Disclaimer: This is a fan-fiction piece. Final Fantasy 7, and the characters portrayed here belong to Square Enix.
Edit: Goodness, apologies - I didn't realise the story had copied over the formatting code when I pasted it on here. It's been updated. Thanks Fallowell for letting me know!
The bar is dimly lit and smoky with conversation as he walks up to the stage. The patrons he passes still their murmurs to watch him go. A few at the fringes whisper bravely "who is he?". The words echo around him. They echo inside him.
His hair is black like the midnight sky (or is it silver like the moon?) and it sways as he steps onto the low platform. His fingers are long and thin (isn't that how they've always been?) and he grasps the microphone in his right fist (somehow this feels wrong to him).
He has no memory of himself. One day he just was, a man who had woken up in a broken city, surrounded by wisps and whispers of the dead. A man who no one knew and who knew no one. He had awoken without ever having fallen asleep (he had dreamt of green). Who was he before he had awoken?
He begins to sing (was he always a singer? It feels so unnatural to hold still).
He closes his eyes and allows his long lashes to cast their shadows onto his face. Words drip from his lips, thudding onto the floor like thick drops of poison (like blood off the end of a long blade – but he's never carried a sword in his life. Has he?). The patrons are hypnotised by him, his base voice is heavy and it fills the air.
He sings
His eyes roam the bar, curious and unknowing. Until they meet their equal in the shadows at the back. Glowing blue eyes lock with mundane brown ones (weren't his green?). He stares at the man at the back and the man stares back.
The music is loud and ponderous.
The man has a muscular build and a coldness about him. His yellow hair is tinged with the dusk of the bar.
Innocence lost (stolen by me. By me?) – is all he can think. He has never known anyone since waking (waking from where?), but this man is familiar.
The melody carries him
He sways deliberately, rhythmically into the song, allowing the drums to guide his movement. They are his heartbeat. A heart which once knew nothing but greed (why? What did it want so badly?), but which now knows nothing but void (Who is he?).
The man at the back just watches.
The sound vibrates against the soles of his shoes (boots?)
The song finishes and he slips the microphone back into its holder. The man at the back is gone.
"Wait!" he gasps. The man with the yellow hair and luminescent eyes does not acknowledge him; he walks away "Wait!"
He follows the man. Past coarse, wooden tables and patrons hindering him with their compliments (he would have skewered them, had they hindered him like that before… before what? He's never hurt anyone, has he?).
Still the man does not stop. He blends and emerges in amongst the others in the bar, drowning and resurfacing in their waves.
Cloud a voice says in his head. Cloud. The voice is deep. Deeper than his own and intimately familiar. So close to him, but just out of reach. Inhuman (But he is human).
He follows the man out of the bar. A woman, the barkeep, tries to stop him ("Why are you following Cloud?"), but he moves past her like silk.
The man (Cloud) is nowhere in sight, instead he is met with the emptiness of the night and the broken buildings of this Edge. He does not know where to go, but something in him pulls. One foot after the other, just as he always has (always?).
Without warning, he finds himself in an alley. It is dark, but he is confused that he can no longer see (Couldn't he always see?). It is silent, but he is confused that he can no longer hear (Wasn't his hearing the sharpest?).
And then, there is an arm against his throat and a rough, brick wall at his back (He would never have been caught off guard back then… when?). His vision is filled with ethereal blue (Those eyes. Like his eyes. His?)
"Why are you following me, asshole?" The man asks. Cloud asks.
He opens his mouth to answer. But he doesn't know. What draws him to Cloud?
They wait for moments in the silence.
He shatters it: "Who… am I?"
It is the only thing he can think of. Who am I, who am I, who was I?
Cloud seems taken aback. He drops his arm and steps away. He seems unsure. Who am I, who am I, who are you? Who are you to me? The words, unspoken and heard, echo in the dark alley.
Cloud's answer is shaky "I… I don't know." (But he does, the deep voice insists – Who are you?)
"I… I feel like I should… But I don't know…"
His heart sinks.
Cloud curls in on himself and refuses to raise his eyes. He looks nervous. There is a scar on his face (Did he do that? When?)
"I should go…" says Cloud mutters, more to himself than to anyone else. He hurries off.
Moments pass, and he is left there standing.
Moments pass, and he is left there.
Moments pass.
A breeze blows a poster past him. It is an old torn thing – a relic of a time long gone. On it, he catches a glimpse of a silver haired man with glowing green eyes. A hero and a villain of a time gone by. He does not pursue it.
Who is he?