Cloud's POV


Light combed its way under my eyelids and I felt like I was floating...drifting. Dimly, I opened my eyes and my head began to pound with a thousand knives and my vision blurred around me at the gray painting that held my sight. Screams of pain and sobs of sorrow shook through me, and the gray painting far off seemed to suddenly zoom into view and my vision cleared. Tormented faces and mangled bodies lay strewn around. And somehow the scene was comforting...

Was I always here? Where was this...my home...?How long had I been here? Days? Months? Then I remembered...this was my Hell... It wasn't all a dream. I was really stuck here. My foggy memory spewed some information to me on how I had gotten here and how I wasn't dead yet.

A man to the right of me was lying on the floor, his hand outstretched to me as he coughed up blood and moaned horribly. He called out to me and slumped over crying. I eyed him strangely and got up from my safe corner, venturing through the gray caves. How long has it been...?

I wanted to find Zack again. He was the only one down here that I knew. I needed to ask him how I could get back and other questions. Why weren't these people in the LifeStream? It didn't take me long to find him, he was wandering around with a euphoric grin on, laughing at the others.

"Zack!" I called to him and he turned, grinning at me.

"Cloud! You're still here? I'm sorry, friend, really I am. You should not still be here. The Planet still needs you to go fight Sephiroth I'm sure..." He shook his head, his eyes darting everywhere at once.

Sephiroth...?

Oh yeah, Sephiroth...

My memory blinked and I remembered a guy with long silver hair, a guy I feared. Why did I fear him again?

"You...don't remember Sephiroth? ...Cloud?" Zack lost his grin and stared at me in confusion.

"I...I know the name," I confessed. "Why don't I remember why I hated him?"

"You've only been here for a day and it's already getting to you? You do know what this place really is...right?" He questioned me.

"...Isn't this Hell?" I responded, stating the obvious.

"Yes, yes Hell, but it is so much more. It's designed for you to forget about your past life and only the single more terrifying event in your life or a nightmare gets replayed over and over and over like a real-time movie that you cannot change. You forget about where you come from, how you got here, your friends, your family, everything except the nightmare. This way you don't miss anyone and you cannot question anything because you have no knowledge of what was before all this..." Zack explained with a strange smile.

"But then how is it that you remember me and that you know all of this...?" I asked, wondering if it were true.

"I've had a glimpse of the LifeStream before it crumbled. I was there with the souls of the Ancients and I've held onto my memories-" he sighed thoughtfully.

"Before it crumbled?" I interrupted him.

"Yes, you didn't know that? The LifeStream got into contact with a stream of bodies infected with Jenova. It began to corrode and could no longer sustain the lives of so many people, so it shut itself up, saving the Ancient souls that rested in it and also saving the life energy of the planet. The souls that were NOT Cetras were forced out of the LifeStream in an attempt to save itself. And those souls ended up in this new plane of Hell..." he frowned in explanation.

"Which bodies infected with Jenova?...the bodies from the Reunion? The failed Jenova experiments attempted by Hojo...?" I squinted trying to remember it all.

"Yes, those. This place makes the souls forget about the LifeStream so they never miss it or their past lives. The souls are content with their torture because they don't know of anything better..." Zack smiled again.

"And you know all this because you were part of the original thread of LifeStream?" I ventured to guess.

"Precisely! The others that were originally part of LifeStream probably have forgotten! But I'm strong-minded and every night I think hard about it all and try to write it all down in the dirt. I try to remember every bit of my past so I never forget!" He smiled triumphantly like a child.

"But I'm not dead, why am I forgetting things so quickly?" I felt stupid asking so many questions.

"Your body is not dead, true. But your mind is very weak and the forces here are strong. Sorry to say it, friend, but you are weak like Sephiroth said," He shrugged.

"Weak?...What do I do to remember? Zack, how do I get back?" I begged him for a response.

"I...I'm sorry, Cloud. I'm just as helpless as you are. All I have left are my memories," he sighed and trailed off mumbling nonsense. "Remember when I told you that when we got to Midgar we would both be mercenaries? Remember, Cloud?" He nudged me in the side.

"Yeah...yeah I guess," I was depressed by this new thought that I would soon forget about everyone.

Zack then abruptly turned and walked off into the darkness.

"Wait! Zack! What do I do?" I yelled at him, but he was already gone.

This place was definitely more than strange. I stared at the sobbing souls, each reliving their own nightmare and I wondered which souls had been in the LifeStream before, like Zack.

I remembered what Zack had said. They forget so they don't know anything better than this Hell. They forget friends and family so they have nothing to miss...

Would that happen to me?

My heart sunk and I fell to the ground, very sad at the thought of it happening to me. I didn't want to forget my friends or anything, not even Sephiroth.

Zack had held onto his memories by thinking hard about them every second he had, but he said I was weak. That's all I was...all I am... a failure. I've been called weak and a failure so many times.

I sat in a pit of self-pity and depression and soon the Hell around me faded to black. All I could think about was myself and how I would be stuck here forever. And nobody knows I'm here.

I'm such a loser...such a failure, so weak, so useless... What's the point of me living anyway? Nobody will miss me when I'm gone...

"Your self-pit disgusts me!" a woman's harsh voice said to me.

I opened my eyes and saw a blonde woman peering down at me, a deep sorrow hidden behind her eyes.

"Wha...?" I whispered, disoriented.

She stared down at me and I recognized her face slowly.

"Mom...?" I whispered gently, the harsh lines in her face softened.

"Who are you...?" She scowled in disgust and suspicion. Her blonde hair was the same shade as mine.

"Mom! Mom, it's me, Cloud!" I stood up and my face brightened. "It's your son, Cloud!"

"Son...? Cloud? What kind of name is that? My son left me long ago and he burned the town, left me to die, consumed by flames..." she mumbled and cast a glare at me.

"No, Mom. It was Sephiroth who burned the town! It wasn't me! I couldn't save you, but I tried! Please, listen to me!" Tears sprang to my eyes because my own mother didn't recognize me.

"Sephiroth? Who's Sephiroth?" She asked me, her blue eyes a duller reflection of my own Mako filled pools.

Sephiroth... I could place a face with a name and an event with a name, but why did I hate him so much? Was it because he burned the town and killed my mother? No, I had to hate him for more than that...?

Again, my memory winked and I remember being in a Mako Reactor, in Mount Nibel. Tifa was kneeling near her dead father, clutching Sephiroth's Masamune left in her father's chest.

My memory twitched in a bright flash of light and I was still inside the Reactor. I remember feeling such a hatred, such an unstoppable rage for Sephiroth when his sword pierced my abdomen and he lifted me up with the blade.

I cringed in pain, but my rage ignited, fueling my Jenova cells and my strength heightened. I picked up Sephiroth and in a final ounce of strength threw him off the side of the Reactor into the LifeStream bubbling in the midst below it. Completely exhausted, I dropped to the floor and lost consciousness from the blood loss...

The memory snapped shut.

Sephiroth... Was that why I hated him...? No, there must be more to it...

I noticed my mother was walking away after I hadn't responded. "My poor son went away to be a SOLDIER..." she moaned.

"Wait Mom! I'm your son, Cloud!" I insisted, but she disappeared into the darkness, as Zack had. "Mom...it's me..."

I felt very alone and rejected. My mother didn't recognize me. Would I become like that if I were here long enough? Would I not even be able to recognize the people I love...?

Tifa...I loved her. Would I forget about her? Was I already beginning to forget? I remembered her name and face clearly. She was my childhood friend, I know.

I can still remember so much about her, about us... about our childhood growing up in Nibelheim.

It was the day Tifa's mother died.

Yes, I remember that day very clearly. She wanted to go across the Nibel Mountains, she thought maybe her mother had crossed them because her mother's a ghost.

The others went on without me...but I wanted to go with her.

The others turned back, but I went on only because I wanted to be with her, be her friend. I wanted her to like me.

And when we got to the bridge; it was an old creaky wooden bridge. And...

I struggled to remember in my mind. And... what? She fell... Did she fall? What had happened that made it so memorable?

Back then I could get by with only skinned knees.

Did I fall? Something about that bridge... What was it!!? I replayed the scene a thousand times, but each time I couldn't remember the bridge. I sort of remember Tifa's father yelling at me... What was it!

"Zack was right. It's happening to me..." I whispered in horror, concentrating on remembering what had happened at the bridge.

I could forget everything else, but the one person I never wanted to forget was Tifa. But it was already happening. What was causing this forgetfulness to the souls in this realm? I wasn't living a nightmare like the others were, but what if this WAS my nightmare- to forget about everyone I cared about and all my memories of friends and foes. Before, I didn't want to live with the pain of my past- I wanted to die. But if this Hell was like a second chance, I'd rather die again than forget about everyone while I was still living.

So maybe this was my nightmare-to forget Tifa... I shook my head.

I never wanted to forget the one person I truly love...