One By One

by silver-doe287

The Midgar Paranormal Investigators aren't new to the ghost hunting business. For this rag-tag scooby gang consisting of a psychic, three veterans, a photography student, a Wiccan, a phasmophobic leader, and one coffee-obsessed cranky old dude, however, the Shinra Manor - and its bad habit of making people disappear - would be an investigation they would never forget.

3. The Basement

RandomSmil3z: Happy Halloween! I hope you enjoy the third chapter of the story - it's an extra long one this time

Silver-doe287: Happy Halloween, everybody! Have a wonderful, extra long chapter full of spookiness, a touch of horror, delicious evil, and poor, poor Cloud. Enjoy!

---

When the second van squealed to a halt next to the first, a stream of heavy bass rattled the mirrors, pelted the windows, and shook the ivory frame. The thrumming beat snuck out between the cracks in the doors and rumbled across the dead grass, which was highlighted gold by the brilliant headlights. It also crept into the tires, which were still warm from the long drive to the manor. It pounded the dry earth and reverberated up through the stars themselves.

But then one of the side doors slid open, and the screeching tunes came to an abrupt halt.

"Oh come on!" Barret complained, palms stopping midair from his solo drumming on the steering wheel. "It was just getting to the good part!"

"You need to join the current century," Yuffie teased as she jumped out from the van and onto the grass. Around her neck was a rainbow strap which was connected to a beefy camera, and she quickly adjusted it as she glanced around the property. "So this is the place, huh? It's waaay bigger than what I thought it would be! And look at the architecture." She flashed a quick photo of the manor's dilapidated exterior. "Neoclassical, maybe? Or maybe even gothic..."

A sigh echoed from somewhere behind her. "It's tudor style architecture," Vincent deadpanned as he disembarked from the van behind her. He pulled a cigarette lighter and bundle of sage out of his pocket and quietly added, "You can tell from the unique lumber decor." He proceeded to light up the sage bundle as if it was a firework on New Years. It smoked in his hand and lit up his half-hidden crimson gaze.

"Hey Vin," Cid called as he slid out from the passenger's seat, "bring that lighter here." But he didn't wait for Vincent to bring it over as requested; instead, he reached out his open window and, after plucking the lighter from Vincent's outstretched hand, used it to light the waiting cigarette between his lips. After tossing it back, he took a long drag and stared suspiciously at the manor.

Something felt… off. Maybe it was the angle of the moon shining down on the old building; how its light seemed too thin, too pale, too sickly to come from the stars. Or maybe it was the manor itself, how ancient wood groaned with the wind and cracked windows fragmented the moonlight.

"Those things'll kill you, old man," Yuffie scoffed with a loud sniff. Without turning around, she shook her head and lifted the camera up for another shot. "Nasty."

Cid took another long drag. "Hasn't killed me yet," he replied with a long, smoky exhale and then a long drag of his earl grey tea. The bitter caffeine did little to help wake him up however, and he let out a low curse. "Well, let's go see what the hell is going on here. Can't believe that I hired y'all to do the overnight investigations so I don't have to. Waste of money," he spat with a heavy, annoyed sigh.

"Excuse me?" Barret asked indignantly as he walked around the van to join them. "I ain't doing this for the money."

"I am!" Yuffie raised a hand as she turned around to face them, a mischievous grin on her face. "College is expensive, you know. But this beats taking a final any day!"

Vincent, who had just spent a few minutes carefully smudging around their van, was now standing cautiously in front of Tifa's vehicle. The lights seemed to all be on, but no one appeared to be inside - a fact confirmed when he knocked on the back door and no one answered.

Vincent turned around and shrugged. "They must be inside," he said simply as he blew out the smoking sage.

Yuffie's expression lit up. "Let's go take a look at the big, scary house," she whispered gleefully, bouncing on her toes, altogether far too eager to witness a proper haunting.

Cid huffed again, and after drawing one final pull out of the end of his cigarette, he discarded it to the ground and snuffed out the remaining light with his foot. "Those idiots are going to have some explaining to do," he growled as he plucked out the half-finished tea from its cupholder in the van and slammed the door behind him, only to turn and see the other three staring at him. "What?" he demanded.

Vincent reached into the back of the van and pulled out an empty trash can. He then held it out without a single word. Cid stared at it for a moment before he realized what the quiet man was hinting at.

"For crying out loud...!" He plucked the discarded cigarette of the floor and discarded it in the held out can. Now that pointless task was finished, with a grunt of annoyance Cid led the entourage of misfits towards the manor. Yuffie giggled behind him, and there was a loud slap as she high-fived Vincent. Cid only sighed.

The first thing he noticed when he opened the old doors was the chill. It was cold, and not just the normal high-altitude autumn temperatures that came naturally with the night. This was something else, something far deeper and sharper, and he found himself rubbing his arms as he pushed his way through the front door.

"So this is the place," Barret said. His voice, already low and deep, seemed unnaturally booming in the cavernous front hall. A chandelier groaned on its hinges above their heads, and the old windows rattled and shook with the wind. Cid lifted his head and thought, A storm must be approaching, just as Barret huffed and continued, "Place looks a bit different from the pictures online."

"No kidding," Yuffie replied, voice awestruck as she snapped a photo of the upstairs landing. The room momentarily lit up with a white flash, only to fade back into darkness as she eagerly checked the camera's screen. "I mean, when Tifa called, she had mentioned the place was a bit rundown, but this is kinda… a lot."

"A lot is a word for it," Cid agreed uncertainly as he swept his gaze across the second floor railing, because when Tifa had called for backup, she hadn't just mentioned that the place was falling apart; she had also mentioned that they couldn't contact Zack and her radios in the van weren't working anymore.

There could be logical explanations for all of that, of course. It was no secret that their equipment was getting old and was probably faulty, but the chances of all the radios breaking at the same time had fairly low probability. That certainly didn't mean that it was the work of vengeful spirits, however. In investigations such as these, it was always better to first look for the logical explanation, rule out what had concrete evidence, and then deal with whatever remained. That's the way Cid had always operated, and since that always seemed to work out for him quite well, he made sure his team did the same thing.

With a death grip on the now-empty cup, he sure hoped that process would continue here.

"So." Vincent's low, even tone snapped Cid out of his thoughts. "Are we splitting up?"

"Nope," Cid answered easily. "Not in anything less than pairs after what Tifa mentioned. Speaking of though," he added after half a thought, "where the hell are -"

An interrupting thud on the second floor had the team glancing upwards at the upstairs landing, and then Tifa's frantic face suddenly popped into view, as if she had been summoned by Cid's question. "Guys?" she called out nervously as she peered through the darkness towards them. "Is that - oh thank the gods it is, for a second there I thought..." She seemed to catch herself and she shook her head quickly, leaving Cid frowning at what she hadn't said.

"They're here?" came a second, tight voice - Cloud's - and then the young man himself appeared next to Tifa. Even from his spot on the first floor and in the dim light only illuminated by moonlight and various flashlights towards him, Cid could see spiderwebs draped in Cloud's mused hair and what strangely looked like soot stains darkening his shoulders and smudging his cheeks. His expression was pale, as was Tifa's, and there were tired bruises beneath both their eyes.

Cid expression tightened a fraction. They both looked like they'd been through hell.

"Hey, guys!" Yuffie called from beside him. Letting the camera dangle from its strap around her neck, she threw her hands into the air and waved, disturbing both the dusty air and silky cobwebs. "Thought we'd join the party, too!"

Tifa attempted to smile at the cheery disposition, but it slipped off her face just as quickly as it appeared. Cloud outright grimaced.

"What happened?" Barret inquired with a quick, sturdy step towards the stairs. The man's eyes were narrow with concern as he took in their faces. "What's going on?"

"And where's Aerith?" Vincent added in his low voice. Cid narrowed his eyes, also noting the lack of presence by the team psychic… but then Tifa flinched at the latter question, and that was all the answer Cid needed. "...Damn," he murmured under his breath. "She and Fair are both missing now?"

Tifa took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm her voice. "I… It just happened, like fifteen minutes ago, and we've been searching but we can't find them… and I -"

She cut off when Cloud placed a hand on her shoulder. He was biting his lip. "We're having some trouble," he explained simply as he glanced down at them. "Weird shit is going on." From the light of the flashlight shining just to the right of his face, Cid studied his blue eyes, which were dark from the shadows. The sickly moonlight backlit his hair into a halo of silver.

"Sounds like it," Cid grunted with a sharp exhale. "How about you all head down and we can regroup at the van. Both Zack and Aerith have to still be on the property, so we'll find them eventually."

"And we'll find them quicker with a plan," Vincent added.

"Hell yeah!" Barret agreed heartily with a brandished fist.

Yuffie enthusiastically nodded. "And then after we find them and kill the ghost," she added with a flourish and an excited grin, "we can go for pizza!"

"Yuffie…" Barret shook his head as Tifa and Cloud wearily made their way down the steps. "You can't kill ghosts. They're already dead."

"But you can banish them," Vincent cut in. He glanced at Barret, and his scarlet eyes seemed a lighter shade despite the dark room. "For a banishing spell, all you need is a white candle, a black candle, a mirror, and perhaps some incense -"

Cid loudly sighed, having enough of the pointless conversation. "We got it, Vincent. You get some shit, say some shit, and then voila."

"It's a delicate art," Vincent replied haughtily, his voice as even and unruffled as ever. "It requires years of practice."

"We've heard," Cid groaned with an exaggerated eye roll. "Many times, in fact."

When Tifa and Cloud joined them, Cid scrutinized their appearances at close range. If he thought that they'd looked like hell from afar, they seemed to be far worse for wear up close. Dust coated their clothes. Cloud looked particularly pale, which was a feat considering his usually fair skin, and he held himself in a tense position as if he would sprint from the building at a moment's notice. Yet it was obvious that he was keeping himself together for Tifa, who's shoulders were slumped and her expression was tight with worry. Her black tights had a long rip scoring her thigh, but she hardly seemed to notice.

"So." Tifa glanced up at him and managed a small, thin smile, ever trying to be the leader. "Regroup?"

Cid sighed, disgruntled. "Yeah. Let's go." He led the entire group, sans two important members, back out the doors and towards the vans outside.

Cid's van was the larger of the two. It had been built out of an old, repurposed utility vehicle, and that meant that there was plenty of room for equipment and storage. He slid open the side door of the van and took a quick gander inside. Monitors were bolted onto the walls, weather-proof flooring laid a solid foundation for the cases of equipment, and two generators currently stowed in their transporting locations waited welcomingly. Cid unhooked one of the generators and Barret wordlessly began to help. Together, they heaved the generator down and onto the damp grass below. Once that was done, Cid hefted a sigh and reached back into the van to grab the waiting extension cord. He specifically had a Keurig installed in the corner for the long nights like this, though he mostly used it for hot water to make his various teas - or black coffee, depending on his mood.

Tonight was a black coffee sort of night, and after kicking the generator to life he grabbed his waiting mug and unceremoniously dumped its day-old contents on the ground. "What do you two want?" he asked the Nibelheim natives as he stuck his mug back into the Keurig.

Dry grass crumpled beneath Tifa's boots as she shifted her weight. "Um, no thank you, it's -"

"I asked," Cid repeated, a little louder now, "what you want. And don't make me ask you again, you hear?"

"Um." Tifa seemed taken aback. "Um, just… coffee, please."

Cid grunted his acknowledgement. "Cream? Sugar?"

"Uh, both. Please."

"Cloud?"

He could hear Cloud clear his throat. "Coffee," the younger man replied in a chipped, brittle tone. "Black."

"Bullshit." Cid reached forward and grabbed two creamers and sugars for Cloud, because he knew that boy well enough to know when he was just being a little shit and just trying to act tough. And right now that's exactly what he was trying to do. "Don't be a wuss and just tell me what ya want the first time so we can skip this dance, ya here?"

Cloud straightened up. "I'm not being a wuss."

"Yeah?" Cid glanced over his shoulder. "So then you want your coffee black and bitter?"

Yuffie answered for him. "Definitely not!" she called, lifting her head from her camera's screen. "Actually I saw on Tifa's media page that they all went for coffee before the investigation, and in the corner you can see what Cloud ordered! It was a vanilla white mocha with whipped cream on top!"

"Yuffie!" Cloud looked utterly betrayed. "No, that's not -"

Barret's booming laugh echoed across the abandoned property, and sounded stunningly out of place. "Too late!" he said. "The secret's out!"

"Can we focus?" Cloud's expression, basked in the warm glow of the van, seemed a bit pink. "Our teammates are missing, and -"

"And tell me about that," Cid cut in. The coffee machine hissed and gurgled as it began to spit out black coffee; satisfied, he slowly turned around. "What the hell happened, huh?"

Tifa slowly exhaled. "I… don't even know where to start," she admitted.

But Cloud did. "The piano," he began lowly, and his gaze flicked towards the floor. "Zack heard something at the piano, and then… and then weird shit started happening, so we got out of there. I went to the car to get a new camera, and when I came back, Zack wasn't there."

"I also couldn't get in touch with him over the radio," Tifa added. A shadow flickered across her expression. "Maybe if I tried harder, I -"

Cid interrupted her, because time was of the essence. "And then what happened?" he asked. "After you realized Zack wasn't there?"

Cloud's expression darkened, though he mumbled a brief thank you when Cid passed him his coffee. Cream swirled cheerfully in the tan beverage that was definitely not a black coffee. "Well… I'm not sure how much Tifa told you over your call," he finally continued. "I looked around for Zack, but couldn't find him. I couldn't hear Tifa after a while, either," he added with a small nod towards Tifa, who managed a shaky smile. "Aerith was on the second floor -"

"The second floor by herself?" Cid cut in as he handed Tifa's coffee to her.

Tifa accepted the cup with a wince. "She… insisted," she said eventually. "She said that there was something in the mansion that she wanted to investigate, and…"

"And it didn't last," Cloud cut in, shooting Cid a look. He also shuffled a bit closer to Tifa, as if to block her from Cid's questions. "Aerith and I were talking over the radio - we could communicate for some reason, but not with the van - and we agreed to sweep the ground floor together."

"But before she could get to him, she was attacked," Tifa added, her voice little more than a whisper.

The effect on the group was immediate. Barret's expression shifted into one of shock. Vincent blinked, the extent of his visible surprise. Yuffie jumped up and loudly cussed. Cid frowned.

"Attacked? Like, by an entity?" Yuffie managed after a moment. When both Tifa and Cloud cringed and nodded, she continued more fervently, "How bad was it? Like, bad bad? Did it leave any marks?"

"...Bruises," Cloud admitted with a grimace, which had the van going silent and tense once again. "Around her neck."

"Shiva's tits," Cid muttered. The rest of the group made similar noises of disbelief.

Tifa took a small sip of her coffee. "I saw them when I went back into the manor to find everyone. And then when Cloud, Aerith, and I went to the second floor… she screamed and vanished."

Cid arched an eyebrow. "Just like that?"

Cloud's grip tightened on his coffee. "Just like that," he echoed. "We were looking for her when you guys showed up."

Silence, made heavier by the dark night and the howling wind as the rainless storm barrelled down on the van. Crickets chirped. The dead, dry grass rustled with the breeze.

Then Barret whistled, and the tension snapped. "Damn," he said. "No wonder you guys called for backup."

Cid leaned forward as he nursed his own coffee. "Well, let's go over the facts," he began after a long sip. "What do we know? Maybe you should have called an exorcist too," he added, only half joking.

"We know the history of the building," Cloud pointed out. Color continued to flush his cheeks, exposing his concern, and there was a light in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "Burke, the caretaker of the property, walked Zack and me through it while we did some basic readings. We didn't find anything then, but Burke did mention that this place was an asylum after Shinra himself passed away."

Yuffie's expression suddenly lit up. "Oh man oh man oh man, but did he tell you why it became an asylum, or why the asylum was abandoned?" And when both Tifa and Cloud shot her a curious look, she continued, "It's because first of all, the Shinra guy kind of started going crazy. He kept complaining about noises in the walls and hearing people talking. Even back then this place had a reputation for being haunted."

"I remember that," Tifa murmured. "As kids, we'd sometimes come out here to maybe see a ghost… just kids' games, you know?"

"But anyway, when the guy died," Yuffie continued in a hushed, excited voice, "they couldn't get anyone else to live here, so they donated this place to the city, which then turned it into an asylum to fill the need for more mental health care."

Barret loudly huffed and kicked the ground as he added onto the story. "But then people started to disappear, one by one. And the institute tried to cover it up. It didn't work, and it's sat abandoned ever since."

"All right, enough with the ghost stories," Cid cut in with a groan of annoyance. "Let's go find our team."

---

Cloud was not enjoying being back in the manor again after the small bout of relief his being outside had provided. The coffee he had just finished spun his nerves into twisted, frayed ends that kept him alert and on edge. His hands were jittery. Every shadow was a threat, every blinking camera light was an eye squinting at him in the dark, and his heart stuttered and stammered behind his ribs.

"Hey Cloud," Barret asked, "what're you thinking about?" His voice, normally loud and carrying, was actually a bit muted for once.

Cloud adjusted the grip on his K2 meter and sighed. "I'm just hoping we can find them, finish the investigation, and get the hell out of here," he admitted as he stared at the green, unimpressive light from the unimpressive paranormal activity. "Zack can be an annoying ass sometimes, but… well, you know."

Barret chuckled as he scanned his flashlight around the library. "I get it," he replied. "Don't have to say nothin' more."

Cloud managed a thin smile in reply. It was an unspoken agreement on the significance of friendship in a military unit, and out of all people to get paired off with during such a concerning time, he was secretly glad it was with his veteran mentor.

They continued to scan the library, and his flashlight trailed over dusty books, old tables, and broken chairs. It had been decided that, as Zack and Aerith didn't seem to be answering the radio, they would methodically go through each of the manor's rooms and look for any traces of their disappearance. He and Barret were charged with the library, while Vincent and Yuffie were in the greenhouse. Cid and Tifa, meanwhile, were confirming that Zack and Aerith weren't somewhere on the first floor. Once they finished, then they would sweep the entire second floor once more… including the room where Aerith had been attacked…the room Cloud didn't want to go inside.

"What's this?" Barret's flashlight beam had fallen on a heavy, black safe - the same one that Burke had mentioned that there could be money or some kind of treasure inside, which had Cloud stepping closer. Years of evidence showing people trying to break into the vault made themselves known in grooves, scratches, and shiny metal where the dull paint had been stripped bare from exertion. The lock on the safe was a number combination. Cloud lifted a hand up and tried to jostle the number pad, finding success as it slid to the right and revealed a single, unblemished keyhole.

His eyes widened a fraction. What a second. Pocketing the K2 meter, he rummaged around in his hoodie pockets until he found what he was looking for, and then showed Barret the single old key Aerith had found in the piano downstairs.

Barret's gaze narrowed. "You don't think…"

One corner of Cloud's lips lifted in a smirk, and without another word he inserted the key into the hole and gave it a single, strong twist. The results were instantaneous: an interior mechanism groaned as it shifted for the first time in who knew how many years, and a loud tick accompanied it. Cloud swallowed, glanced back at Barret, and turned the old handle with a hard shove.

The door groaned open, and inside was a cacophony of various items: yellowing papers, coffee-stained registries, a cloudy watch with the needles frozen in time. Barret reached inside and picked out some papers at random, scanning them with his flashlight, while Cloud reached up to flick on the headlamp he had grabbed from Cid's van. "Anything good?" Cloud asked nonchalantly as he sifted through the rest of the papers. On his end, he only came across financial records and stock ledgers - no money seemed to be hidden in the pile, and disappointment trickled through him despite his knowing full well that taking money from an abandoned asylum would still be considered theft.

Barret only sighed. "Nah, just some old blueprints. Although… wait, Cloud, come take a look at this." He held a blueprint up for Cloud to inspect, and their two flashlights - Barret's handheld, and Cloud's headlamp - warmed the faded blue paper to a sea glass shade. Cloud could easily make out the room they were in, as well as the greenhouse and stairs descending to the first floor, but…

"What about it?" Cloud asked in confusion. "It looks normal to me."

"Look here." Barret traced the faded lines of the second floor hallway before his fingertip rested on the room opposite of theirs. It was the room - the room with the hands that had attacked Aerith, the room with all of the whispering, the room that he had wanted to forget - and Cloud folded his hands across his chest, as if the single action provided a barrier between him and the world.

"So?"

Barret shot him a long look. "So this wall isn't just a wall," he enunciated. "Use your eyes."

Cloud scowled at him, but dutifully returned his attention to the diagram of the room. He could picture it in his mind's eye; the sharp corners, the small space, the way the curved wall had seemed to press in on him...

… except now that he was paying attention, there seemed to be a hollow space behind the curved wall. "What's that?" He gestured vaguely to the space behind the wall. "Are those...stairs?"

"I think so," Barret replied excitedly, and began flipping through the blueprints. "I think it's a secret tunnel. And look -" his flashlight and shifting paused on another level of the house, one that had Cloud's palms sweaty in nervousness. "It leads to the basement."

A shiver rippled up Cloud's spine. Of course it had to be a basement, he inwardly groaned. It couldn't be a garden or something more pleasant.

"And," Barret triumphantly finished, "I bet that's where Zack and Aerith are." He stood up, blueprints still clenched in his large fist, and swung his flashlight towards the library door. "We have to check it out!"

Cloud blanched. "Um…" He wanted to find Zack and Aerith, he really did. But to go back into that room again, he… he needed more time to prepare, more time to get a grip and compose himself, and then just deal with whatever came - except there wasn't any more time, was there? Zack and Aerith would have charged in the newly discovered basement, no questions asked, to save him.

And he needed to return the favor.

"S - Sure," he managed to grind out. "Let's tell the others and -"

A distant shriek rattled the windows and chilled the air. He jerked his head up at the young, panicked voice, and knew that it could only belong to one person:

"Yuffie?" he breathed, just as Barret cussed and began running out of the door. Cloud got up and followed close behind, his flashlight bobbing with every stride, his throat tightening.

Not again.

"She was with Vincent, right?" Barret asked over his shoulder. Cloud nodded, his headlamp jerking with the movement, just as they skidded into the greenhouse next door.

Except the two expected teammates were no longer there. Only plants resided in the cold room, and their tangled vines and thorny branches crawled up the foggy windows and moss-stained walls in a desperate bid for daylight. Roots crawled out from underneath too-small pots, their pale forms thick and tapered to fine points. Spiderwebs formed pale curtains that stretched across the ceiling. The moon stared at them, the silver eye foggy and unblinking through the misty glass of the atrium windows.

Footsteps suddenly thundered behind them, and Cloud spun around so quickly that he nearly kinked his neck and lost his footing. He stuck his head out the door to see in relief that it was only Cid flying up the stairs two at a time, with Tifa hot on his heels.

"The camera!" Cid snapped.

Cloud nodded and went to grab the tripod from where it was pointed toward the cold spot Zack had discovered earlier, but Barret was faster. The larger man squinted at it with a practiced eye and Cloud peered over his thick arms, trying to catch a glimpse.

No signs of tampering, he thought with a frown. And it looks like it's still live streaming back to the van…

"Well?" Tifa stepped up behind him, and it wasn't long before Cloud felt her place a steadying hand against his back. He unconsciously leaned into the gentle touch as she continued, "Did you see anything? How's the camera?"

"Camera is fine," he replied. He talked low, as not to interfere with Cid as he called for Yuffie and Vincent over the radio. Static punctuated every word as he continued, "No sign of tampering."

"That's good." Tifa sucked in breath, and that's when Cloud noticed that her hand was lightly trembling against his back, that her fingers were curled and her nails were digging into the soft fabric of his hoodie.

"Hey." He managed a thin smile. "We'll find them, okay?"

Tifa blinked at his gentle tone, but then managed a small smile of her own. "Right."

"Yuffie?" Cid's sharp voice cut through their private conversation, and Cloud turned to see Cid holding up his radio. "Where are ya, you little punk?" he continued to call. "I don't got time for this!"

Barret stood nearby, his hands - organic and prosthetic - clenched into tight fists at his side. "Not answering, huh?"

Tifa thickly swallowed and glanced at Cloud, who pursed his lips in response. He paused for a moment. "Do you hear that?" He asked. Everybody else fell silent. For a brief moment he wondered if he'd been imagining things, but there it was - a gentle, steady stream of static aside from Cid's. Cloud narrowed his eyes and crouched so he could peer a bit more easily underneath the tangles of leaves and roots and furniture. There, in front of him, was a radio. He pulled it out from underneath a chair, showing his teammates his discovery.

"That's Vincent's radio," Tifa showed with a pointed finger at the obvious initials.

"The basement," Barret suddenly said, turning his head to meet Cloud's eyes as he sought agreement. "They must be in the basement. Cloud and I found some blueprints, see?" He unfurled the blueprints, which he had unwittingly crumpled in his clenched fists. "There's some stairs behind the wall in the room over here…"

Cid turned off his radio and grabbed Vincent's from Cloud's fingers with a harsh sigh. "Which room?"

Tifa, who had leaned over to get a better look, suddenly widened her eyes. "Wait. That's the room where Aerith…"

"Where Aerith was attacked," Cloud finished with a grimace. "Yeah."

Cid flicked his steely, blue-eyed gaze to Tifa. "So you're sayin' that we need to prepare," he said slowly.

Tifa bit her lip and nodded, once. "That would be for the best."

"I agree," Cloud added, when Barret's expression wavered. "Whatever is in there is… dangerous. We should stock up."

"Never thought I'd hear that from you," Cid scoffed.

Cloud leveled him with a glare. "I'm not saying it's a ghost. It could be a person. Maybe this place isn't as abandoned as we thought. But of course," he quickly added when Tifa paled, "Aerith had said that it was a spirit, so…"

"So we should be prepared," Barret echoed, his frown deep and voice low.

"Just… Just in case," Tifa stammered. She wrung her hands in front of her, and her wine-dark eyes flicked back and forth between them and the door. "And the greenhouse camera is working, right? Maybe we can view the footage back at the van too, and see what really happened."

Cid hummed. "That's an idea," he said after a lengthy pause. "But we should all stick together and go take a look. I've had enough of this disappearing bullshit for one lifetime."

"I'll agree to that," Barret grumbled. "Besides, I gotta check up on the babysitter I got for Marlene. Tell her that I may be gettin' home later than planned."

With that they began to head back out of the manor, but Cloud trailed behind the rest of the team, and he cautiously peered back towards the dark abyss they left behind.

Going back to the van was a great plan. They could stock up on cleansing materials, and maybe even dip into the blessed metal and spirit oil that Tifa kept stored in the trunk. And that wasn't all; he had a few defensive weapons around that could help, just in case this entire mess wasn't because of something paranormal. Wasn't it better to be prepared? Wasn't it better to be well-equipped for whatever may happen?

As he followed behind, something had Cloud pausing. He had followed the others to the top of the stairs, but his strides faltered and eventually stopped entirely as he turned to the very room on the other end of the hall. The door creaked open invitingly, and yet he did not shy away from the place that usually chilled him to his core; instead he stared in wonder at the empty chasm behind the doorway, strangely enthralled with the little flickering shadows he thought he could make out in the dark.

I need to find Zack and Aerith. The thought slipped across his mind, and he found himself slowly walking down the hall. I need to find Yuffie and Vincent.

Cloud blinked, and then he was suddenly inside the very room he had been hell-bent on staying out of.

And yet… he didn't care. He turned his head, his headlamp lighting up the floor, and slipped into utter apathy. The icy cold air didn't cause goosebumps to prick his arms. He ignored the heavy scent of mold and mildew. His gaze slid over tables and long marks scratched into the walls – marks that he recognized immediately, marks that he knew came from fingernails clawing out their terror – and nothing stirred inside of him.

So he took a step forward. The far wall curved away from him, the same wall that would have filled him with dread not even a minute ago, but it didn't look so scary now. In fact, underneath the warm glow of his headlamp, it simply looked boring. Colorless wallpaper had peeled to reveal the original brick beneath. The strange stains weren't all that strange. The unnatural scratches and scrapes seemed plain. Even the wall's angle, cut in stark contrast to the rest of the room, wasn't so confusing or menacing any longer. It was… just a wall.

He took a second step, and then he was standing directly in front of it, close enough that the wide beam of his headlamp became a small halo against its surface. He cocked his head slightly as something fluttered within him; contentedness, perhaps? It was insistent; it pulled and tugged at everything he was, and he felt his eyes grow heavy. It was as if he was meant to be here – that this is where he belonged, and he reached out a hand and pushed it flat against the wall's surface, splaying his fingers against the flaking paper as wide as he could. Warmth pulsed beneath his fingertips. His headlight began to flicker on and off. This isn't so bad, he thought hazily, as he lost himself in the slow strobe of darkness.

So he did not react when he heard soft whispering coming from the wall beneath him. He did not flinch at the dry, hoarse rasp he recognized from a distant memory. He did not jump when his headlight went dark, and he did not shiver when he leaned forward to press an ear against the coarse wall, trying and failing to understand what was being said. If only he could get a little closer…!

"CLOUD!"

A sharp noise passed through Cloud's consciousness but it sounded distant, muted even, and was easy to ignore. He was so close to understanding what it was saying -

Without warning, an unbelievably strong force latched onto his arm and pulled, and he was abruptly torn away from the wall. Something in his mind tore with it; it twisted and ripped inside his head, a steady tearing that had pain slicing across his mind with scalpel-like precision.

And then something snapped. He saw white; someone cried out, as if from far away, and he was dimly aware of hands pressing against his head.

But then he realized that it was his hands, that it was his cry he had heard, and then he recognized that there were a second pair of hands gripping his shoulders. The hands were small, the fingers long and slender, and their warmth chased away the cold that had engulfed him.

"Cloud?" A familiar voice shouted his name, and Cloud squeezed his eyes shut against the ringing in his ears. "Can you hear me, Cloud? Are you okay? What were you doing?!"

"T-Tifa?" he stuttered. The pain subsided, the ringing faded, and he gradually eased his eyes open and met her worried, wine-colored ones. Her flashlight was shining onto his chest. "What…. What're you doing?"

"What am I - what are you doing?" she cried. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, as if she was afraid that he would disappear. "We decided not to come in here, remember? What were you listening to? You… You looked…" she trailed off, biting her lip.

Cloud looked around himself in confusion. Where was… oh. OH. He leapt away from the wall, dragging Tifa along with him as he backed up and stumbled into the hallway. As he passed through the door frame, his headlamp blinked back to life as if it had been on all along.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked hoarsely, clutching his chest as his heartbeat ramped up to entirely new levels. He could feel his heart pounding beneath his clenched fist. "I… Why was I…"

Tifa was gasping for breath. "I...don't know," she replied breathlessly, tentatively letting go of his arm to shake out her wrists.

Cloud couldn't stop staring in horror at the room he'd somehow ended up in. "It was like I was… drawn there," he muttered, more to himself than to her.

"Yo!" Cid's voice, loud and sharp, echoed from the first floor. "You guys coming or what? We ain't got time to fuck around!"

"We -" Tifa began, but Cloud's sudden hand on her wrist stopped her and he shook his head. Cid and Barret didn't need to know about this - not yet, anyway. He didn't even know what this was, and Tifa curtly nodded her understanding. "We'll be right there!" she called to the others before returning her attention to Cloud. "Come on," she said, her voice impossibly soft. "Let's get out of here."

Cloud nodded his agreement and went to follow her, but not before casting one last, nervous look at the dark cavern that was the room stretching out before him. He shuddered and quickened his pace.

Once they regrouped back at the two vans, they began to prepare. Cloud and Tifa reviewed the papers he and Barret had dug out of the safe while Barret reviewed their team's extensive research notes, and Cid - claiming leader privilege - took the seat closest to the monitors to go over the greenhouse footage. Cloud gave up on trying to read the old medical notes early on, and instead he contented himself to listen to Barret explain his team's research. Barret was more than happy to oblige.

"And this is the worst guy of all," the older man was saying as he handed over a worn photograph. Cloud took it gingerly, and frowned at the older man staring at him from behind the camera. He had long, greasy hair and wore a stereotypical white laboratory coat over a suit, but it was his eyes that had Cloud's frown deepening. Not even the glare from his owlish, wire-frame glasses could hide his dead, soulless, calculating gaze into the camera. It had Cloud grimacing, and when he briefly showed Tifa the photograph, her expression mirrored his.

More so, a small headache flared to life between his eyes - the same sort of headache he had felt when Tifa had snapped him out of his earlier daze. "He's pretty creepy," he confirmed as he handed the photo back to Barret. "What was he, a scientist?"

"Doctor," Barret explained. "His name was Hojo, and he was originally the Shinra family doctor before he became one of the doctors workin' at the asylum. Always seemed to be a package deal with the place, that guy." He glared over his shoulder at the manor before continuing, "But that ain't the worst of it. He was said to have experimented on people. Had some fascination with human life apparently, and he was always tryin' to find a solution to death. Or as he put in, 'the confines of a mortal body'."

Cloud made a face. "What, like immortality or something?"

"Exactly like immortality," Barret replied with a grim, somber nod. "That dude was messed up."

"Shut the hell up and take a look at this," Cid cut in, and then scooted over to make room for the rest of the team. "So I can see the two of them in this shot here -" he brandished a hand towards the screen, "- but then, a minute later, Vincent is gone." He rewound the video and replayed it for emphasis. "Did you see that?"

Cloud squinted at the grainy camera feed. The camera's night vision stained the world a dark, green hue that made individual shapes difficult to process, but he could distinctly make out Yuffie studying her camera screen while Vincent peered at the wall. Then Vincent shifted, a blur of moment, before he moved entirely out of the camera range.

Then everything changed.

There was a wheeze of static and then Yuffie was looking towards the door, eyes wide and mouth parted in shock. The footage twitched then, and between one blink and the next, the room had emptied. It was as if no one had been there at all.

Cloud leaned back, thoroughly disturbed. Did what happen to me happen to them? he wondered as he glanced at Tifa. She must have thought the same thing because she met his gaze with worry etched into her eyes.

"They must have gone to the basement," Barret insisted. "The hidden room that Cloud and I found."

Cloud shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. "Could have," he said, shifting his weight to his other foot.

Barret shot him a look. "Could have?" he echoed. "Could have?! Nah man, it's for sure. They gotta be in the basement, with a ghost or some shit."

"We - We need to get them out of there," Tifa added. Her hands were clenched in her lap. "Let's prepare. Make sure that we have everything we need just in case."

Just in case of what, Cloud wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut - he probably didn't want to know the answer.

Barret nodded at Tifa. "Hell yes," he said. "I'm gonna get our salt and shit. Think I need a pistol?" he asked, but then immediately answered, "Yeah for sure, I'm gonna go grab our -"

Cid suddenly slapped his thighs, effectively cutting Barret off. "I need a minute," he announced, and got to his feet. "You all get your shit in order, I'm gonna have myself a smoke, and then we'll find the rest of our team."

With that, he stomped his way out of the back door. A few moments later the distinct, pungent scent of a freshly lit cigarette floated through the strengthening wind and singed Cloud's nostrils. He sneezed despite himself.

"Hey Cloud," Tifa said after a few moments.

He cocked his head inquisitively at her as he wiped his nose. "Yeah?"

"Do you think that maybe… a spirit may have attached itself to you?"

Cloud blinked at her, and he was suddenly aware of how quiet it was. How even the crickets had gone silent, their songs muted, and the night seemed larger and darker because of it. The wind, while blowing his hair in gentle tumbles, did not rustle the grasses. Wolves did not howl at the half-hidden moon, and owls did not question the star-speckled sky. It was simply silent, and the beating of his own heart seemed all too loud in his ears.

"What?" he replied, brilliantly.

Tifa wrung her hands in front of her. "You know, like… for a second there earlier you seemed so off, and I was just -"

But Cloud was already shaking his head. "No. No way. That's impossible, that was just… just because I was tired," he said lamely, because it was a fairly lame excuse. He had no explanation for what had happened in that room. He could not fathom the sheer disorientation he had experienced, he could not explain the ringing in his ears or the sense of calm that had descended on him, and he could not describe the ripping sensation he had felt when Tifa had pulled him away. And as for the whispers…

Cloud shook his head harder now. "No," he said, again. "Nothing is… attached to me. That's impossible."

Barret snorted. "And here I thought that attachment stuff was a myth," he said, and turned towards Tifa. "You really think Chocobo-head has been possessed or something?"

Cloud made a face. "Hey."

"Not possessed," Tifa corrected. "Attached. Like it had... tethered itself to Cloud's life force instead of whatever was holding it here in the first place."

"Look, nothing has attached itself to me," Cloud said. "I feel perfectly normal, okay? Like… Like sure, that was a little weird -" even he could admit that much, "- but that doesn't mean that I now have a ghost best friend or whatever."

Barret arched an eyebrow. "What was a little weird?" he asked, which had Cloud grimacing.

"Well, I…"

"Cloud walked to the room with the basement stairwell, and then started listening to the wall," Tifa cut in, which had Cloud crossing his arms and scowling. "And it was really weird. Like…" She glanced at Cloud and swallowed hard. "Like you were possessed or something."

"I am not possessed," Cloud insisted exasperatedly.

Barret wracked his gaze over Cloud, as if he was trying to find the spirit that had supposedly tethered itself to him. "Maybe not right now," he said, his tone somewhat stiff, "but as for later…"

Cloud harshly sighed, giving up. "Whatever," he said, and moved to leave the van. "This shit isn't real. Let's just find everyone that's missing and get the hell out of here," he added, and then called out, "Cid! Cid, finish your cigarette and let's -"

But his voice trailed off when he realized that the air no longer smelled like cigarette smoke, and no one was answering.

Tifa, sensing something was wrong, stood up and made her way to join him at the back of the van. "Cid?" she called out, her tone tentative. Her fingers brushed against the edge of the door as she pushed it open a bit wider. "Cid, you there?"

"Cid!" Cloud called again as he hopped down and walked around the van, but sure enough, the older man was completely and utterly gone. He clenched his jaw and kicked at the grass, cursing under his breath, before running a harsh hand through his hair and making his way back towards Tifa and Barret. Tifa's eyes lit up when he approached, but they dimmed the moment he shook his head.

"He's gone," Cloud deadpanned.

Barret narrowed his gaze. "Bullshit," he scoffed as he left the van - making it rock a bit from his as he did so - and stomped around to the back of the vehicle with strong assuredness. "He's just having a smoke is all - he said he needed a minute."

Tifa hopped out of the back of the van to join him, and she was biting a nail - a bad habit that she fell into every time she was stressed. Suddenly, she gasped. "Look," she said, and she knelt down next to something on the ground - a half-smoked cigarette, its butt still smoldering a dark, sooty red.

Cloud cursed again under his breath; Barret cursed far louder, but instead of looking at the old cigarette, he was staring at the Shinra manor looming over them. "The hell is this place?" he murmured.

"Guys…" Tifa slowly exhaled. "They have to be in the basement," There was an edge to her voice. The fear was still there, as was the nervousness and trepidation, but there was a new hardness as well. "The two of you found those blueprints with the stairs, Aerith had mentioned the open space behind the wall, and Cloud - both you and Aerith had strange experiences in that room. Not to mention," she added with a half-hearted smile, "we've searched every other place twice and still haven't found them."

Cloud grimaced. He didn't like it - he didn't like it at all, in fact - but… "Yeah," he finally said. "Yeah, I think so too."

Tifa's smile warmed a bit.

"What I wanna know is what we're dealin' with," Barret said. "Like, whatever the hell this thing is, it ain't a regular ghost."

Tifa scuffed the ground with her boots. "Maybe… a demon?" She glanced up at them, wincing a bit. "I really don't know, to be honest. Aerith knows a lot more about the different types than I do."

"Vincent would too," Barret added, his tone low, but then he cleared his throat. "I should...check in with the babysitter," he muttered, phone already pulled out and in his hand. "I'll be right back."

"Stay close to the car," Tifa said. "Just in case."

Barret nodded, but his usual energy seemed more subdued as he made his way to the back of the van for privacy. A gust of wind picked up, chilling Cloud to the bone, and it made the back door of the van groan as it shifted shut.

The moment Barret was gone, Cloud glanced at Tifa. "Look," he said, squaring his jaw with determination. "I don't like this. I don't want to go back to that room. But… But I think you're right." It took him a lot of effort to admit it, and his head was beginning to ache with the conflicting ideas of paranormal and real life. "I think we need to be prepared for anything, including… angry ghosts." Gods, it sounded so lame when he said it, but he relentlessly continued, "So I'll grab the supplies, and do you want to grab a camera, or recorder, or something?"

Tifa managed a small smile. "I'm the leader, remember? But yeah, I do. How about we wait for Barret to finish with his phone call first," she continued as she pulled her own phone out, "and in the meantime, we… I don't know, do you think we should call Burke about the wall?" She worried her lower lip. "Do you think he would know anything?"

"I don't know," Cloud admitted with a vague shrug. "It's pretty late though… would he even still be awake?"

Tifa sighed. "I guess not," she said and slipped the phone back into her pocket. "Still… I don't like this, Cloud." She glanced up at him, and moonlight stained her dark eyes a shade of silver. "I don't like this at all."

Cloud watched her for a moment before his gaze dipped to the ground between them, at their shoes covered with dew and mud. "Me neither," he replied, his voice low. He lifted his head. "Is Barret done yet?"

"Not sure," Tifa replied with a small shrug. "I don't hear him, though."

Cloud nodded, until something Tifa had said clicked within it… and judging by the look on Tifa's face, it clicked for her as well.

They couldn't hear Barret.

Cloud whirled around. "Godsdamn -" he ground out, but then something shifted. The gusting wind, encircling him in its chilly embrace, carried with it a single, broken whisper, one that seemed to echo right next to his ears, or stand with them in the grass... or maybe it was even more intimately inside his very eardrums.

"Come find me."

The voice was high, childlike, and sounded strangely familiar. Too familiar in fact, and goosebumps pricked his arms as a shiver rippled down his spine. His beating heart clawed into his throat.

He spun towards Tifa. "Did you hear -" he began, but his voice trailed off. There was no point in asking; judging by her wide-eyed, pallid expression, she had.

"That voice…" Her voice wavered between them. "I… I recognized it. It sounded like… like…"

"Marlene!"

Barret's shout shattered the night's silence, and Cloud went cold - the sort of cold that had nothing to do with the chill night air - just as they watched Barret sprint across the property towards the manor.

"Barret!" Cloud called, but the larger man didn't stop.

It left them no choice: they had to chase after him.

Cloud spun around. "Tifa -" he began, but she was already running towards their van to grab their supplies. He joined her the next moment and took the pocket knife that was half-buried beneath a stack of papers; slipping that into his jeans pocket, he then opened the passenger door and rummaged beneath the seat. A moment later his hand wrapped around the textured wood of his other weapon of choice: a baseball bat. With a quick grunt he pulled it out, hefting it onto his shoulder.

"Got everything?" Tifa asked, her tone quiet. She wore a fresh headlamp and she had snapped a voice recorder on her skirt. She also carried a bundle of sage and a bag of salt in each hand. Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and her brows were furrowed in determination - determination offset only by her pallid expression and trembling hands.

Cloud managed a shaky nod. "I hope so," he replied, sliding the van door shut behind them.

He switched his headlamp on while Tifa checked the batteries, and together they confirmed that nothing important was left behind. Ignoring the loud drumming in his heart that beat in time with his footsteps, Cloud instead paid attention to the dry brambles of the lawn that crushed beneath his boots as they made their way towards the manor's entrance. The baseball bat's weight in his grasp provided a small measure of comfort, yet even that wasn't enough as the front door - elegant, solid, overwhelming - towered over them for the umpteenth time that night.

Cloud glanced over his shoulder towards Tifa, who met his gaze with a pale, hard look of her own. "Ready?" he murmured.

"Ready," she whispered back.

Without another word, Cloud pushed open the door.

Just like before, he immediately recognized the manor's heavy, oppressive atmosphere. His eyes once again slid over the staircase - not so dusty any longer - and towards the rooms that once promised horror and now guaranteed it. The sense of being watched permeated his core and tasted acidic on his tongue, and he tore his gaze away from the rooms just out of sight to instead focus on the staircase.

He and Tifa marched up the creaky old stairs one at a time. Their footsteps echoed against the wood in rhythm with each other, creating a stuttered wooden heartbeat that echoed through the quiet manor. A door's hinges squeaked from somewhere far away. A window rattled and moaned from the wind. He gripped the bat tightly enough that his knuckles were white with strain, and he only further tightened his hold when they arrived on the second floor.

His headlamp flickered.

A moan - or was that a laugh? - whispered through the air like a gentle breeze, tousling his blond locks.

"I hate this," Cloud whispered underneath his breath.

"It's not too late to change hobbies," Tifa murmured in reply. He could hear the salt bag rattle in her trembling grip. "We could turn around now, in fact?"

"And miss out on all the fun?" Cloud managed a thin smile, all sharp edges and razor-thin confidence. "No thanks."

They continued on. The air grew colder, and the atmosphere became heavier, suffocating even. He felt Tifa's hand tighten around the soft fabric of his hoodie, and he pretended not to notice. Taking a deep breath, he slowly creaked the room's door open…

… and suddenly he felt like he was a child again.

As a child, Cloud had been eager to explore the manor when some local boys dared him to. Of course, he had accidentally ended up locked in the manor at night instead. He felt the familiar terror now, the panic when things began whispering from beneath the curved wall, the screams that had gouged into his mind and scratched themselves into his memories.

He sucked in a breath.

"You okay?" Tifa asked, her voice low. Her headlight shone onto the suspicious wall, and her gaze did not stray from the epicenter of its light.

Cloud managed a thin nod. "Think so," he whispered back. Because he was - he was totally, completely, one-hundred-percent fine. Tifa was right beside him, and he took comfort in having her presence here with him; if something happened to him again, if it overcame him again, then she would snap him out of it. And he would protect her, too. They would protect each other.

With that thought firmly in mind, he brandished the baseball bat before him like it was a sword instead of a blunt object and took a step closer to the wall. Whatever had happened earlier - whatever had taken over his mind and pulled him in here the first time - would not be happening again.

Blissfully, nothing actually happened. It was almost underwhelming; the wall sat there innocently, with no signs of movement or abnormality coming from its textured, peeling walls. It seemed...dormant.

"Cloud? Are you okay?" Tifa's voice nervously broke through the silence, and he was suddenly aware of her hand on his shoulder once again.

Cloud exhaled. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." He glanced at her. "Are you good?" And when she nodded, he continued, "I'm… going to try something, to see if whatever's happening here will happen again."

Alarm flickered across Tifa's expression. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No," he admitted, "but it's the only idea I have."

Tifa pursed her lips, but eventually nodded her blessing. "I'll be right behind you," she promised.

"Thanks," Cloud replied, and he meant it. After giving her a final cursory glance, he took another step towards the wall. The heavy presence began to press down on him, but he couldn't tell if it was to help him or deter him; either way, it stilled as Cloud lifted his hand and pressed it against the wall.

It was warm. Strangely warm. Cloud turned over his shoulder to say as much to Tifa, when suddenly something new cut him off.

"Good choice."

A child's voice penetrated his mind, and he winced as it sank its claws in deep to the depths of his mind. Tifa's eyes widened as he dropped the baseball bat. The weapon collided with the floor, accompanied by a dull thud as he tried to stumble away from the wall… and yet his hand wouldn't budge. He could not free himself, and he turned in confusion only to see a distorted, graying hand wrapped around his wrist.

Panic flared white-hot against his nerves and turned his very bones into shards of electrifying lightning. "Tifa." He tried to keep the terror out of his voice, tried to keep calm, yet his voice crawled higher anyway. "Tifa, there's something grabbing me, there's a hand -!"

Yet Tifa didn't reply, and amidst his struggling to free himself, he glanced over his shoulder and saw why. She was doubled over and clutching her ears, as if she was in pain.

"Tifa!" he shouted, but she didn't seem to hear. Purpose cut through his own flaring, tight-wound horror, and he reached into his pocket to grab his pocket knife - what he should have done in the first place, in fact - yet something in the corner of his vision snagged his attention. He turned, wide-eyed and breathing ragged, only to see the ghostly form of a child by the door. The young boy's soul had his arms around himself as he watched them, and as Cloud's eyes flicked up towards the gray, lifeless entity's face, the child smiled. Its teeth were whittled down to nubs.

"Another visitor for the doctor," the child sang in a broken, guttural voice.

Cloud's eyes widened. Doctor? he thought, but had no time to move or cry out. The pressure around his wrist mounted, and he turned to see something coming out of the wall. An arm. A shoulder. A face, with an open chasm of darkness spilling out behind it…

Cloud's vision flickered.

Everything went dark.

---

A scream ripped apart the room and curdled the air. It clawed against the walls and shattered against the windows like glass against concrete, and Cloud's eyes snapped open. He reached forward without thinking, a gasp lodged in his throat, only for his hands - small, childlike, and certainly not his own - to slam into something hard, something unyielding, something ice cold and lightly curved:

A glass tank.

His eyes narrowed in confusion, and he suddenly realized that glass surrounded him. It warped the world around him and smudged his vision into shades of gray and green, and as he tilted his head back to see how high it went, other sensations also slipped across his consciousness: The air tasted sour, something bubbled in the distance, and it smelled as if something was burning…

Another scream suddenly pierced the air, and with a jolt, he realized that he did not know where he was. Anxiety swelled within him, and his fingers curled against the glass of their own volition; all he knew was that something was wrong, terribly wrong, and he had to escape…!

But then a shadow passed over him.

He looked up and quivered, a movement that had nothing to do with the cold.

A man was standing just beyond his glass prison, and with a start Cloud recognized him to be Hojo - the man from the photograph. While that photo had been nearly a hundred years old, the scientist before him looked exactly the same: a hooked nose, owlish glasses, a white lab coat that hid a thin, hawkish figure. Yet the most memorable similarity was in the way his eyes seemed to stare through him and dismantle him, label his pieces, and discard whatever was unnecessary.

Cloud tried to stand, yet his limbs refused to listen; instead they dragged him away from Hojo until his back was pressed flush with the glass behind him.

Hojo smiled, all teeth and sharp edges. "And so the subject awakens."

Cloud pressed himself further against the glass, until the hard grooves of his spine ached against its chilled surface, and then his lips were moving of their own accord. "Doctor," he rasped. His voice was small, ruined, and the words were not his; it almost felt as if someone was speaking through him. "I… I wanna…"

"Subject 028 appears to be conscious and capable of verbal communication." Hojo clasped his hands behind his coat and continued to stare, unblinking, into the tank. "Estimates predict roughly 9.79 kilograms of carbon is found in a human child, which once the carbon is activated, creates… 61.23 grams of gold. And this," he added with a sharp smile, "will allow research to continue for several more months..."

Another scream bounced off the glass and clawed against the ceiling. Cloud flinched; Hojo only turned around with a world-weary sigh.

"Subject 025." He began walking towards something behind him, and his hollow footsteps echoed against the walls and rang clear in the room - but not just any room, Cloud quickly gathered, but a laboratory. "I believe that we have previously discussed your emotional tendencies. Now if you do not compose your -"

The screaming only increased in pitch. It sharpened, until it could no longer be compared to fingernails clawing against the walls but rather a knife slamming against stone over and over and over. The scream rattled the glass, and Cloud slapped his hands over his ears. He tried but found that he was unable to look away, and he had no choice but to watch - horrified and transfixed - as Hojo moved to the side and gave him an unobstructed view of a surgical table. There was a woman strapped down to the clean, shiny metal. Leather buckles bruised her pale skin and cut deep tracks against her blue-tinged veins. Her hair, blond and stringy and dirty, fanned her face and tumbled over the table. She was wide-eyed and red-faced, screaming all the while, the tendons in her neck popping out from the intensity of her fit.

And Cloud could not look away. He did not look away when Hojo pulled a long knife out of a nearby cupboard. He did not look away when Hojo returned to the woman's side and muttered something about finding a new subject.

And he did not look away when Hojo plunged the dagger into the woman's chest.

Scarlet bubbled at the source and spilled across her ivory dress, and her wild screams softened to little more than blood-stained gurgles. Cloud's breaths came hard and fast as his chest tightened and strangled his throat. His legs kicked out uselessly as he tried to push himself even deeper into his glass cell. Rational thought faded as all he could now see, all he could think about, were the woman's rosy teeth and how quiet the laboratory suddenly seemed without her shrieking.

Cloud squeezed shut his burning eyes.

It was too quiet…

---

The world held its breath.

Water trickled down the walls and dripped from the ceiling. It pooled onto the stained, stone floor and created fragile mirrors that reflected nothing but the hurt and heartache of dusty vials, chipped glass beakers, and molten green and copper jars that bled rust. Dust danced in the air in a delicate pirouette, undisturbed by open windows or cold drafts or muffled breathing. For a moment, the world was quiet.

Until it wasn't.

Cloud opened his eyes with a croaking gasp. His throat burned. His face felt hot, and when he blinked, something wet slipped down his cheek and into his hair. Breathing felt painful. His head was spinning, and the world twisted and turned around him as if it was searching for the best angle. Lurching movements in his vision made his stomach roll. A wheezing sound hissed past his lips as he careened, trying to sit upright, but something held him back and he fell back against a hard surface, his brow pinched in confusion.

The hell…?

He tilted his head to one of his hands, and his gaze fixated on the leather strap wrapped around his wrist. It dug into his pale skin and bit against his fluttering pulse. Beneath his prone arm was a thick, rusty metal sheet.

Slowly - painfully slowly - he began putting the pieces together, fighting against the difficulty to string two thoughts together into something coherent. There were gaps in his logic, blank spaces where something should exist, and he licked his dry lips as he shifted his head the other way.

There was some sort of holding cell across from him. Its curved glass walls were stained and scratched, and there were distinct grooves etched into the crystal that looked distinctly like claw marks. Despite the strange stains splashed across its surface and the black mold stretching up from its base, there was no mistaking the unconscious figure hunched inside.

"Zack," Cloud croaked. He shifted slightly, trying to get in a more comfortable position, but he was still unable to move. His hips were beginning to ache. Panic strummed an off-tune chord in his veins that had his fingers curling against the table's cold metal. "Zack!"

Receiving no answer, Cloud swallowed thickly and shifted his gaze further up. It was then that he realized that everyone was here: Aerith, Yuffie, Barret, Cid, Vincent, and Tifa. Unlike him, however, they had all been confined, unbound and unconscious, in glass jars.

Gotta get out. The thought sang in Cloud's consciousness and, gritting his teeth, he tugged hard against the leather binds that held his wrists in place. They didn't budge. It didn't help that the world continued to sway nauseatingly around him; his arms felt like lead and his head felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton, while his tongue felt fat and his mind felt hazy.

Was I… His eyelashes fluttered as he struggled to form the next words. Was I… drugged? He had no way of knowing, nevermind that he had no idea who had the chance to drug him. Maybe Burke? he wondered weakly as he continued to tug the straps. He discarded that thought immediately, understanding enough to know that Burke couldn't have taken everyone out in his frail state; and besides, he was back in Nibelheim awaiting their morning call. He couldn't have…

Sudden movement snagged his groggy attention.

The confusing picture began to take form: It was as if a shadow had rearranged itself against the wall, and then he heard dragging footsteps scrape unevenly against the floor. Other sounds then penetrated his ears: a rustle of fabric, the popping and cracking of joints, a rasping, breathless sigh. The footsteps grew louder. Then two milky eyes suddenly blinked against the dark, followed closely by a smile.

Cloud went deathly still as the air around him chilled several degrees. The grin looked as if it had been cut out clumsily with a rusty knife: it was uneven, lopsided, jagged, and wrong, and as its breath misted the air between them, a single tooth - held on by little more than a single ligament - swayed precariously.

The fine hairs on the back of Cloud's neck stood on end. He yanked against the straps until the skin tore, and yet he was unable to free himself - he was trapped! He felt as if he were choking, as if there were slender fingers squeezing against his airway and suffocating him. White-hot panic singed the edges of his vision.

The thing's smile widened. Its cheeks lifted and curved its sunken eyes in crescents, and then it took a shambling step further into the dim overhead light. Cloud's eyes widened further; his breath whistled between his teeth in a harsh staccato. The creature's hair was long and stringy, and its bones tugged and pushed against leathery skin that eventually disappeared beneath a white laboratory coat. Its gait was an awkward shuffle. Something glinted in its clenched hand and Cloud wanted to scream, to cry out for help, to shout at one of his teammates to wake the fuck up.

But he couldn't get enough air.

He couldn't get enough air, and though nothing was around his throat, it was difficult to breathe.

The creature took a shambling step forward, and its whisper permeated the air: "And sssso the sssssubject wakesssss up….!"

Cloud's breath stilled in his lungs.

Hojo, he suddenly knew.

"Fuck off!" His voice was high-pitched and scratchy, but he didn't care anymore. "Get the fuck away from me!"

Hojo, his dilapidated body caught somewhere between living and dead, leaned further over him. Watching him move was similar to watching a puppet; first the torso shifted, the movement awkward and jerky, before the limbs snapped into position. His head bobbed on an atrophied neck. And when he lifted his hand, his fingers were clenched around a scalpel.

"Ssssubject 047 appearssss to be conscioussss and capable of verbal communicationnnnn," Hojo continued, his voice little more than a jagged moan. "Continuing the proccccedure nowwww…!"

Cloud yanked an arm; pain lanced through his shoulder, but he hardly felt it. "Get away! Fuck off!" he screamed. Hojo ignored him and moved the scalpel so that it directly hovered over his heart. "No!"

All of a sudden, time seemed to slow.

Dust spiraled in the air. His friends were all still unconscious in their glass jars. Yet there was someone else standing there now, someone with long white hair, green eyes, and wearing some sort of hospital gown. His outline was blurry, and as Cloud watched in confusion, he lifted an arm and pointed towards something to his right.

Then he disappeared.

Cloud sucked in breath as time resumed, and he twisted over best he could to see whatever the unknown being had pointed out. A jagged piece of metal was stuck in the wall beside him, and he realized that though he could not move his arm, he could push against the leather strap and wrap his fingers around the metal. He didn't care that blood beaded and tricked down his wrists. He didn't care that the metal pricked the soft skin of his fingers, he only grabbed it and yanked.

The leather holding his wrist got caught on the sharp metal and snapped.

Cloud took a moment to process that his hand was free, but the moment that he finally did…

He grabbed the scalpel that now hovered mere centimeters above his chest. The icy blade cut into his palm but he hardly noticed; he only wrenched it out of Hojo's flimsy grip and then shoved as hard as he could. Hojo fell onto the floor, and brittle bone cracked against the stone. A twisted sound clawed out of Hojo's mouth.

The moment Hojo hit the ground, everyone suddenly began to wake.

Zack was the first to stir, and Cloud heard him shout his name from his cage before he began banging against its glass walls. But Cloud didn't dare turn away, not now, because Hojo was already picking his battered, semi-rotted body off the floor. His jaw clicked as it snapped in place. Shoulders popped, ribs were pushed back into their sockets, and his head hung at an odd angle as he stood.

And yet he was still smiling. A shudder coursed through Cloud and he redoubled his efforts to cut through the straps against his other wrist, but his cut palm made everything slippery, and the scalpel fumbled in his grip. Yet he was able to break it just as something behind him shattered; he heard glass rain to the floor in a series of pure notes - "Help Cloud!" Aerith was shouting - and then Zack was suddenly beside him, pulling at the binds strapping his ankles to the metal table.

"Holy shit," Zack muttered under his breath, wide-eyed and hands shaking. "Holy shit. What the hell. Holy…"

"Hurry!" Cloud's voice sounded strangled, and he twisted his torso around just in time to see Hojo shuffling towards them with outstretched hands. Cloud's heartbeat quickened and he ripped the strap holding his hips down. Zack freed both of his ankles and, finally free, Cloud half-slid, half-fell off of the table. His legs were numb and his shoulders and hands tingled. The room spun sickeningly to one side and he was immediately sick, even as Zack's shaking hands gripped his shoulders and dragged him away from Hojo.

"Gotta…" Cloud sucked in bile-tasted breath. "Gotta free everyone…!"

Zack grip tightened. "You get the others. I'll hold off this asshole!" he demanded.

"But -"

"No time!" Zack let Cloud go and was already grabbing a weapon - an old chair. Cloud wiped his mouth as he staggered to the nearest glass cell; the ground swayed beneath him and he nearly lost his balance, but he managed to stumble towards a tank containing Barret and Aerith. Barret was holding his head with a hand while he braced himself against the wall with the other, and Aerith stood beside him with a pallid expression.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to break the glass with raw strength alone, not in his condition, so Cloud grabbed the nearest blunt object - a flashlight, its face cracked from when it had been dropped - and stumbled back to the holding cell. "Get back," he croaked, and then slammed the flashlight against the glass with everything he had.

The cell, brittle in its old age, broke easily. Glass rained down to the floor in front of him. He could hear Zack taunt Hojo and call him a few choice names - a walking acne culture, a Botox before-image, an off-brand handbag - but his insults were interrupted by a yelp, and Cloud quickly turned to see Hojo reaching a bony hand towards Zack, who was backed up against the wall.

"Zack!" he shouted, but before he could do more something flew past his face - a shard of glass - and it shattered against the far wall beside Hojo's head. "Ey, fugly!" Barret shouted.

"Cloud." Aerith's tense voice pulled at Cloud's attention, and her trembling fingers latched onto his sleeve. "You get Tifa and Cid, and I'll get Yuffie and Vincent."

Cloud nodded, and then they split up. The sound of scraping furniture and odd hissing screeched behind him, and his hands shook as he smashed the flashlight against the walls of Tifa and Cid's prison. Cracks spiderwebbed across the foggy glass, and with another hard hit they shattered entirely; the shards spiralled as they fell, their flat faces and razor-sharp edges catching the light and flinging it outward, and then Tifa had fallen into his arms.

"Time to go!" Cid shouted. He tossed something to Vincent, who caught it with one hand as swept forward, dark eyes smoldering, and a lighter flared to life between his fingers. Its tiny flame flickered in the dark as he chanted, "Beings of light, far and wide, this spell I cast shall not untie -"

There was a crack as Hojo's jaw dislocated entirely, and a haunting moan crawled out of his rotting throat.

" - with sage, salt, water, and light -"

Hojo's shrieking climbed up an octave, and Cloud could clearly see the thin ligaments that tied his teeth to his black gums.

"The stairs!" Tifa yelled. Broken glass crushed beneath her boots as she darted forward, her arm wrapped around Yuffie's waist as she helped the disoriented younger girl along. "Everyone, this way!"

Aerith was muttering a mantra of "Shit, shit, shit," as she ran to follow Tifa. Zack and Barret together slammed Hojo into a wall before they too began to run for it, with Cid right behind.

"- I banish this evil from my sight."

"Vincent!" Cloud shouted, waiting for the final member of the team to catch up.

Vincent's eyes flared. "Blessed be, bitch," he finished, and snapped the lighter shut before he too sprinted for the staircase. Hojo wailed and wheezed behind them, and his boney fingers scraped and clawed at his atrophied chest. His fingers ripped apart leathery skin, and jagged nails scraped against bare ribs.

Cloud tore his eyes away from the literal horror and ran up the steps, two at a time…

… only to nearly run headfirst into a brick wall.

"The hell!" he shouted. Tifa and Aerith were running their hands along one sidel to look for a lever, while Cid and Barret checked the other side. Yuffie was doubled over with her hands on her knees, her breaths short and gasping, while Zack faced the bottom of the stairs with clenched teeth.

"Fuck," Cid hissed under his breath. "Where the hell is the -"

Cid's voice tapered off, and time seemed to slow once more.

Cloud blinked. The silvery man from before was standing at the top of the stairwell. Like before, his form wisped and wavered at its edges, his green eyes resting on Cloud. There was something buried within those eyes - an unspeakable sadness, or an emptiness that only comes after something is ripped away - before they dipped towards the floor.

There was a lever there. It was barely noticeable, as it was well-hidden by loose stone and gravel, but it was there.

Cloud lifted his head. "Thank you," he murmured, but the man had once again vanished.

Time resumed.

"Fuck!" Zack's shout tore at the air and it was followed by an unearthly jumble of moaning and noises that almost sounded like words. Overgrown toenails clicked against the stone floor below. Loose fabric rustled. A low laugh, one that sounded eerily like the wind, bubbled out of a broken throat.

"Vincent!" Cid hissed.

"On it." Vincent's low voice was almost calming, and he took a step forward as he flicked on the lighter again… but this time, there was no need. Cloud had already dived forward and yanked on the hidden lever, causing Tifa to let out a startled yelp just as a harsh rumble shook the stairwell and the wall began to move. Books, resting precariously on the outside bookshelf, tumbled onto the dusty ground. Sickly light streamed in from the outer room, yet it was welcome just the same.

"Out, out, out!" Barret shouted. Aerith had already grabbed Yuffie's hand and was practically dragging the younger girl forward, while Cid followed close behind. Zack took off after them while Vincent and Cloud brought up the rear, with the former murmuring under his breath all the while:

"Ashes to ashes -"

Cloud stumbled on a broken chair, but Zack grabbed his arm to steady him. The world still spun about in sickening angles. His stomach flipped and rolled without him. He tasted ash and decay on his tongue, and wondered if he would be sick again.

"- spirit to spirit -"

But there was no time. No time to be sick, no time to stumble, no time to even pause. He could hear harsh breathing behind them and the sounds of footsteps dragging up the stairs, getting much closer, until it was all too easy to imagine rotten breath warming his neck and bony fingers clutching his hood…

Cloud glanced over his shoulder, unable to stop himself as they ran down the second floor hallway. It was dark, but not dark enough. He could clearly make out those milky eyes peering at him out of the shadows; he could see the sharp edges of his smile emblazoned on his sunken face.

A shiver ripped down his spine, and he tore his gaze away to sprint down the steps, two at a time. Zack's hand tightened around his arm to help balance him.

"- take this soul -"

His boots hit the ground floor. "This way!" Cid shouted from the front door. The others were already standing outside, and the pale sunrise softened their wide-eyed features as they watched Zack, Vincent, and Cloud hurry towards them. Barret and Tifa stretched their hands out to them, and Cloud reached forward. His fingers interlocked with Tifa's, and then he was being pulled out beneath the waning starlight.

"- banish this evil!" Vincent finished, and with a gasping breath he slammed the door shut. A wild shrieking cry echoed inside, something crossed between a gurgling laugh and a screech, and fingernails scraped eerily against the door. Cloud held his breath.

And then all went silent.

Cid was the first to recover. "Well," he said, clearing his throat. "I think we, ah, discovered why the Shinra Manor has so much activity."

Barret shot to his feet, his chest heaving. Sweat pricked his brow. "The hell was that thing? That thing was like… like a massive-ass man-embryo!"

Cloud closed his eyes. "That… was Hojo," he finally said. The ground was cool beneath his feverish skin. Now that the threat wasn't so immediate, he was becoming more painfully aware of the abuse his body had taken. His wrists stung. His shoulder throbbed. Blood stained his cut palm. The world still seemed to sway every time he closed his eyes so he pinned his gaze on the sky above, where dawn was just beginning to stretch across the scattered clouds and the world was dyed shades of rosy pink.

"Hojo?" Barret shook his head. "Hell nah. That creepy doctor guy has to be dead, this guy was alive -"

"No… I think Cloud is right." Aerith's lips pressed into a fine line as she added her input. "The feeling I got… the sense of despair and hurt I had felt earlier… it all orbited around him."

Tifa sighed shakily. "And you saw his glasses and his jacket? They were the same as the photo you showed us, Barret."

The larger man shook his hard more fervently this time. "But… But that's…"

"Impossible?" Vincent finished for him as he arched a delicate eyebrow. "The impossible is just a word for the undiscovered, and I believe that we have unearthed something new today."

"Literally," Cid grunted. He kicked at the ground before turning to Tifa with a hard glare in his eyes. "Next time," he enunciated, "I'm picking the investigation."

Cloud sighed. "Don't blame us," he said, and draped a hand over his eyes. "Blame the creepy goblin in there."

"Goblin?" Zack's laugh sounded nearly hysterical. "Gods, fuck this place. You used to live near here, guys?"

Cloud made a face. And to think that he had, as a child, been trapped in the room right beside the basement. That he had heard those whispers, and now that he knew they had come from that monster…

He let out a low groan. "Zack," he said slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Please shut up."

There was a sudden rustle as Yuffie, who had been dry heaving in some bushes, pushed herself onto her feet. "Can we go now?" she demanded. "This sucks. Even taking finals would be better than this."

After a bit of talk regarding purification and packing up of the manor's investigation, Vincent and Aerith marched back indoors with the sun as their shield while they worked on completing the shoddy purifying Vincent had done while they were trying to escape. The noises coming from the manor were now all normal; but each time a creak or shudder came from the settling house in the morning chill, Cloud still found himself jumping. He quietly made a promise to himself to never enter the front doors again, but he had to break that promise almost instantly when the purifying was complete. Tifa clutched his arm as they carefully went inside together, both breathing an immense sigh of relief as the once chilly weight of entering was now as uneventful as walking into a coffee shop back in Midgar.

Cloud and Zack worked together in the music room to disassemble the camera and sound equipment. Cloud carefully placed a camera in one of the cases while Zack stared at the piano again.

"Ghosts like pianos?" he asked with a wry smile.

Cloud looked up and nodded once. "Ghosts like pianos," he confirmed, wishing the tightness in his throat wasn't still bothering him. Clicking the camera case shut, he shifted it so it was handle-side up and carefully returned to his feet. He winced as his bandaged palm twisted and the wound opened once more. Cloud sighed, and pressed his palm against the inside sleeve of his sweatshirt to staunch the bleeding. With his unhurt hand, he reached down to pick up the case. Zack stretched his arms out and joined him by the archway to the hall.

"Ready to go?" Zack asked cheerfully. Cloud nodded again. They set off down the hall, leaving behind the atrium of a room. As Cloud walked, he thought he felt a familiar, heavy presence for a moment. He suspiciously glanced around at the peeling wallpaper and old, dilapidated furniture, but he didn't see anything abnormal. This feeling wasn't unpleasant, at least.

"I hate ghosts," Cloud muttered under his breath as they approached the rest of the loitering team.

He had been hoping that no one had heard him, but Zack's expression lit up. "Did I hear that right?" he said, loud enough for everyone else to hear. "Did I hear you, Cloud, say that you hate ghosts?"

Cloud harshly sighed. "No."

"Are you sure?" Zack's smile broadened. "Because I'm pretty sure I heard you say that you hate ghosts, but I thought that you don't believe in ghosts?"

"I don't," Cloud said, and he flipped him off. This brought about a much-needed lighthearted mood to the staunchly heavy feeling accompanying their still being in the manor. Cloud smirked as he followed the rest of them out, giving one final glance over his shoulder at the building that had haunted his childhood and gave him he'd rather completely forget. Now that the building was completely cleansed of all entities, the manor could just be that - an old, abandoned building in his hometown.

If he had stopped to think more than just how badly he wanted to get out of here, Cloud could have tiredly pointed out that they forgot to smudge Tifa's van. If he could find it in himself to move past the sudden exhaustion that panged in his injuries and focus on the world outside his own mind, perhaps he would have noticed that the heavy presence had never left. Instead, he let his eyes drift closed as he leaned his forehead against the passenger window of the van, hoping that in his dreams, things would be much less scary.

So ended the haunting of the Shinra Manor.

---

A/N: All that's left is the epilogue