"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but onece heaved, and for ever grew still!"
George Gordon Byron
Reeve, Barret, and Yuffie all watched as five more men were carried in the hospital door and minutes later, they watched several bodies being carried out. Ten feet to the right of the hospital, a white tent had been erected and was now functioning as a morgue. They had stopped counting how many had been carried out. They wanted to avert their eyes, but they watched diligently, making sure that none of the dead were Tifa.
"I don't think I can take much more of this..." Yuffie whispered, her face pale.
Barret and Reeve nodded in agreement, both of them looking as pale and terrified as Yuffie.
"It's been about an hour..." Reeve said hoarsely. "Must be about two in the morning..."
"Wonder how long it'll take them to git back from Rocket Town..." Barret muttered.
Reeve and Yuffie didn't answer. They fell into silence again as one more body was carried out of the hospital. It was yet another young recruit. Reeve turned his eyes away as the two living recruits carrying him sobbed quietly. Yuffie was sniffling behind him. Horrible...Reeve thought numbly. This is horrible... The ringing of his PHS stopped him from breaking down himself. Yuffie and Barret's eyes followed him as he flipped it open.
"Reeve here." he said into the phone, voice hollow.
"This is Vincent." a monotonous voice replied. "What is the situation in Cosmo Canyon."
"A lot of people have been poisoned...mostly recruits..." Reeve took in a shaky breath. "Tifa's been poisoned too...we don't know how she's holding up. Cloud's with her."
There were several seconds of silence on the other end of the phone. When Vincent spoke again, his voice had a barely dectectable, anxious edge to it.
"How many men are you down by?" he asked tensely.
"I don't know..." Reeve said quickly, brow furrowing. "At least one hundred...maybe more..."
When silence met him at the other end again, Reeve felt a twinge of fear.
"Why?" Reeve asked. "Is there something going on?"
"President Kale left. On a helicopter." Vincent said pointedly. "I spoke to another man who works here just now. He said that the SOLDIERS and over half of Kale's recruits have been gone for three days."
Reeves throat felt dry all of the sudden.
"Are you saying-" he began scratchily.
"Another attack." Vincent interrupted. "Soon."
"Soon..." Reeve said blankly. "How soon?"
Vincent hesitated before answering. "It's hard to tell. Now, perhaps. Tomorrow maybe."
Reeve pressed a hand to his forehead and leaned against the wall of the hospital.
"We'll do what we can to get ready." he told Vincent weakly.
The line went dead. Barret and Yuffie's faces peered at him anxiously. He quickly relayed the information to them. This new information seemed to age them both by ten years.
"What do we do?" Yuffie whispered shakily.
"We haveta talk to the war advisor..." Barret said lowly. "Then git what men we have, ready..."
Reeve nodded. "I'll go get the war advisor...Barret could you wake the men up? And Yuffie-"
But he was interrupted by shouting coming somewhere ahead of them. Coming down the path were two recruits, and between them, dripping blood on the path was-
"Oh God..." Yuffie whispered. "Red!"
They rushed forward to help the two men carry Red.
"What happened?" Reeve asked Red, examining the bullet wounds that peppered his side.
Red's breathing was labored, and they had to strain to hear his voice.
"They're coming..." he gasped before passing out cold.
It only took twenty minutes for total chaos to break out. Men, women, and children from the city surrounding Cosmo Canyon swarmed into the fort, and recruits ran out. The massive crowd of civilians being herded inside the fort were everywhere; in the barracks, the training area...The sound of children crying, men shouting, and women screaming filled the air. The gate area was the worse. People were coming in at an unstoppable rate as recruits tried desperately to protect the civilians outside the wall from the enemy. Gunshots and the sound of people being wounded and killed plagued everyone's ears.
Reeve, Barret, Yuffie, and the war advisor observed all this from atop the wall with growing horror and terror.
"It's no use!" the war advisor shouted. "We have to tell the recruits to close the gates and stop evacuating the civilians!"
Yuffie turned on him angrily. "No!"
"We can't just let them be killed!" Reeve shouted at him.
"They'll die out there!" Barret growled.
The war advisor gave them a pitying shake of the head.
"We can get as many as we can inside the walls...but the others are better off trying to hold out inside their homes." he said, speaking over the sounds of fighting. "If we focus too much on evacuating the civilians, we won't win this fight."
They absorbed this information, trying to squash the denial in their chests.
"Give the order..." Reeve said painfully.
The war advisor gave a curt nod and busied himself with a radio. Reeve, Yuffie, and Barret turned towards one another.
"I can't jus' sit here and do nothin'" Barret said fiercly.
Yuffie nodded her head vigorously. "Me either."
"I'll go insane if I just stand here..." Reeve agreed.
Barret adjusted his gunarm, and Yuffie gripped her shruiken.
"We can still fight better than anyone else!" Yuffie said, her old spunk showing through the fear.
"That's right!" Barret agreed strongly.
Reeve watched them, weaponless.
"Be careful out there..." he said to them. "I'll organize the civilians...keep them away from the wall...make sure a panic doesn't start."
They nodded at each other and ran off.
Inside the hospital, there was a dramatic contrast to outside. Those poisoned had fallen silent; the poison had weakened them and robbed them of consciousness. The only audible sound were the footsteps of the nurses and doctors as they went from patient to patient, and the sound of a body being carried out every now and then. The hospital staff shook their heads hopelessly, as they became more and more convinced that none of their patients would ever wake up.
Behind their curtain, Cloud still held Tifa close. He kept his fingers pressed firmly on her wrist, where the fluttering pulse were her only signs of life. His other hand weaved through her hair, brushing the silky strands off her feverish face. She had fallen asleep nearly an hour ago. Cloud could almost feel her fading away. He traced his fingers gently over the countors of her face.
"Hey Tifa..." he whispered. "Didn't I ever tell you how beautiful you are when you sleep?"
He closed his eyes breifly, imagining that she had smiled and blushed, like she always did when he told her she was beautiful.
"Remember that night under the Highwind?" he asked softly. "That was the first time I ever held you close like that...the first time I ever got to see how beautiful you look when you're asleep."
Cloud gently ran his fingers over her closed eyelids.
"What was it you said to me?" Cloud whispered.
He laughed quietly into her hair.
"'Cloud, feelings aren't the only thing that tell someone what you're thinking.'" he quoted.
Cloud burried his face into her hair, hiding his tears even though there was no one there to see.
"You don't know how much those words terrified me." he said hoarsely. "You always knew how to put me on the spot..."
Cloud stopped for a moment, feeling the fluttering pulse in her wrist, and placing his hands on her side so he could feel the weak rise and fall of her chest.
"Sometimes I think I'm more afraid of you than I ever was of Sephiroth..." he said, squeezing his eyes shut. "I'd face a thousand Sephiroth's rather than lose you..."
Unable to keep his hand steady enough on her wrist to check her pulse, Cloud used both arms to her close. He cradled her head to his chest, and unable to hold back any longer, began sobbing into her hair.
"I said the ether probably wasn't working because you were worried for Marlene..." he cried, tears trickling onto her still face. "I should have known there was a reason it wasn't working...why didn't I check the ethers?"
He tried to stop the tears, his breath ragged, but he failed miserably.
"We could have done something sooner..." he sobbed. "Tifa...please don't die...what would I do without you? You're killing me Tifa...I love you so much...don't leave me..."
He clenched his left fist, and felt the metallic bulge of his wedding ring against his other fingers. His dry sobs wracked his body. Outside, an explosion caused part of the wall to crumble down. Inside, Cloud's entire world was crumbling.