them. Whether or not you can legally have sex with them." Aeris shot a look at Zack for the last part.

"I'm not gonna stick it in an alien," he said, popping the remaining gummy bear torso into his mouth and crossing his arms. "Probably, anyway. Are we talking green ladies, or...?"

"This isn't a professional conversation to be having," said Cissnei.

Zack smirked. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. You brought it up."

"Actually, you did too," said Aeris. "With the spores."

"I was trying to make a philosophical point and you know it."

Aeris sighed. "We should be asleep. Especially you," she said, nodding to Zack. "If everything goes well and we haven't started a war, it'll be up to you to make sure I don't die of radiation poisoning when we finally use that room in the middle."

"...Dios mio, this is really happening, isn't it?" he said quietly.

Aeris handed him the tub of gummy bears and climbed back into bed. "Here. Try not to eat them all at once."

Zack nodded. "See you tomorrow, then. Or whatever counts as tomorrow in here." He left the room, leaving her alone with Cissnei. Cissnei gave Aeris a quick hug, then left as well, still in a daze.

Aeris stared at the door for a moment longer, then turned out the light.

The entire room was buzzing with excitement as Aeris climbed into the tank. They'd spent a few hours prior going over the "photos" she'd taken on her last excursion. She begrudgingly admitted that perhaps they weren't the best evidence. The images were extremely grainy and rendered in greyscale, and more reminiscent of bad photos of the Loch Ness monster than anything else.

The data was more useful, though the persistent bug that was present in nearly all of it was starting to become a problem. They wouldn't be able to present a good deal of their findings if the scientific community considered it inaccurate and flawed.

Aeris thought she had been finally getting used to the process, but when Zack began to count down again she found the nerves catching up to her again. She didn't have much time to dwell on it as she was flung through that strange deep space and opened her eyes.

She had a split second to process that she was still surrounded, and that she could move her right arm again, before something pressed up against her neck. It felt sharp. It was being held by, or attached to, one of the figures to her left. Most of them had been slightly larger than her, but this one appeared a bit smaller.

She moved very slowly, keeping her eyes on the room itself. She would have made eye contact, but some species on Earth considered that a threat. She didn't want to take her chances.

She began to feel around the room. The figure moved with her, keeping its... whatever-it-was nearby her throat. She was surprised at how soft everything was here. Perhaps it was all plant fibre.

She found a large flat surface with nothing clearly on it that gave easily under her fingers. Perfect.

She wrote her message into it, neatly and deliberately. The figure next to her was making noise, and as much as she strained to listen to it, she couldn't really make out much more than that.

She stepped back, admiring her handiwork with a small smile. She documented a picture of it as well. Then she requested an extraction.

They pulled her out of the tank and dried her off. No one left the room just yet. Everyone was silent. Zack was nervously rolling the ball around on his desk. Tseng kept tapping his fingers on his chair. Aeris picked at the towel, and tried to think of something to say, and failed, and picked at the towel some more.

There was nothing left to do but wait.

"Fucking -!"

"Sorry. Y'know, if you held still it wouldn't hurt as much."

"I am holding still."

"No, you're not. There!"

Yuffie stepped away from him with the cast and the tray of cut stitches as Cloud gingerly tested out his arm. It still looked awful, but the bone had healed almost completely, and the only thing left on his flesh was another jagged scar - one of many at this point. It felt stiff, and he couldn't raise it above his head without him forcing it with his other arm, but it was nice to have some degree of independence again.

"You're gonna be all lopsided now," said Yuffie, gesturing to his left arm. Cloud shrugged, and again regretted doing so.

"I'll get a good workout in later. Maybe grab lunch first, though." He glanced out the window and blinked in surprise. It was pitch black outside.

"Or not. I didn't realise it was so late."

Yuffie stared at him. "...It's not, Cloud. It's... what are you talking about?"

"I - look, it -" He gestured to the window again, and froze.

The black was seeping in through the window now, and from the roof, and up from the floor, which seemed to empty into an abyss below him. He looked around in a panic and immediately went for the knife under his pillow as Yuffie just stood there staring at him, shouting his name as he could feel his thoughts being smothered.

He dropped the knife a moment later. He stood there motionless, swaying slightly.

Yuffie snatched up the knife and put it to his throat.

Cloud looked down at the knife, and very slowly, purposefully proceeded to his desk. Yuffie lowered the knife again, puzzled, and said his name. Cloud was long gone, and didn't respond.

He began carefully touching the things on his desk - the papers, the wood itself. An empty beer can crumpled in his grip, and Yuffie raised the knife to his throat again. His hand eventually landed on the wall above his desk.

He flattened a hand against it, as though testing something. Then he raised it again, and began to engrave something. Yuffie stood there, and Cloud looked at her once or twice, seeming more or less uncaring.

The whole thing was over in about thirty seconds. Cloud suddenly crumpled into a heap on the floor and groaned.

He curled himself up, pulling his head down to his chest. He had tried that time - really, really tried. But he hadn't been able to fight off Sephiroth, either, so he didn't know why he'd expected to be able to fight this. Too weak.

It had happened again. It was going to keep happening. There was nothing he could do to stop it and it was going to happen over and over again until it got him killed or he just lost it himself.

Yuffie bent down to help him up, and he shoved her roughly away from himself. "I'm fine," he snapped.

She crossed her arms and sat down on the bed angrily. "Whatever. Get up on your own time."

She likely would have left if she could, Cloud realised. They'd started stationing people with him to watch him constantly. Because he was a danger to himself and the people around him, probably.

He bit a splinter out of his finger solemnly. It had him punching holes in plywood now. None of this made sense.

He looked up at what he'd been made to draw, frowning slightly. It looked like aimless scribbling to him. Yuffie was looking at it now too.

"What's -"

"Dunno. So don't ask."

Yuffie stuck her tongue out at him as Tifa and Jessie burst through the door. They looked at Cloud, and then Yuffie, and then what they were staring at.

Cloud raised a hand to blow the entire wall to shreds, and Jessie caught it. "Wait."

"For what?" he spat. "For it to come back?"

"Cloud, look at it. Actually look."

He reluctantly lowered his hand and looked. And looked, and then shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "Just looks like they wanted me to wreck my bedroom."

"I've seen that before." Jessie was now looking at it intensely. "I can't put my finger on where."

"It's probably something I've drawn before on my paperwork," muttered Cloud, glancing at all the unfinished forms on his desk. "Kinda looks like an electrical diagram, a little. If you squint."

Cid leaned in the doorway just then. "Did all y'all come rushing up here for any reason, or...?"

"Get in here and look at this," said Tifa, ushering him in.

"Did he lose his shit again?"

Cloud glared at Cid in response. "Fuck off."

"Just asking. So, what..." he trailed off, as his eyes landed on what Cloud had engraved in the wall.

- - - o
- -oo-
oo-oo

He turned back to Cloud quizzically. "You put that there?"

Cloud shook his head. "No. Whatever it was did. That's all it came here to do, I think. It left after."

Cid stared at Cloud, then turned back to the drawing.

"Fuckin' hell," he breathed. Cloud looked back up at him.

"...You know what it is?" asked Yuffie. Cid nodded.

"I know what it is, yeah. If I'm right. Which I am."

Cloud's breath caught in his chest for a moment. "What is it? Is - will it help me get rid of them?"

"Probably not. That's a message in a bottle, and we're gonna throw it back."

Cloud looked between the wall and Cid. The man looked... excited. It unsettled him.

"Cid, what -"

"Back when I was in the space program, we'd use to send out messages like that via satellite," explained Cid, who was now inspecting the wall closely. "Nobody thought we'd ever get anything back, but it was to let the universe know we existed. Prime numbers was one of 'em. That there's another one - the golden ratio. Identifiable patterns that would exist everywhere no matter what."

Tifa looked at Cloud. It was good to know she seemed just as lost as he did - neither one of them had finished school. Perhaps this was something they'd have covered.

"Get back up, kid. And put some gloves on. You're gonna pick up where they left off."

Cloud retrieved his gloves from under his bed where he'd tossed them carelessly a week ago, and under Cid's instructions, added a few more dots.

- - - -oo
- - - o-o
- -oo-
oo-oo-o

"...I don't want to talk to it," said Cloud after they finished. He sat back down on his bed and went back to picking wood out of his hands. "I want it to piss off."

"Well, tough goddamn titties, because it's made an effort to talk to you. You think it'll stop if you ignore it?" Cid sat down next to him. "That'll have to do. We're gonna run out of space if we do more of it."

"...It's gonna come back," said Cloud. "It'll keep happening, won't it?"

No one said anything. Cloud swallowed thickly.

"Everything just... stops, when it - when it shows up. It's like being dead, but you're still there."

Cid put his hand on Cloud's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. No one really felt safe leaving him with just Yuffie now. Jessie went downstairs and fetched the others, just in case it happened again.

As it stood, they didn't have to wait long. An hour later, Cloud seized up again, and began to stare at the wall.

The room was absolutely silent as they watched the screen, waiting for a reply from Aeris. The cameras had been set up, though there wasn't much for them to look at, and none of them really knew much about framing a shot anyway.

Zack fidgeted with the ball at his desk. He exchanged a nervous glance with Tseng, who had gone back to tapping on his chair. Angeal stood stock still directly in front of the screen.

Numbers began to appear on it.

1

1

2

3

5

Zack stopped breathing and clutched the rubber ball tightly enough to leave marks in the surface.

8 -new

13 -new

The room was silent for a moment longer. Then Zack jumped violently as Angeal let out a triumphant yell that sounded like something out of a drill sergeant. Cissnei grabbed him and shook him.

"We did it!" she screamed.

"I know!" he yelled back. "I know, we fucking did it!" He felt himself shaking from sheer giddiness. He looked back over towards Lazard. He was applauding quietly. Tseng had turned away from the group to get out of the view of the cameras, but Zack was pretty sure he was crying.

"Look!" shouted Angeal suddenly, and pointed at the screen. There were more numbers coming in.

Cloud had been staring for ten minutes before he raised his hand again. He put a few more holes in the wall then: 21.

Someone took his hand gently and guided it to another part of the wall. Cloud seemed to understand, and punched holes where his hand was moved. They were bunched together more tightly to save space, but the next one was 34, and then 55.

Cloud pulled his hand away and wrote another on the very edge of the wall, reaching from the floor to the ceiling: 89.

Then his hand dropped. He stood there until someone placed something into his hands. A pen, and a piece of paper.

He sat down on the ground and began to draw, mangling the pen as he had the wall, but not before he managed a very crude silhouette of a naked man and a woman, their hands raised in greeting. There were more marks then - one dot beneath a number 1, and two dots beneath a 2, all the way to nine. A circle - a 0 - was positioned over no dots at all.

He began to write something else, but the pen was mangled beyond the point of use at that point. He stopped, and went very still.

Cloud let go of the pen, staring at what he'd drawn. There was ink all over his hands. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes again, and he forced them down. He'd already cried twice in front of his family, and that was well over his allotted amount of times of never.

He handed off the drawing wordlessly to Reeve, who had come up behind him now. Reeve stared at it, then handed it off to Cid. The two of them were now muttering to each other, but none of what they were saying made any sense to him. Cloud leaned against the wall he'd ruined and opened his mouth to ask what any of it was supposed to mean.

Before he could ask, there was a loud crash as shards of glass came raining down over him. He managed to duck his head to avoid the worst of the damage, and everyone scrambled away from the window that had just exploded next to him, and then from the cloud of fire that sprayed out from the centre of the room. Cloud barely managed to reach out to the flames and shape them inward in time to keep the whole room from going up, and Tifa had to smother the rest of the fire with his blanket. When she had finished, she lifted it up, and they all turned to stare at the remains of the Molotov that had been flung in through Cloud's window.