Cloud's Story Part 2:
A Mad Man Dancing in Flames
Cloud narrated, "Sephiroth disappeared after we returned to the inn. At first, I thought he just locked himself in his room, but he wasn't there. The next day, word got out someone broke the chains to the gates of Shinra Mansion. I knew that's where he went."
Feeling apprehensive, Cloud quietly walked up the old stone steps, and took to the old path towards the mansion. When he got there, he found a group of townspeople loitering just outside the gates. He could see it then, the scattered pile of chain in the grass, clean cut into pieces. The gate was open, but no one seemed to want to enter.
Brian was there, a hand on his hip while he spoke to a stranger thick with muscle. A couple of old ladies gazed fearfully at the mansion, frowning deeply as they muttered to each other. No Claudia. No other towns people. They were either oblivious to what was happening or just politely stayed in their homes.
Cloud thought of his mother for a moment, and wished she was there with the group, just so he could see her smile again.
However, Tifa was there, and her worried eyes quickly lifted from the camera man to Cloud when she saw him.
"He's been holed up in that mansion all day," she informed Cloud when he walked within the group.
Brian whirled around to throw his upset eyes at the young SOLDIER.
"We ain't leaving till we know it's safe to do so. I don't trust him," he argued. The muscular fellow standing next to him, crossed his arms with agreement, and that only seemed to flex his already large arms.
He asked specifically to Brian, "you think this town is safe?"
Cloud saw that he was bald, and yet, with a polished face structured under well tanned skin, and friendly eyes, having no hair suited the man.
The camera man lifted his young brows up, his camera slung around his shoulder like a lady's purse. "I wonder what he's doing in there?"
"Oh my, he looked crazy, that one did," an old lady blabbed, her wrinkled white finger up at the mansion. "I saw him. He cut up that chain lock like it was butter. Then summoned a lightning bolt to beak down the doors!"
Cloud got caught in the middle of all their blabber, everyone talking all at once. He thought they were all jumping to conclusion far too soon. Sephiroth was just troubled, that's all. Why was everyone so worried?
"Is he dangerous?" The bald one asked.
When there was affirmation from the group, Cloud felt to interfere before everyone started overreacting. He stretched his arms out, gesturing them all to halt.
"Stop! Sephiroth is not dangerous!" Cloud confirmed, eyes swimming on everyone till they fell on Brian.
"He's just troubled. I will go and have a talk with him," he assured.
Brian fumed. "What in God's name did you two find in that reactor?!" He demanded, fist up like he was ready to throw a punch.
"Papa, please!" Tifa wrapped her leather gloved hands around her father's fist to stop him from throwing it at Cloud's jaw. " Let him go talk to Sephiroth. He technically hasn't done anything wrong, yet. Right, Zangan?" she turned her large eyes to the muscular bald man, searching for support, and he smiled down at her.
"Give trust until it's broken. He hasn't done that yet, then I suppose let's just keep trusting" he agreed.
Brian scoffed and pulled his fist away, only to use that same hand to slice the air like a mist of flies were in front of his face. His eyes settled on Cloud, and they were furious.
"No. You Shinra men were supposed to take care of the monsters and that blasted reactor. Get Sephiroth's head out of his ass, and get the hell out of this town before there's more trouble," he warned.
Tifa put a hand to her mouth while the old ladies agreed with mutters. Cloud narrowed his eyes and quickly turned away from Brian before he said something regretful.
Paranoid old man
He walked pass the group, his boots crunching over the chains.
Everyone behind him continued to mutter, talking behind his back like grumbling anxious chickens clucking over each other while flapping their wings in circles.
There's no need to panic. Sephiroth is fine.
Cloud eyed the mansion before entering, hoping to spot the SOLDIER overlooking one of the droopy windows. Shutters were loose, some crooked, and there were windows that had none at all. From the second floor, there was a dusty white curtain, flowing out with its torn ends to the wind like ghosts trying to escape the crippling mansion. There, behind that curtain, Cloud could easily see the blue of a Shinra uniform. The blue stuck out easily from a place that faded overtime, all the brightness gone. And then the helm of the guard turned, as though looking right at him.
That Shinra infantryman. He's the only one left…
Cloud made that second floor room his goal when he walked over the burnt pieces of the mansion's main doors littered over old carpet. There was still bits of heat emitted off the broken wood, crackling gently from the lightning spell Sephiroth used.
Cloud then realized, this was the first time he ever entered the mansion, and he paused just to analyze it. It wasn't as disturbing as he thought it would be from childhood stories, but still, the place was eerie enough that his bare arms began to cover in goosebumps. The main hall, a barren place with a double staircase and dust covered carpet, grimly greeted Cloud. From a breeze that followed him through the entrance, cobwebs waved at him from the above chandelier, its bulbs off, some cracked.
At some point in the past, Cloud knew the place was once beautiful. The silver ornaments at the ends of the stairs had probably been polished and shiny once, though now crusty with rust. The carpet across the marble floor may have been in vibrant colors like the rest of the place, but with each step Cloud took, dust followed. A depressing grey film covered everything he saw as he made his way up the steps, the floorboards creaking loudly.
Out of habit, he led his hand along the railing, unaware of how much filth collected in his glove until he settled at the second floor. Paneled windows encircled with iron work like vines, loomed over Cloud when he reached the top of the stairs, letting grey light fall into the second hall.
With a grunt, Cloud brushed the dust away from his glove, and walked through a narrow hallway. Old paintings littered the walls, some portraying landscapes he still hasn't seen yet, others of portraits he didn't recognize. Vases, pottery, dead plants with mold, decorated the hall as he ventured through it quietly. Noises from invisible forces crept in the walls and on the floor, making Cloud tense. If he maneuvered correctly, he would be walking into the right room when he saw its door was open. He stepped through it, and found that Shinra guard stiffen.
The young lad gasped but quickly relaxed when he recognized Cloud. "Oh, it's you, phew," he breathed. Cloud analyzed the small room, more like a study judging by the walls covered in bookshelves. Each space along the shelves had been crammed with dusty volumes, mostly titles related to biology and genetics when Cloud glanced at them. There was a desk to one wall with an old simple chair, some more moldy plants, and an old carpet. In one corner, a flimsy metal smoke stack seemed to have cut through the floor and ceiling, taking up the whole corner with its odd structure like an oversized tin can.
Cloud tried not to look too disappointed when he said, "have you seen Sephiroth?"
The Shinra kid gripped his gun close to his body, and turned his helmet around the room as though he may be able to catch something Cloud had missed.
"I thought I saw him in this room a while ago, through the window. But when I came in here, he was gone," the kid explained.
Cloud was silent, displeased with the idea of searching around the entire mansion, and the young Shinra guard must've felt that because he began to leave the room.
"I'll check the other rooms," he muttered nervously, and left Cloud alone.
Cloud gazed out the very window he saw from the gates minutes ago, and thought it perplexing to look through it, beyond that damaged curtain, to find the group of villagers still out there. He could almost see himself there, before the shattered doors, staring up in through the curtain, mako eyes locked, like he was in two places at once. There was that odd feeling again, like he was in some time paradox, and he turned away quickly before it got too uncomfortable.
His eyes fell again to that smoke stack, and finally noticed what was so odd about it.
Cloud walked closer to it till he could then easily see the sliding marks across the metal sheet. He set his hands over it, feeling for a knob or crack he could pull until his fingers found an old iron bar the length of a small child. He pulled it, rusty orange staining his gloves, and the sheet slid into the wall with a screech.
It was painful for his ears, like a knife over a chalkboard, and Cloud tightened his teeth together through it until his eyes grew at what he discovered.
A descending spiral staircase.
It seemed misplaced when compared to the rest of the mansion, a secret passageway that appeared older somehow. Cloud poked his head inside, and found wooden stairs spiraling down into the unknown. It was almost like a tiny tower, with bone dry stone walls, cobwebs, and little critters in the cracks.
Cloud carefully stepped inside, the wood held into the stone snuggly, though it still made him nervous.
Nothing to do but go down.
He took a deep breath, and down he went, spiraling down deeper and deeper into the mansion until he lost track of where it met with the earth. The wood turned into dirt when Cloud's boot stepped into it. Old lanterns flickered weakly in dusty covered bulbs, providing weak light for him as he traveled into a long and narrow stone hall. It was more like a dungeon than an ordinary basement when he spotted old iron chains along the low ceiling like vines. As he pushed through them, they rattled together, old chandeliers of the imprisoned. Steel doors with bars caught his eye.
Curious, Cloud nudged his face into a set of bars along a door, and peered his Mako eyes through. Nothing but a room in mostly shadow. With what little light the hall lanterns gave, he could just make out the edges of yellow bones to one side of the room. His eyes widened with a gasp, and pushed himself away from the freak show.
"What the hell is this place?" Cloud muttered to himself, and he proceeded once more down the dungeon hall with anxiety, until his ears heard a familiar voice.
"In a two-thousand year old stratum buried deep in the North Crater, an organism we thought to be dead, was found inside it. Professor Gast named that organism, Jenova," a flat voice echoed.
Sephiroth
Cloud hurried till he came to the end of the hall, which led him to a door. He opened it slowly, Sephiroth's voice growing louder.
"X Year, X Month, X Day. Jenova is confirmed an Ancient. I must find out more about this creature…"
Cloud's eyes adjusted to a well lit library and lab, made up of bookshelves that stretched from carpet to ceiling. Ceiling lamps and lanterns held better light in the room, giving Sephiroth an advantage to read a book in his hand while he wandered around aimlessly. Cloud noticed a collection of books on the floor, and when he stepped deeper into the room, he could see there were many piles of them.
"X Year, X Month, X Day. We got our Jenova project approved. Mako Reactor 1 has been approved for this purpose," Sephiroth read, his face almost touching the old pages of a scientific diary.
The legendary SOLDIER took no notice of Cloud, only passing him as he read silently to himself, his eyes far away. His lips continued to move, as though silently speaking to himself, the bottoms of his boots dusty from maneuvering back and forth for who knows how long. Cloud bit his lower lip when he observed how much Sephiroth was absorbed in his reading, his fine silver hair rather dull and unkept under the lantern light.
Cloud was even more disturbed at what else dwelled inside the basement: human sized tanks with mako inside them, still glowing with energy like someone forgot to turn it off. Pipes ran through the stone walls, delivering the mako probably from the distant reactor, and running it all through the machines he didn't recognize. A large desk held more piles of books, some opened to the last page.
Cloud eyed it all with nervousness, and turned his attention to Sephiroth, again his back to him.
"Sephiroth…" he called to his leader.
But Sephiroth was shaking this head to himself, and then he slowly dropped his hand with the diary he was reading. Quietly, Cloud watched him lift his eyes up to the stone ceiling, lengthening his long silver hair almost to the floor.
"My mother's name was Jenova. And there was Jenova project. Is this just a coincidence?" the troubled man asked the sky. When there was no answer, he lowered his head till his eyes fell to the floor.
"Professor Gast, why didn't you tell me any of this? Why did you have to die?" he whispered to himself, pretending the ghost of the brilliant scientist was there with him.
Slowly, Cloud stepped closer, till he could almost lay a hand atop of Sephiroth's shoulder, but before he could-
"Please, I want to be alone," Sephiroth confessed, not even bothering to give Cloud a knowing look.
This made Cloud freeze, his mouth dry when he thought to say something, but he swallowed all his potential words instead.
His once open hand, ready to help Sephiroth, closed into a fist, and he straightened up with one last look at the symbolic long silver hair before retreating. Cloud left Sephiroth in that basement.
He should've talked sense into him…
"Sephiroth didn't leave the mansion," Cloud told us. "He continued to read in that basement, as if he were possessed by something. I stayed in one of the old rooms, always checking on that staircase door in hopes that the lights of the basement would be out, but they didn't. All through the day, and into the night, he planted himself in that basement. And then…"
Cloud awoke to something that seemed to shake his bones, like a chilly wind that came out of nowhere. Or maybe the walls of the mansion trembled, like the place itself was suddenly disturbed. The room was dark from nightfall as he climbed out of an old bed that may have once belonged to a scientist, and with sword on his back, he quietly tiptoed back to that room with the secret door. On his way, he felt it again, that strange sensation, a vibration that went into the floor and up his feet.
Cloud opened the door to the staircase slowly, until laughter echoed up to greet him. He could feel it give vibrations to the door, and then to his fingers, and that's when he knew what it was.
A cold sweat dripped across his forehead, suddenly feeling hot and cold all at once, and he sucked in a shaky breath before traveling down the same stairs.
He reached the bottom, and there it was again, that laughter.
Cloud hurried through the dungeon section of the basement, and threw himself through the door into the basement lab. Sephiroth was nowhere to be found in the lab part of the room. Cloud quickly dashed deeper inside, through the narrow hall of books, and stopped short when he found Sephiroth eying him with complete ease.
It was the end of the basement, a whole room filled with bookshelves and a massive desk right in the middle.
Sephiroth sat at that desk, his boots settled up on it carelessly with dirt and soot across open books. So many gaps in the shelves, possibly where books may have been pulled from, many of them surrounding Sephiroth in tall stacks. The possessed man smiled up at Cloud, his sword across his lap like a villain does to a cat.
Cloud didn't like that smile.
Still beautiful, Sephiroth had dark circles under his eyes, his smiling lips cracked dry. Something about his look disturbed Cloud as he swallowed, and tried to take a deep breath.
"Sephiroth, what's going on?" Cloud portrayed in a serious tone.
But Sephiroth could see the uneasiness in Cloud's eyes, and his smile only grew.
"The Cetra…" he began, and he rose from a plush chair, his eyes still as far away as ever. He saw Cloud, but it seemed he didn't really see him either.
"Did you know this Planet originally belonged to the Ancients, or what they used to be called, the Cetra? They were a migrating race, and they settled in on a planet, help it thrive, and then move on? At the end of their harsh, long journey, they would find the Promise Land and Supreme Happiness."
Sephiroth raised his eyes up to an old ceiling lamp and continued. "But some of the Cetra didn't like the journey. They wanted an easier life, and so they stopped migrating, stayed behind, and began to build shelters, until civilization planted. And then many years passed, thousands of years, until they forgot how to use their powers, forgot how to even communicate with the planet. They took so much from the Planet and not even considered giving back in return! Those-"
Sephiroth pointed a long gloved finger at Cloud so hard, Cloud took a step back as though he was hit.
"-were YOUR ancestors! And that makes you a traitor!"
Cloud narrowed his eyes at the mad man. "What?! Sephiroth, what's gotten into you?"
He was ignored when Sephiroth continued to lecture while he flicked his sword hungrily at a partial empty bookshelf.
"Long ago, disaster struck this planet. A meteor…" the sword cut into a spine of a book. "Your ancestors escaped because they stayed hidden. But the Cetra, those who continued to migrate and speak with the planet, perished. They used their magic and sacrificed themselves to keep the planet safe. Thereafter, your ancestors continued to populate."
Sephiroth waved the tip of his sword across a few opened books left on the floor, a few of the pages clean cut into pieces by his boots. He was slowly destroying the only knowledge of the ancients, chuckling to himself with his aqua eyes glowing with mako swimming behind them.
"Now all that's left of these Cetra are in these reports," he muttered, and cut into more pages with little concern.
Cloud shook his head at such behavior while he clenched his fist at his sides.
"What does any of this have to do with you?!" he blurted.
Sephiroth gently smacked his hand to his forehead, and dragged his eyes up to the ceiling.
"Don't you get it?!" He dropped his glowing eyes to Cloud. "That ancient two-thousand year old stratum that was found, was Jenova. The Jenova Project. Professor Gast made the Jenova project, which moved to that reactor in Mt. Nibel so that scientists could try to produce people with the powers of the Cetra! When he died though, Hojo took over his work, and well, has failed miserably."
And instead, he's made monsters, Cloud thought gravely.
Sephiroth walked up to Cloud, and a cold smile planted on his face, sending ice down Cloud's spine.
"That was how I was produced," he said with excitement, like it was something to boast. Cloud lifted an eyebrow and almost coiled back in disgust.
"Pr-produced?!" he stuttered.
Sephiroth chuckled, and walked pass him, arms out and sword dragging along behind him, its tip leaving a single clean cut all along the wood floor.
"Professor Gast, leader of the Jenova project and genius scientist, produced me! I was the only successful creation to be produced from Jenova!"
He continued onward, pass the towers of books. Cloud was left alone in the study, frozen in disbelief.
No. Sephiroth, why? Please don't be like this.
He twirled around, watching the silver haired man slowly leave him behind.
"Sephiroth! Wait!" he hurried to him, his hand out, ready to reach him.
Sephiorth's green Materia glowed in his armor, and without turning around, he lifted his hand and flung it back like a backwards smack.
"Out of my way!" Sephiroth threatened. Strong winds blew Cloud back so hard, he was hurled through the air, and over the desk until his back and sword crashed into the bookshelves. Cloud let out a cry, the hit of his own sword sharp on his spine till his legs and arms grew numb. Oxygen in his lungs escaped him, leaving him gasping when half his body collapsed over the desk, his sword smacked to the ground with a long clank. Books fell, and his arms flopped like dead weight. He wheezed as he struggled to lift his head up, watching Sephiroth slowly disappear.
"I'm going to see Mother!" the crazy man bellowed. Not even a look over his shoulder, Sephiroth flung his blade across the books wildly, vines and jungle in his way until he vanished.
"Sephiroth…(wheezed)…" Cloud's trembling heavy hand reached for Sephiroth's shadow as he continued to wheeze, trying to get his air back. "…Stop.."
Cloud thought he blinked, but when he opened his eyes, he gasped, body stiff from being motionless for a long time. He must've blacked out for a while there. The numbness disappeared from his arms and legs, but his back ached. It hurt to stand up a certain way, making him feel like an old man when he straightened himself. As he arched his back, chest high to the ceiling, he inhaled the taste of smoke on his tongue, and gasped again.
Smoke.
Cloud's heart pounded up into his throat and ears, grabbing his sword and escaping the basement as fast as his enhanced legs would let him. As he dashed with lightning speed through the halls and up the stairs, the smell of smoke grew stronger until his eyes began to sting.
"No…" he whispered to himself when he reached the main hall. He stopped, noticing a distant orange light fall in through the broken doors across a portion of the floor, like a sunset.
But Cloud already knew. Inside him, somewhere in his soul, he knew before he even let it turn into thought.
His eyes turned misty. His breathing was shaky. Slowly, Cloud's boots shuffled through recently cut carpet, everything of him dreading for what he was about to see. He put a hand to the doorway close to its torn hinges, and pushed his head out into the night, his white face quickly a glow of orange.
He sucked in a breath and choked, his watery Mako eyes green from what they reflected.
"No…" he croaked.
Flames everywhere.
Cloud put a hand to his chest, and stumbled further outside the Mansion until he could see below him, a world of fire. Nibelheim. His town. No, his home. Where he began with both his mother and father. Where he grew up. Where he fell in love. Where he knew he could always come back to, even after he left.
It was his everything.
His everything was burning away, turned to ash up into the sky like black leaves dancing with the green spirits of his people.
"No." His lower lip quivered, eyes stuck to all the flames that engulfed the homes of the dozens of people that lived their lives peacefully. Smoke bloomed into the night sky, covering the stars and edges of the galaxy with its nightmarish form.
Distant screams vibrated through the cackling fire, and Cloud gasped, awake from his petrified spell. He flashed his attention down to his own home, and saw it was completely dozed in fire.
"Mom!"
He hurried through the path, descending till he made it to the steps. Smoke grew thick as it rammed into his face, and he coughed, hiding his mouth with his arm.
Flames licked his legs, mocking him with intense heat. Houses burned till they collapsed into themselves, roofs tumbling down as simply more fuel for the fire. Cloud jumped over burning debris from a collapsed home that used to be his neighbor, and he went straight for his burning home.
"Hey!" Cloud heard. He passed a screaming Zagan in the town square, the bald man with hands over his mouth to enhance the volume of his cries.
"Don't go that way! You'll die, kid!" he screamed, but Cloud quickly ignored him, and aimed to the burning door of his home.
Cloud kicked the door down easily, the wood flaring away like flimsy black paper. With speed, he stepped into a world of smoke and fire, falling into a coughing fit before he could cry out, "Mom!"
The roof was already falling into the house, a rain of fire falling into the floor.
Everything of his house had been touched by flames.
Cloud cowered his face with his arms, heat licking the legs of his pants till it burned through, touching his skin. He hissed in pain, and coughed up in tears from the smoke. Or maybe he was tearful for his mother.
"Mom!" he screamed, and then fell into another coughing fit. He couldn't find her. Her body may have already been buried in the fire, and he knew he had to get out before he too, was trapped.
This can't be real
Through the tears, Cloud squinted behind his arms while slowing backing away, towards the doorway. His foot tripped over what he first thought was part of the fallen roof, but when he turned to glance at it, he gasped.
"Mom!" he found her lying on the floor, encircled by flames, her body black from smoke.
Cloud wrapped his arms around her body, her skin boiling hot, and dragged her as fast as he could. His legs burned, the clothing peeling away. His arms, already bare, turned red from the burns, but as hard as he might, Cloud fought through the flames and stumbled outside into the smoky night. He collapsed over the cobblestone town square, his mother's body lying next to him. Cloud took only short seconds to collect his breath before crawling to her, his shaky hands to her shoulder to roll her on her back.
"Mom, wake up!" he cracked, shaking her shoulders. Her eyes remained closed, mouth open with a grey tongue behind dry lips. Her dress had been scorched, and her face blistered till she was almost unrecognizable.
Cloud knew, but he didn't want to accept it. No, not yet!
He stood on his knees and performed proper chest compressions, the basics of Shinra Military training. But the longer he did, the less effort he put in. Cloud's hope faded as quick as Nibelheim did in the fire. He fell into coughing spells in between compressions, and then tears fell. It may have been only seconds, or maybe minutes. Either way, it was too long. Not a flutter in Claudia's closed eyes, nor a breath in her already charred lungs. She was gone before he got to her.
Cloud broke.
He gave up, collapsed over her, and wept.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, unable to look at her face again. He felt it would be better not to remember her that way, but the image stuck to his mind forever from then on, and his nightmares fed on it hungrily for many nights. He still had nightmares…
Cloud buried his face over his mother's burnt chest, rubbing his forehead against her stiff clothing, his tears smudged. His fist clenched tight until he thought his nails pierced through his gloves, digging into his palms until there was blood.
He clenched his teeth so tight, he thought they would shatter under their gums. His muscles shook him, as though he was too, becoming possessed, and he thirsted for blood, but from only one specific person.
"Sephiroth," Cloud growled under his breath.
He lifted his stormy eyes up, and gazed at the burning water tower a few meters away from him, pretending to see the man in the black cloak there, smirking down at him.
Very slowly, with his eyes still fixated on the image, Cloud pushed himself up till he stood tall. Something inside him was slowly changing, a whole new person making their way into his being, someone who wasn't afraid anymore. Someone who had no more doubts. No more weaknesses.
Without letting remorse hold him down, Cloud set his goal up towards the steps at the edge of town, and walked away from his mother's body. Her soul had already departed, back to the planet. The green light of spirits faded into the smoke, trailing away from unfortunates under Sephiroth's hand, either as a quick death from his sword, or a slow one in the fire.
Cloud began to march back towards the stairs, but he halt his step and eyed down at a body near his home.
In blue Shinra uniform, covered in burns, the body was rigid upon the stone, with flames teasingly licking the fallen man.
That Shinra guy didn't make it after all. Cloud shook his head at the only remaining Shinra kid, ready to collect his body, but when he suddenly heard screams, he went for a full sprint towards the chaos.
He stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, and let his eyes lift across them to the top, where men came falling to their deaths.
Sephiroth.
He was there, like a lord atop a mountain of hell. The flames grew around him as he fought off two desperate men from the village, their guns worthless against him. With great speed, Sephiroth's blade easily deflected their bullets till they ran out, clicking without fire. Sephiroth then, cut his blade into their throats with a blink. One of the men gurgled, and dropped to his knees. Another staggered backwards until he fell, neck cut and the back of his skull crashed to the ground. The flames gladly swallowed their bodies whole, like it was an offering.
Cloud was too petrified to move, unable to cough or even breath when he just stared up at the mad man, flames dancing around him with enjoyment. Like he sensed it, Sephiroth lifted his cold gaze, eyes bright in his Aqua green, and that's when Cloud could see it: the Legendary SOLDIER was gone.
In those eyes, Sephiroth was no more. He was a demon, taking the souls of those around him and gladly putting an innocent town to flames like he was doing a favor. His eyes told Cloud there was no stopping him, and the demonic man tossed him a cold smile, as though giving a warning. Without a word, Sephiroth turned away, his long cape of silver hair turned orange from the flames. He walked with purpose through the fire without hesitation, and disappeared, unharmed.
Cloud didn't know how, but he lost track of Sephiroth when he tried to follow him, his arms and legs stained with burns. He coughed hard, even as he slipped away from the fires and into the mountains. Thankfully, there were no trees to burn, or else Sephiroth may have burned the whole forest too. Sprinting while coughing, covered in ash and burns, Cloud grit his teeth and ventured to Reactor 1. He hurried up its long stairs, and entered the facility through the broken doors.
"Papa!"
Cloud heard Tifa's voice shout inside the skybridge hold, and he scrambled down the ladder. When his foot stomped on the skybridge over the pool of mako and pipes, he paused, eying across it to find Tifa knelt down over Brian's body.
She collapsed over him, her cowboy hat keeping her face hidden as she wailed.
"Oh papa! No!" she screamed, hands over the bloody man's chest.
Cloud stifled a gasp, but Tifa must've not noticed him because she lifted her head to gaze down at her father's rigid eyes and muttered through tears, "Sephiroth did this!"
He could see her hold tighten on Brian's vest, gripping him for dear life.
"Sephiroth. SOLDIER. Shinra. Mako reactors…" She rose up, chest lifting to the heavens. When her eyes flashed angrily for the first time, something new awoke inside her. Cloud could see the fury in them, her eyes red with tears when he heard her shout, "I hate them all!" Her tears fell, like sparkles, till they made weak ripples in her father's blood.
Without hesitation, Tifa growled behind her teeth as she rose, her knees stained from kneeling in the blood pool, and scooped up Sephiroth's Masamune next to his body. The blade was stained with blood, its once perfect clean edge turned jagged and damaged like it belonged to a carless child. Cloud knew Tifa never held a sword before, but she tried to anyway when she charged deeper into the reactor with it, but not before he saw revenge in her eyes.
He gasped and ran again to catch up.
Tifa, You can't stop him
Cloud didn't know he would stop before Brian's body when he thought he would run over it, but there he was, pausing to gaze down at it. Blood pooled out underneath the hunter, his core drenched from a deep stab wound that seemed to twist his insides around before the blade yanked back. Brian's head was to one side, his eyes open, frozen in the last emotion the man probably had: fear.
Cloud bit his lower lip while staring at the dead man, and suddenly regretting his negative feelings over him. Brian was loyal to Nibelheim, a leader as well as a father. Maybe not to Cloud but there were parts of Brian he can only imagine an ideal father would carry.
"I'm sorry I called you a pathetic old man. You were brave, and right about everything…" he whispered, perhaps as a prayer, if Cloud believed in that.
Quickly, before regretting staying a second longer, Cloud rammed himself through the double security doors into the Pod room.
When he entered, it was already too late.
He stopped, like he had just missed something significant, and sucked in a shaky breath over what he just discovered. Instantly, he spotted Tifa's mangled body in the break of the red metal stairs, her hat gone and face up to the sky of pipes.
"No!" Cloud screamed, climbing the short steps to reach her.
Not Tifa too!
He knelt down, taking her fallen body into his arms. Her eyes, cognac again, flickered up to him with barely a squint.
"Cloud, you promised…" she croaked, her body tense with the last ounce of her strength to say such words, like he was the one who put a cut across her belly.
Blood trickled lightly from such a wound. Perhaps Tifa dodged the sword enough to let it only barely graze her, but the impact from the fall itself would be enough to leave her battered and weak. Her blood, red like her father's, like everyone else, spilled over her waist, dripping at Cloud's boot.
And then Cloud watched Tifa's body relax, her eyes closed like she needed to rest.
Carefully, Cloud scooped her in his arms, and pulled her small body into him. He trembled, breathing fast through his nostrils as he rose, and carried her away from the steps. His eyes locked on nothing as he imagined Sephiroth's stupid grin moments ago when he possibly watched Tifa fall beneathe him, doing nothing. Feeling nothing.
Cloud settled Tifa's body up against a cool metal wall by the exit, her eyes still closed. He brushed her hair out of her eyes with a shaky hand, her face still perfect like a sleeping angel. He then made a fist next to her head, shaking it as his whole body shook. Cloud pounded on the wall next to her, head bowed as he fought the urge to cry. He suppressed it all instead, burying it deep within him like a poison, slow to consume him. But his lips shuttered as though he was crying, though he kept the tears inside.
"God damn you, Sephiroth," Cloud growled under his breath. His earlier possession took hold again, takin over his body as he stood tall, and looked over his shoulder to his destination up the steps.
The door to Jenova's chambers was open.
Cloud turned his entire body to it, ready to ascend, and pulled out his Buster sword.
He took each step with purpose, his soul in flames, but with something different than the fires of his home. Whatever it was, he held it close, letting his heart pump more of it into his blood.
My home.
He took another strong step, passing all the pods that had been sliced open.
My Mother.
The bodies of failed experiments, the poor souls of trapped humans infused with Mako, had all either been sliced to pieces, or left to die of Mako dependence.
Tifa.
Another step. Limps and body parts surrounded him, dependent creatures left to die, which only increased his fury.
My Memories
Cloud stopped at the last step, and gazed in through the door labeled "JENOVA".
Sephiroth was deep in the chamber, his back to Cloud, distracted.
Now was Cloud's chance.
He was ready to thrust his sword straight into Sephiroth's back.
Cloud clenched his teeth as he held his sword up, his hands tight around the handle. He let the pain, the fury, the love, and determination travel from his hands into his sword, and charged.
Something was off again.
Cloud stumbled, like he had lost his balance, or missed a few seconds of his life. He charged into the room, but the flames in his soul vanished, like it was never there. What happened?
He looked up, eying Sephiroth standing atop of a platform surrounded by pipes and tanks with hazardous tape. A metal face, high into the room, looked aimlessly at nothing, its metal body being feed by wires. Sephiroth's hands were up in the air as though making an offering to it.
"Mother, I've come for you. With my plan, the two of us can take back the planet from the pathetic humans. I have an idea on how to do that. Let's go to the Promise Land together!" He announced, unaware Cloud was there.
Cloud's lips moved before he could control them, suddenly screaming, "Sephiroth!" Mako pulsed brightly in his eyes, his body growing with power.
Sephiroth froze, taking two long breaths of complete peace. But then, his shoulders rattled, laughing.
"It looks like I have more to finish, Mother," he chuckled, and his arms fell.
"With her supreme knowledge, power, and magic, Mother was destined to become ruler of this planet when she landed here over 2000 years ago," he lectured to Cloud.
Slowly, Sephiroth lifted his eyes to the metal body before him as he spoke.
"But they… Those worthless creatures," he raised his hands up towards it. "They are stealing the planet from mother."
Cloud watched dreadfully as Sephiroth gripped the metal body and pulled it away from its wires, a mere illusion or probably a protective armor for what stood behind it. Wires snapped and spat electricity while liquid oozed from the edges of the metal face, as though it was crying in pain. It was all negligently thrown to the side, a piece of junk to Sephiroth, and he gazed with a magnificent smile up to what was revealed while Cloud took a step back.
He didn't know what he was seeing.
Steam hissed, lights flared up along the walls, displaying what floated in that tank like a show, and Cloud didn't want to watch it.
What the hell is that?
With disbelief, Cloud stared up at an alien specimen made up of odd limps and membranes floating inside. When he pictured Jenova after she was referred to as "Mother," Cloud could see its swollen blue breasts to indicate it was female, but it was far from what he imagined. She had a face beautifully shaped like a woman, skin artic blue, and hair white like ice. But the rest of her, below her long torso, was all tendrils, long slithery limbs like vines, pulsing with life. Lips dark blue, tiny bubbles escaped from them, and Cloud suddenly wanted to run.
He felt chilly, and shuddered up at the creature, both afraid and in rage with all that happened, and just for… for that thing?!
He smacked his sword by his foot and threw his eyes away from the disturbed display.
"Who the hell cares! What about my family, my home?! Why did you have to kill them all?! They did nothing but accept you for who you are. If you are worried about being a monster that Hojo or Gast created, then you are proving them right! You are a monster!" He screamed, furry eyes up at Sephiroth. Tears trickled down Cloud's cheeks.
"What about my feelings?! What about me?!" he shouted, sword ready.
One of Jenova's eyes suddenly opened, and red light flicked from its socket, glaring down at him. Her lips moved, bubbles escaping.
"What do I care?!" Sephiroth was saying. He turned around towards Cloud, head low and limp like a string puppet.
"I'm the chosen ruler of this planet," he muttered darkly, his head rising as though pulled from a string, and he had a twisted look to his face. His lips moved in sync with the creature, as though it was somehow controlling him.
"I've been chosen to be the leader of this planet," Sephiroth said. Or was it Jenova? It made Cloud wonder, when did the insanity begin, before or after the possession?
Sephiroth took his sword with both hands, his stance ready for a duel while he gave the younger SOLDIER an unstable look.
"I've been given orders to take the planet back from you stupid people for the Cetra. What do I care about your feelings?" Sephiroth said. Jenova hovered right behind his shoulder, but her lips stilled, and then curved widely upward behind the glass.
Cloud swung his sword to the metal floor again, letting it ding loudly with sparks.
"I trusted you! I looked up to you! You were my hero!" He raged. He huffed and puffed, anger boiling in his blood as he threw exasperated eyes up at Sephiroth.
Cloud held his sword and widened his legs into a battle stance.
"No. You aren't Sephiroth anymore."
They stared into each other's eyes, waiting for the other to make the first move.
Sephiroth smirked, pinpoint on Cloud like he was ready to draw his sword into him. Cloud narrowed his eyebrows, ready to attack.
"And that's it…" Cloud muttered.
By this time, we were the only ones left in the tavern. The bartender tossed us impatient looks as all of us ladies, Tifa, Aerith and I, had our elbows over the table, faces in our hands as we reeled in and stared at Cloud with open jaws. Barret leaned back in his chair, and gave Cloud a lifted eyebrow. "Wait?! That's it?!" He shrieked, breaking the tense silence.
Aerith sat back up in her chair as well, and asked, "what about the fight?"
Cloud shook his head and shrugged tiredly, "I can't remember…" He didn't look at either of us when he added, "It's obvious I didn't defeat him. He was too strong. But I can't remember what happened after that."
I straightened in my chair, sighing tiredly as I leaned my head back over its rest. The story was well over a few hours, and I craved to get my legs moving again. I stretched them under the table with a grunt.
Tifa took another sip of water, her cheeks no longer red. She had sobered up, half the pitcher empty from her alone. I watched her turn her troubling eyes to Cloud as she said, "Reports said Sephiroth died five years ago. It was in the papers."
"Yeah but," Aerith began, leaning her cheek sheepishly into her hand, her eyelids heavy. "Even Shinra owns that paper. I wouldn't believe them," she said through a yawn. The faint candlelight flickered close to her sleepy face, and I had the sudden urge to touch it for how silky it displayed in the soft light.
I blushed, and looked away, falling to Cloud eying me curiously.
"Aqua, you've been quiet."
I nervously darted my eyes to the dim fire. Only embers remained, the logs well lit with glowing orange blood vessels. Red was sleeping soundly next to it, his breathing slow and relaxed.
"Well…" I didn't know what to say. After hearing Cloud's story, I got a sense of why he was suffering from PTSD. But something was bothering me. The way he described himself as he narrated, how he behaved back then, seemed off. He could've easily just dramatically changed after that horrific event, no longer the smiling and mini squat type. In a short amount of time, Cloud went through a lot.
He lost his mother.
His home.
His hero.
He almost lost Tifa.
I eyed her navel under her white halter top, easily exposed in front of candlelight, and saw no scar there. "Tifa, wouldn't you have a scar there where he cut you?" I suddenly asked, losing track of my thoughts as well as Cloud's uneasy stare.
Tifa quietly gazed down at her six-pack, its skin pale and perfect. God, I hated being the softest and most plain of the group. I tried not to sigh over Tifa when she whispered, "I jumped back in time. So, I only got a cut that was jut a few inches deep. Lucky me," but her smile showed she didn't feel that way.
She glanced back up at Cloud, bitting her lower lip.
"Cloud?"
He turned his attention to her quietly with crossed arms.
"How bad was I when Sephiroth cut me?" she asked. At first, I thought she was digging for empathy, just to see how important she really was to him. But later on, I learn it wasn't adornment Tifa was after.
It was confirmation.
Cloud dropped his eyes as he shook his head. "I thought you were gone, too. I was so upset," he whispered.
An uncomfortable silence fell, and the bartender was blowing out the candles settled atop the other tables. Barret eyed the environment as it darkened, but he crossed his arm over his gun arm and glared at Cloud.
"Wait just a damn minute. This don't make sense to me. You mean to tell me, that Jenova thing was in that reactor? How did it get to Shinra Headquarters?"
Cloud shrugged. "Hojo moved her, probably to continue more of his experiments after the accident damaged the reactor."
Aerith gave me a troubled look, and then to Cloud, asking, "And then it, or she, er, escaped? Do you think Sephiroth took her from her tank?"
Tifa shrugged and threw out a long yawn.
"He would've been carrying her," she muttered, and looked at Cloud again.
"Cloud, when you saw him, was he carrying anything unusual?"
Cloud shook his head, ready to rise from his chair. "No."
He eyed me again, apparently suspicious of my silence, but decided not to mention it and got up.
"I need to know what happened. How am I alive? He would've killed me, wouldn't he?" he questioned, and pushed his noisy chair back. "Is Jenova involved somehow? And what about finding the Promise Land? I want to find Sephiroth and understand."
Something else was bothering me too. Not only Cloud's narration, but also this other big question that no one seemed to ponder. What happened after all of that? Did Cloud quit SOLDIER? What did he do for the next five years before coming to Midgar a day earlier than I did? Did he bury his mother? Stayed in town to wait for Tifa to get better? I didn't understand why nothing was mentioned after the accident, and it left me edgy as I grit my teeth nervously behind closed lips.
Aerith finished the last of her water, and then patted her full belly like a happy child. "I want to understand, too. Figure out the Ancients, and wonder if he's on our side or not." She threw her sleepy eyes at me. "What do you think, Aqua?"
Again, my silence was making some of them feel uneasy. And I wouldn't blame them.
I sighed, feeling all their stares across the table on me. I wish I was sleeping like Red, avoiding this conversation.
I squirmed in my chair, and rose, pretending to me busy getting ready for bed with a false yawn, my cloak in one hand.
"I think…" What could I say? I think your past is off, something funny about it? What right did I have to say something like that? How would I know? I thought I knew Cloud, enough anyway to tell when he was unlike himself. Was I wrong? Did I not know him at all? And I wanted to ask him what happened after that, but something inside me told me not to, not yet anyway. There was this need to look at him with a disappointed look, but instead I stared at my chair.
"I think we definitely need some more clarity," I finally told them, a nice way of putting,this shit makes no sense.
Barret got up from his chair too, stretching his gun and hand up into the air with an audible yawn.
"Tell me about it," he agreed, and used the tip of his barreled gun hand to scratch an itch across his thigh. Other things Barret can use his gun arm for besides shooting bullets: A rough body scratcher. I hope he never accidentally pulls the trigger. I cracked a smile to myself, distracted with such thoughts, and then Aerith got up to take my arm into her hands. She looked up at me with her big eyes and said, "let's go to bed?"
I sighed. I've been asleep for two days. Going to bed wasn't on my mind, but it will at least give me time to think. I smiled down at her, taking her hand with mine.
"Yeah. We've kept this place open long enough," I said.
Tifa got up and hugged herself tightly, her shoulders hunched like she was cold, and marched on ahead, rushing, obviously something bothering her, and left us with, "Good night."
I blinked up at her form disappearing through the arched doorway, stepping into the lobby and gone after a turn for the stairs. I wondered what was wrong.
Barret took one last bit of a piece of bread, and twiddled his fingers together to sprinkle away the crumbs.
"Yeah. Best sleep if we need to wake up at dawn. Damn Cloud, retelling your past took so long. I'd be lucky to sleep six hours now," he grumbled in his natural scratchy voice. Aerith and I smiled at his bluntness, and noticed Cloud did the same, his hands up with defeat.
"Sorry, man."
Barret marched pass with a grumble, "no wonder Tifa hurried," and left.
There was a long yawn, and I turned my head to find Red slowly awakening from his nap. He stretched out his front legs, his rear up to the embers like he wanted one last long spread of heat there, and opened his eyes up to Cloud.
"What a lovely story," he chirped.
Cloud gawked at the creature, "You fell asleep."
Red shook his head, his ears flapping.
"I simply had my eyes shut," he explained simply, and trotted off, eyes closed and nose in the air.
The rest of us followed, Red climbing the stairs. I watched him dutifully, and realized what he said only added to the tension that was building inside me about the whole thing.
What a lovely story
Maybe Red knew something was up, or maybe he was just referring to Cloud's past life that of a story telling experience. I wanted to ask, but didn't want to do so in front of Aerith and Cloud.
"Where do we go next?" Aerith bubbled when we reached the door to the 'girls' bedroom. Cloud opened the door to his room next to us, and let Red slip through it first. Cloud then hovered there, looking down to the carpet.
"We go to Junon," he confirmed, eyes up at the both of us. I didn't know what or where that was, and maybe Aerith didn't either because neither of us said anything. Cloud rubbed the back of his head, and added, "We will go over a map before we leave, just to get a better idea."
Aerith smiled at him. "Great. Well then, good night!" She deliberately left me out in the hall alone with Cloud when she snuck in through the door and closed it behind her with speed I didn't know she had. I gulped and reached for its knob quickly as I said, "good night!"
"Good night," I heard Cloud's solemn voice muttered as I went through the door and closed it.
I pressed my back against it with a relieving sigh, and gave Aerith fireballs from my eyes.
She chuckled nervously to herself when she saw it, undressing. Tifa was already lying in her bed closest to me, a mound under the blankets. Even her head was buried, so she looked like a long bump across the quilt.
I braved myself to poke at the mound, but before I did, I eyed Aerith with a questionable look. She shook her head as she mouthed silently, "No way".
I made a face that showed screaming, and boldly poked the mound anyway.
"Tifa?" I pried nervously. "You okay? What's the matter?"
I heard her groan under the quilt, and the lump twisted sharply away from touch.
"Nothing. I'm tired," I heard irritation in Tifa's voice. If she and I got along so well, I would've collapsed on top of her, playfully. But I wouldn't dare. Cloud's story definitely explained where Tifa's anger rooted from, at least part of it. My shoulders just sank, and I shuffled my way to my bed, pass Aerith slipping into her pajamas.
I sat on the edge of my bed and asked her, "what did you think of Cloud's story?"
Aerith made a face, her eyes up to the ceiling while she settled herself in a long pink cotton nightgown with long sleeves.
"Well, it was depressing," she started, eying me seriously. She sat down right next to me, the bed's springs screeching under our weight. Being so close, Aerith could whisper, "he's been through a lot. Both he and Tifa have."
I looked into her eyes, on alert of her Searching me as I said, "Well, it definitely explains a little more about them."
Aerith politely dropped her gaze, smiling to herself like she knew I was on guard.
"What did YOU think?" she played, and tapped her finger on my shoulder. I blinked at her playful smile, and looked away, the image of a younger Cloud in my mind as I tried to picture him five years younger. Was he thin and lanky then, or just as scrawny? I could see him wept over his mother, and I closed my eyes while trying to imagine myself there with him.
"It's something no one should go through. Losing one parent is difficult, but both is tragic. It seems a lot of you lose your family here in this world."
Aerith bit her lower lip, nodding silently. Her fingers curled around the edge of the bed tightly.
"Yeah. It's not unusual to hear someone mention they lost one of both of their parents. This world is complicated," she muttered. And like she got caught, Aerith sprang her face up and turned it quickly to me as I gasped.
"You DO believe me!" I squawked. Aerith put her fingers to her lips to hush me, and gestured to Tifa's sleeping mound across the room.
I dipped my face down apologetically. "Sorry. So, you do believe me?"
Aerith sprang up, and took two steps to reach her bed, pulling the covers back.
"I do…" she dragged, unsure how to finish that sentence. She sounded unsure of herself, maybe still in doubt.
I eyed her suspiciously., "Aerith. You've Searched me. You've probably seen my world. How could you doubt it?" I wondered if she had seen the skyscrapers of New York in her mind, my relationships, my childhood. How far did she go?
Aerith huffed, and tucked herself in. "I do believe you, Aqua. I'm sorry I didn't before," she fretted. I caught her lie easily, and analyzed her hard until she flicked the lamp off in between our beds with impeccable timing. Her face was hidden in the darkness.
I sighed and flopped the back of my head on my pillow, looking up at the low wood beam ceiling. When it was silent, I could hear rain pattering against the windows like it was trying to get inside, overlapping Tifa's gentle breathing.
My thoughts raced backwards, beyond today, back to Shinra Headquarters. I thought of being in that tank, and remembered by thoughts then. Since Aerith and I were vaguely talking about worlds, I decided to ask her something.
"Aerith? Can I ask you something?"
She immediately whispered "sure" in the darkness.
"You know how this planet has souls in it?"
"That's the Lifestream," she corrected.
"Lifesteam?" I questioned. It made sense, a current of energy, or souls coursing around inside the planet, seeping it through the trees, the rivers, the grass; everything that needed it to live.
That must be what I was seeing in my dreams, that large green stream with voices in it.
I settled my hands gently over my belly. "Right. The Lifestream. Like this planet, do you think other planets have their own Lifestream? Like mine, for instance?"
Aerith was quiet. I thought she was blinking in the darkness as she thought.
"Did you hear the voices back at your home?" she whispered, a question to easily answer mine.
I traced my memories back to childhood, anxious and fretting over what I endured as a small child. With a swallow, I replied with a crack, "yes." When Aerith waited for more, I continued, "but I didn't know it was…" I swallowed again and cleared my throat, afraid to trigger an anxiety attack as I remembered how I felt exactly when I had the voices haunting me. I was four, running around my adopted parent's home while screaming in tears, hands over my ears to make it all stop.
"I thought I was sick. On my planet, it's unusual to hear voices. It's an illness. How did I know that something like that was because I could connect to the planet? I was put on medication to stop the voices, until I forgot about them," I finished.
I suddenly didn't want to sleep alone, and rolled over to see Aerith's shape in the darkness. My ears picked up the sound of her doing the same, her shape shifting slightly when she rolled to face me. Kalm's orange lamps barely kissed across her bed, but it was enough to tell she was staring at me with a depressing look.
"I'm sorry, Aqua," Aerith whispered.
I shuddered a breath, and took in a deeper one to relax.
"If you heard the voices of the planet even as a child, then it must mean your world has a Lifestream too, unless you were just hearing this one from far away" Aerith believed.
Such a thought made me shudder in fear. If that were true, then my planet was just as doomed as this one, for the same reasons oddly enough. How ironic.
Were there other Ancients in my world then, or was I it?
And then there was my disturbing dreams. I decided to save that for another night, and just smiled at Aerith in the dark. She was close to me, but curiously, I wanted to be even closer to her.
"Can you believe we're the only Ancient's left, and we're friends?" I peeped, trying to make a lighter conversation. I draped my hand over the edge of my bed and lifted it in the dark, right between us as though reaching out to her.
Aerith shifted in her bed, and I could feel her fingers brush mine, staying there playfully.
"I'm so happy we're together, Aqua," she whispered.
I smiled in the dark. "Me too, Aerith."
She was first to drop her fingers away, along with a, "good night."
I left my hand hanging there, already trying to remember what her hand felt like.
It was then time to settle down, and I finally pulled my hand back and got under the covers. I slipped my clothes off, lying in my underwear, and tucked the blankets over me as they spat out my clothes onto the floor with a carless thump.
"Good night," I whispered back.
I should've been ready for sleep, but instead, I just stared up at the ceiling, the quiet night slowly threatened with voices.
It has just occurred to me that I've never slept next to Aerith before, and wondered if she could hear them too. And if so, how did she sleep so easily?
"Aerith, do you hear them now?"
She must've known what I meant because I heard her take a deep breath in the dark, and then she whispered back, "Yeah. You get used to it. The Planet is just trying to tell you something. If you ignore it, the voices will only get louder. Try to listen carefully to what it's saying."
I threw back quickly, "what is it telling you right now?" Was that too personal of a question? Aerith settled herself under her covers again until she let out a happy sigh.
"It's telling me that it's time to go to sleep," she chuckled.
"Aerith…"
"Just kidding. Okay. Well, out here, away from the noisy city, it's a lot easier to listen. With that in mind though, it's not a happy sound. The Planet tells me it's in pain."
I remembered the wailing cries in my dream, diving into my ears forcefully. The Planet did communicate it had something wrong with it, something bigger than we all think. But I didn't know more than that. I blinked at the ceiling in the dark, waiting to hear Aerith's breathing match with Tifa's.
The voices did come.
And they were, indeed, louder.
I could hear cries, sobbing, wailing, many of the voices jumbled into a dreadful ear-splitting experience. I must've cried in my sleep, suddenly feeling the Planet's pain because when I awoke a bit later, my cheeks were sticky with old tears. When I did go back to sleep, I was haunted with not only the Planet's cry, but also nightmares of my experience at Shinra's Lab. Being on that table, Dr. Hojo drilling tools into my skin, I could feel my heart raced as I slept. I dreamt of Hojo's evil eyes on me hungrily, his teeth even sharper than before, and Isaac standing next to him, smirking behind his visor to keep his eyes hidden.
I was trapped on that same table, squirming to be set free. Lights flashed above, forcing my eyes to shut. And then, I felt those needles dive into the curve of my belly, sucking up my eggs aggressively that made me scream in pain, similar to what the Planet was feeling.
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