Author's Note: Ta-da! Finally, you say. Well, I say the same thing! Had some other projects that were eating up my nights and weekends, but now that they're done, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things!

Yes, another entry from Zack. Honestly, I fully planned on alternating the chapters all the way to the end, but it turned out that this one had to come next, for the sake of the story. Hope you find it interesting! I know I do. ;)

Thanks so much to LuckyLadybug for help on this chapter!

Chapter Nine

Zack's Journal, Day 8

There's something wrong with Stover.

I don't know what the heck his problem is, but he's been antagonistic ever since that argument a couple days ago with Harley. I know we're all stressed out, but Stover seems to be taking everything personal. He's kinda freaking me out – one minute he'll be perfectly fine, laughing at a joke by one of the others … and then he'll just snap. Nearly crushed Allen's hand when he tried to take a bit of food he thought Stover wasn't gonna eat.

And the thing is, he doesn't even act like anything's wrong. He'll just shrug his shoulders and ask, "What?" as if what he was doing was perfectly normal. How am I supposed to respond to that?

This morning I finally sat him down and gave him a talking to, but he just hmm'd and shrugged, and otherwise acted totally indifferent to what I was saying. I had no idea how I was supposed to handle that, so I finally got angry and told him I was gonna confine him to camp if he didn't shape up and start acting like a SOLDIER.

And you know what he said? He just said, "Okay," and walked away from me.

I think something snapped in me at that point.

I grabbed him by the back of his uniform and physically hauled him back to the temple, past the other guys who watched in astonishment, up the steps, and threw him to the ground. I told him that unless he wanted to go toe-to-toe with me, with a sword, he'd better not move one inch from that spot, and he better be waiting there when we get back, or else he's gonna wish he was facing Sephiroth instead of me.

I think that finally got through to him. He got this ugly glare on his face, but didn't say anything and stayed where he was. And he had the sense to stay there while the rest of us made an early lunch, though I could feel his eyes watching us. Everyone else was unusually quiet; I think they were afraid of getting on my bad side if they said anything. I suppose I was probably fuming, but the guys acting like they were walking on eggshells around me didn't improve my temper any.

Gaia, he'd better still be there by the time we get back. That's all I've got to say. I'm jumpy enough as it is, and I don't need his attitude. Whole forest feels like it's watching us.

Stover's dead.

Gaia …

I killed him.

But I didn't have a choice, I –

I just …

We got back from a scouting trip, and he wasn't there, and I got angry, and I looked for him. And then, when my back was turned, he ambushed the other guys.

He ambushed them.

We split up, you see, and N'kim was with me, and Hammerson was on the other end of the clearing with the troops. And Stover leapt from the top of one of the other buildings and attacked them.

By the time I got there, Harley was already beat pretty bad and down for the count. Hammerson was trying to fend Stover off with his sword, but Stover was just waling on him, and there was no way Hammerson was gonna win. Allen was clear off to the side, aiming his rifle, but hesitant to shoot.

I gave a shout and was in there in a flash, knocking Stover's blade to the side and sending him head-over-heels with a good whack from the Buster. I asked him what on Earth he thought he was doing, but it was like he'd gone mad! He just came at me again.

I tried talking him down, I swear I did. But he didn't listen! He was like some wild animal. He attacked so recklessly and wildly that even I had a hard time keeping up with him. I finally disarmed him.

… But it wasn't enough. Gaia …

He just didn't stop. I shouted for someone to use their Seal, put him to sleep, but no one carried any.

I was prepared to just keep beating him back until he ran out of steam, but suddenly he turned, ran, grabbed his sword, and was a split second away from plunging it into Harley.

No one saw it coming.

I reacted with the only thing I could.

One bolt from a mastered Lighting. That's all it took.

And he was dead.

Gaia … forgive me. I didn't know what else to do!

One of my men is dead, by my own hands.

I've failed them. I've failed Angeal. I've failed Sephiroth!

I just … I don't know what went wrong!

Oh, Gaia …

… I guess I'll head back to the troops now. I had to get some distance from them, find someplace to be alone … It wouldn't do any good if they saw me break down. It's been a while since I …

… I've been trying to figure out whether we should just leave. With one man down, I feel like we shouldn't push ourselves to complete the mission. But would it be better for us, for Stover's memory, if we kept going? If we left, there're still all those missing people, and SOLDIER would just have to send another team at some point, or let people continue to vanish. I can't let that happen. And I can't let what happened to us happen to another team.

Even if I don't know what happened to us.

Walker and N'kim are examining Stover right now, to see if they can figure out what went wrong with him.

I don't expect them to find anything.

… It probably doesn't matter, but those dang furries are starting to freak me out. They're always watching us. I get the feeling that they're still there, even when we can't see them.

… On the way out here, after … after that, I heard someone quietly yelling, "Help!" And not like those bird calls that kinda sound like it, but something that sounded really human. I grabbed my sword and dashed through the bushes … but couldn't find anything.

Then I noticed two of those furries scampering along a tree branch. One of them paused to look at me, cocked its head, and then said, "Help." I wasn't sure I was hearing what I was hearing, but then it said it again. What happened next gave me the shivers.

It spoke again … but this time with Harley's voice. "Stover, what are you doing? Stop. Stop!" Then it made a sort of chittering, high-pitched, laughing sort of sound, cocked its head the other way, and spoke, in Hammerson's voice, "Stover! What's wrong with you!" blinking innocently at me all the while, as if it was simply hoping for a snack.

I felt sick. Those things could imitate human voices. At any other time I might have been thrilled, but … Not this time. I turned away in disgust. I wasn't in the mood for any of this.

What it said next stopped me in my tracks.

It spoke in my own voice.

"Zack." I turned around to stare at it. Its violet eyes gazed back at mine, for a full minute. Then it asked, "Where's Stover?"

For the second time that day, something snapped, and I saw red. In a fury, I whipped my sword around … and killed it.

The second critter froze, staring at its dead companion. Then the fur around its face blackened in rage, and it screamed. It spun, lunged toward my face; I ducked … and it fled into the forest.

I whirled, staring after it. I remember gripping my sword so tightly that my hands ached. I remember breathing hard and gritting my teeth until a sharp twinge in my jaw brought me back to my senses, and I looked back upon the creature that I had killed. I felt nothing, except anger eating into my heart.

As I write this, I … I can't believe I did that. At the time, I … I just wanted to stop it. I didn't want it to imitate our voices. I didn't want it to ask me that. I didn't want it to ask me how I was going to explain this to Seph, or what I was going to say to Stover's mom … I didn't …

So I killed it. How could I …?

I didn't even care at the time, as I walked away.

But now … I feel sick.

What am I doing? I can't afford to lose it like this.

I need to lead the troops. I need to get back there, tell them what we're going to do now. They're waiting for me.

But … I don't know what to do.

Help me, Angeal … It was never supposed to be this way!

What do I do?

I guess … one more day. We've gotta do our best. For Stover, and the missing people and the other soldiers I don't want sent back out here.

But no more than that. There's still no evidence of anything out here, really. No super monsters. I don't know what happened to that thing Harley saw, but it hasn't come back. Maybe he just misidentified something. Unless we see something by the end of tomorrow, that's it. We'll head back. Otherwise, there's no telling when we might be done. You could spend forever out here just looking, and never find anything.

One more day.

to be continued …