Cloud dreams.

The gun has its own heartbeat in his hands. It pulsates in the trigger and jostles his pointer finger. Jostles his lungs so that he pants. His visible breath curls in on itself as the cold rain cuts through it. A realisation just as cold cuts through him.

The gun is real.

For all that he already knew this, Cloud had not understood what it might mean. Vague ideas as to how a gun ended up in a trash bin had drifted across his mind when he wiped the dirty bits of this and that from its surface. Midgar was rife with crime: it would not surprise him if what he held in his hands had been disposed of after taking a life.

Cloud had just not thought that he would ever be the one to do the taking.

That he believed he held no illusions about Midgar is nothing less than embarrassing. It had not seemed possible for reality to be worse than its reputation. Even as far away as his hometown of Nibelheim, the people there called Midgar a thunderstorm of a city. Just the first few hours spent here had been enough to confirm the rumours: this place is as cold and unrelenting as the rainfall that greeted Cloud upon his arrival in the bay. It is every bit as thrilling as the first peal of thunder that cracked the tension in his bones open like the glass chamber of a glowstick.

He should have known what else Midgar was when the storm and the sea had nearly swept him from the ferry's deck.

If it had not been for Mr. Wallace, maybe Cloud would have known better. His prosthetic hand had felt cool against Cloud's bare arm as the man pulled him under the cover of the upper deck. Somehow, being berated by Mr. Wallace for his recklessness had made Cloud think that Midgar might not be as unfriendly as he first imagined.

It hits him now how wrong he was to think that Midgar's lightning was made up of neon lights and the rapid pace of all who walked under them. Feeling as metallic as the gun in his hands, Cloud anticipates the strike.

The stranger straddling him now is no lightning. The blows he landed earlier on Cloud are something like the smell of ozone: a threat. Shaking with indignation, the man lunges for the gun.

Cloud fires.

The recoil takes Cloud by surprise. He is still flinching from it when his finger pulls the trigger a second time. Each bullet is a raindrop and the man nothing more than breath.

His heartbeat thunders in his ears as the man collapses sideways.

Midgar is not a thunderstorm, Cloud knows.

He wakes up as one.