"A Dream and a Memory"

            I know a lot of FF7 fanfics are out there, especially ones that deal with what happened to Cloud and the gang after the end of the story. Well, this is my take on what happens after the end of the game. I'm going to keep it PG-13, but there will be violence, and a little innuendo. Two things you should know. I am the type of writer that likes to deal with a little symbolism. If you pay attention you may be able to see what's going on in each character's minds via the symbols I use (there won't be a whole lot, but they will be there). And the second thing you should know is that when I played FF7 a long time ago, I renamed only one character: Aeris. Personally I hated the name. So I changed it to something similar but a name I could tolerate: Aerieth. Ever since that day it's always been Aerieth to me, and so it is with this story. Sorry fans, your just gonna have to deal with it. So that said, let the story begin…

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            I'm walking up a long staircase…its white with pink roses along each side of a pearl white banister. There's a bright light ahead, with clouds swirling gently around it. It looks like heaven. I put my hand on the banister and take it all in. My hand touches one of the roses. I pick it up and admire its beauty. Suddenly it starts to wilt. Slowly each leaf shrivels and falls. I grab another rose. It too is remarkably perfect until my hand touches it. It shrivels and falls to the earth. I grab another, and another, pricking my hand several times by the thorns. I am desperate. It's almost as if the entire rose bush is rejecting me. I hear something. I glance behind me and see the stairs that I am climbing turning to ash and breaking away. I run up the stairs, keeping myself ahead of the falling columns of stone. The top seems so far away, but I will myself on for miles and miles, until finally I reach the top just as the last stair crumbles out from underneath me into the bottomless black void below. I am standing in a small circular open room. The white floor glistens from the light above, and in the center of the room, there lays an arbor covered in pink roses, with a familiar face within. My hands shake and my heart pumps. "Aerieth..." She looks up and smiles at me. She unfolds her hands and hands me a small white stone. It's the same color as the light from above. "White materia…" I look up at her again and she motions for me to look at the stone once more. I look, and see a beautiful mesh of light and brilliant clouds circling within it. Faster and faster it spins, until the light fades and the clouds darken into a raging storm. I can feel its power course through my hand with each painful lightning strike, and the clouds become more and more destructive. I look up and notice that the bright light that had once been deep in the sky had been replaced by the exact same storm within my hand. Aerieth seems unaware of the danger. I reach toward her, but as my hand touches her warm face a shattering boom announces Sephiroth high in the air, and his sword of lightning pierces her chest. The color fades from her eyes and she slumps over dead in my arms. My tears are drowned out by laughing. Laughing, laughing, laughing. Sephiroth raises his arms in triumph as I cry in anger and remorse. "No…" The materia in my hand changes color…"NO!" It turns red, blood red… "NOOOOOOO!!!!"

            "NOOOOOOO!!!!" I'm sitting up in my bed, my hand clenched so hard and tight that it's actually bleeding. The pain is still there. I lower my arms in defeat and try to get a hold of myself. It was almost a month ago since myself, Barrett, Tifa, RedXIII, Yuffie, Vincent, Cid, and Cait Sith faced off against Sephiroth, and claimed vengeance for the life of Aerieth and for the planet. I still remember when in our final battle, when it was just me and Sephiroth, my anger kindled into something I had never experienced before. I called it the Omnislash, and I haven't been able to do it again sense, but I remember my blade piercing his flesh over and over. The blood spewed as arteries and veins opened. His stomach split open, released its darkened contents upon the floor, but my hate only grew the more as I slashed again and again and again, finally seeing him withdraw into darkness. I thought that that was the last day I would ever see him. But I was wrong. I've seen him every night in my dreams since then. Sometimes it's me fighting him, and I relive his last moments. Sometimes I'm fighting him but this time I don't win, instead it's he who is the victor, and the world crumbles. But most of the time it's the dream I just had. Usually theirs a little variation…like this time. I've haven't seen the white materia since…a month ago when we fought Sephiroth. I put my hand on my forehead, trying to remember the dream more distinctly. It always fades so quickly. Dreams tend to do that the more you try to remember them…I remember Aerieth was there. Yah, she's almost always there. And the staircase. Yes, there was a staircase surrounded by pink roses that…that…oh what did they do…yes, they turned into ash when I touched them. That hasn't happened before. Or was that the staircase? And why did the white materia turn red? Aerieth's blood…

            I get out of bed and put some clothes on. It's a sunny day out, although it's hard to see the sun in Midgar, even after the life stream saved and changed it. My apartment is small…I'm a rich man now. I could afford a luxurious house that would have rivaled anything in Midgar. But thinking of luxury sickens me. Every person who I have ever met who was rich has turned out to be evil. Perhaps it's a cruel and unfair generalization, but it's true. Rufus, Palmer, and Hojo, just to name a few.

            I glance at the clock. It's almost nine o'clock. I go to my closet. In it is lies all my memories of my adventures through Wutai, Midgar, the Frozen North and the Final Dungeon, Gold Saucer, and everything else. There are a lot of pictures. I never knew it, but apparently Cait Sith had been taking pictures of us constantly during our exploits. Originally it was to frame us, but Cait Sith, or rather, the guy controlling him (I still don't know his name or where exactly he lives in Midgar), ended up just taking photos of us because he thought that if we were lucky enough to live through the war, we might enjoy them. He was right. There's only one picture of Aerieth though. Well, I shouldn't say that. There are several of her in group photos, and two or three of her fighting off a chocobo, but really there's only one of her just by herself. She has that smile, that smile I will never forget. I look away…

            I see my swords. I ended up selling most of them after the war. I didn't know what to do with them. Cid said I should keep them as trophies, and I did keep a few. Apocalypse, Ultima sword, and the Nail Bat, to be specific. I kept the first two because of their sheer power, the third, because no one would buy it. To this day they are mounted next to my Buster Sword, the only other sword I kept. I sharpen it a lot. It's almost like a hobby for me. Every time I do so many memories come back. The good, the bad, but mostly the good. Countless many enemies fell because of this behemoth. Sometimes I like to count just how many I've killed. I smirk at the thought and then put on a leather jacket. Hey, I'm entitled to some luxuries alright?

            The cleanup of sector seven has been slow, but then again, there wasn't much to take care of after the life stream went through it. Sector seven is basically a jungle now; a tiny garden of Eden amongst a bustling town. Really the only things that we had to remove were the boulders that blocked the entrances into sector seven, and we finished that almost a week ago. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess.

            I'm not sure where Tifa and Barrett are exactly. I last talked to them three days ago at Aerieth's old house, where Aerieth's mom has allowed them to stay until they can provide themselves with a more permanent residence. Her mom took the news of Aerieth's death really hard, and the flowers in her garden have been neglected as a result. But at least she's taking care of the cooking part. Tifa never was a good cook despite her old days as a bartender. And Barrett couldn't make a peanut butter sandwich to save his life. I can here it now. "What the hell is with this damn stuff anyway? Not only does it taste bad, but hell! I can't even get the &%# lid open!!!"

            I decide to walk to the old church, the one where I first met Aerieth. I enter and I immediately remember how she enlisted me as her body guard. "I'm sorry Aerieth, I wasn't good enough…" I accidentally say aloud, though nobody is around to notice. "You come here to often Cloud," says a voice from somewhere. I reach for my sword, notice that I forgot to bring it, then go into a boxing stance and yell, "Who's there? Show yourself!"