Chapter 20 – Truth
The first thing Reno became aware of was the immense pain in both his head and his left arm. Groaning, he struggled to sit up. He looked around him; he was in nearly pitch black, and completely alone. The situation was enough to unnerve him slightly. He looked down at his arm to see the damage. He had been hit, although not badly. What puzzled him the most was why his head hurt. He had been put to sleep like that before, but he had never woken up with such a headache. He put a hand to his forehead only to find when he looked at it, it was covered in blood. He sat puzzled for a minute, unable to shake the feeling that something was really, really wrong.
He looked at the bodies that littered the ground around him; luck would have it that the one nearest him had been holding a flashlight when he dropped. Reno picked it up and turned it on. All around him was still and silent. He tried to get up, still holding the flashlight, but he had no strength left in him and he collapsed back down to the floor. What the hell was wrong with him? He tried again, managing to get to get onto one knee without it collapsing under his weight. Shining the torch around again, he realised what was wrong.
There were bodies on the ground, but from that height, Reno could see that there wasn't actually that many; not as many as there should have been. It seemed like… every sign of life had vanished from the building. Where had everybody gone? From the increasing pain in his head, he gathered someone had had a pretty good go at killing him, but he thought they would have made sure there job was done. He had just sat back down, wondering what to do, when he heard a noise behind him. He looked round sharply; a figure was standing in the doorway. Reno's heart seemed to skip a beat as the figure started walking towards him. As he came in to the dim light of Reno's flashlight, he recognised who it was. It was the man that Tseng had shot, the one who was in the air vents. He now, however, had no trace of being injured at all. Reno gasped as the figure pulled the hat off it's head. He had known him all along.
"Strife?" he said weakly. That was it. He was done for. He was injured, alone, and in a room with Cloud Strife. He was not expecting what happened next.
"Reno… you're alive?" he said sitting down next to him.
"Don't sound too disappointed." Said Reno, puzzled. He shone the flashlight straight at Cloud, making sure he was for real. Then he noticed it, a small mark on his neck; as though a needle been pushed into it.
"Oh my fucking…Strife?" Reno said, not believing it.
"I know, everything that happened. The needle."
Reno stared at him a moment longer, unable to believe it.
"Why aren't you trying to kill me?" he said. He thought he might as well ask the blatant question instead of skirting around it.
"Because, I never wanted you dead in the first place. Claudia did." He said, slightly solemnly
"She…did that?" he pointed at his neck.
"Yeah. And…what the hell happened to you?" Reno saw he was looking at his forehead.
"No idea." Then he remembered. "Zack! Where's Zack?"
"I don't know."
"Strife, you're not mad? I killed your sister."
"Yeah, I know. You have to get yourself out of here, Reno." Cloud stood up. "I'll never forget what happened in the past, and I'll never forgive you. Any of you. But I won't hold it against you. Just stay out of my way and I'll stay out of yours." He left Reno sitting there, still shocked about what had just happened.
As Reno sat on silence, thinking about his options, a sound filled his ears. It started quiet, but it was definitely getting louder. Fire, there was no mistaking the sound of burning. Then it sunk in. He had to get out; but the most important question was, how? He couldn't even stand up.
Gathering together the little energy he had left, he managed to get himself to his knees, and began to crawl, albeit extremely slowly, towards the fire exit on the other side of the room. The smell of the burning was now starting to fill his lungs, making him feel drowsy. It was getting more and more difficult for him to keep conscious enough to carry himself any further, with the smoke getting thicker and thicker. Finally he made it to the door and pushed it open. He looked out of it. The idea was to use the ladder to climb down the side of the building and to safety. Well that definitely wasn't going to happen, he thought to himself. Although he was on a second story floor, he was out of options, and pulled himself out of the door and fell down into, what he hoped, was safety.
