The first thing I saw when I woke up was Cloud.
Or, I thought it was; but the man in front of me couldn't be him. His confident stance, the swagger to his hips as he strolled across the space in front of me, the smirk drifting across his face…
The lights in his eyes. Green, unnatural flickers that sent me flying back into my nightmare, which had recurred for at least a week before I'd found out about Cloud's "disappearance". It all matched except for one thing- Cloud didn't look bruised, broken, dead like I matched the green eyes with. If anything he looked more full of life than I'd even seen him, bouncing gently on the balls of his feet, swinging the sword effortlessly in his hands.
I heard a gurgling cry, and twisted around to see the experiment on my other side, arms wrapped tight around his ribcage as if in pain. He grimaced, teeth grinding hard together with a high, horrible noise like nails on chalkboard.
"I knew it- I knew you were one of those damned experiments," it hissed, to my surprise seeming to stagger.
Cloud's smirk widened in almost a malicious way as he strode forwards, stepping straight over my waist without so much as a glance downwards at me, lifting the sword so the very point of the blade touched the experiment's neck.
"Look who's talking," he responded, voice soft, quiet- to the point of seeming just that little bit menacing. The tip of his sword nicked at his target's throat, and as a tiny drop of blood slid down from the point of impact the monster gave a low growl, hands- or what was left of his hands- curling into fists.
"It's pitiful, isn't it? All you need is blood-"
A sudden, stupid mental image of Cloud singing "all you need is blood" to the tune from the Beatles' similarly titled song flashed across my mind. Damned brain, I was supposed to be concentrating on Cloud! If he got hurt while I was just lying there, it would be so ridiculous and pathetic on my part. At the time, every little thing was just so distracting… almost like some part of my mind, the bit that liked to stay focused on a fight, the bit that made me such a decent SOLDIER, wasn't working right. No, it was working right… It was just distant, like everything around me seemed to be, all the noise, the light, the cold metal under my sprawled body.
Plus the rushing in my ears was getting really disorientating, and I had no idea why until I glanced down at myself and saw, to my disgust, that I was streaked with blood, the floor sticky with it. There were huge gashes torn through the dark leather of my jacket, and, dismayed, I couldn't help but think that I'd loved that jacket.
My dismay and disgust quickly turned to horror when I realised the blood was my own; the source being the damned teeth marks in my throat.
"Fair! Look out!" Cloud's voice ripped through my reverie, and I looked up to see the experiment looming over me. Something heavy and, by the sound of it, made of metal clattered to rest near my feet, and I instinctively reached for it, lashing out at the body practically on top of me.
It lurched backwards, cursing, giving me enough time to scramble to my feet, slipping in the blood a little. I looked to Cloud, who was picking up his sword from where he'd been lying when I first walked in; apparently, he'd been using mine up until that point. That point being injuring the monster nearly fatally, by the look of the thing.
"What the hell is with that "Fair" crap?!" I tried to joke, but my throat stung to speak, and my voice cracked horribly.
Cloud didn't answer, using the distance between himself and the experiment as a run up, all the better to launch himself at his target with. I saw the claws going for him, right at his face, and yelled out his name in warning, moving to help, because he was going to get himself injured like that-
And, suddenly, he wasn't in the path of the attack. He flipped, too fast for me to follow properly, right over his assailant's arm, the elongated nails raking through the leg of his pants- preferable to them raking through his face, I noted. The blond landed hard, one foot on either of the monster's shoulders- hard enough to force the other to the ground. He skidded backwards as one attack, then another, were sent his way; then blocked the third blow, a pale hand gripping hard, controllingly, at the experiment's wrist- who, for the first time, looked genuinely scared.
With a grunt of effort, he threw the other man (if you could call it a man) a good few feet away, following him with what seemed like a single stride, though it had to be more, judging by the distance.
Then, he jumped, avoiding the experiment's attempts to kick him away, and landed that time in a slightly more agile way, crouching down with the balls of his feet on the thing's shoulder blades. Cloud brought the sword down swiftly, like he'd done it a million times before, stabbing right down at the man beneath him, who lurched with a low cry, then went limp.
Cloud stood up, the movement as fluid as his fighting, then turned towards me. He hadn't even broken a sweat; his breathing was completely normal, not even the slightest bit ragged. It set me off on an edge- I hadn't even been the one doing the fighting, but I could barely find the air, so how could he go through a tough target like that, no problems? He'd been struggling more than me, when I'd walked in!
He paused beside me, watching me struggle to find the strength to stand up, then wordlessly offered his hand. I reached up and took it, unable to stop myself swearing a little under my breath as he tugged me straight up to my feet, with no effort on my part whatsoever.
"Cloud?" I asked, more than breathless. He didn't reply, head down. I touched his arm, trying to get him to look up at me. I had to see his eyes, one more time; see if they were the same as my dream's version. To make sure they weren't, because I desperately didn't want anything of that dream being replicated in my life, thank you very much.
He shuddered, then, to my surprise, stumbled. Over, well, just about thin air.
"Huh?" It came out as half a whimper, and I tightened my grip on his arm as Cloud swayed dangerously on the spot. He still wouldn't look up at me, gaze fixated on his hands, covered in blood- mine, the experiment's, his own.
"What… happened?" we chorused, both as confused as the other, and I couldn't help but laugh. No voice joined mine again, not even a chuckle like I would have expected; Cloud had to be really serious, or just in shock-
His head lifted, blue eyes finding my teal, and I realised in an instant it was the latter. His blond head turned, looking from me to the experiment's body, at his hands, the blood beneath us, and then back to me again.
"I… did that…?" he mumbled, terrified.
"Yeah," was all I managed in response.
"But-"
"Alright, no more questions, Cloudy. We're getting you fixed up; you're still all injured, aren't you-?" I tried to gesture at the scratch marks across his chest, his head, but stopped, stunned, when I found there to be none. He was still, like I was, covered in blood, and his clothes were torn, but all the injuries were just gone, like they'd just been wiped away.
"You're the one who's injured," he replied softly, leaning forwards as though he was about to faint; only my arm was keeping him upright.
I reached up with my free hand, touching at the wounds- sure enough, they were still bleeding. It kind of annoyed me that he was going to walk out of all that practically unharmed, where I'd have to have a stupid bandage on for a few days while the cure materia did its' work.
Seeing the look in his eyes, I corrected myself; Cloud wasn't going to leave unharmed. At least I could be fixed, and, from how scared he was, how he seemed to have forgotten all the fighting… the look on his face, the fluid fighting, that wasn't Cloud. It screamed wrong, I'd noticed that right from the start.
He was scared of what he was becoming.
And, in that instant, I just knew.
It was the experiment.
After all, what else could it have been?
I led him away from there, finally called ShinRa; in the end, thanks to Cloud, we hadn't needed the help. He just kept apologising, for something he didn't even remember; in a way, it was upsetting me, seeing him so distraught. I didn't show it, of course- just kept trying to cheer him up, cracking jokes and singing daft songs until he finally cracked a smile and joined in, like he usually did, the Robin to my Batman.
Though I wouldn't be caught dead in tights.
[ Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and favourites and story tracks and stuff once again, I suck at replying to things and I seriously have some kind of ridiculous comment phobia… just like my smiley face addiction which I luckily don't use much in my writing. You better hope Cloud and Zack never text or IM or whatever because I will slip into "xD" mode and won't come out. :D Anyway, I will definitely not be letting this hang for another month again, and the updates will be hopefully a lot more frequent over my winter break. If and when life takes over next time, I might post a little update if I can, like a super short chapter… I'm not sure. This is probably the only chapter which doesn't end on a cliffhanger or in the middle of a situation, so it's quite fun knowing I can take the story literally anywhere before the plot kicks in properly. Expect at least three, hopefully more, updates over the Christmas season, and maybe even a little clack Christmas one shot or something. 3 ]