The area around Cloud's wooden bed was very dark and his eyes were still open. A strange and eerie noise was preventing him from sleeping, but he couldn't figure out why. Its pitch was fluctuating while it floated around his ears.
"Cloud... come... with... me..." it repeatedly said. Cloud looked around the inn room. His friends were dozing smoothly despite that voice. He then made another attempt to sleep.
"Maybe it's from me telling my friends about Sephiroth." he whispered. The ghostly noise continued to the point where Cloud had enough. He decided to find the site of the voice. It was not like the voices that the had been hearing during his recent adventures. It was also not the voice of his mother or Zack Fair, whom he had lost years before. Cloud got off the bed and started to find the cause of the voice; he couldn't find any evidence. Cloud decided to not disturb his friends' sleep but instead find the voice alone. He walked outside and observed the street; no one was here. The moon's whitish shine and the streetlights were the prominent light source at this night. After a pause, the voice kept speaking.
"Come... with... me..., Cloud..." it whispered. Cloud looked around but he git the same result, causing him to get deeply confused. He walked around the quiet town, hoping to find clues of that noise. Very few lights were lit in the brick houses though an aroma of coffee exited one of them. It had a chocolaty scent mixed with it, but it didn't distract Cloud. The cold midnight air covered the streets and alleys.
"I don't know why this is happening, but I got to find out." remarked Cloud. Sweat was starting to exit his skin as he accelerated. The voice got loud and deeper as time passed. An unpleasant smell of Chocobo eggs was also emerging. He followed the smell by sniffing until he came to a dark alley, with nothing here. Cloud sractched his spiky blonde hair in confusion. That foul odor was still present despite the emptiness but the voice was now quiet.
"How can that smell exist without eggs." he said. "I better a dream I'm in." Cloud turned back to the path in which he came. For the first dozen yards, he only heard the sound from the streetlights and nocturnal animals. However, as he got closer to the inn, he noticed a blueish cloud floating in a street. The scent was returning to Cloud's nose. He couldn't handle the smell much longer, so he pinched his nose. The cloud vanished quickly but the door was still there.
"I... am... here... Cloud!" that same voice spoke. Cloud's knees were shaking in fear. He rushed inside the inn to grab his Buster Sword. Only then, this had woken up his friend, Tifa. She yawned and checked the time; it was past one o'clock. She looked at Cloud, who was about to leave the inn.
"Cloud, why are you up so early?" she asked, "It's only six past one." Cloud jumped and shook his head, looking for that Cloud. He saw that Tifa was awake.
"There is someone talking to me, but it's someone very different." Check answered, "Why won't you go back to sleep, please?"
"Cloud! You might be in big trouble with whoever's you're fighting." complained Tifa. Cloud ignored her and ran out of the inn. He saw that blue cloud again and proceeded to attack it. The cloud narrowly dodged the attack. He swung his sword multiple times, only to get the same failure.
"You... can't... kill... me... now." the cloud yelled in a ghastly tone. Cloud got increasingly exhausted and frustrated during the fight. After hundreds of fails, he gave up. The faceless cloud stared at the man for a while before revealing what he looked like. It was a face of a man with orange hair and blue eyes. He had many scars on his face, even one in the eyelids. However, he was smiling. At first, Cloud didn't recognize him but a faint memory got into his mind; that man was his father, who got killed by a wild animal. A teardrop started to fall from his left eye as he walked closer to his father.
"Daddy, is that you?" asked Cloud. He dropped his Buster Sword on the cobblestone road, knelt down, and stared at his father in shock. He couldn't believe that he is actually talking to the ghost of his deceased father. That rotten smell was still there but Cloud never cared. He was happy to see his father back. The cloud of his father hugged him as tight as he did.
"Son, do you remember me?" his father asked. He didn't expect Cloud to answer, as he started to have vivid memories with him, especially his own death.
I was six when this fateful day happened. I was helping my mother in making dinner. Daddy, like almost every day, was hunting in the wilderness. We had just finished on the meat when a male resident knocked on the door. My mother opened it and talked with the man. I saw my mother's face turning wan. She told me to go with her and I did. From the look of her grieved face, I knew that something terrible had happened.
Unfortunately, it was my father. He was in a hospital bed in the outskirts of Nibleheim. He was attacked by a rare wolf, so he had bloody cuts all over his body. Me and my mother waited nervously for the doctor to tell us to visit him. When he did, he had a sad and anxious face on him. He told us that Daddy was not going to make it. He let us into Daddy's bed, where he was in critical condition. Nurses were monitoring his body with machines when we entered. Me and my mother told him our final words to him before he had his turn.
"Remember me Celeste, my wife. Remember me Cloud, my son." were the last words he said before he passed away. His breathing stopped and his heart no longer pound. Me and my mother spent the rest of the day mourning his death. His death had shaped me, preparing me for more deaths of closer ones, including my mother.
The cloud of Cloud's father kept hugging him before he finally broke apart. He had been reading his son's memory and felt that his unexpected death was an important lesson for him. He vanished into thin air before Cloud had a chance to speak with him.
"Daddy?" he asked but his father never came back. He grabbed his Buster Sword and walked back to the inn. He saw that Tifa had fallen back to sleep, despite her previous concerns for him. He dropped his sword in the same spot and hopped back to bed. Many thoughts about his father were circling around his head. "That was very weird. That smell, my father's ghost, everything." he whispered. He gotten more tired from fighting so he had more courage to sleep. "But I'm glad to see my father once more." Cloud continued. He dozed off for the rest of the night as he would seldom forget it in his future adventures.