Hey everyone! It's time for chapter 7! Woo! Enjoy!

Ch.7

Weeks had passed since Zack and Cloud agreed on the dream to become heroes. Since then Zack had started looking into as much as he could about SOLDIER and Shinra. He first started by asking the other kids at school to see if they would know anything, but that proved to not be super helpful. When he tried to ask his teacher, she only could give him history books on the Shinra company, but not about SOLDIER.

Zack finally decided that the best option was to ask the SOLDIERS directly and try to get his answers. Though when he had originally checked the next day after figuring out his dream, they had already left. At first, he was slightly bummed that they were not there. However, Zack thought to check each day though to see if they would return at some point.

Many days passed, and those days then turned into weeks. Eventually, to his relief, a few soldiers did show back up one day to check on the reactor. He had no idea if it was the same ones from before, but at this point, that fact did not matter. Zack stayed determined and had decided to go up to get his answers from them, and he wasn't going to let them send him away.

"Cloud! Cloud!" Zack shouted as he ran into the house. He bounced up and down with excitement as he looked for his brother.

Cloud ran out of his room and over to Zack. "What is it?"

"I finally found out!" Zack exclaimed and then quickly looked around the house. "Is mom in the house?"

Cloud shook her head. "No she went to go talk to some friends."

"Ah good," Zack said as he started walking towards their room. "Come on."

"Why does it matter if mom is home? What about dad?"

"Cause I don't want them to know about this yet," Zack said as he entered the bedroom.

"Know what?" Cloud asked as he followed behind.

As soon as Zack and Cloud were in the room Zack closed the door before he answered. "About how you and I are going to become heroes."

"You found out?!" Cloud gasped in surprise.

Zack nodded. "Yup I did."

"Tell me! Tell me!" Cloud shouted as he jumped up and down around Zack.

"Heh heh," Zack laughed as he watched Cloud's enthusiasm. "Okay. What I learned is this. In order to join SOLDIER you need to be thirteen years old. That is the youngest they allow you to join. Then there are all these test things you have to go through. Then if you do well you get to be in SOLDIER."

"Wow sounds easy," Cloud commented.

"Well I don't know about easy, but we gotta do it. Though, apparently the main place is in some place called Midgar. I read about it in a history book, that is where Shinra is at," Zack stated.

"Oh, so you're saying when we want to, we'd have to go away from here?" Cloud asked, with a hint of sadness in his voice upon thinking of that. "Is Midgar far away?"

"Yeah it seems like it. But it could work out. Don't worry too much about that for now though. We can become heroes though," Zack mentioned, still with a smile on his face.

Cloud thought for a moment. "Hmm...okay then. If you're gonna do it Zack, then I'll follow you."

"That's what I like to hear," Zack said as he stood up from the bed. "But, we are gonna need to be strong. So we gotta do exercises," he promptly spoke as he bent his knees and started to do an up and down motion, with his knees bending and then straightening back up repeatedly.

"Umm, what are you doing Zack?" Cloud questioned curiously. He giggled a slight bit. "It's silly looking."

Zack stopped momentarily. "Oh this? It's an exercise called squats. Seems to be the best for you from what I've heard, so how about it?"

Cloud thought about it, and then got up off of his bed and stood beside Zack. He then bent his lowered himself down and bent his knees and then brought them back up and straightened them without bending the rest of his body. "Like this right?"

"Yeah that's it. We'll get stronger together!" Zack exclaimed as he grinned at Cloud as the two of them started to do squats repeatedly in their room.

Cloud tossed and turned in bed. At first he had trouble falling asleep, but now that he had fallen asleep, something was plaguing his mind.

He was sitting somewhere… it seemed he was near some rocks. Everything felt hazy though and he could barely see in front of himself. Though he swore someone was kneeling down in front of him. Whomever they were… they were saying something. What were they saying? Who were they?

Cloud ended up seeing the person start to walk away. Something in him though told him that he couldn't let that person walk away. Cloud slowly reached his hand out and opened his mouth. "Don't leave. Don't go. Please come back," he wanted to say, but the words never actually got out of his mouth. Why did the person leave? Where were they going? Why did they leave him?

Everything seemed to flash and now he could hear loud sounds. Sounds of gunfire and people shouting. There was so much gunfire… so many shouts and screams. Cloud tried to cover his ears, but he could still hear it all.

He then felt something gently hit his head. He tilted his up to see the sky. He could clearly see everything now and he saw that the sky had grown dark. Rain drops were starting to fall down and hitting Cloud's cheeks.

The rain started to come down more and more, and Cloud could feel it soaking all of his clothes. Though he then realized something else. The sounds had stopped. There was no more shouting to screaming or anything. It was quiet except for the rain.

With all his strength Cloud pushed himself to his feet. He had to figure out what was going on. He staggered around the rock to see a horrifying sight before him.

Dead bodies.

Dead bodies of men laid everywhere around him. They all looked blurred and out of focus though. He couldn't identify any of them… until his eyes fell upon one body. Only one body was not blurred like the rest. And Cloud could feel his heart pounding against his chest.

He ran over to the body to find out who it was.

As as soon as he got close enough he froze dead in his tracks.

Though the person he was looking at was clearing an adult… there was no way he could forget a face like that.

It was Zack.

And he was in a pool of blood. He laid there unmoving… still and lifeless. Cloud gripped his head as he dropped to his knees. He let out a scream as his voice cracked.

"Zack! Noooooo! Zaaaack!"

Cloud repeated kept screaming and sobbing. He was staring at Zack… and Zack was dead.

His dearly beloved brother was dead.

Cloud didn't even notice as he felt someone shaking his shoulder. He just kept screaming and sobbing.

"Cloud! Wake up!" Zack shouted in a hushed voice. He had woken up to Cloud screaming in his sleep. He was screaming and calling for his brother. Zack had no idea what Cloud could have been dreaming, but he figure it must have been something awful.

"Zack! Z-Zack," Cloud continued to sob in his sleep.

"Come on Cloud. Please wake up," Zack said as he kept shaking his little brother.

Finally it seemed Cloud was started to wake up as his eyes opened. But he just let out another scream followed by a sob. Zack frowned slightly, hoping that Cloud wasn't being too loud. It was late at night and he didn't want their parents to wake up.

Tears were streaming down Cloud's face as he was hyperventilating. "Zack…"

Zack placed both his hands on Cloud's shoulders. "I'm right here Cloud. You don't have to worry. Your big brother Zack is right here."

Cloud slowly blinked a few times as he looked directly at Zack. "Z-Zack?"

"Yeah," Zack nodded. "It's me."

Cloud's face crumbled as he sobbed once again. Leaning forward and grabbed on to Zack's shirt tightly. He kept crying and didn't seem to show signs of stopped. Zack wrapped his arms around Cloud and held him as tight as he could. He started to stroke his head with one head.

"Hey Cloud… It's okay. I'm here for you."

"B-But…" Cloud started to say, though his voice was already sore from crying so much.

"It was a bad dream wasn't it? You wanna talk about it?" Zack asked softly.

"I… I was somewhere. T-There was a lot f-fighting…" Cloud started, but had to catch his breath as he tried to relax.

"Fighting? And what was it, like a memory or something maybe? I'll listen," he said calmly to Cloud as he still held Cloud's head.

Cloud sniffled. "I don't k-know… I d-didn't see it… I hear it. B-But I saw… " Cloud shuddered as the images were still fresh in head head. "Saw a lot of dead people… everywhere. A-And it was rainy."

There was a bit of a pause before Cloud tried to continue. The next words he had to say were the hardest. "A-And… y-you…. You were…" he trailed off unable to finish his sentence.

Zack was taken aback by what Cloud had mentioned. He saw dead people? Just what was it that Cloud had dreamed? He wondered about these things, but he was not going to pressure Cloud too much, but it seemed that Cloud needed to talk about what happened anyways. Despite his deep desire to protect Cloud, he was still quite interested as to what was about to be said about him.

He allowed his curiosity to get the better of him. "I was what, Cloud?"

Cloud took in a deep breath. He wanted to look up and tell Zack, but he was too afraid to look at Zack's face. He just kept his head pressed against his chest instead. He tried as much as he could to get the words out of him. He needed to get it off his chest. "I s-saw… b-blood… and … You were… d-dead…"

Zack's heart skipped a beat as his eyes widened with genuine shock. He was dead? Suddenly, Zack started to wonder what could have made Cloud dream of something like that. Surely it's not something that he would expect to happen, so it must have been some kind of nightmare. Even so, it still gave Zack a slightly uneasy feeling to hear that.

He took his hands and squeezed Cloud tighter against him, the boy's face burying further into his chest. "It was just a nightmare Cloud. I don't know what caused it, but it's okay. I'm not dead, see? I'm right here," he said as he tried his best to reassure Cloud, and also to reassure himself.

"B-But… it felt so real… and you were d-dead… and and…" Cloud tried to go on, but the tears started to fall down his face again. He let out another sob before he ended up muttered something quietly. "You shouldn't j-join SOLDIER…"

Zack pulled Cloud's face away from his chest momentarily. "Where did that come from all of a sudden? Wait...gunshots...dead bodies...I see now. You're afraid that I'm not gonna be able to make it as a SOLDIER aren't you?" Zack questioned with a more direct tone.

Cloud nodded slightly. "You could die… SOLDIERS… they fight… and stuff… I don't want you to die Zack!"

"Hey, I told you before didn't I? You don't have to worry about that. Remember, my dream is to be a hero. And you know what? Heroes don't die. I'll always be here, Cloud," Zack said, a warmth to his voice more so than before in an effort to help calm Cloud more.

Cloud slowly looked up at Zack. His eyes were red from crying. "R-Really?" he sniffled a little. "You promise?"

"Of course Cloud. We will be there for each other. Didn't you say I'm your hero after all? I've gotta live up to my name," he said confidently as he patted Cloud on the head again.

Cloud nodded gently at Zack's words, not saying much of anything else in response as he fell back into Zack's arms once again. His breaths slowly started to calm down and finally relax.

"Besides, it was just a nightmare. Remember what mom says about nightmares?" Zack asked.

"That they aren't real and we shouldn't let them scare us," Cloud replied.

"That's right. So just remember, it was only a nightmare. It wasn't real. Everything is fine," Zack replied as he continued to speak in a comforting tone.

"Was just a nightmare…" Cloud muttered before he yawned.

Zack looked upon his little brother with soft eyes. "Okay then, why don't we get you in the bed then. Seems like that you could use some rest now. And don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right by your side okay?" he asked, making sure that Cloud would be okay and understand.

"You won't leave me tonight?" Cloud asked quietly.

"No I won't. I'll sleep here beside you okay? If that will make you feel better," Zack asked softly to him.

Cloud wrapped his arms around Zack, finally giving him a hug. Slowly he nodded. "Yeah. Thank you Zack."

The two of them finally laid down in Cloud's bed after the long talk. Zack had positioned himself on his back, while Cloud turned on his side and snuggled up next to his big brother and draped his arm over Zack's abdomen. Zack turned his head to look at his little brother only to see that he had already dozed off as soon as his head touched the pillow. Zack chuckled slightly at that fact as he moved his head back to where he was staring up at the ceiling. He knew that he would not go to sleep yet, but that did not matter as long as he could be there for Cloud when he needed help the most.

Zack did start to wonder what exactly made Cloud have that dream. He knew some things from what Cloud had said before about having some flashes of events that had happened. Or, maybe those events were going to happen. There was no clue to whether or not the "dreams" were connected to the past, present, or future. The only thing that was certain, was that Cloud was hurting from them happening, and Zack was none too happy about that.

He wanted to believe that once they were older, these visions or dreams would go away. It was possible that it was just Cloud's mind imagining the worst possible scenario every time a decision was made and that he was overthinking it. But for some reason, Zack felt inclined to believe that there was something else going on, that of which he had no idea. The more he thought about the endless possibilities, the more his head started to hurt.

Zack exhaled softly as he tried to relax himself more. He threw his arm around where Cloud's head was laying and thought that it would be best if he could doze off to sleep as well, so that all of this would be over by the morning. Even though he was not tired and thought he would not be able to sleep, he closed his eyes. Soon thereafter, all of the noises around him started to fade as he fluttered his eyes open a couple of times before finally closing them for the night. The last thought going through his mind was that they would figure everything out later.

So there was a bit of angst this time, heheh. Poor Cloud. But don't worry, Zack is there for him! But soon things will start to get a move on and all.

Thanks for reading!