Chapter 12 – The Adventure
"I wanna have the same last dream again, the one where I wake up and I'm alive…"
It was like none of it had ever happened. Reno looked around him, confused. The moonlight was the only guide he had on the white abyss of freezing snow.
How did I get here?
He desperately tried to remember what had just happened for him to get here all alone like this. As he thought, he remembered other things. Things he had shoved to the back of his mind. Rihanna had helped him do it ... Rihanna.
"Reno, please don't go again. It's dangerous… please."
"Reno, what happened? Did you try to leave?"
"Reno? You okay?"
"Just forget it."
"Reno!?"
The thoughts running through Reno's head were too much for him to take. All the memories that ran through his head… Good, bad… which ever, they were painful and he desperately wanted to forget… ignorance is bliss.
He stepped forwards, still desperately trying to avoid his conscious mind. He really had no idea where he was. Who was he with? That girl …Yuffie. And Rihanna too… Rihanna.
Whatever he thought about made him remember. His parents, his friends, his sister, Vanessa. The mental torture was too much.
"I'm the first to know, my dearest friends. Even if your hope has burned with time."
"How you think Reno's doing?" Yuffie asked, yawning.
"I don't know; I'm so worried about him…" Rihanna replied sadly.
"Yeah, me too. You don't think he's done anything stupid, do you?"
"I don't know. It depends on if he's in the right mind…"
"So, do you think he'll have come around?"
Rihanna looked at her sadly. "I don't know…I just really don't know." She wiped the tears that were forming in her eyes and looked at the girl next to her. Yuffie returned the gaze sadly and hugged Rihanna sympathetically.
"I'm sure he'll be alright." She said quietly.
The two girls sat, Rihanna desperately trying to stop her tears. Eventually, she gave up and let them fall. Yuffie listened to them falling on the ice below them. They were sitting inside the cave they had found, trying to keep warm. Yuffie's cell phone had long since stopped working so they couldn't call Tseng. They couldn't even call Cloud. Yuffie was very close to tears herself, yet she didn't actually know why. She shouldn't be sad for Reno; maybe she was sad for Rihanna. Whatever it was, she sat with Rihanna, being slightly more successful at hiding her tears.
"I cannot live; I can't breathe unless you do this with me."
It was like a maze, the icy tunnels worming their way through the mountain. Reno stopped and looked around him. He had no idea where he was, or where he was going. Everywhere around him in every direction looked exactly the same. Yet he felt he was being drawn somewhere, like he needed to be somewhere. He just didn't know where that place was. He just kept walking in the dark, oblivious to the dangers that could be lying right ahead of him. Then he saw it; light. Only a little at first, but the further he walked, the brighter it became. He picked up his pace, his footsteps echoing throughout the cave. He stopped as he got the exit and stepped outside. He gasped in amazement at the view ahead of him.
"Anything that's dead shall be re-grown, and your vicious pain, your warning sign, you will be fine."
Rihanna jumped out of her sleepy state and shook Yuffie awake.
"Did you just hear something?" she whispered.