Hi, everyone! Welcome to the final chapter of Stitches. (There will be an epilogue, though.) This chapter is over 14,000 words long - roughly double the length of our usual chapters! This chapter is most closely linked to Losing Cohesion. It was really exciting for me to revisit something I wrote five years ago. Of course, as I reread it, I kept thinking of the many things I'd like to improve on. I think that I'd like to revamp Losing Cohesion at some point. I hope you enjoy this chapter!
P.S. If you know of any good Hojo Lab fics, please send your recommendations to me! I am going to need something to read once we finish up this fic. :)
You pull up to the mansion exhausted from the journey, but Hojo orders you and Julia to follow him down into the lab. Nausea overwhelms you when you see the bloodstain from Clark's murder on the stairs. You step gingerly around it.
Unsure of how to stitch up Cloud's arm and wildly unqualified to address Zack's knee, Barnes put them in mako to start the healing process. Zack's knee will definitely need surgery, but the mako is a good start. They're both awake. You feel nothing when you look at Cloud, but anger rises like a tidal wave inside you when you lock eyes with Zack.
Clark didn't deserve that death.
Barnes is installing a new lock on Cloud and Zack's cell door. He won't look at you. You get the sense that he's waiting for you to yell at him for not trusting you when you told him that there was something wrong with the door. But the bloodstain from Clark's murder is still fresh in your mind, removing any need you have to feel vindicated. You would have rather been wrong. Besides, the rigidity in Barnes' shoulders tells you that he's already blaming himself for Clark's death. You don't need to add anything to his guilt.
Matson is sitting in the lab, icing his ankle.
"Patch me up, Doc?" he asks. He hides his pain well, but the tightness in his lips and voice tells you that he's hurting. You agree, but…
"I don't think we have any anesthesia." you tell him.
To Matson's credit, he doesn't flinch. "I know. That's why I asked you. You've got the gentlest hands here."
"That's not much of a compliment."
Matson smiles wryly. "No, it's not."
"I do have something that might help, though."
Matson smiles again, this time more broadly. "That's also why I asked you."
You run upstairs and grab him a bottle of vodka. He downs half of it in three swigs. While you're waiting for Matson to get blind drunk, you watch Hojo stand in front of the mako tanks with a sneer curdling his face. Zack and Cloud meet his gaze evenly. They're not sorry for what they did.
But you'd be willing to bet everything you have that Hojo will make them sorry.
When Matson finally slurs that he's drunk enough, you strap him down to the operating table and give him a strap of leather to bite into. It's bizarre to have someone besides Cloud or Zack beneath your scalpel; you had grown used to exclusively their skin under your hands.
While you work on Matson, Barnes and Julia haul Zack onto the other operating table. You're glad Hojo is going to be the one to operate on Zack. You don't want anything to do with him right now. Although the bullet hole in Zack's knee already looks days-old due to mako and his accelerated healing, the wound still hasn't fully closed yet. It's being aggravated by fragments of free-floating bone.
Zack awakes to Hojo roughly shoving his finger against the bullet hole in his knee. Barnes goes to silence his screams, but Hojo shakes his head. "No need."
Hojo pokes and prods a bit more, not even pretending to examine the wound. He isn't even looking at it, his attention focused on Zack's face instead. He lingers in areas that elicit the loudest screams. You turn your attention back to Matson's ankle. He's doing a remarkable job of keeping quiet and still, although you hear his teeth digging into the leather despite the alcohol dulling his sense. Luckily it's a clean break and should heal nicely. You do your best to work as quickly and gently as possible.
Hojo finally withdraws his finger, slick with blood, from Zack's knee and wipes it across Zack's chest.
"Did you have fun while I was gone, TS-2?"
Zack, blinded by pain, doesn't answer. Hojo slams his fist onto Zack's knee. "I asked you a question."
It takes Zack a moment to regain the power of speech.
"Yeah, we were having a great time until you showed up." Zack pants. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're kind of a buzzkill."
"No, a 'buzzkill' is cancelling a meeting with President Shinra because the test subjects he has invested a great deal of money in have escaped. Do you know how embarrassing that is?"
"I guess I don't, no. I've never kept humans as test subjects be-"
Hojo speaks over him, scowling. "Not to mention, you incapacitated one of my employees. Sorting out the paperwork for workplace injuries is a nightmare."
"Hey, if he hadn't gotten in my wa-
Hojo interrupts. "What's more, your 'fun' cost me a lab assistant. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to replace those?"
"Again, I have no idea. I don't run a la-"
Hojo talks over him yet again. "It's very difficult, TS-2. So many fail the interview process, and even those who pass often have to be blackmailed into cooperation." You keep your head down and stay focused on Matson, but your cheeks burn.
"If you're having that much trouble, maybe it's you, not them. You ever think that you might be a terrible b- AGH!"
Hojo digs his fingers into Zack's knee, grinding Zack's broken bones together.
"You're going to pay dearly for everything you've cost me, TS-2." Hojo says, barely audible above Zack's screams. "You and TS-3."
Hojo is still taking his time with Zack when you finish putting a cast on Matson's leg. If he agrees to experimental mako treatments, he could be out of the cast in just a few weeks. Otherwise, he's in for a couple months of hobbling around on crutches.
You bet Hojo's going to push for the mako treatments.
That night, you unpack your suitcase and pull out the snacks you bought for Clark back in Midgar. You stare at them, your grip slowly tightening around their brightly colored wrappers. The sound of crinkling plastic fills the air like static. You can't get the footage of his death out of your mind. It plays over and over in a loop. Clark's look of shock when he sees Zack and Cloud flying towards him. Zack crossing the atrium in a single, predatory bound to seize Clark. Clark's body being dragged backward. Zack slamming Clark's skull against the unyielding concrete. The sickening crack of Clark's head splitting open like an egg. His body still in its death throes while Zack and Cloud claw their way over it… With a snarl, you throw the snacks across the room. They hit the wall with an unsatisfying thwack. Enraged, you stomp over to them and trample them, bringing your feet down on them over and over until they're an unrecognizable heap of plastic and crumbs all over your floor.
You hate Zack for murdering Clark, you hate that it could have just as easily been you, you hate Clark for not at least trying to run, and…
…and you hate that, deep down, you can't bring yourself to blame Zack for what he did.
You try several times to write Clark's family. You heard that they were told he was killed in an unfortunate lab accident. Technically true. You're not sure what to say. My deepest sympathies feels hollow, and it's not like you knew Clark well enough to write anything deeper than that.
That night, you wake up with every creak and groan of the mansion thinking it's Zack coming to kill you in your sleep.
But Zack is still in his mako tank the following morning, his black-and-blue knee swelling against its messy stitches. He looks exhausted. You imagine he couldn't sleep through the pain. The wound on Cloud's arm where Matson clipped him has healed up nicely on its own, though. Everything on Cloud has been healing nicely lately. All incisions, even the Y-shaped one that marked the start of his life as Hojo's specimen, have healed completely, leaving nothing but smooth skin behind. If only mako wasn't so volatile, it would make a great medicine.
Matson does end up opting for the experimental mako treatments. Whether that was by his own choice or through pressure from Hojo, you can't tell. He's violently ill for three weeks, his heart even momentarily stopping during one injection, but he's up and walking by week four, albeit with a limp. He briefly develops a faint glow in his eyes, but it dissipates after his last treatment. He doesn't comment on whether or not the sickness was worth shaving a few months off of his recovery time, but, if it had been you, you would've stuck with the cast.
Meanwhile, Hojo drafts a plan that would function as valuable data collection and Zack and Cloud's punishment: testing their healing rates.
You manage to drink so much during that time that you are able to almost entirely forget the sound of snapping bones, tearing skin, and the thud of steel on skulls. The smell of burning flesh lingers on your clothes, though, and you find a full fingernail, still bloody at its base, clinging to your pants one night.
Yet, even though you're disgusted by what Hojo puts them through, the part of you that seeks retribution for Clark's death, finds grim satisfaction in their pain.
"Clark didn't deserve that." you finally blurt while recording how much Cloud and Zack's wounds have healed three days after initial injury.
Zack's face hardens. He doesn't respond.
"He…" you start, not knowing where you are going, but unable to keep things bottled up any longer. "He wasn't…he wasn't a bad person."
You immediately regret your choice of words when Zack's eyebrows raise incredulously. "Not a bad person, huh?" he says flatly. His speech is a little messed up, no doubt from the nickel-sized hole you'd punched into his tongue yesterday. The hole had already closed, but you'd wager his tongue is still tender. "My bad for not realizing that while he was helping cut us apart."
You flush. "You think he wanted to do that? You think he wanted to be here? Do you think any of us do?!"
"I think you're taking the easy way out."
"The easy way out? There's nothing easy about working for Hojo. You either follow orders or you die."
"Better to die with honor than to live without it."
You laugh sardonically. "Honor? What fantasy are you living in where that still exists? And even if honor meant more to me than my life, Hojo's made it very clear that my family will be his next test subjects if I step out of line."
"…so you understand."
"Understand what?"
Zack's eyes bore into yours, and for the first time, you see a flash of regret for what he did to Clark. "You understand what it's like to do terrible things to protect the ones you love."
When Cloud and Zack are nearing the end of their recovery, Hojo prepares to transition to the second phase of Project S-II: J-cell treatments. To begin, you'll need cells from the source Herself. A trip to the Nibelheim Reactor is in order.
The reactor looms cold and gray against a barren sky. The stillness of the mountain-top is undercut by the low thrumming of the reactor's pumps pulling up mako from beneath the Planet's surface. The ground vibrates beneath your feet.
Hojo is already well ahead of you and Julia, walking briskly up the stairs. The last time you saw the reactor, it still bore the scars of Sephiroth's sword. Now, much like the newly rebuilt Nibelheim, the reactor looks as though it never knew Sephiroth. You, however, remember. You think that revisiting the site of a catastrophe to find everything as it was before is more unnerving than finding ruins.
The stench of mako hits your nose when you enter the reactor, but you're now so accustomed to it that it draws no reaction from you. You follow Hojo past rows and rows of stasis pods. You don't look inside; there's no need. You can guess what they contain.
A metal archway engraved with the text "J-E-N-O-V-A" across it greets you at the top of the stairs. A thrill goes up your spine. You're really about to see Her. While you're curious to finally see Hojo's most prized possession and Shinra's tenuous link to The Promised Land, your intrigue is riddled with apprehension. It might just be your nerves, but it feels as though the air is growing heavier with every step you take towards the archway. You rub your sweaty palms on your lab coat.
Julia uncharacteristically also shows some anxiety. She hesitates under the archway and catches your eye. A flicker of uncertainty crosses her face like a shadow. You've never known her to show any doubt. Dread pours over you. The dark, oppressive force pressing down on you isn't just in your head. Julia can sense it too.
Wordlessly, you break eye contact and follow Hojo into the chamber.
J-E-N-O-V-A is…an angel?
No, on second glance you can see it's an effigy made of metal and wires. You suppose it's meant to be beautiful, but you find its smooth, expressionless face and hollow eyes sinister. It towers over the walkway, looking down on you, Julia, and Hojo as if you are insects to be crushed. You glance at your colleagues to see if they're uneasy about the effigy's threatening posture. Julia looks to be shrinking in on herself. Hojo looks as though he's being pulled in like a magnet.
Hojo flips a switch. The chamber is filled with the mechanical whirs of pulleys, chains, and cogs. With the screech of metal on metal, the effigy slowly rises. The base of a tank comes into view. The effigy rises higher, higher. Something resembling a massive, grotesque heart is revealed, followed by a sickly, warped pair of gray legs. Any lingering shreds of curiosity you had to see J-E-N-O-V-A die shortly after. It's obvious why J-E-N-O-V-A's true form was masked behind a smooth-faced facade.
J-E-N-O-V-A is a monster.
It could be argued that She resembles a human woman, but no one could ever mistake Her for a person. Her face is surprisingly smooth and affixed with a benign smile, but any beauty that one might find in Her features is overshadowed by an unnerving, glowing red eye. Twisted, gnarled masses protrude like wings from Her back, which is covered by mottled, gray skin. Although you know She is lifeless, you're certain Her eye follows you around the room. The oppressive aura is overpowering. The air is too thick to breathe.
"Isn't She magnificent?" Hojo asks in a hushed, awestruck tone. Rather than shrinking under the weight of J-E-N-O-V-A's presence, he seems invigorated by it. He gently caresses his hand against the glass. "A memory from the past. Our link to the Promised Land…"
"I didn't realize Cetra looked like this." Julia comments uneasily. "The legends I heard as a kid made them sound…normal."
She's right. You've always heard the Cetra described as looking like humans, if not more elegant and graceful. Not once have you heard them described as having external organs, red eyes, or extra, fungus-like appendages.
Hojo drains the mako from J-E-N-O-V-A's tank and, with reverence, opens it. He runs his fingers over Her limp, white hair and rests his palm on Her cheek. You feel as though you're intruding on something profoundly intimate. Uncomfortable, you look away until Hojo asks you to hand him the vials you brought for cell collection.
He gently collects Her cells muttering softly to Her the entire time. You're surprised to see that J-E-N-O-V-A still has blood to give, if the black-purple, effervescent substance leaking from her could be called blood. A drop falls to the bottom of the tank. As you watch, it hisses, bubbles, and grows in size, spreading across the floor like bacteria colonizing a glass slide.
Hojo finally withdraws from the tank and reseals it. You and Julia pack up most of the samples, but he keeps one, holding it as if it were made of gold. He rubs his thumb over the vial with such an expression of passion that, again, you feel as though you're intruding on something private.
The oppressive aura diminishes when you leave the reactor, but something gnaws at your brain during the trip back to the lab. It's not until you leave Her cell samples in the lab and go upstairs for bed that the unexplainable anxiety that followed you home lifts. It returns the next morning when you descend into the lab.
Whatever J-E-N-O-V-A is, you're not convinced she's a Cetra.
You, Julia, and Hojo spend the day propagating J-cells for the experiments that lay ahead. Her cells are easier to work with than Sephiroth's. It's as if they want to grow and spread. Hojo even issues a warning to be more cautious than usual about keeping Her cells away from other samples. J-cells are especially prone to contaminating and conquering others. You're not sure if this also applies to your own body's cells, but you are nevertheless more careful than usual to not get any of Her genetic material on you.
Within just a day, you have enough cells to begin Phase-II. It's a repeat of Phase I, with J- instead of S-Cells, so you start where it all began a year ago: IV drips.
Unlike last year, when Hojo left after ensuring that the drips were running smoothly, Hojo stays and fusses over every detail. While the low-level toxin damages Cloud and Zack's veins, Hojo prepares drip bags of J-cells that will follow.
"He should've just given us the day off if he was going to do everything himself." you grumble quietly to Barnes.
He snorts and nods in agreement.
The drip bags of toxin empty. It's time to replace them with J-cells. Cloud and Zack shift uneasily as Hojo brings J-E-N-O-V-A's cells closer to them. They undoubtedly feel the unnerving presence radiating from Her cells, same as you. Your skin crawls at the thought of having those injected into your bloodstream.
"You two have no idea how lucky you are." Hojo tells Cloud and Zack while holding the drip bag up to the light to admire it.
"You're right, we don't." Zack hisses as another drop of poison enters his system.
Hojo smiles down at him patronizingly. "I wouldn't expect you to understand. But you should know that you're about to experience the highest honor I can offer."
"Want to trade places? Sounds like you want this more than we do."
Hojo caresses the bag of cells looking deep in thought. "Maybe one day…" he says so quietly that you almost don't hear him.
Hojo carefully removes the drip bag of toxin and replaces it with the J-cells. Slowly, ceremoniously, he places his hand on the dial that will open the valve and leak the first drops of J-E-N-O-V-A cells into Cloud and Zack's veins. He turns the dial. Black-purple liquid slides like oil down the tube. It moves into the needle and disappears beneath Cloud and Zack's skin. Their veins near the injection site darken. They jerk suddenly as if stung, instinctively flexing their arms to tug them away from the awful, dread-inducing, vile substance entering their bodies. Zack and Cloud hiss and writhe and tense and shake and… Cloud goes still.
But he's not unconscious. A blank expression is spreading over his face, his body going limp as though under anesthesia. His eyes grow hazy, unfocused. Hojo watches intently. Conversely, Zack remains tense, braced against the steady stream of foreign cells invading his system.
Hours later, the drip bags empty at last. Cloud takes a shuddering breath as if waking from a deep sleep. Hojo removes the IV and asks you and Julia to record their vitals. You check Cloud. He still looks dazed, but everything you measure checks out as normal. Barnes and Matson double-check the integrity of Cloud and Zack's electric cuffs and let them off the table. Zack moves stiffly, as if his joints are full of fluid. Cloud moves as if sleepwalking.
Just when they're nearly out of the lab, Cloud whirls around, eyes wide, as if searching for someone.
"Cloud?" Zack asks.
"…did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
Cloud frowns. "I thought I heard… Never mind. I'm just tired."
Zack lets it go, but Hojo watches their retreating forms with unadulterated glee.
And so the procedures begin again. Limb by limb, bone by bone, organ by organ, Zack and Cloud are torn apart and put back together, this time with J-cells rather than S-cells. You're not sure if Cloud and Zack realize that each procedure is a repeat of everything they endured last year, or if it all blends together into one, indistinguishable blur of agony.
Like the S-Cells, Zack's body rejects the J-cells completely which makes Hojo seethe. Cloud, however, rapidly becomes Hojo's favorite. Although his body was slow to build up S-cells, his J-cell count skyrockets in just weeks.
"Keep this up and I'll give you your official number." Hojo cheerfully tells Cloud while injecting J-cells into his spinal column one day.
To fuel this explosion of growth, Cloud's body begins to eagerly suck in impossible amounts of mako. The J-cells are ravenous for it. Cloud's eyes had already taken on a glow due to the last year of exposure, but mako now starts to bleed out of his irises and into the sclera. One night, after switching off the lights for bed, you realize that the flecks of Cloud's blood on your shoe are glowing in the dark. The amount of mako in his body could power the entire mansion. The amount of mako in his body should kill him.
But Cloud shows no signs of mako poisoning. Far from it.
"Agh!"
Thud.
"Zack! Are you okay?"
Cloud drops his training sword and rushes to Zack who's crumpled in a heap against the wall…that is twenty feet behind where he was originally standing.
Zack waves Cloud off, but coughs when he tries to speak. He's had the wind knocked out of him.
"Zack?"
Zack coughs again and pulls himself into a seated position, taking a deep breath as he rubs his chest. "I'm good, I'm good. You caught me off guard. Since when can you hit like that?"
"I…I don't know. Since now, I guess. I'm sorry."
Zack laughs. "No! Don't be. That was awesome. Let's try that again. Don't hold back."
Cloud retrieves his sword and resumes a fighting stance against Zack. Within seconds, Cloud's the one on the ground.
Zack flashes him a good-natured smile as he offers Cloud his hand to pull him to his feet. "Oh yeah, I'm not holding back anymore either."
Now that Cloud heals as quickly as Zack, the amount of time they need to spend in recovery is diminished. Hojo uses the extra time to send them to the gym to continue gathering combat data. It's incredible to watch them trade blows back and forth. Zack still has more experience and skill, but Cloud can now match his strength and speed, which makes for a thrilling spectacle. Cloud isn't able to knock Zack off his feet again, but he does land a few blows that would be devastating in a real fight. Zack becomes the most animated and carefree you've seen him since waking up in Hojo's possession. Losing himself in training, he looks and sounds like the Zack you used to know wandering the halls of the Shinra Building.
"Yeah, that's it!" he shouts enthusiastically after Cloud counters a particularly fast blow. "Now dodge, feint left, strike right! Yeah! You got it!"
"Hmph, that was close! You've gotten fast!"
"Nice one! I'm definitely going to be feeling that tomorrow!"
Cloud goes a little pink with all of the praise, but you can tell he's enjoying himself too. From the observation deck, Hojo is tracking the entire session for later analysis. You don't need to study the footage, though, to see how far Cloud has come. He holds the training sword like it weighs nothing and barely breaks a sweat. If anything, Zack seems more fatigued than Cloud at the end of each session.
Cloud darts towards Zack, swinging hard. Zack blocks the strike, but the force of the blow forces him back a few steps.
"Damn, Spiky, you've got a good arm on you! I bet you could wield the Buster Sword now, no problem."
Cloud's eyebrows knit together as he steps back, lowering his training sword. "The what?"
Zack laughs, also lowering his sword. "Ahah, very funny. I know I never shut up about it."
"…about the sword?"
Zack rolls his eyes. "C'mon, I know you're probably sick of hearing about it, but take the compliment."
"Sick of hearing about it? You've never told me anything about this sword."
Zack looks uneasy. "Are you kidding?"
"Why would I be? I just want to know what sword you're talking about."
"The Buster Sword."
Now Cloud looks a little irritated. "Yeah, I know. What sword is that?"
"It was Angeal's, then he gave it to me. …you don't remember that?"
Cloud starts to look uncomfortable. "I didn't pay much attention to your gear, I guess."
"You used to help me sharpen and polish it."
Now Cloud looks really uncomfortable. "I don't remember that. But I guess we've been here so long I'm starting to forget things from before."
"I talk about it at least once a day."
Cloud frowns. "No, you don't."
"Fine, maybe every other day. Point is, we've talked about it. You know what the Buster Sword is."
"I don't, Zack. Why are you looking at me like that?" Cloud grows defensive as Zack looks at him in disbelief. "You know, you could be forgetting things too."
But you know Cloud is wrong. You overheard Zack talking about the Buster Sword just yesterday.
But, aside from that one minor lapse in memory, Cloud seems fine. The next month passes without any unusual incidents. Hojo has moved from organs, to bones, to ligaments and tendons. Today you're fortifying the joints in their arms.
You're finishing stitching up the small incision in the crook of Cloud's arm when it occurs to you that Cloud has become unusually still. Although both Cloud and Zack disassociate more often than not during procedures now, they still writhe and twitch under your hands.
You glance at Cloud's face. It's completely relaxed. His eyes, which are now entirely full of glowing mako, stare hazily at the ceiling. But he's breathing normally, and his heart rate is fine, so, even though a pang of worry tugs at you, you don't think to comment on it.
Barnes undoes Zack's restraints while Matson sees to Cloud. Because Cloud and Zack's arms are useless from the operation, Matson and Barnes have to push them to a seated position. Cloud's head lolls backward before rolling limply forwards as Matson shoves him up. Cloud lazily slides off the table, stumbling as his feet hit the ground.
"Get a move on." Matson mutters gruffly, waiting for Cloud to shuffle ahead of him. "Come on, get."
Cloud doesn't move. He's completely still, expression vacant, head tilted as though listening to something only he can hear.
Matson snaps his fingers in front of Cloud's face. "Wake up, kid. I don't have all day."
Cloud doesn't respond. His lips move, whispering an answer to a question unheard by anyone else in the room. His voice is quiet, nearly silent, but the fragments of words you do pick up don't make sense to you. They're not like anything you've ever heard before. With his eyes completely saturated with mako, he looks otherworldly, ghost-like. He slowly nods, as if agreeing to something. There's something alien in this small movement, as if he's learning how to use his body for the first time. The hairs on the back of your neck prickle.
Matson moves to shock Cloud into submission, but Hojo holds his hand up to stop him. He's watching Cloud with intense curiosity.
Cloud's gaze drifts over the room, unfocused until it lands on the vials containing excess J-cells. His face tightens, almost imperceptibly. He takes a step towards the vials.
"Cloud?"
Zack's voice breaks the trance.
Cloud stumbles mid-step, his vague, detached expression tethering itself to reality once more. He presses his fingers against his temple and shakes his head, as though clearing water from his ears. Confusion clouds his features.
"What …where…?"
He scans the room, confusion becoming overtaken by fear as he takes in his surroundings. Although it's practically the only view he has known for a year and a half, he looks as if he's seeing it for the first time. Despite the glow of mako obscuring his pupils, you can tell his eyes are darting frantically over the mako tanks, hulking lab tech, operating lights, and shelves upon shelves of vials.
"Zack, where…?" He staggers back, only to run into the operating table. He whirls around, seeing the remnants of blood on steel, the pile of surgical instruments that were carelessly discarded on a tray. He recoils, nearly colliding with Matson who steps out of the way at the last second.
He looks down at his arms, riddled with cuts and stitches. He runs his stiff, trembling fingers over the incisions as if to confirm they're real and part of his body. His chest begins to heave with panic. Eyes wide, he searches the room once more. "Zack?!"
His eyes land on Hojo instead. Cloud freezes.
In the span of seconds, you watch a carousel of emotions flash across his face. A flicker of realization replaces blank confusion before turning into full-blown remembrance. Devastation follows soon after.
"Are you feeling alright, TS-3?" Hojo asks.
"'m fine." Cloud mumbles, having learned long ago to not ignore a direct question from Hojo. His body caves in on itself, trying to become as small as possible. You recognize it as a familiar posture he adopts around Hojo. He must remember where he is now.
"Excellent. So then you wouldn't mind explaining to me what just happened?"
"I…I blacked out, I think."
"Who did you hear?"
"I didn't hear anyone."
"Then who were you talking to?"
"Zack. I got…confused."
"Before then."
"I wasn't talking."
Hojo frowns, dissatisfied with Cloud's answer. "Take TS-2 back to the cell. TS-3 stays here. We're going to have a nice, little chat."
Their chat is anything but nice.
When fingernail pliers, red-hot iron, and razors can't get Cloud to admit who he was talking to, or even that he heard anything unusual at all, Barnes pries Cloud's jaw open so Hojo can shove a hallucinogen down his throat in hopes that it will trigger a similar reaction.
It doesn't. Instead, you're forced to listen to Cloud scream in terror at a horror only he can see.
Under the guise of going to check on Zack, you leave the lab to get away from Cloud's gut-wrenching cries. You can still hear him, but at least it's quieter by the cell. You stop across from Zack, let your back hit the wall, and slide to the floor.
Zack's standing ramrod straight by the bars, jaw and fists clenched, staring in the direction of the lab where Cloud is being tortured just out of sight. He's long since stopped yelling for Cloud when they're separated, knowing that he'll only get him and Cloud electrocuted if he's too loud. That doesn't mean he won't wait by the bars for Cloud to be brought back to him, though.
"What is Hojo doing to him?" Zack asks without looking at you.
"You don't want to know." you mutter, bringing your knees up so you can rest your elbows on them and press your palms against your eyes.
"Yeah. I do."
"No, you don't."
"Yeah." Something in Zack's tone makes you look up at him. He's finally looking at you, his eyes burning with a rage that's had over a year to smolder. "I do. I want to know so I can pay him back when I get out of here."
Although Zack breaking free doesn't bode well for you, you'd love to see Hojo getting what he deserves, even if your guts are ripped out moments after his are. So you tell him.
Zack's fury radiates off him in waves.
"The effects of the hallucinogen should wear off in the next half an hour." you add dully, as if that's not too long of a time to listen to someone beg for their life against an imagined threat.
Zack scowls. The lines in his face have grown deep. He looks tired.
"What's the point of all this? What is Hojo doing to us?"
"…"
"What, can't tell me?"
"…"
"…fine. But at least tell me this. Is Cloud going to be okay?"
"I don't think any of us are going to be okay."
Zack frowns. "Stop it. You know what I mean. Cloud isn't really…all there anymore. He doesn't remember things. He hears voices that aren't there. And just now, he looked like he didn't know where he was. What's happening to him?"
You can only shake your head. "I wish I knew."
As the months pass, Hojo becomes desperate for Cloud to sustain a connection with J-E-N-O-V-A. Not only is communicating with J-E-N-O-V-A Hojo's greatest obsession, but President Shinra is also expecting results by the end of the year.
Hojo doubles, triples, quadruples the concentration of J-cells he gives Cloud and Zack. Yet, he can't force communication with J-E-N-O-V-A. Cloud does enter light trances a few times more, but they're impossible to predict, easily broken by noise, and Cloud never remembers them. Hojo begins to experiment with various drugs, hoping something will make Cloud more susceptible to J-E-N-O-V-A's whispers.
Even though Cloud has yet to be the link to J-E-N-O-V-A Hojo needs him to be, you're impressed with Cloud's progress. Cloud is now as strong and fast as any SOLDIER with accelerated healing, sensitive ears, and night vision to match. When comparing Cloud's base data to now, it's like he isn't even the same person. Analysis of his sparring sessions with Zack shows that his fighting style is a unique blend of Zack's and Sephiroth's. Sephiroth's fighting style especially shines through when Cloud is caught off guard, lending Cloud experience where Cloud has none.
While Sephiroth's cells might have given Cloud muscle memory of combat, J-E-N-O-V-A's cells are what put real weight into his blows. Zack no longer holds anything back, giving it his all each time he and Cloud cross blades. You're grateful for the high-speed cameras that record them because they often move too fast for your eye to process. Their sessions occasionally grow so intense that Hojo has to shut them down with a few, well-timed zaps from the electric cuffs before they can tear the gym apart.
But Hojo isn't worried about a few holes in the wall. He's drunk on Cloud's progress…so much so that he turns a blind eye to anything that suggests Cloud might not be the success Hojo needs him to be.
"Step aside!" Hojo grabs Julia's arm and pulls her away from Cloud. The syringe she'd just pushed into the crook of Cloud's elbow leaves his skin at an awkward angle. Drops of blood and J-cells hit the table. Cloud is having a seizure.
Again.
"How many times do I have to show you how to give injections correctly?" Hojo hisses.
"I did everything just as you showed me." Julia replies icily, discarding the syringe.
"Clearly you didn't, or this wouldn't be happening." Hojo snarls, gesturing to Cloud. Cloud jerks spasmodically against his restraints and his eyes roll to the back of his head. Red stains his clenched teeth. He must have bitten through his tongue.
You won't say it out loud, but Hojo is wrong. Hojo might pretend otherwise, but Cloud's seizures have become more frequent and severe, although they remain as unpredictable as Cloud's seances with J-E-N-O-V-A. There's no way this seizure was Julia's doing, but Hojo would rather put the blame on someone else than his precious specimen.
Cloud eventually quiets and Hojo takes over the procedure while Julia nurses her wounded pride.
"How are you feeling?" you hear Zack ask Cloud from your desk once they've been returned to their cells.
"Like shit." Cloud mutters.
"Can't say I blame you."
A pause.
"Why don't you get seizures?"
"Not sure."
"I'm pathetic."
"Don't say that." Zack says forcefully. "Don't you ever say that. You've survived more than anyone else I know."
"Nothing more than you have. …and you're dealing with it better than I am."
"Don't forget, I've had longer to adapt to mako enhancements."
"But did you ever have seizures? Black out?"
"…"
"That's what I thought." Cloud mutters glumly.
Another pause.
"You can't be so hard on yourself." Zack says softly. "You've gotta give yourself more credit."
Cloud scoffs, but doesn't reply.
"…you know what Angeal used to tell me?"
You, personally, do. You've heard Zack talk about Angeal and his lessons at least every other day for the past year and a half. You've heard so much about the man that you feel like you knew him personally. You wait for Cloud to mumble Angeal's quote verbatim to appease Zack.
But he doesn't.
"…who?"
You can feel Zack's brow furrow from down the hall. "Umm, Angeal?"
"Yeah. Who's that?" Cloud asks blankly.
"My mentor? He gave me the Bu-… he gave me my sword and taught me everything I know. You know, that Angeal."
"…oh." Cloud finally replies, but you can hear in his tone that he still has no idea who Zack's talking about.
You can tell Zack must hear that too, because he asks, "You really don't know who Angeal is…?"
"I guess the name sounds kind of familiar." Cloud admits. "You've told me about him before, right?"
Only just about every day. But Zack is too tactful to say so. He's learned to not press Cloud when Cloud has forgotten something.
"…yeah. A couple times. Anyways…"
That's another thing Hojo won't admit. Cloud's mind is failing him.
He's forgotten Nibelheim, his childhood, Midgar, and other key memories that you've heard him and Zack discuss before. The hardest part is that Cloud realizes that his mind is collapsing, and there's nothing he can do about it.
You see it too. Increasingly, there's an emptiness behind his eyes. He's slow to respond to orders or any outside stimuli at all. There are more instances when he doesn't remember where he is.
But Hojo turns a blind eye.
Because it's nearly been a year since the J-cell treatments began, and Project S-II is nearing its completion. With the deadline for President Shinra's report looming, Hojo can't afford to admit he might have a broken specimen. And, physically, Cloud isn't broken. He's still strong, fast, and resilient, but Hojo knows the President expects more than just another exceptional SOLDIER. He needs a reliable conduit for J-E-N-O-V-A.
Hojo starts pulling all-nighters to develop a method to force Cloud to hold a stable connection with J-E-N-O-V-A. He grows more irritated and erratic than usual, and you do your best to keep out of his way. Using the lessons learned from the various drugs he has forced on Cloud, Hojo is convinced he can manufacture a hallucinogen that's specially designed to break Cloud's mind while rendering him open to outside influences. He keeps the details to himself, but you gather that a flood of J-cells and a near-lethal dose of concentrated mako are also involved.
When he exits his office with a triumphant smile plastered over his greasy face, you know he feels that he's succeeded.
So certain that his plan will work, he invites the President himself to come witness the birth of Shinra's new link to J-E-N-O-V-A. The President declines, but sends a small team of scientists from Scarlet's Weapons Development Department in Midgar to observe. If all goes according to plan, Scarlet may have new weapons to develop for the journey to The Promised Land.
All is calm that morning. You stumble downstairs, still somewhat buzzed from last night's binge, and run into the Midgar scientists in the kitchen. They all look like they barely slept. The Shinra Mansion can be difficult to adapt to.
You offer them coffee, but they decline after seeing the tap run with murky water when you turn it on. You shrug and pour yourself a huge cup. More for you.
Barnes sidles up next to you to pour his own mug. "Can you believe these guys?" he whispers. "I've never seen such a group of stuck-up little pricks."
You snicker into your coffee. "Wanna place bets on who pees their pants when we show them the catacombs?"
"Only if you don't tell anyone I might lock them in there afterward."
The Midgar scientists are pretty jumpy when they descend into the laboratory, although you don't feel bad for them, especially after one points to some dusty, outdated tech and sniggers to his colleague. You bet if they had to personally haul heavy machinery up and down the stairs they wouldn't be so quick to replace equipment that still works.
Barnes and Matson splay Cloud and Zack out on the operating tables. Barnes casts silence as soon as they're secure, no doubt to prevent Zack from snarling obscenities at the visitors once the effects of the sedative wear off. If the visitors are uncomfortable with human experimentation, they don't show it. Then again, if they're from Scarlet's department, they probably have their own fair share of blood on their hands. You've heard that Scarlet likes to test her weapons on live humans.
It's bizarre to have outsiders in the lab. You've grown so used to your small, nuclear unit that the extra bodies make the lab feel overpacked, even if there's only three of them. Cloud and Zack cast them curious, suspicious glances.
As usual, Hojo jumps straight into things without introductions. He quickly reviews the procedural packet and assigns everyone a role. While he will be carrying out the procedure itself, he expects everything to be meticulously documented for future analysis. Even though you find the Midgar scientists snobby, you're glad to have the extra hands. Taking notes, making recordings, capturing photos, and collecting cell samples would have been too much for you and Julia to handle alone.
Hojo doesn't bother to ask if anyone has any questions and tosses his copy of the procedural packet on the table. He has no need of it. He knows exactly what to do. Cloud, whom Hojo expects the most out of, goes first.
Hojo wheels a tray of instruments over to Cloud. The squeal of the tray's small tires rolling closer is a familiar cue for Cloud to expect pain. You watch his skin pale as shivers erupt over his body. His eyes squeeze shut and his hands ball into fists.
Hojo selects a razor from the tray and removes a small patch of hair from Cloud's scalp. He meticulously clears the skin of loose hairs and uses a marker to mark the center of the shaved area. He pulls out a scalpel. Gently placing his free hand on Cloud's brow to steady Cloud's tremors, Hojo carves a cross over the center mark. Blood oozes from the incision. Hojo wipes it away carelessly with gauze and pulls away the flaps of skin and tissue to expose the white bone of Cloud's skull underneath.
Cloud's ragged breathing fills the air.
Hojo pulls out a drill.
The whine of the metal boring into bone drowns out all other sound.
Cloud can't scream because Barnes won't let him, but the terror and agony on his face speak loud enough. To have an excuse to look away, you search the faces of the Midgar scientists for any signs of shock. There is none, confirming your suspicions that they've used humans in their experiments too.
The scent of burnt flesh and bone fill the air. Hojo sets down the drill and wipes away the blood once more. You catch a glimpse of Cloud's brain glistening wetly under bone before blood wells up again, obscuring your view. Cloud is trembling violently, tears running down his face. His mouth gapes open and shut with wordless howls, his hands clenching and unclenching desperately, his eyes filled with blind horror.
Hojo lightly plucks a syringe of mako from the tray and inserts the needle through the hole in Cloud's skull. He delicately depresses the syringe, injecting a steady stream of mako directly into Cloud's brain. Cloud's eyes bulge in their sockets as he spasms. Blood drips from his nose. His jaw works furiously to spit out silent sobs and body thrashes uncontrollably, twisting as far as his restraints allow. Hojo withdraws the needle. Mako drips from the hole.
Hojo sets the empty syringe down and picks up a syringe of J-cells. Hojo deftly navigates it through the opening and into Cloud's brain. His thumb gently presses down on the plunger. Cloud's back arches, his muscles going rigid as stone. The syringe empties, spilling J-cells into Cloud's brain. You imagine them spreading like mold, eagerly drinking in mako to facilitate their conquest. Cloud's tense muscles unlock, only to begin convulsing.
The syringe is empty. Hojo withdraws it, tapes gauze over Cloud's head as best as he can while Cloud seizes beneath him, and motions Matson forward. Matson forces open Cloud's jaw while Hojo shoves his specially manufactured hallucinogen down Cloud's throat. Cloud gags, trying to spit it up, but Matson holds his jaw closed and pinches his nose shut until Cloud has no choice but to swallow if he wants to breathe.
Cloud swallows. Matson and Hojo step back. There's nothing to do but wait until the J-cells settle into Cloud's brain and the drug takes effect.
The minutes tick by. Hojo glances at his watch every thirty seconds. You fidget with your pen. The Midgar scientists get antsy. Julia scratches something onto her veins on Barnes' forehead stand out. He'll have to recast silence soon. Hojo scowls impatiently and checks his watch yet again. Cloud's tremors are beginning to still. You're starting to think that Hojo's brilliant plan might be nothing but a failure. Barnes goes to recast silence, and…
An inhuman scream pierces the air. You slam your hands over your ears, the notebook you were supposed to be keeping notes in falling forgotten to the floor. You stagger backward until the wall stops you from getting any farther away from that awful, terrible, wailing scream. Something crashes. Shattered glass rains over you. You instinctively dive under a desk.
The scream doesn't stop. It goes on and on, longer than what normal human lungs should be able to sustain. Your hair stands straight up on your scalp, cold spikes of fear spread like lightning through your chest. You press your hands harder over your ears to block out the scream, but to no avail. The scream still pierces your mind, consuming you, filling you with deep, unrelenting dread. You curl into a tighter ball, your fingers digging mercilessly into your scalp.
The lights flicker spasmodically, causing shadows to leap like demons throughout the lab. The scream continues, unnerving, rotten, and wrong. The lab's structural beams creak and groan, a directionless wind howls. The room goes dark, light, dark, light, darklightdarklightdark… You squeeze your eyes shut and pray for the end.
Then…
….silence.
The lab is cast in an eerie glow as the emergency lights flicker on overhead. Dust drifts down from the ceiling. Chairs are overturned, cabinets are unbalanced, and loose papers are strewn everywhere. You pull your hands from your ringing ears. Strips of flesh come loose as you pull your nails away - you didn't realize you actually cut into your skin - but adrenaline blocks the pain. You cautiously peer out from under your desk. Across the room, you see Julia do the same. She also took shelter under a desk. Her eyes lock with yours, and you see genuine fear.
You crawl out from underneath your desk, slicing your palm on broken glass. Sound is still muffled and difficult to hear above the ringing in your ears. Your other colleagues materialize from behind cabinets and desks. Matson had the good sense to get out of the lab and seek shelter in the hallway.
The only person who remained in place is Hojo. He mindlessly brushes broken glass from his shoulder as he stares down, absolutely captivated, at Cloud.
Holy…
Cloud.
His veins are visible as rivers of mako beneath his skin, which is coated in a fluorescent film of sweat. His eyes shine so brightly that they illuminate the particles of dust floating in the air around him. Bright tears drip steadily onto the table, glowing snot and saliva stain the lower half of his face. A thin line of blood trickles from his ears, and the wounds he opened by trashing against his restraints drip luminescence onto the table.
All of the mako Cloud's body has been storing has been unleashed by…by whatever that was. You know Cloud has been absorbing incredible amounts of mako energy, but to see it pour out of him… He should have been dead months ago. He should be dead now. There's so much mako radiating off him that you're positive you are going to get mako poisoning just from being in the same room as him.
Hojo, however, does not appear worried. He steps closer to Cloud, staring at him with rabid curiosity.
"Vitals," he orders without taking his eyes off Cloud. To your relief, Julia volunteers by stepping forward first, although there's a hesitance in her stride that you've never seen before. Her hand trembles slightly as she reaches for Cloud. Before she can touch him, Cloud's limp body becomes rigid, his eyes narrowing to slits, his teeth bared in a snarl. Julia leaps back, tearing her hand away and pulling it close to her chest.
Cloud's mouth begins to move…but it's not Cloud's voice that comes out. His voice is harsh and raspy, like dry leaves being blown over cold stone. He's speaking, but not in any language you've ever heard. It's nothing that belongs to this Planet. It's a chant, a dark prayer, a promise, a threat. Your hair stands on end. You suppress the urge to run.
"His eyes! Get documentation of his eyes!" Hojo has to shout over Cloud whose voice is steadily rising in volume. You would prefer to not approach anyone who appears to have been possessed, but Hojo isn't to be ignored. You, Julia, and the visiting scientists swarm around Cloud. You catch sight of Cloud's eyes. They've changed.
It's as if the mako that completely flooded his pupils, irises, and sclera has been concentrated in the iris, coloring Cloud's eyes an acidic green. But what makes your stomach clench are his pupils. They're slits.
Sephiroth.
Julia snaps photos of Cloud's eyes. You collect vial after vial of glowing blood. Cloud continues to chant, unaware of the hands on him.
Only Hojo remains unmoving in the chaos. He stands at the head of the table, leaning over Cloud so low that his forehead almost touches Cloud's.
"Speak to me, J-E-N-O-V-A." he whispers.
You lose yourself in the frenzy of collecting cell samples from Cloud and making sure that the recording equipment is picking up everything Hojo wants it to. It's therefore a bit jarring when Zack starts angrily demanding to know what's going on. You nearly forgot he is still in the room. His skin is covered in small cuts caused by the falling glass. He doesn't appear to notice, though, so caught up in his worry for Cloud.
"Take him away." Hojo orders Barnes and Matson, glancing away from Cloud for the first time since the procedure began. They sedate Zack and drag him from the lab. Cloud's voice begins to grow hoarse from the constant chanting, but he doesn't stop spitting mangled, inhuman phrases into the dead, lab air.
Is this what Hojo has been hoping for? Is this the connection with J-E-N-O-V-A he's been seeking? You gather that it is from the look of rapture on his face as he drinks in Cloud's words.
But if this is the map to The Promised Land, it sounds like it leads to hell, not paradise.
Cloud continues to chant steadily. As time passes, the glow of mako surrounding him dissipates. His veins no longer shine like rivers of mako and disappear under his skin. His blood darkens back to red. His sweat dries and fades to nothing. It seems as though the J-cells are eating through every molecule of mako Cloud's body has.
After an hour, his voice wears itself to a whisper. After two hours, a croak. After three, an unintelligible rasp. Near the four-hour mark, the movement of his lips, cracked and dry, slows and, eventually, stops. He lets out a shuddering sigh as his eyes flutter shut. Whatever J-E-N-O-V-A had to say, She must have finished saying it.
Hojo leans forward to whisper something against Cloud's forehead. He lingers for a moment before straightening his stiff spine. He looks up at the ceiling, the wonder on his face eventually being overtaken by euphoria. He raises his hands to the heavens as if in worship.
"Yes! Yes! Magnificent, incredible!" he crows. "At last, at long last, I hear Her words, Her will!"
You glance uneasily at your colleagues. No one else seems to share Hojo's enthusiasm. If anything, the look on everyone else's face says that they think communicating with J-E-N-O-V-A is a mistake. Whatever that was, it wasn't what anyone was expecting.
But Hojo can't, or won't, contain himself.
"Could you hear the wisdom in Her words? The undeniable grace?"
Everyone else in the room, yourself included, shifts uncomfortably. You think it would be fair to say that no one else would classify what you heard as wise or full of grace.
"We'll have to get a linguist to analyze the speech, of course." Hojo says, murmuring to himself. "But this is cause for celebration. The map to The Promised Land could lie within these recordings. Oh, how the President will regret his words… He'll never doubt me again!"
Hojo spins on his heel and jabs a finger at the Midgar scientist who was in charge of videotaping the entire procedure. "You! Come with me. We need to upload this footage to the database immediately."
Hojo has almost disappeared into his office when you stop him. "Sir! What should we do with Clo-…with TS-3?"
Hojo ignores you. Now that Cloud is no longer acting as J-E-N-O-V-A's mouthpiece, Hojo has no interest in him.
You take it upon yourself to patch up the hole in Cloud's head. It's so small and Cloud heals so fast that there's no need for him to spend any time in the mako tank. You have Barnes and Matson escort him back to his cell. Cloud gets off the table in a daze. His legs are unsteady at first, but they hold. He drifts like a ghost between Barnes and Matson towards the cell. You take a seat at your desk as the cell door clangs shut. Your knees groan as you sink into your chair and your muscle tremble, although you're not sure if it's from fatigue or residual adrenaline.
Zack's voice echoes down the hall. "Hey, Spike."
A pause.
"…Cloud? You alright?"
Cloud gives no response.
"Cloud, can you hear me-...oh."
You imagine Zack catching sight of Sephiroth's eyes on Cloud's face. You hear him take a shuddering breath to steady himself.
"Cloud? You gotta say something, buddy. You...you're scaring me. …Cloud, come on, please."
Silence. Then, a yelp. The sound of flesh hitting flesh followed by a thud. The ragged inhale of someone who's had the wind knocked out of them. You're halfway to your feet to investigate when you hear Zack's shaking voice.
"Okay, you don't want to be touched right now. That's fine. ...I'm here when you need me, okay?"
Curious, you pull up the security camera footage. Zack is edging along the wall back to his cot. Cloud is standing, still as stone, by the cell door. You rewind the footage. The thud you heard had been caused by Zack's body hitting the wall. Cloud had kicked him in the chest after Zack tried taking Cloud's hands in his own. A tremor of fear rushes through you. Cloud would never attack Zack. Cloud isn't himself.
You keep an eye on the security camera footage while you finish entering data. By the time the workday is over, Cloud still hasn't moved.
That night, you can't sleep. Even alcohol does nothing to dull the lingering fear caused by everything you witnessed that day. An echo of that awful, unending scream still rings in your ears, as do the whispers of Cloud's otherworldly chant. When you shut your eyes, an imprint of Cloud's body, oozing luminescent mako, is burned into your eyelids. You stare dully at your ceiling until dawn and wonder if Cloud might attack Zack again during the night.
There's no cure for your fatigue when you pull yourself out of bed, but you do your best to wake up by taking a cold shower and drinking twice the amount of coffee as usual. Julia looks uncharacteristically unkempt. You'd be willing to bet that she didn't get any more sleep than you did last night. Barnes, Matson, and the visiting scientists look similarly exhausted.
The only person who doesn't look like death is Hojo. You're not sure if he left the lab at all last night, but he looks more refreshed than anyone else. The Midgar scientists leave shortly after breakfast. They were supposed to stay and watch Hojo repeat the procedure on Zack today, but after Hojo announced that he isn't going to bother with Zack given his success with Cloud, they decided to leave early. You think the mansion's dark, oppressive atmosphere also has something to do with their early departure.
You pull up the security camera feed as soon as you get to your desk and replay the footage from the night. You're curious to see if Cloud's status has changed. The footage shows Cloud remaining in place for hours. Sometime, around 2AM, he collapses as if he were a puppet with its strings cut.
Zack's by his side in seconds
You listen as Cloud, whose voice is as broken and jagged as glass from overuse, asks Zack to tell him what happened. Zack does his best to fill him in, but Zack's description of yesterday's events sounds hollow in comparison to reality. You figure Zack's doing his best to give Cloud the truth without scaring him.
Even still, Cloud drops his head into his hands. "I'm scared, Zack." he whispers.
"You and me both, buddy." Zack replies. "You and me both."
Hojo shuts himself in his office all day, asking you and Julia to collect blood samples from Cloud. As you do so, you remark that Cloud's eyes have gone back to normal, an honest-to-goodness normal, as they had been before mako exposure. In fact, Cloud's blood samples, though high in S- and J-cells, contain only trace amounts of mako. It seems that the J-cells really did burn through the mako stored in his body.
Hojo emerges from his office at the end of the day to inform you and Julia that you both are going to Midgar in two days to report to the President. You're stunned. There is over a month left before the final report is due. But Hojo, who is still vibrating with yesterday's success, doesn't want to wait. He wants to smear his results in President Shinra's face.
You text your family for the first time in months to ask if they'd be willing to meet you in Midgar again. They agree immediately. You wonder how you could deserve people who love you enough to drop everything to see you after you've treated them like shit.
The next day you instruct Barnes on how to draw blood from Cloud while Julia helps Hojo put together the report. Cloud's eyes haven't regained their glow and his blood still only contains marginal amounts of mako.
"How are you feeling?" you ask him while pressing a cotton ball against the puncture wound you left when withdrawing the needle. He heals so fast now that the hole in his skin probably closed the moment the needle left his flesh, but old habits die hard.
"Fine." he mutters, not looking at you. Something doesn't seem right to you, though, so you check him over, but everything appears normal.
Still, when you're watching the mansion disappear in the rearview mirror on the way to the helipad, you can't help but feel like something is wrong with Cloud.
You get to Midgar late that night. Your family won't be joining you until after your first round of meetings tomorrow, so you down the tiny bottles of vodka, gin, and whiskey in the hotel's mini-fridge to settle your nerves.
Hojo's initial report is to the President, Vice President, Scarlet, and Heidegger. You assume Scarlet's there because her team assisted with Hojo's latest J-E-N-O-V-A experiment, but you can't figure out why Heidegger's there. You guess it's not for you to question. You sit and listen as Hojo describes his breakthrough with Cloud in scientific terms with none of the raw fear or dread that permeate your memories of that day. The others are suitably impressed, especially when Scarlet comments that the visiting members of her team were "moved" by what they witnessed.
You suppose that's one way of putting it.
Hojo replays footage from the procedure for the President, edited so only the highlights show. You avert your gaze, not needing to see the events unfold again. You already relived them in your sleep last night. Still, the audio dredges up the fear you felt that day. You excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and splash cold water on your face.
Your family arrives that night. They're overjoyed to see you, and you them, but your mom casts a critical eye at you. You know what she sees. Bloodshot eyes. Broken capillaries across your skin. A bloated gut. The permanent smell of alcohol on your breath. It doesn't help that she spots the empty bottles you drank last night in the trash. She sees an alcoholic. You want to tell her she's wrong, but even as the defensive words rise in your throat, you know she's right.
You can't enjoy the night with your family like you want to. All you can think of is how to sneak away to kick back your next drink.
The next day, you're irritated to find out that Hojo's meeting with the President is private and you and Julia have to sit outside. You really wish Hojo believed in granting days off; you could be spending the day with your family (or at a bar) instead.
You sit outside the conference room and stare sullenly at Midgar down below. What would it be like to jump from this high?
Your phone buzzes in your pocket. It's Barnes.
"Hello?"
"Where's Hojo?" he asks, not wasting time with a greeting.
"He's in a meeting with the President."
"Get him. Cloud's dying."
You feel like you've been punched.
"W-what? How? What happened to him?"
"I don't know," Barnes' voice is tight. "I took some blood, just like you showed me. He was fine when I took him back to the cell, I swear. Zack started throwing a fit a while later. When I got there, Cloud was… He's not right. He's freezing. I brought him a blanket. Zack's trying to keep him warm now. He's awake, but he doesn't seem to know where he is. Just…get back here as soon as possible. Please."
Barnes is scared, and for good reason. If Cloud dies in his care, you're pretty sure Barnes dies too.
"I…I can't stop the meeting." you stammer, feeling useless. "It's with the President…"
"Cloud might not have that long. We need Hojo back now."
You press your free hand over your eyes. "It's going to take us all day to get back, Barnes…"
"…I know."
"I'll get him."
"I'll do what I can here."
You fill Julia in on the situation. It takes you a minute to build up the courage to knock on the conference room's door, but, once you do, you slip inside and quietly relay what Barnes told you into Hojo's ear. You feel the President's disapproving glare burn into the back of your skull. The chair's armrests groan as Hojo clenches his fingers around them. You hear his teeth gnash together. He tells you to wait outside.
He storms out of the conference room minutes after you do. You and Julia scurry to keep up with him. You can't even stop by the hotel to gather your things. You're swept from Midgar directly from the Shinra Building's text your family to ask if they can collect your belongings from the hotel and take them home with them. It's not like you can tell them where to mail your things.
It's nearly two in the morning when you roll up to the mansion. The air is clear and quiet, so unlike Midgar, but you don't have time to reflect on the differences because Hojo commands you to follow him down into the lab. Julia is hot on your heels.
It's too late.
Zack is on the ground holding Cloud's body close to him. Cloud is limp, his skin gray. A thousand thoughts flood your mind at the same time. Sadness for Cloud. Heartbreak for Zack. Fear of Hojo. Anxiety for Barnes and Matson. Relief that Cloud's suffering is over.
But then Cloud sucks in a small, painful, rattling breath.
Matson, Barnes, Hojo, Julia, and you swarm the cell. Cloud looks like even the smallest shock of static would kill him right now, so Zack is subdued with a heavy dose of tranquilizer rather than the electric cuff. Even still, Matson and Barnes have to wrestle Zack away from Cloud. Zack's grip is like iron. Hojo leans over Cloud, taking his temperature and searching for his pulse.
"Get him to the lab." he orders Barnes and Matson. They bring a gurney over and lift Cloud's body onto it. Zack, paralyzed but semi-conscious, watches them wheel Cloud away. Tears run steadily down his face.
You help transfer Cloud to the operating table. His skin is ice under your grip. He's holding on, but barely.
Hojo doesn't bother with diagnostics to determine what's happening to Cloud. It's obvious. He's dying from severe cellular degradation. His body, addicted to mako after two years of constant exposure, is killing its own cells to replace the mako burned away by J-E-N-O-V-A's cells. Hojo begins to try everything he can to save the experiment that he, just twenty-four hours ago, was declaring his greatest success to the President. Nothing is working. Cloud continues to fade.
Your initial thought is to throw Cloud into a mako tank. His body would accept the mako and stop its self-destruction…but you know that that's only half of what Cloud needs. Cloud would survive in a mako tank, but he's too far gone to ever have a hope of living outside it. His damaged cells have already caused widespread organ failure, and you wouldn't be surprised to find brain damage as well. With or without the mako tank, Cloud is finished.
Around 11AM, Hojo snaps. Haggard from lack of sleep, frustration, and shame, he slams his clipboard hard enough against a desk to snap it in half. He throws the pieces across the room and sweeps a line of glass vials off a shelf. You flinch and back out of his path of destruction.
"You!" he screams, rounding on Barnes. "What did you do?! He was fine when we left!"
Barnes throws himself backwards. Although Barnes a good foot on Hojo and could probably snap him like a toothpick, you'd place your money on Hojo today. There's murder in his eyes.
"I just took blood samples like you told me to! That's it! I swear!" Barnes protests. "He was fine when I took him back to his cell!"
"You must have done something wrong!"
"Check the cameras! I did everything just like you showed me!"
Hojo screams with wordless rage and kicks a metal tray. Surgical tools go flying. "My experiments don't just die for no reason."
You know there's a large body of evidence (several bodies, actually) to disprove that claim, but you know better than to bring that up right now.
"You!" Hojo advances on Matson now, shaking a trembling finger in his face. "You must have done something."
"I didn't touch him." Matson says stoically, unmoved by Hojo's aggression.
"Then you must have not been paying close enough attention to him!" Hojo screeches.
He turns on Cloud. "You! Worthless! Failure!" he snarls, striking Cloud across the face with each word. Cloud's head snaps limply from side to side with each blow. "You! Are! Nothing!"
"Sir!" you interject, surprising yourself. You do your best not to wither under Hojo's fury. "Don't… That isn't helping."
Hojo wheels around to glare at you. He looks positively deranged with his yellowed teeth bared, his bloodshot eyes narrowed. "What does it matter?! Look at him! He's as good as dead! Two years of work down the drain. Nothing more than a waste of time and resources."
"We…we might still be able to save him."
Hojo laughs hysterically, a truly demonic sound. "You're even more of an idiot than I thought. TS-3 is either going to die or spend the rest of his life in a coma submerged in mako. He's not going to be the mouthpiece of J-E-N-O-V-A. He's not going to be the next Sephiroth. He's nothing."
He turns back to Cloud. You sense his demeanor shift, his fire-hot anger simmering to cold disdain. He glares down at Cloud, sneering. "I was a fool to believe he could be anything more." he spits.
Hojo remains standing there for a while longer, eyes locked on Cloud. His head tilts slowly from side to side as if he's weighing multiple choices in his mind.
"…are you worth the resources to keep you?" Hojo asks himself aloud. "Or should I cut my losses and kill you? Storing dead bodies is easier than live ones."
Your stomach churns. Death might not be much different from spending life floating comatose in mako, but the thought of euthanizing Cloud leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
Hojo frowns. "Put him in stasis." he says to no one in particular. "Him and that other failure. I need time to think." He leaves the lab.
You turn back to Cloud. His chest rises and falls feebly, irregularly.
"I guess this is it, huh?" Barnes mutters darkly. "Kid made it for two years in this hellhole and finally broke."
Before you can respond, Barnes scoops up Cloud from underneath his arms while Matson grabs his ankles. They place him in the tank, same as they had done hundreds of times over the past two years. But this time, as they seal the door shut, it feels different. It feels final. Like a goodbye.
You fill the tank. Cloud's body floats off the floor, suspended, lifeless.
"…might as well get Zack now, huh?" Barnes asks.
"…yeah." you say, although that's the last thing you want to do. It's one thing to put a dying teenager into stasis. It's another to do the same to someone who is perfectly healthy. "Might as well."
Zack's eyes search yours for an answer to a question he's too afraid to ask. Barnes has no trouble getting him to cooperate to come down to the lab. Zack steps into the lab hesitantly, as if scared of what he might find. A quiet moan of grief escapes him when he sees Cloud floating motionless inside the tank.
"Is…is he…?"
His only answer is to be hit with a heavy sedative. Barnes unlocks the electric cuff from his ankle and works with Matson to shove Zack's body inside the other tank. You fill it, adding the formula that will indefinitely keep him in an artificial coma. You know it's reversible at any time, so it's not like you're killing him…so why does it feel like you are?
And, just like that, Project S-II concludes.
Hojo never formally decides to keep Cloud and Zack alive. He just does. He never verbalizes his reasoning, but you suspect it's to remind him of his failure. He never speaks of them again, but he also doesn't hide them away. You sometimes catch him staring at them with a mixture of disgust, self-loathing, and resolve painted across his face.
It takes copious amounts of damage control, but Hojo manages to convince the President that Cloud and Zack's failure is actually a success. Hojo assures the President that Project S-II was nothing more than a learning experience, a launching pad for Project S-III and Hojo's new Reunion Theory. Incredibly, the President funds the project.
Besides…Hojo already has all of the human test subjects he needs on hand. He finally has a use for the Nibelheim survivors.
You wake the survivors. The woman with gray hair. The boy who still carries baby fat in his cheeks. The girl with freckles across her nose. The man with calloused hands. Their confusion, questions, fear, and screams tear you apart from the inside out. You, Julia, Barnes, Matson, and Hojo work day and night, repeating the procedures done to Cloud and Zack. Hojo has streamlined the process, so it now takes less time to put each test subject through Phase I and Phase II. When Cloud and Zack's old cell becomes overcrowded, others are shoved into the three remaining cells, despite those cells not being designed to accommodate humans. You lose count of the number of people who pass beneath your hands.
You no longer try to disguise the fact that you're coming to the lab drunk every morning. You can't handle this. Barnes can't either. He goes off walking in the mountains one day, his gun glinting on his hip. He never comes back. You wish you had his courage. You wish you didn't have a family who would suffer the consequences if you followed in his footsteps.
Although Hojo never admits that he broke Cloud by forcing that final connection with J-E-N-O-V-A, he now stops short of pushing the Nibelheim survivors that far. Even still, not all of them survive. You begin stacking cairns along the trail behind the mansion to commemorate them. You wish you knew their names. The ones that do survive are tattooed with numbers.
You're not sure where the survivors go until you pass through Nibelheim on your way to the helipad to collect your monthly drop of supplies. Shinra's construction team did a fantastic job of rebuilding a perfect copy of the old town, but it's laid empty for years. For that reason, you slam on the brakes when you pass through and see that the town is bustling. Someone is collecting water from the well. A shopkeeper is waving from his window. A woman sits in a rocking chair on her porch. You do a double-take. It's the survivors. You squeeze the steering wheel tight as you watch the people you cut open and stitch back together go about everyday tasks as if nothing had ever happened to them.
…except something's wrong.
As you watch, you notice that everyone seems to be on a loop. The person collecting water from the well lifts and lowers the bucket on repeat, never actually withdrawing water. The shopkeeper continues to wave from his window at no one. The woman rocks aimlessly in her chair, staring at nothing. At first glance, the people look normal enough…but there's a blankness behind their eyes. These are no longer real people. They're empty shells. You glue your eyes to the road and press on.
When there are no more Nibelheim survivors left to experiment on, Hojo declares that he's returning to Midgar. He's spent far too long away from his main lab and is eager to pick up the experiments he left behind when he came to Nibelheim. He brings Julia and Matson with him but leaves you to look after the Nibelheim Lab. It's a punishment and you know it. You're a worthless drunk.
A few months into your isolation, a wiry guy with sandy-brown hair named Scott is sent to be stationed with you in Nibelheim. You're not sure what he did to deserve this punishment, but you're grateful for his company. You don't talk much, but it's enough to share breakfast with someone.
You spend most of your time sitting on the mansion's front stoop drinking whisky straight from the bottle until you pass out. Then, when the summer turns to fall, you move inside and drink in the great room. There's nothing else to do. Scott joins you sometimes.
October comes and goes, marking four years of living in the Shinra Mansion. Your houseplant commemorates the occasion by needing to be repotted into a larger container.
The temperature plummets in November and even more so in December, but no snow falls. You'd be glad for a longer hiking season, if you still hiked.
Instead, you wander the mansion's empty corridors. You pass through Dom's old room, which has never been cleared out. Packs of cigarettes, dirty laundry, and half-full bottles of bourbon litter the floor. You claim the bourbon but leave everything else.
Julia's room looks as though she never lived in it, although the white corner of a paper half-tucked underneath a dresser catches your eye. You pull it out. It's a children's drawing of a woman and little girl together. Across the top of the page, it reads:
hi mommy! i miss you! school is very fun. love kalya ps i cant wate wait to see you!
The a's are written backwards. You tuck the paper into your pocket. You'll give it to Julia if you ever see her again.
Barnes' room is unkempt. He left his bed unmade and his laundry unfolded. You guess he didn't see the point of cleaning up if he knew he wasn't coming back.
Matson's room is totally cleared out, his bed made with military precision. You purposefully rumple the sheets so it doesn't look so goddamn perfect.
The hardest room to pass through is Clark's. Like Dom's, no one has ever taken the time to go through it and clean it up. The corner of his rug is upturned, like he kicked it up by rushing over it in a hurry. You suppose he must have since his final moments were spent trying to get to the lab to check on the equipment after the storm killed the power. There's an empty glass by his bed, a bottle of sleeping pills, and a dusty journal. You open it and flip to a random page.
I want to die.
But I'm too scared to do it myself.
Is there a heaven for cowards like me?
No.
Only HELL .
But maybe Hell is better than here.
You throw the journal into the fire later that night and watch it burn.
When you drink yourself into enough of a stupor, you wander the lab and the catacombs. You see flashes of the past in your peripheral vision and hear the echoes of Cloud, Zack, and the Nibelheim Survivors' screams. Every breath you take smells like their blood. You're surrounded by ghosts, but none of them want to talk to you. You don't even want to talk to you.
The days blur together into one, unending nightmare, only broken by the rare occasions you wake up sober and need to drink yourself numb again. Then, one day, the nightmare is shattered completely.
You turn the corner and only have enough time to register a fast-moving, dark blur coming at you before you're shoved against the wall. Your hands scrabble uselessly against a beam of hard iron pressing against your neck. Except it's not iron. It's Zack Fair's forearm.
How…?
Black spots dance across your vision. Behind them, you see narrowed, mako eyes glaring raw fury at you.
How did he get out?!
You feel your body going limp.
Behind Zack, Cloud is slumped against the wall like a rag doll.
Your fingers weakly tug at his arm.
"Please…" you choke out. "Don't…"
But you remember all of the times he and Cloud begged for mercy and you didn't grant it to them. You know Zack remembers too. He doesn't remove the pressure from your neck.
So this is it.
In a way, you are kind of glad.
Maybe the nightmare would now be over.
You pray that Hojo will leave your family alone since you didn't choose this.
Your sight fades and you become light as your mind detaches from your body. You're sinking into a warm, dark, bottomless pit, your body sags, your hands fall to your sides, your eyes roll to the back of your head…and then…
…nothing.