Beyond

Flora Winters

I do not own Final Fantasy VII, and I'm not making any money here either.

Summary: Sometimes the dead simply do not stay dead. This story will contain boy love, strong language, and scenes of explicit violence.

Chapter Nineteen

Don't say I'm out of touch

With this rampant chaos – your reality

I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge

The nightmare I built my own world to escape

--Evanescence

Cloud was kneeling in the desolate memory of what should have been a beautiful garden filled with tranquil light. He had dirt under his glossy nails and smudges of it on his moth-white cheeks. His golden hair was in a state of disarray, but that seemed to be a constant thing now.

It was all so empty. He didn't like the emptiness that was all around him. Why had he come back to this place? It felt like he was going to be sucked into that desolate void and be crushed in its ever-devouring maws. He had to fill this empty space. He couldn't take it for another moment. He wanted to be surrounded by a sea of color and fragrant scents.

A chilly breeze fluttered through his hair, carrying a sad voice with it. "What are you doing, Cloud?" It asked.

He looked down at his hands, realizing that he hadn't been digging to plant flower seeds. No… He had been digging a grave. Why was he digging a grave?

"NO!" He cried, finding that he was in a field of dead bodies. He was in an ocean of mangled and scorched corpses. It wasn't the memory of flowers he smelled. It was the smell of decaying flesh, and it was choking him. The sky above was black and swirling with malevolence. The skull-moon stared down with the silver face of immortal Death.

He gazed in horror, finding Vincent torn at his right, and Genesis broken at his left. They were both on their faces, drowning in their own blood. Sephiroth was sprawled out before him like a shattered doll. The lower half of his body looked as though it had been severed by a really sharp blade. His face was turned towards him, eyes staring accusingly, mouth gaping wide. There were flies buzzing on his swollen tongue, crawling out of his ruined nose.

Cloud tried to back away but he couldn't. Zack was in his arms. Half of his handsome face was missing. That was when he saw that it wasn't dirt under his nails. It was blood. His white flesh was painted in their sweet-smelling, intoxicating blood. Their flesh was rotting away like fallen fruit under a blazing hot sun.

He lowered his head and began to scream as he held Zack to him. It was a hollow sound, shattering from a broken soul. It was shrill, loud, and echoed longer than a silent roar from the ocean's freezing depths. It was the sound the Fallen One made when he was tossed from his lofty height.

He screamed in blind terror when Zack's clawed hand flew up, grabbing him by the throat, pushing him down on his back with monstrous strength. His eyes widened into unknowable madness. He cried out like a wounded animal when Zack bit down into his shoulder blade, gnawing at him with broken teeth.

Cloud fought at him, turning to his left, seeing Genesis raising his head, making snapping sounds like dried sticks. His eyes were rotten and the left one was dripping from the socket like thick tears.

He tried to push Zack off and couldn't do so. He was too strong.

Genesis grabbed his arm and he looked to see that Vincent had taken hold of his other one. They were holding him down. Vincent's face was but a blackened skull with deadly fangs. There was a golden serpent slithering out of his right socket, snapping at him with venomous teeth.

He screamed even louder when his ankles were grabbed by very powerful hands. He tried to kick free, but he couldn't. It was Sephiroth. He knew it was Sephiroth.

He cried out in agony as four mouths began to tear their way into his creamy white flesh. His whole body bucked and writhed as he screamed. The dead were devouring him.

His screams quickly gave way to crazed laughter. He laughed over the sound of his own bones being shattered by the teeth of the dead. He embraced the hunger of the dead, howling with madness as they feasted on his perfect corpse.

Each bite, each tear at his flesh, every snapping of his bones felt like an orgasm. He was the food of the dead.

His eyes snapped wide open when the orgasm hit him right between the legs. He bit down on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, cringing in painful ecstasy all the way down to his curling toes as he filled the front of his pants with pearly spurts of warmth. He slid completely boneless from the rocking-chair into the floor, looking up at the ceiling in a daze.

He ran his trembling hands through his wild hair, moaning under his breath. What the fuck had he been dreaming about? He couldn't remember. His whole body was dizzy.

"I have felt in my being both moods of love during my brief intimacy with you," Genesis said, making Cloud turn his head to the side. He was awake. The redhead was curled up on his side with his muscular arms wrapped around his powerful chest. Genesis looked like a content kitten as he slowly sat up with eerie grace, looking down at him with glowing azure eyes. "How often have I not felt secretly in my senses happiness, sorrow, laughter, and tears?"

Cloud couldn't move. Genesis' voice was a magic spell, enchanting, bewitching his mind with seductive beauty. The gorgeous man was practically shimmering before his eyes.

"Intimate embraces, delicate kisses, streaming tears—if these be the uses of love," Genesis sang with such fiery passion. His voice was like the strings of a silver harp being plucked by the expert fingers of a god. The golden vision crawled from the bed like a large feline, stalking on all fours toward him. "Red eyes, hard words, angry backward glances—these are the abuses of love."

Genesis pulled Cloud into his warm arms, holding him like a lover, planting scorching hot kisses upon his wintry flesh. Cloud wanted to fight him off, but he couldn't do so. That voice, those words, there was such a longing for acceptance.

"In His land of love is no ugliness, nor injustice, nor atom of impurity," Genesis recited in such poetic bliss, gently pulling Cloud's pants down, putting his burning lips to his sacred key. "Have my emotions, has my life-stream met that ocean of love at long last?"

Cloud grabbed those flaming red strands with both hands, shaking his head with tears in his eyes. He couldn't. He couldn't let this happen.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, holding Genesis away from his weeping root.

Genesis suddenly looked lost. It made the tears stream from his eyes.

"I've seen into you," Genesis said, putting his bigger hands over Cloud's. "Your pain mirrors my own."

Cloud sat up, looking right into the larger man's confused eyes. "I can't give you my body," he told him, planting a chaste kiss on the right side of those pouting lips. They were so full and needy looking. "But, I can give you a luxurious room in my heart."

Genesis stared into his eyes. He wasn't blinking. "Is your heart so big?"

A tear fell from that ocean blue. "I'd like to think so."

"You're insane," Genesis said, removing his hands from Cloud's, taking him into his lava-hot embrace, licking the tears from his face like a cat. Cloud felt like he was going to melt.

"Because I helped you?" Cloud asked him, loving the feel of that feathery-soft tongue. The man was licking his tears.

"No," Genesis said. Cloud's eyes widened when Genesis gripped his aching member. He was about to fight him, but Genesis quickly removed his hand. "Because you saved me."

Cloud watched him lick the cream from his fingers. Genesis had just tasted his seed. The guy looked like he was about to start purring at any moment.

"I knew it," Genesis smiled, smacking his cherry-red lips. "You taste like dumbapples."

Cloud blinked.

"Do you want to taste me?" Genesis asked, taking hold of Cloud's hand, moving it towards the large bulge in his pants. "You could have just let me suck you crazier instead of stabbing that big scary needle into my heart."

"Have a care, Genesis," Cloud warned in a dark voice. It rumbled with thunder, warning of lightning. "I always bite my straws."

"I am now a prisoner of that curl," Genesis smirked wickedly, twirling a blond strand of golden light around his index finger. "As if it was a fetter around my foot."

Cloud blushed pink. "Are you like a library of poetry?" Oh, no! He had blushed. That wasn't good.

Genesis nodded his head. "My brain is like a supercomputer. I know of a billion-billion ways to make love to you…Cloud Strife."

He rolled his eyes. So, Genesis now knew his name. "You need to put your clothes on."

"Why?" Genesis asked. "Are we going somewhere?"

"You are," Cloud said, pulling his pants up. "Sephiroth will be looking for me."

Genesis looked away from him. "Your cells made me see parts of your life."

Cloud stopped, looking up from his buckle. "I figured they would." So, that's how he now knows his name.

"I was wrong," he said, rising to his large golden feet. "I was so very wrong to leave Sephiroth by himself."

"Well, you don't have to worry about him losing it this time around," Cloud told him. "I've seen to it."

"But," Genesis said, smiling. He was still touching him. It was like Genesis didn't want to be far from his skin. "I still want to play with him."

"I just need to figure out a way to get him away from Shin-Ra," Cloud hissed.

"Oh, don't worry," Genesis told him, letting him go. He walked over to the bed, set down, and began to put his boots on. "I can take care of that myself, Blond Seraph."

Cloud cocked his head to the side. "I need one of your clones that can fly."

Genesis stood, putting on his jacket. "Why?"

Cloud went to the window and looked out. He longed to see those flowers. "I will need for him to sacrifice his life in order to get me the power to bring Shin-Ra to their knees."

He listened to Genesis move up behind him, allowing those arms to wrap around his waist, pulling him back against that marble hard chest. The taller man rested his chin on top of his head. It reminded him of Zack. His heart suddenly ached for him. He hoped he was okay and not flipping the hell out.

"Okay," Genesis told him.

Cloud blinked. "Really?"

"Each clone is a part of me," Genesis said, squeezing him gently. "But, they have no soul of their own. They're just empty flesh being animated by the power of mako."

Cloud took that in. If there was no soul, then there was no real sacrifice. It would be just like using a robot, but robots were too slow, and way too bulky for the Temple of the Ancients. But, it made him feel bad. Each clone was a part of Genesis. Wouldn't he miss it?

"Cloud?" Genesis asked.

"Huh?"

"I really hate Sephiroth's hair," he whispered into his ear with a low growl. It caused Cloud's knees to buckle. "How am I going to braid it in his sleep now?"

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Sephiroth sneezed, rubbing his nose with the back of his left palm, sniffing. He looked this way and that in confusion. What the hell was that? He had never sneezed a day before in his life. What the hell was going on?

"Hurry up, Zack!" He snapped, poking him in the cheek with his chicken on a stick. "Before I eat all your chicken, too."

Zack continued to sleep as he stalked on. Where the hell had that psychotic bitch taken Cloud?

He sneezed again, sniffed, and cursed because he had stopped up his ears.

TBC…

Please review and tell me what you think.

Note: Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing this crazy story. It makes me so happy that you, my readers, are enjoying this insanity. Please keep reviewing and telling me what you think.

Also, the poetry above that Genesis recites to Cloud, belongs to two wonderful poets from a book called, Same-Sex Love in India. Their names are Gopabandhu Das, and Sarmad. Their few works are absolutely beautiful.

Peace, love, and pretty-shiny for everybody!

Flora.