Beyond
Flora Winters
I do not own Final Fantasy VII.
Summary: Sometimes the dead simply do not stay dead. This story will contain boy love, strong language, and scenes of explicit violence.
Chapter Two
Management was none too pleased when Cloud had told them about the hole he had kicked through their lovely bamboo wall. But, they were immediately smiling once more when he had forked over the gil to pay for the damages he had made. He even paid for the shattered mirror as well. So, they gave him another room and practically begged him on their knees not to destroy anything else. He had smiled and told them not to worry themselves. He would behave.
If only they knew what haunted him. They would break shit and kick holes through walls, too.
He held the sparkly bubbles in his hands and blew them. They floated all around his head in pearly radiance as he sat back in the hot, steamy water. It was almost up to his neck and it felt so good.
He turned his head, looking at the necklace sitting on the small white table next to the bath. It was all aglitter with a soft crystal red light.
Who in the world was that beautiful guy? Where had he come from? It was spooky and yet the guy's presence had greatly comforted him. It was so odd.
He looked at his bruised wrist and shivered in the hot water. How could a dream hurt him like this?
"Tick-tock, Cloud," an even spookier voice whispered from all around. It sounded like it was coming from the very bubbles. "Tick-fucking-tock…"
That woke him up from his reverie.
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It was so quiet. The Shinra mansion was always that way. There was more noise in a cemetery at the dead of night.
"Something is telling me that you are trying to piss me off," Sephiroth said, sitting at the foot of the bed, sharpening his sword for no apparent reason other than to look wicked and scarily intimidating. "Do you have any idea what horrors I can inflict on your psyche?"
Cloud was restrained to the bed by ropes and began to fight them. He couldn't break them. He looked at the silver haired ghost. He couldn't move. This was a dream. How come he had no control over the happenings here?
"Because," Sephiroth said, tapping his blade against a booted foot. "I am stronger than you."
Cloud snorted. He actually snorted. Oh, he really was losing his mind. He had just snorted in Sephiroth's wickedly handsome face.
"Did I say something funny?" Sephiroth asked with a crooked smile, showing his sharp white teeth as he stood up in a flap of leather. "Why don't you tell me so I can chuckle along with you?"
"All right," Cloud said, fooling around with his ropes some more. "You're stronger than me?"
Sephiroth nodded, opening his arms wide, looking at him. "Obviously…"
"I killed you…twice now."
"And I just keep coming back for more," Sephiroth said, chuckling, and then laughed out loud. "You're right, Cloud. This is funny!"
Cloud shivered. Those green eyes were blazing with poisonous insanity.
"Don't you see, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked, sober and looming over him like a shimmering silver storm. "You can't kill me. You can't stop me. The only thing you can do is delay me."
He was howling with laughter again, spinning away from him in a circular dance. It was graceful and quiet eerie to watch. Sephiroth dancing like that was the stuff of Nightmare's nightmares.
Sephiroth suddenly snatched up his mighty sword and brought it down right between Cloud's sprawled legs in one swishing swoop. The sword split the bed right down the middle for the most part.
"Should I let you wake up now?" Sephiroth asked, tapping his cheek while clicking his tongue in thought.
Cloud wondered if that sword could really hurt him like Zack had.
"It can," Sephiroth told him, suddenly dancing with a large pink fuzzy bunny. It really was nothing to laugh at. It had razor sharp talons and long ivory fangs. He was talking to it. "Do you see the pretty blonde on the bed over there?"
The bunny nodded its large head and its pink fur slowly started to decay and fall off into the floor with gooey thuds. It snarled like a hissing snake.
Cloud gasped, fighting with his restraints once more. The smell was terrible and the flesh was rotting more and more.
"I want you to chew on him," Sephiroth told it, petting its head, causing an ear to fall off. "I want you to make him scream in agony until it causes me to smile with such bliss."
"Shut up!" Cloud yelled, struggling to no avail. "Keep that fucking thing away from me!"
"What was that?" Sephiroth asked, snapping his fingers. "Did you say you want two new friends to gnaw out your intestines?"
A second zombie bunny appeared from out of the shadows and it was scarier than the first one. It was even bigger and smelled twice as bad.
"Go on!" Sephiroth howled with laughter. "Make him scream!"
Cloud did. His restraints broke and he was off the dusty bed just as the rotting pair pounced with hissing snarls.
He raced past the stunned looking silver haired general and out the door. He reached the stairs only to yelp when a hand had him by the hair, yanking him backwards. It hurt.
"I didn't give you permission to leave the bedroom!" Sephiroth yelled, pulling him by the hair even harder. "You don't even have a hall pass!"
"Let go!" Cloud shouted, clawing at his hand. "We're not at Academy, you sick fuck!"
"Gladly," Sephiroth said, letting him go.
Cloud yelped, crashing down the steps. He rolled, landing at the bottom with a pained groan. He panted and moaned as he rolled over onto his back.
Sephiroth was walking down the steps as if his feet were walking on air. His hair was shimmering in the light above like molten strands of silver razor wire. It looked as though each deadly strand could cut through solid steel.
"Did that hurt?" He asked, standing over him, nudging a bare foot with his own. "I certainly hope so."
He straddled Cloud's narrow waist, pinning him to the floor by his wrists.
"Get off me!" Cloud groaned, kicking his legs, and bucking his hips. "Get the fuck off!"
"Shut up!" Sephiroth snapped like a leather whip across a helpless victim's backside. "You can fight me all you want to, but it will only cause me to torture you even more, Cloud. Is that what you really want? Do you enjoy my torturing you?"
Cloud bit his bottom lip, squirming in pain. He suddenly spat right in the general's face with all the hate he could muster. Luminous green eyes widened in shock and a jaw fell. Cloud grinned. Oh, if only the bastard could see his face. It was priceless. He had actually shocked the hell out of Sephiroth.
Those green eyes narrowed with hellish scorn. Sephiroth bared his teeth, and suddenly had his hands around Cloud's neck, squeezing.
"Stop!" Cloud gagged, thrashing under his weight. "Let me go!"
"You little bitch! I ask for so little!" Sephiroth screamed, squeezing even more, digging his fingers into his neck. "I'll teach you to spit in your superior's face!"
Cloud struggled, pulling on the crazed general's hands. Those fingers were digging into his neck, and he thought he could feel himself bleeding. He cried out and tried getting at his face.
"I'll squeeze until your eyes pop like jelly from their sockets!" Sephiroth shrieked, looming right above his face, grinning with malevolence. "I'll squeeze until you bite your protruding tongue, you dog!"
Cloud gagged and spluttered. His mind was screaming for him to wakeup. He was in so much pain. All he wanted was for it to end.
"Damn you!" Sephiroth hissed, releasing him, rolling away with a venomous snarl.
Cloud coughed, gasping for air as he held his neck.
"You're purposefully trying to make me forget myself," Sephiroth glared, fighting to restrain his rage. He wiped the spit from his cheek, looking at his gloved palm in disgust.
Cloud rolled over, stumbling to his knees. His hands were covered in splotches of blood. The general had made him bleed.
"Do as I command, Cloud," he told him, standing with lazy ease. "And I'll end your suffering."
Cloud could suddenly hear the bunnies. He turned his head towards the stairs and there they were. The two of them were looking down at him with dead eyes which were filled with hunger. Their flesh was still dripping off of their bodies with meaty thuds on the wooden floor. It reminded him of meatballs falling off a fork just as you try to eat them.
"Or," Sephiroth smiled, stepping to the side with a viscous snap of leather. "I'll let him take you as they feed on your guts."
Cloud put his bloody hands to his mouth, backing away towards the large double doors. It was Zack. He was standing there in the pale light. He was hunched over, clothes caked with mud, and flesh peeling like a rotting apple. He looked up, cocking his face to the side, gazing with puss dripping eyes. His black mouth was gaping and a cockroach crawled out and up into a decayed nostril.
Cloud spun around in horror and began to fight with the doors. They wouldn't open.
That empty voice spoke to him. It filled his bones with a cold terror. His whole body broke out into a sweat.
"Cloud…"
He screamed and started punching the door with his fists, kicking at them, too. They wouldn't open for him. He pulled and pushed with all his might.
"Wake up!" A loud voice shouted over the zombie's rattling voice, feeling a sting across his left cheek.
"Cloud!" Sephiroth roared. "Come wake me up! You know where I am!"
He could feel that cold hand on his shoulder and he screamed even louder. He shot up into reality, throwing his sheets off, bolting from the bed. He was so blinded by fear he didn't see that he was about to trip on his own pillow. He cried out and went d own hard, landing with a thud.
He quickly raised his head up, looking around his room. It was empty. There was nobody there.
He gasped for breath. His neck was killing him.
"Is someone there?" He asked in a croak. His throat was raw. His cheek was stinging, too. Had someone really called his name and slapped him?
He slowly got to his feet. He was looking into a mirror over the dresser. His left cheek was pink and his neck was purple. He could see the finger marks.
It was real. All of this really was happening. Sephiroth was not a ghost. He was something else. Was he really alive and stalking him through some psychic link?
He covered the mirror with a black cloth. He didn't want to look in it and he didn't want anything to be looking out.
He quickly packed his things, and got ready to leave. That was when he suddenly remembered the charm. He walked into the bathroom and picked it up off the table.
He put it over his head and around his neck. The effects were almost immediate. The cold was gone. He was embraced by a warm presence. There was no more chilling horror breathing down his neck. Everything felt so nice. He was never taking it off again.
TBC…
Please review and tell me what you think.
Thank you all for your reviews.
Flora.