"Know what I'd like to see again when we get out of here?"
It's been over two weeks now, stuck up in this lousy tank. Sometimes when I sleep, I get sucked into Cloud's freaky little dream world. It's not so bad, if you don't mind being dragged along like some movie reviewer. At least it's close enough to a real dream that once I wake up I don't always remember it. Sharing dreams is so strange, to wake up panting at the same minute in a nightmare or groggily try to remember the same details. Peicing together Cloud's dreams was something that kept him sane. Or maybe kept me sane. I wasn't trying to concentrate too hard on who was going crazy. It didn't really matter to me anyway. I knew we couldn't be kept in here forever. Actually I didn't know that at all but jeez, what good was it going to do imagining that that Hojo psycho was going to turn us into a well salted lunch platter?
Did you ever have a moment where before, you had this huge monstrous plan sorta figured out and it was all moving along on the run, real smooth, and then it just seemed to die out on you? I was feeling that right now. It was the first time, too. I was starting to wonder if being stuck in these tanks was starting to kill me a little on the inside. It sure as hell was cramping more than just my style. There was less to talk about, less to think about. If dreams become your whole world, what the hell seperates it from reality? I felt like a kid in a playpen, trapped in here all day. He hadn't touched us in the whole time since he had us locked in here. We'd been left entirely alone, come to think about it. Lights off, except for the little bits of emergency lights left on in the hall. It was like you were living in a shadow world. Shadow me, Shadow Cloud. It's so unreal, two weeks, and it's still too big for me to wrap my brain around that we're really in here.
Cloud didn't say anything at all to my questions. He'd stopped talking again, for the most part. I don't think it was the Mako anymore so much as the thought of being locked up in here. Sometimes you'd say a word wrong and he'd freak out. Fire and he'd scream. Sephiroth, screams. It was like walking in a mine field but I was starting to get better at it. Like a dream I had once, where I'd been dragged to a mine field and I could see the mines in the sand. Damn, why did I have to remember my nightmares right now? Getting morbid wasn't going to keep me sane. Shit shit shit. Whatever happened to the shy kid asking me to help him study to get into SOLDIER? Locked down somewhere inside an ultra-deffensive shell somewhere, I guess.
Kicking my feet in the air, I was lying on my back in the tank. Cloud was pulled up into a little ball opposite me, his arms wrapped tight around his knees and his nose burried. His eyes were shut up like he was sleeping, but I didn't think he was. Anyway I hoped he wasn't. It didn't really matter, the talking didn't seem to do anything for him. Mostly for me then. I swung my feet lightly against the rounded sides of the chamber, and they made a light slapping sound. It was still cold in here, I could still see my breath a little if I tried. I wished I'd looked for boots, or socks, or something. Cloud didn't seem to care, but he was prettymuch catatonic at the same time. It was like talking to a dog that'd just drank a bowl full of spilled martinis, only not so amusing, because Cloud didn't walk around the chamber and then fall over making funny barking sounds. By this point I'd actually forgotten what I wanted to say when I tried to start the conversation, but starting over again wasn't a problem. I mean hell, I wanted to do a lot once we got out of here.
"Think I'd like to climb up a mountain and sit at the top, and see what's so great about mountaintops." I started to let my thoughts ramble. If Cloud was listening, at least he wouldn't be in silence. "You know what I mean, Cloudman? There's always gurus and chosen ones and enlightened people at the top of mountains, sitting around and absorbing the brainpower of the earth or something. Probobly my brainpower. That would suck, ya know? If a bunch of psychos on the top of the mountains who liked to levitate and make humming noises were sucking out my brain. I mean, I put it to better use than they do, I think. Or at least I would, if we weren't locked in this stupid itank/i." I kicked the glass solidly with my foot, but it just shook a little. Cloud's tank must have been more sturdily built than my own. Come to think of it, the structure was different overall. Maybe it was built for something else. I didn't feel like thinking about that in particular. "But if we were out of here, I'd be up the mountain already, right?" I grinned and kept rambling. It felt good to hear my own voice instead of just air. "If there was somebody else up there, you'll help me throw him off, right Cloud? I mean, a skinny old levitating guy can't put up that much of a fight against us too, unless he's sucking out our brains at the same time. Which would just be creepy. I think we need to rid the world of yogis, Cloud."
Course he didn't move. I sighed and swung my feet away from the glass, tapping him on the back with the heel of my foot. No response, still. Cloud was so damned allergic to Mako, I guess, that it made him go schizophrenic. Or catatonic. Wasn't that a kind of schizophrenia? I completely forgot. I could feel the little bit of heat off his back with my foot and couldn't help but pull a face. We were probobly going to freeze to death in here at the rate they were letting us go. Or at least get sick. Being drowned in Mako was close enough to breathing mucas, maybe we'd get pnumonia. Owch, that would suck. These guys probobly wouldn't know what was wrong til I spit blood on them, too. Most of the kabuki shadows were about as intelligent as you'd expect a monkey trained to flick a lightswitch and press a button to be. You jump at them and they spaz and run six feet away screaming about 'acting out.' It wasn't like much could be done...
"Hey, Cloud, wouldn't kill you to move or something. You're going to turn to stone if you stick like that forever. Either that or your ass is going to freeze to the floorplates. Hey, look on the bright side, they haven't done any really weird stuff since they put me in here with you. We probably set back their schedual a good couple weeks," I shook him with my foot. About the best reaction I got was him pulling his shoulders up a little more around his neck. I sighed...there really wasn't anything happening here. I didn't want to say something or think something that'd make him start screaming and thrashing around like before...but I was so tired of getting no response whatsoever. But...still...
I felt Cloud's shoulders shake from under my foot, the muscles along his shoulderblades contracting in a little spasmodic shiver. I sat up and moved my feet off his back, watching silent for a moment...The shaking was irregular but I could hear him now too, the little rhythmic pant and gasp and strained sounds of someone who didn't want you to hear when they were crying, because it would make things worse. Damnit, I didn't know what I'd said but...I rolled over and crawled towards Cloud on my elbows, nudging against him with my shoulders. He waivered a little and his breathing changed slightly, but nothing else really. "Hey...C'mon. Cloud," I nudged him again and this time he shook his head and curled up tighter. At least I got something though. "Look, don't be like that. It's gonna be okay, Cloud. I promised I'd get us out of here and I'm gonna. Okay?"
Another shiver ran over Cloud, his nails digging into the fabric that bunched around his curled up knees. At least it wasn't his skin, cause the way he was latching in there he looked more than ready to cause some damage to himself. Coiling my knees under myself and sitting up, I gripped Cloud's shoulder and gave it a little shake, just to let him know I was there. In the little bits of reflective light, the tears slithering down Cloud's cheeks reflected individually...trails of ice blue leading into his eyes and down towards his heart. Trying to connect outside to inside...or something equally metaphorical. Cloud tried to inhale and calm himself down, I guess, but it sounded ragged and shook his entire body like a miniature seizure. I moved my other arm around him and hugged against the shaking. He'd gotten so skinny so quick, even though he was eating. I might have too, but I think Cloud was worrying himself thin. Wrapped up shaking and crying like that he was so small...I could carry him out of here, couldn't I? All it would take was me to get myself out.
Uncurling just long enough to latch against me into that vice grip I was starting to get used to and welcome, Cloud's tears started pooling against the skin on my arms and sliding down towards the grated floor, probobly gone into some Mako oblivion. A little while in the darkened round cell, it was all quiet. Without warning though, Cloud's nails dug into my skin and he pulled...not away, this time, but towards me, like he was trying to fold up inside who I was. There was a high pitched keening sound and I thought at first he might start to laugh...but it disolved almost instintaniously into strangled sounds of crying. What the hell was I supposed to do...He wanted to disappear, to get the hell out, and I couldn't even do that right now. The best I could do...was...
Stroking evenly against Cloud's shaking shoulderblades, I rubbed his back and held back to his desperate clutching. There wasn't much else to do...I prefered this Cloud to the completely silent one, though. At least this Cloud knew what he was feeling inside. To me, something was nipping at the bottom of my heart, a little demon pixie dragon. Maybe if I had someone to lean on too, instead of having to be the unbreakable one, I'd feel the same way he did. I couldn't affourd to drop into a depression like Cloud's though. Not here, not now, not in this underground shop of sharp toys and sadistic children.
There was a sputtering outside as the lights crackled to life, the flourecent slicing through the darkness with such violence I jerked back against Cloud in pain. Not much good, he dug his nails deeper and I had to swallow the yelp back down that would have escaped. He would probobly make me bleed if he kept latching into me like this but hell...he wouldn't have to know. Through gritted teeth, I made out at least one shape that didn't waltz out of kabuki playhouses. Think of the devil and he shall make a goddamn appearance, tapdancing across stage with a cane. Evil was always one for great entrances.
Hojo moved in with a flank of two kabuki trainies, decked up in white. Extentions of him, arms maybe. Great...fuck me with a ten foot pole if these aren't contrived metaphors. At least he knew a thing or two about psychology.
"Well, Zack my boy," The thinness of his eyes dug with little knifetips inside my mind. He didn't even have to narrow them to turn them that way. Preditorial eyes. I guess I must have looked yummy. "You've both had a rather long rest break...shall we begin the testing now? Do you feel...up to it?"
I had a feeling if I did or not didn't really matter. "Hit me, Doc," I muttered through clenched teeth. "It can't be any worse than what I can invent on the inside."
I thought I saw the ghost of a smile flicker on his face before Hojo walked away. I hoped to god I didn't, as the hiss of hydraulics filled the cell for the first time in two weeks. Shit, I hoped to the devil. It didn't seem like a god would dare stick their face in this place. It's hard to face up to failures.
It's been over two weeks now, stuck up in this lousy tank. Sometimes when I sleep, I get sucked into Cloud's freaky little dream world. It's not so bad, if you don't mind being dragged along like some movie reviewer. At least it's close enough to a real dream that once I wake up I don't always remember it. Sharing dreams is so strange, to wake up panting at the same minute in a nightmare or groggily try to remember the same details. Peicing together Cloud's dreams was something that kept him sane. Or maybe kept me sane. I wasn't trying to concentrate too hard on who was going crazy. It didn't really matter to me anyway. I knew we couldn't be kept in here forever. Actually I didn't know that at all but jeez, what good was it going to do imagining that that Hojo psycho was going to turn us into a well salted lunch platter?
Did you ever have a moment where before, you had this huge monstrous plan sorta figured out and it was all moving along on the run, real smooth, and then it just seemed to die out on you? I was feeling that right now. It was the first time, too. I was starting to wonder if being stuck in these tanks was starting to kill me a little on the inside. It sure as hell was cramping more than just my style. There was less to talk about, less to think about. If dreams become your whole world, what the hell seperates it from reality? I felt like a kid in a playpen, trapped in here all day. He hadn't touched us in the whole time since he had us locked in here. We'd been left entirely alone, come to think about it. Lights off, except for the little bits of emergency lights left on in the hall. It was like you were living in a shadow world. Shadow me, Shadow Cloud. It's so unreal, two weeks, and it's still too big for me to wrap my brain around that we're really in here.
Cloud didn't say anything at all to my questions. He'd stopped talking again, for the most part. I don't think it was the Mako anymore so much as the thought of being locked up in here. Sometimes you'd say a word wrong and he'd freak out. Fire and he'd scream. Sephiroth, screams. It was like walking in a mine field but I was starting to get better at it. Like a dream I had once, where I'd been dragged to a mine field and I could see the mines in the sand. Damn, why did I have to remember my nightmares right now? Getting morbid wasn't going to keep me sane. Shit shit shit. Whatever happened to the shy kid asking me to help him study to get into SOLDIER? Locked down somewhere inside an ultra-deffensive shell somewhere, I guess.
Kicking my feet in the air, I was lying on my back in the tank. Cloud was pulled up into a little ball opposite me, his arms wrapped tight around his knees and his nose burried. His eyes were shut up like he was sleeping, but I didn't think he was. Anyway I hoped he wasn't. It didn't really matter, the talking didn't seem to do anything for him. Mostly for me then. I swung my feet lightly against the rounded sides of the chamber, and they made a light slapping sound. It was still cold in here, I could still see my breath a little if I tried. I wished I'd looked for boots, or socks, or something. Cloud didn't seem to care, but he was prettymuch catatonic at the same time. It was like talking to a dog that'd just drank a bowl full of spilled martinis, only not so amusing, because Cloud didn't walk around the chamber and then fall over making funny barking sounds. By this point I'd actually forgotten what I wanted to say when I tried to start the conversation, but starting over again wasn't a problem. I mean hell, I wanted to do a lot once we got out of here.
"Think I'd like to climb up a mountain and sit at the top, and see what's so great about mountaintops." I started to let my thoughts ramble. If Cloud was listening, at least he wouldn't be in silence. "You know what I mean, Cloudman? There's always gurus and chosen ones and enlightened people at the top of mountains, sitting around and absorbing the brainpower of the earth or something. Probobly my brainpower. That would suck, ya know? If a bunch of psychos on the top of the mountains who liked to levitate and make humming noises were sucking out my brain. I mean, I put it to better use than they do, I think. Or at least I would, if we weren't locked in this stupid itank/i." I kicked the glass solidly with my foot, but it just shook a little. Cloud's tank must have been more sturdily built than my own. Come to think of it, the structure was different overall. Maybe it was built for something else. I didn't feel like thinking about that in particular. "But if we were out of here, I'd be up the mountain already, right?" I grinned and kept rambling. It felt good to hear my own voice instead of just air. "If there was somebody else up there, you'll help me throw him off, right Cloud? I mean, a skinny old levitating guy can't put up that much of a fight against us too, unless he's sucking out our brains at the same time. Which would just be creepy. I think we need to rid the world of yogis, Cloud."
Course he didn't move. I sighed and swung my feet away from the glass, tapping him on the back with the heel of my foot. No response, still. Cloud was so damned allergic to Mako, I guess, that it made him go schizophrenic. Or catatonic. Wasn't that a kind of schizophrenia? I completely forgot. I could feel the little bit of heat off his back with my foot and couldn't help but pull a face. We were probobly going to freeze to death in here at the rate they were letting us go. Or at least get sick. Being drowned in Mako was close enough to breathing mucas, maybe we'd get pnumonia. Owch, that would suck. These guys probobly wouldn't know what was wrong til I spit blood on them, too. Most of the kabuki shadows were about as intelligent as you'd expect a monkey trained to flick a lightswitch and press a button to be. You jump at them and they spaz and run six feet away screaming about 'acting out.' It wasn't like much could be done...
"Hey, Cloud, wouldn't kill you to move or something. You're going to turn to stone if you stick like that forever. Either that or your ass is going to freeze to the floorplates. Hey, look on the bright side, they haven't done any really weird stuff since they put me in here with you. We probably set back their schedual a good couple weeks," I shook him with my foot. About the best reaction I got was him pulling his shoulders up a little more around his neck. I sighed...there really wasn't anything happening here. I didn't want to say something or think something that'd make him start screaming and thrashing around like before...but I was so tired of getting no response whatsoever. But...still...
I felt Cloud's shoulders shake from under my foot, the muscles along his shoulderblades contracting in a little spasmodic shiver. I sat up and moved my feet off his back, watching silent for a moment...The shaking was irregular but I could hear him now too, the little rhythmic pant and gasp and strained sounds of someone who didn't want you to hear when they were crying, because it would make things worse. Damnit, I didn't know what I'd said but...I rolled over and crawled towards Cloud on my elbows, nudging against him with my shoulders. He waivered a little and his breathing changed slightly, but nothing else really. "Hey...C'mon. Cloud," I nudged him again and this time he shook his head and curled up tighter. At least I got something though. "Look, don't be like that. It's gonna be okay, Cloud. I promised I'd get us out of here and I'm gonna. Okay?"
Another shiver ran over Cloud, his nails digging into the fabric that bunched around his curled up knees. At least it wasn't his skin, cause the way he was latching in there he looked more than ready to cause some damage to himself. Coiling my knees under myself and sitting up, I gripped Cloud's shoulder and gave it a little shake, just to let him know I was there. In the little bits of reflective light, the tears slithering down Cloud's cheeks reflected individually...trails of ice blue leading into his eyes and down towards his heart. Trying to connect outside to inside...or something equally metaphorical. Cloud tried to inhale and calm himself down, I guess, but it sounded ragged and shook his entire body like a miniature seizure. I moved my other arm around him and hugged against the shaking. He'd gotten so skinny so quick, even though he was eating. I might have too, but I think Cloud was worrying himself thin. Wrapped up shaking and crying like that he was so small...I could carry him out of here, couldn't I? All it would take was me to get myself out.
Uncurling just long enough to latch against me into that vice grip I was starting to get used to and welcome, Cloud's tears started pooling against the skin on my arms and sliding down towards the grated floor, probobly gone into some Mako oblivion. A little while in the darkened round cell, it was all quiet. Without warning though, Cloud's nails dug into my skin and he pulled...not away, this time, but towards me, like he was trying to fold up inside who I was. There was a high pitched keening sound and I thought at first he might start to laugh...but it disolved almost instintaniously into strangled sounds of crying. What the hell was I supposed to do...He wanted to disappear, to get the hell out, and I couldn't even do that right now. The best I could do...was...
Stroking evenly against Cloud's shaking shoulderblades, I rubbed his back and held back to his desperate clutching. There wasn't much else to do...I prefered this Cloud to the completely silent one, though. At least this Cloud knew what he was feeling inside. To me, something was nipping at the bottom of my heart, a little demon pixie dragon. Maybe if I had someone to lean on too, instead of having to be the unbreakable one, I'd feel the same way he did. I couldn't affourd to drop into a depression like Cloud's though. Not here, not now, not in this underground shop of sharp toys and sadistic children.
There was a sputtering outside as the lights crackled to life, the flourecent slicing through the darkness with such violence I jerked back against Cloud in pain. Not much good, he dug his nails deeper and I had to swallow the yelp back down that would have escaped. He would probobly make me bleed if he kept latching into me like this but hell...he wouldn't have to know. Through gritted teeth, I made out at least one shape that didn't waltz out of kabuki playhouses. Think of the devil and he shall make a goddamn appearance, tapdancing across stage with a cane. Evil was always one for great entrances.
Hojo moved in with a flank of two kabuki trainies, decked up in white. Extentions of him, arms maybe. Great...fuck me with a ten foot pole if these aren't contrived metaphors. At least he knew a thing or two about psychology.
"Well, Zack my boy," The thinness of his eyes dug with little knifetips inside my mind. He didn't even have to narrow them to turn them that way. Preditorial eyes. I guess I must have looked yummy. "You've both had a rather long rest break...shall we begin the testing now? Do you feel...up to it?"
I had a feeling if I did or not didn't really matter. "Hit me, Doc," I muttered through clenched teeth. "It can't be any worse than what I can invent on the inside."
I thought I saw the ghost of a smile flicker on his face before Hojo walked away. I hoped to god I didn't, as the hiss of hydraulics filled the cell for the first time in two weeks. Shit, I hoped to the devil. It didn't seem like a god would dare stick their face in this place. It's hard to face up to failures.