Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII

Have you ever had that confident feeling that just keeps building up with every little thing you do? First you get a new haircut, then you get a raise, soon you are being praised at home, and your girlfriends call to say that you are the best friend they've ever had. Finally, it gets to the point that you think you can do no wrong. That no matter what is wrong, you still have the confidence and competence to take care of it, whatever it may be.

Then you realize that that promotion you got was only because they had to fire that other guy, and that that praise only came from the guy that wanted you in bed, and that everyday, you weren't really the superhero you thought you could be, you were just a pathetically overconfident newbie who, had you had any more experience, would have known how foolish you looked to the rest of them.

I know that feeling. I live with that feeling. The depression and guilt sit in the pit of my stomach, like weed and alcohol, constantly mixing but never going anywhere. I had felt like a star. I had landed one of the greatest jobs in all of Midgar; my name had become one of the few names that the people never learned, and yet learned to fear. I had become better and better at my job. My skills were being honed; my senses sharpened. And I could see it in his eyes that he was becoming proud of me, or at least, I thought I saw it. I thought that they were starting to see me as an asset. I thought that I really mattered either which way.

But the long and short of it was that I didn't. It took me a while to realize how wrong I was. In fact, it took me a good few months. I figured it out, one night right after going out for dinner. There was nothing special about going out for dinner, I mean Hell, I could afford it now, so it wasn't like it was a rare occasion. It wasn't even like I had anyone special with me that night, in fact, it was the very thought that someone very special wasn't with me that opened my eyes.

That night, I got just a little more experienced, even though I was off duty for the evening. And as they say "With experience comes wisdom," well, I got my wisdom alright. With the news came pain, and with the pain came strength, and from strength sprung realization. The realization that all the times he smiled at me, he was the only one. That he was the only one that thought I was worth seeing out to the end, that he was the only one that thought I could become more of an asset than a burden. And it was only when he no longer looked at me that I figured out why no one else had.

I was weak. It was easy to see. I couldn't even properly avenge him, I just had to settle for trying to hit some kid in the snow. But now where were my goals? Who was I trying to impress now? Who would even care? The one person that I wanted to make a difference to, and the one person that had made the biggest difference to me was gone, and it was just up to me to carry on…with this low, meaningless, menial life of mine.

The funny thing is that, when I returned, they all looked at me like I was a little higher up in the food chain. Like I was a rung higher on the ladder of life. So while I'm sitting in my deep pit in the darkness of depression and reality, they are all holding their heads slightly higher to me now. Why? Because with the passing of one comes the promotion of another, that's why. Because they don't feel my pain, they just get paid.

But in all the confusion, there is one thing that I remember very vividly from my first time back to work since it happened. I remember that I took a few days off, and when I came back, one of the secretaries was to accompany me up to the upper floors to hear the speech about how I would be upped in the ranks. I didn't care, I just remember that elevator ride up. It was a long ride. We took the thing from one of the lower floors - the fifth maybe? - and all the way up to the top to see the Pres. That elevator faced the outside. It was raining against the glass. As I rode up in that elevator, I noticed I was one step closer to the sky…and yet the sky seemed so much darker now than when I started out.

I didn't hear the speech they gave me, I just kept thinking over everything that I had just now realized were wrong with me. I had landed a great job, but I had no respect. I got a better job and a bit more respect, but I lost one very important person. I suppose you can't really ever have your cake and eat it too, and as one famous guy once said, "There are two great tragedies in life: Not achieving your dreams, and achieving them."