Hey everyone! I tried to get this out before Christmas. Didn't happen but not too far off, right? Haha! I tried not to make you wait too long. Happy Holidays everyone :D
~Twenty-Six~
"Squeeze as hard as you can," the doctor told Cloud who held onto the grip tester in his right hand a little tighter.
"I am," he said.
"Alright," the doctor replied with something of a small frown.
"So," Hojo asked him.
For the last two hours, Cloud had undergone every test under the sun in the facility's small infirmary. Only the doctor had been present for the entire process and Hojo had been in and out of the room as the testing had gone on. Cloud was happy for that. The fewer the people to stare at him like the freak he apparently was the better. The doctor took the grip tester from him and with his hands free he reached to take hold of the blanket around his shoulders and pull it tighter around his shivering body. He hadn't yet warmed up since waking up from his death sleep. He had more feeling than he'd had when he first woke up. His chest was aching badly. It wasn't only the wound that had been stitched closed in his torso but he learned quickly he had deep and heavy bruising from the CPR that had been performed on him.
"There seems to be some minor tissue changes I think can be attributed to hypoxia," the doctor spoke to Hojo. "There's going to be some muscle and joint weakness for a few days but he should recover fine."
"Results of the neurological testing?" the professor inquired next as he looked down at Cloud, meeting his eyes which Cloud averted promptly. As much as he hated when the man would talk about him like he was some animal or some object, he hated it more when those black soulless eyes actually regarded him and met his own gaze.
"No obvious damage," the doctor revealed "But an MRI would be definitive."
"No. He's not a drooling invalid so that's good enough for me," Hojo concluded callously. "You tried to escape, C4," he spoke down at Cloud. "You tried to kill yourself, and how appropriate that you should fail at staying dead just as you have proven failure so many times in your life."
It was a statement that prompted a subtle eye roll from Cloud.
"I hope you enjoyed your leisure time outside because it's never happening again," the professor went on. Cloud couldn't help but crack a smile at that.
"Is something funny? I'm not joking," Hojo said fast.
Cloud turned his eyes up to look at him again. "You sound stupid," he declared, earning himself a harsh glare from the man. "What? You'll just never have me go outside? What use will I have stuck down here forever?"
Hojo smiled sadistically. "Why, your physical body alone can be harvested for many purposes" "While I certainly want you for this project, I don't necessarily need you, C4. Should you parish here, and now I doubt there is concern of that happening, the project will go on."
"Seriously? You want me to believe that you don't need me?" Cloud challenged. "After the lengths you've gone to to hold on to me."
"I think you forget you were not the only specimen in this project," Hojo pointed out, making Cloud pale in response to his words. "Oh, yes, C4. You are indeed special, that is for sure. There is no one quite like you, not that I have come across. Your rebellious antics infuriate me but I put up with them because I see your progress and I believe the end result is worth it. But just because you are the ideal candidate for my project does not mean you are the only one. Don't think because he's not here that he is free."
Cloud knew Hojo was talking about Zack and it made his stomach sink hard hearing the psychopath mention him. He wanted to be that person with a stone cold poker face, and when it came to his own welfare he could do an okay job at pretending he wasn't worried, but with Zack…It was impossible to pretend the threat against Zack didn't bother him. He knew his fear for Zack must be evident on his face in that moment, if only just a little. As he began to lower his head again, looking away from the professor, Hojo's hand took hold of his face and he was forced to look at him again. "You'd be wise to want to please me, C4 and realize your place here because if it's not you then it's someone else," he warned. "Do you understand me?"
For a moment Cloud felt incapable of saying anything. He imagined in an instant shoving Hojo back from him before coming to a fast stand, taking hold of him and slamming his face into the metal surface of the nearby counter.
"C4?" Hojo spoke a little sharper.
He nodded in the man's grip. "I do," he agreed.
"Good," Hojo said as he dropped his hand from Cloud's face. He turned as though he were about to leave the room again.
Asshole, Cloud thought to himself as he watched him with a feeling of disgust and distain. As much as he wanted to lunge at him and attempt to tear him to pieces, he knew he couldn't take any chances, especially now that Hojo had made it clear Zack wasn't free from danger. He had made a mistake jumping that wall in the courtyard. Before that point he'd had Hojo and Rand thinking he was starting to accept his current reality. He was actually successfully manipulating them into giving him certain liberties including better food. He'd really screwed himself now, unless of course he could manage some sort of damage control.
"Did you fire Rand?" he asked at Hojo's back as he was about to open the door and leave the exam room where they were.
"Excuse me?" Hojo replied fast as he turned to face him.
"What I did wasn't his fault," Cloud told him a little meekly. "He couldn't have known I would run. I didn't mean to."
The man actually laughed at him then. "You didn't mean to?" he repeated incredulously.
Cloud shook his head. "I wasn't trying to escape. I just…I was freaked out. I panicked," he declared.
Hojo looked at him skeptically. "Over what?" he asked.
"Seraph," was Cloud's soft answer.
"And why is that?" the professor asked him.
"Because it didn't work. It didn't do anything," he explained though he wasn't sure Hojo was buying it. In fact, he could tell by his expression that he wasn't.
"That matters to you why?" Hojo asked him and he didn't really know what to say. Was there anything he could say that would be believed?
"I was afraid," he said finally. It wasn't a lie. He had been afraid. Afraid. Desperate. Hopeless.
"Of what?" he was asked next.
He shrugged a little. "Punishment, or some sort of painful experiment." He sure was worried about that now. "I just—I wanted it to work and when nothing happened, I just…freaked out. I thought it'd be better to just not exist anymore." It wasn't exactly true. He'd wanted to escape. Swim to safety somewhere, but now that his plan had been a failure he couldn't have Hojo thinking he'd meant to escape.
The professor stared him down a moment, looking him over, trying to decide if he believed what Cloud was telling him. It took a long minute for him to reply. "So your assumption of something you don't understand made you take that leap from the cliff, not your desire to escape? Dying is better than this?"
Cloud knew he wasn't buying it. "Is that hard to imagine?" he shot at the man sharply. "After everything."
"You have made the process so much harder for yourself than was needed," Hojo snapped back at him. "You think I've done such terrible things to you but you don't think of how you could have helped make it easier."
That was it. There was no hiding his emotions now. Cloud's mouth nearly dropped open at the man's words. He was angry immediately. "You stole my life!" he nearly shouted at Hojo.
"It doesn't belong to you!" Hojo fired back at him in his own anger-laced tone. "I saved you, even after you took something from me," he declared.
"Sephiroth?" Cloud exclaimed. "He's alive," he argued.
"Not exactly," was Hojo's odd response. "What he is is irreparable, at least for the time being. And so I have you, and I know I can make you better than he was."
There was nothing Cloud could think of to say to that. Better than Sephiroth? A better person maybe. He didn't think much of himself but he knew he was at least better than that monster in a few respects. But a better fighter? A better soldier? That he couldn't imagine in a hundred years. Faced against him he knew he'd lose. The best he could hope for was to get in some cheap shots if the opportunity presented itself.
He shook his head. "I'll never be like him," he uttered quietly.
"Yes, you will," Hojo argued. "So long as you survive," he added through a devilish grin. "You want death so bad, C4, you're going to get it." It came out as a threat and his expression said he'd meant it to be a promise.
It wasn't long after that he was brought back to his cell. It would be days before he saw Rand again, which had him thinking he must have been fired, or maybe worse. When he was first returned to the cell he spent some time pondering what had happened to him and what had been said about what had happened to him. His ears had been wide open when listening to Hojo and Galen and the doctor discuss how it was possible he'd recovered from a fatal drowning. They each had their theories of course, but one word was making the rounds. Seraph.
He was confused though. Rand had told him Seraph needed to be activated in him for it to do anything. The Keeper had made it pretty clear to him that the compound hadn't been activated in him, on account of Hojo wanting to make sure he could be trusted with it. Was the man lying? Maybe. Maybe he actually knew nothing about Seraph. Maybe Rand had just wanted him to believe he didn't have control of Seraph.
Well, one thing was for sure, if Seraph was already activated and had been responsible for saving him, that's about all it could do for him at the moment. No amount of him imagining doing something with it like opening a locked door or punching through a cinderblock wall made it actually happen.
The following morning after he'd had his resurrection experience, the cell door opened early, around the time that a breakfast tray would normally be passed through the opening at the bottom of the door. He sat up, thinking it was Rand coming to see him for some reason. A chat. A game. A lecture. He wasn't sure. But it wasn't the Keeper who came into his cell. It was Galen, flanked by two clones.
"What's going on?" Cloud asked him as he got himself up out of his bed slowly. He had a feeling of dread immediately settling into his stomach.
"You're off to the lab, dynamite," Galen told him with a kind of knowing grin.
"Why?" he asked.
"Well, now, it doesn't really matter, does it?" Galen asked back. "Let's go," he said when Cloud's feet stayed planted to the floor.
Despite the feeling he had that he should fight, Cloud walked himself willingly to the lab where Hojo was waiting, along with the doctor. It was just them. No other assistants. No Rand, no Reno. It seemed so quiet. Something felt wrong. More wrong than usual.
His eyes were drawn to the metal table near the middle of the room. There was video recording equipment set up near it. Although he knew the lab itself had surveillance at all times, clearly Hojo was looking to get video documentation that was closer and of better quality of whatever he had planned.
"Would you come over here, C4?" Hojo beckoned him over.
"What's going on?" Cloud asked as he started to make his way slowly over to that menacing-looking slab of cold steel.
"It's going to be an exciting day today," Hojo told him before patting the top of the table. "Up you go," he directed. Cloud hesitated only a moment before complying, sitting himself up on the table. "Shirt off," the professor ordered and he removed his t-shirt slowly.
He could only guess at what was to come. He figured it must be some sort of examination, maybe to see how he'd progressed since the day before. Or maybe to check the wound on his chest that was rapidly healing. So quickly, in fact, that the stitches were nearly ready to be removed or else they'd be swallowed up by his newly growing tissue.
"Lie down," Hojo instructed next and he did, exhaling slowly as he did so. As his back touched the cold metal his skin broke out in goosebumps. "Aren't we the quick healer," Hojo remarked at seeing his incision site. "Restraints, please," he said in Galen's direction.
Cloud released a huff that caught Hojo's attention. "Problem, C4?" the professor asked him.
"Is it necessary?" Cloud asked while his wrists were being secured to the table. "I'm not fighting," he pointed out.
Hojo smiled. "Not yet," he replied darkly.
The words made Cloud suddenly very worried for himself but he didn't move or say anything as his legs were restrained and he watched Hojo and Galen getting ready to film whatever was going to happen.
He's going to kill me.
Those were the words that kept going through his head. Hojo's comment from the day before about how he was going to get the death he wanted so badly came to his mind. He didn't want to believe it because it didn't make sense. One second Hojo was telling him he was important and that he wanted him to be the next greatest thing compared to General Sephiroth, and the next he was killing him? He couldn't possibly believe that just because he'd somehow come back from the dead once that he could do it again…
"Right, we're ready," Hojo said to Galen as he finished putting on a pair of rubber gloves. Galen handed him something that made Cloud suddenly feel panic rushing through him. It was a knife. And not one of those surgical knives he'd seen and had used on him so many times before. It was a blade with a handle and it was big.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Cloud blurted up at him as he strained to lift his body against the table and the restraints.
"I'm going to kill you, C4," Hojo told him matter-of-factly. "I have to say it's something I've imagined doing at times in the past when you truly tested my patience.
"Are you fucking insane!" he yelled at the man hovering over him.
"You want the sedative?" Galen asked Hojo. He held out a syringe to him from the other side of the table.
Hojo denied to take it from him. "I've decided not to use it. I think I'd like him aware of what's happening to him," he said.
"I can gag him then," Galen offered and again Hojo turned him down.
"I'm quite fine with C4's screams. Nothing we haven't heard so many times before," he remarked with a grin.
Cloud darted his eyes from Hojo to Galen. Fear was bubbling through him, striking him all over. It was almost palpable. Like pain. But real pain was different. Pain was a strange thing. It wasn't always an immediate thing in response to trauma. He'd been impaled by sharp objects a handful of times in his life so it wasn't an unfamiliar thing to him but that fact didn't make it any easier to endure.
He was still looking at Galen when Hojo plunged the knife into his body. He felt a sudden pressure in his gut but it wasn't immediately painful. His breath caught in his chest and his whole body clenched up as he turned his head to look down his torso at the handle of the knife which was protruding from his flesh. The blade was fully submerged in his tissue. Even then he didn't feel the pain. It wasn't until Hojo pulled the knife from his body that he could feel it. He could feel the wound inside him and there was a sudden searing screaming agony that erupted as his blood seeped up and over the surface of his pale skin.
He was frozen, staring in horror at his wound until Hojo plunged the knife into him a second time, not far from where he'd planted the blade first. His instincts went haywire then. He screamed and fought his restraints as he was stabbed repeatedly in his torso. He didn't want to see what was happening but his eyes were locked in horror on his own body, watching the knife sinking into his body over and over. Dark red blood pooled and ran over his sides onto the table. Spots of it were flung into the air as the professor ripped the blade from his flesh. It dotted the man's white lab coat and he could feel it landing on his own face.
He begged Hojo to stop, crying in terror as he felt as though he was being carved up like some animal. It was the wounds to his chest, the knife blade penetrating his lung tissue that had his sounds dying down. Instead, blood was pushing its way up into his airway and into his mouth. It had him choking and gurgling for oxygen.
Hojo pulled the knife from him then and lowered it to his side. He had finished his attack and was now watching him as he was dying on the table slowly. It wasn't the blood that was suffocating him the killed him though. Somehow he was still able to manage the shallowest of breaths. It was the rapid blood loss that finished him off. It found his vision blurring and darkening and he was overcome by a heavy sinking sensation. The last thing he felt was his heart pounding hard against the wall of his chest, trying and failing to pump blood through his vital organs. It was sudden then. One moment he was simply dying, and the next he just…wasn't.
He was…alive. Wait? Was he alive? He must have been. He was standing, breathing. He was…surrounded in light.
He looked down at his body, and touched his hands to his chest. No wounds. Not even the wound he'd had from the day before that had been stitched closed.
"What's happening?" he asked aloud.
He felt strange. Like he couldn't quite feel the world around him. He had to look down to be sure his feet were on the ground. There was no ground. Not exactly. He could see it if he thought about it but if he didn't imagine there was a floor below him then he could see straight through it to miles and miles of twisting and sparkling streams of light.
"Oh my god," he uttered in shock. He became overwhelmed quickly. All the light, the feeling of infinite space…it was almost terrifying, but somehow he knew he was safe and that nothing could harm him there if he didn't let it. It didn't do much to put him at ease though. Just as overwhelming as the feeling of the vast space around him was, so was the feeling he had that he was completely on his own, and it had him overcome in a sudden anxiety.
Where was he? What awful experiment was he in now? How did he get out of it? Not knowing what else to do he started to run, trying to find something he recognized, or at least something that looked different.
"Wha—what do I do?" he whispered to himself as he ran himself short of breath. Another voice had him stopping dead in his tracks. He thought he'd heard it from somewhere behind him. When he turned around all he could see was the nothingness he'd run through. "Hello?" he called back. He lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the light. He heard it then. The other voice.
"Zack!" That's what it sounded like the voice had said.
"What?" Cloud squinted to make out what looked like a shadowy figure taking shape.
"Zack," the voice repeated. "It's me."
"Who are you?" Cloud asked.
"It's me," the person, a man, repeated in a deep voice. His features started to become clear. He was tall, muscular, with dark hair. He felt somehow that he knew him and yet he didn't recognize him. "It's Angeal," he said just before his face came clearly into view.
"Angeal?" Cloud said his name in surprise. He did know him. Or of him. Zack's old mentor from SOLDIER. He was met with a look of confusion.
"You're not Zack," Angeal commented with what looked like clear disappointment, and maybe something else, like relief. "You feel like him."
"What?" Cloud replied.
"Who are you?" the man asked him. It sounded almost accusatory.
"I—" Cloud stumbled with his words.
"You know Zack," Angeal stated a little softer, perhaps realizing he was coming across too harshly. Cloud nodded a little at that. "You're close to him. I can see it now. It's what confused me," he explained. "I followed his energy to you. I thought he'd…I thought something must have happened to him to find him here so soon before his time."
"Why?" Cloud asked. "Where are we?"
Angeal stared back at him a moment. "You don't know?" he questioned gently and Cloud shook his head. "What's your name?" the man asked him.
"Cloud," he told him.
"Do you remember what you were doing before you came here, Cloud?" Angeal questioned him and he nodded. Of course. Something that horrific wasn't likely to escape his memory any time soon. "You know, then, don't you?" the man said.
He knew. Of course, he knew. He felt it and seeing Zack's dead mentor simply confirmed it. He couldn't say it though. He got a renewed feeling of anxiety instead and it must have showed on him. A sudden light-headed feeling had him sitting himself down slowly.
"It's alright," Angeal told him.
"Is there a way out?" Cloud asked him and Angeal surprised him a little with a short laugh.
"Not if your time is up," he told him. "It's a lot to take in, I know," he added as he sat himself down near Cloud.
"Sorry I'm not who you thought," Cloud said softly. "I know how much Zack cared about you. He'd probably lose his mind if he saw you."
"Your bond is strong. I'm surprised I didn't know you from before," the man commented a little sadly.
"I didn't meet Zack until after you were gone, less than a year after actually," Cloud explained. "At the SOLDIER Academy." That's what he was told anyway. He couldn't really remember that far back. He did have memories of Zack talking of his old mentor though. Their bond hadn't been unlike his with Zack now. "He's my best friend," Cloud told Angeal. "More than that," he said a little quieter. He felt tears coming on then as he thought suddenly about the fact that in the Lifestream he had no hope of ever seeing him again, unless of course something happened to his friend to land him in that place, which is the last thing he wanted.
"Well, I'm happy to know he had someone he could care so deeply about," Angeal said.
"How did you find me?" Cloud asked. "You said you followed his energy. How does it work? I mean if I wanted to find someone here how would I do it?"
"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure," Angeal admitted. "You sent out one hell of a signal when you got here. I'd be surprised if it wasn't felt through the whole Lifestream. It was pretty easy to follow your trail. Other energy signatures are more subtle. I think you'd know if you found who you were looking for if you got close enough. Sorry. I know that's not very helpful."
"That's okay," Cloud said. "I was just thinking maybe—"
He was silenced by an odd sensation that vibrated through his whole body. It was a strong feeling that every one of his cells were being jerked downward. He felt suddenly like the very matter of his body was shifting and changing, like one of those strange surfaces around him. He looked at Angeal and the man smiled lightly.
"Well, Cloud, guess it's not your time after all," he said but the words didn't make sense right away. A deep sharp pain in his chest had him shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth as he tensed his whole body. It stole his breath from his lungs and when he was finally able to gasp in some air he realized something was different. When he opened his eyes and recognized the ceiling of Hojo's lab, he knew somehow he'd fallen from the Lifestream back onto the living plane.
He cried out from the intense agony he felt in his torso. It felt again like he was being stabbed. He came to the conclusion quickly he must have simply passed out while Hojo was attacking him. The Lifestream had been some real-feeling dream. The pain had him trying to turn himself over onto his side but he couldn't do it. He heard the voices of Hojo and the doctor then.
"That's good, make the insertion," he heard Hojo say and he felt his left arm being lifted a little. He hadn't yet opened his eyes again after initially seeing that he was still in the lab but he did then so that he could see what was going on. What he saw was the doctor prepping his arm to insert a needle. He looked at his own torso, expecting to see blood but his skin was clean. He could, however see some lines of blue stitching. How long had he been passed out? From there he looked up at where Galen was hanging a bag of what looked like blood from an IV pole just behind the doctor. He rolled his head on the table looking to the other side where he met Hojo's gaze and his wide satisfied grin.
"I think commendations are in order, Galen," Hojo remarked, glancing over at his head assistant before turning his eyes back to Cloud. "We've managed the impossible. I do believe we've got our very own immortal."