Tobi: Ello! The feedback for last chapter was awesome-thank you! Extra big thank you to Superwitch! :] Here's a (somewhat... for some of it) light-hearted chapter to, you know, balance out all that angst of last chapter. Sorta. :D

CM: Hey all once again! Thanks for all the reviews! I especially want to thank the reviewers who understand that sometimes authors have to manipulate characters so that they can grow throughout the story. Thank you for bearing with us. Like I said before things will get better but only after they get a little worse. Try to look for the humor in the situation too guys. Enjoy!

Ah! IcyHot! Okay. Sorry, to those of you who didn't know what it was. ^^;; "IcyHot is a topical rubefacient heat rub meant for relieving pains such as arthritis, backache, muscle strains, sprains, bruises, and cramps." -cough- you rub this nasty-smelling crap on a sore muscle or whatever and it's icy, to numb, and hot, to soothe. XD or something like that. Kinda burns. :/ (as Cloud has found out.)

…It was dark in here, darker than it had been the last time. Perhaps they had decided to stop changing the light bulb after all these years. He didn't blame them.

Sometimes he wondered what had become of everything. There really wasn't any way for him to find out, but he couldn't help but think about it. Because really, what else was there to do, besides sleep?

If he listened, he could hear them: screaming, talking, laughing. Or, he used to be able to.

He didn't hear much of anything.

It was… odd, but he didn't dwell on it. He didn't dare, because if he did, his own situation would become unbearable. If that happened… he'd be screwed, to put it simply. No, it was better if he just… slept.

He closed his eyes and became dead to the world.

Cloud woke up on the hard, unforgiving kitchen floor. He didn't know how he had gotten down there, and he really didn't care. All he could focus on was the absolute monster of a headache he had. It felt like a knife had been stabbed behind his eyes, and for some reason, his left cheek was throbbing.

He blearily noticed that the kitchen tile was sticky; he obviously hadn't done a very good job cleaning up that soda he had spilled earlier. His good cheek left the floor with a gross noise, and he let out an unintelligible moan of anguish, holding his head as he managed to get off the floor.

His first thought was to get rid of this awful headache, and he stumbled to the first-aid kit in the parlor for the third time, swallowing two ibuprofen he found in there dry. He found he had bit the inside of his cheek pretty badly, but he couldn't really do anything to fix it. He could taste blood, though, and spat in the sink. Cursing how it took time for these things to kick in, he tried to massage his temples as he thought about what happened.

He had been… about to throw something away. Right? But, that was where his memory ended, and Cloud didn't bother continuing to think about it. His head hurt too much.

There was an elegant mirror over an antique desk in a sitting room he passed through, and Cloud stopped to look at himself in it. His hurting cheek was swollen to a monstrous size, taking up a good portion of his face and was a nasty bruise-ish color.

It was exceedingly unattractive.

Cloud gave his beat-up reflection a small smile, somehow finding humor in the situation, and left the sitting room. There were still things to do; he couldn't laze about.

He had to finish unpacking his stuff, get those pictures for Aerith, and he still had to clean out the kitchen of Hojo's shit. Goddamn it, he didn't want to. He could've stood to sleep for a week… was it really only his second day here? So much had happened in such a short time…

Cloud sighed; every part of his body ached. Wearing comfier clothes sounded like a good idea—the shirt he was currently wearing was a bit too tight, and it kept brushing against his tender back.

Eyes downcast and sleepy, Cloud stumbled upstairs. He robotically changed his shirt, vaguely liking the feel of the new one better. Cloud made sure he had his camera with him, securely on a strap around his wrist.

He was just about to exit his room and finally give Aerith what he had promised her when the wind… picked up, or something. Because really, what else would have caused the door to swing shut suddenly?

The pretty, stained wood's movement took Cloud by surprise, and he didn't have time to hold out his hands and protect himself. The door smashed into his nose and sent him stumbling backwards. Nose injuries always hurt like a bitch, he knew, and he let out a heartfelt, "Motherfucking shit!"

He clenched his eyes shut and felt a few tears squeeze themselves out of his eyes. He just lay there, even though he could feel the blood dribbling down his face and onto his clothes.

In the hallway, the Invisibles (as Zack had dubbed them) were in stitches.

"He was asking for that one," Angeal managed, chuckling merrily.

In the bedroom, Cloud staggered to his feet. If he focused on the white-hot pain that seemed to come from inside his face itself, it didn't seem as bad. He could handle it. He panted shallowly for a minute, trying to cup the pool of blood in his hand.

He had to sacrifice his shirt (but it wasn't like it wasn't already ruined) to stop the bleeding, but that was okay with him. His nose still hurt, but it wasn't broken, as far as he could tell. Good.

Cloud cleaned himself up the best he could without venturing into the bathroom-of-horrors, and yet again, he changed into new clothes. He took the crusting, gummy, bloody outfit with him as he left, arms straight out in front of him to prevent another freak door-attack.

He made it to the fancy washing machine and dryer on the first floor with little difficulty, and put the soiled clothes in the washer, intending to do them later.

Cloud padded up to the second floor again after that. He had forgotten his camera in his bedroom and darted up to get it, then did an awkward I've-gotta-shit-now-dance to a bathroom he had never been in before. (It was so handy how there were so many—regardless of his unfortunate experiences here, he loved this mansion.) He cleaned his face of dried blood with a damp washcloth and sat on the toilet, intending to conduct some business.

…His butt was burning.

That was enough to make him freak out in and of itself. But he smelled something sort of… minty. He stood and peered into the toilet, wrinkling his nose at the obvious nastiness, but looking for the cause of the incessant burn on his poor cheeks that was steadily getting worse and more intense.

On the toilet seat, there was… something. Sticking out a finger and running it along a small portion of the toilet seat, he was surprised to come away with gross, clearish goo on it. He sniffed it and paled.

"Icy Hot?" Cloud gasped, dumbfounded. He fidgeted, ass on fire. It definitely smelled like the stuff… but something else, too. Some sort of chemical. A bad one.

Wasn't IcyHot, like, poisonous if you used too much of it? And why the hell did it hurt this much? It wasn't this horrible burning sensation—though, he probably could blame the extra burning on whatever that other stuff was. Cloud panicked, from that thought and from the severely uncomfortable feeling on his bum. He hastily reached for the toilet paper, wiping the gunk away (Cloud made sure to actually wipe his ass too; he was a hygienic person and wouldn't put something like that off, even in a situation like this).

Cloud realized too late that the toilet paper was covered in the shit, too.

Cloud looked on in horror as the toilet paper unraveled itself from his frantic movements. He clapped his hands over his butt and let out a high-pitched noise of distress. The sink was too small for him to get his ass in there and wash it off, and this bathroom didn't have a tub or shower…

"What did you do in there?" Zack asked, still not knowing what Sephiroth and Angeal had done earlier.

"Patience, Puppy," Angeal answered, giving him a warm smile.

"Is it evil?" Genesis mocked, but still looked intrigued. "Will it kill him? I'm sick of this boy being in our house."

The mood darkened instantly. Angeal gave a slow nod, then glanced at the door. There was an awful lot of noise coming from in there.

Holding up three fingers, Sephiroth began a countdown. When he lowered the first finger, Cloud started stomping around. After the second went down, he made a howling noise and grasped the doorknob, wiggling it.

Sephiroth put down his third finger, and Cloud burst out of the bathroom with a yell. He was naked from the waist down and was trying to get his pants off one of his ankles at the same time. He stumbled twice, managed to get them off and bolted for the staircase, cupping his goods with his hand as he ran.

Genesis and Zack had no idea what was going on, but they laughed with the other two men anyway. There was a shriek as Cloud tumbled down the stairs, and they grinned—partly out of amusement, and partly because, well, Hojo's successor was in pain.

Cloud picked himself up off of the floor, scrambling to the kitchen. He skidded in and leapt onto the counter, balancing on the edge and poking his rump out. He turned the water on and grabbed the spray-hose thing, and let out a sigh of relief as the water cooled his burning bottom.

As he cleaned himself, he wondered why Hojo was such a freak. Who the hell kept Icy Hot on their toilet seats? Did the old man like his junk to be fried or something? This mansion just got weirder and weirder.

When he deemed himself clean, he gingerly got down and grabbed a hand towel from a drawer. He dried himself off with a hand towel, giggling a little at how gross this was.

Cloud took a deep, calming breath after that. He wished things would slow down… he doubted he'd ever had two days as busy as this day and the previous one.

It should have been fine, walking around so indecently—it was his home, after all. There wasn't anyone else in there with him. He couldn't help but feel shy as he trekked upstairs to retrieve his pants, though. He put them on quietly, flushed the toilet in the bathroom and thought about what to do as he washed his hands.

…Aerith still needed those pictures. He sighed, not really feeling motivated to go get them for her. His camera was in the middle of the hallway, having been dropped for the second time earlier. He checked to see if it worked; it did.

He put his back to the front door downstairs and tried to take a picture of the entrance hall. The camera dropped out of his hands and hit the floor when he was just about to snap a picture. Not having the energy to get all suspicious, Cloud sighed apathetically as he bent to see if it was okay; it wasn't, this time. There was a huge crack in the screen.

Cloud didn't cry this time. He left the broken thing on the marble floor and eyed the cardboard boxes neatly stacked to the side of the room. He smiled and made his way towards them. Time to unpack.

He had been in the library before, but he hadn't really stopped to look around. Cloud took his time and studied the tall shelves, packed to the ceiling with books. Most looked thick, too thick to be for one's reading enjoyment. Hojo certainly had that "mad scientist" look—those were probably all books about how to torture people and pickle their reproductive organs. Cloud shivered and set the box he had lugged into the room on the table.

Inside were his books from Midgar. He was an avid reader, so the box was kind of heavy, and he stretched briefly before taking one and pulling it out.

The library was kind of intimidating. It was freakishly silent, and the still elegance of the room somehow made it even less inviting. Cloud frowned and searched for a place to put his books, finding a mostly-empty shelf. He shoved Hojo's scary books aside and placed his in, smiling widely when he was all done.

Cloud glanced around, not exactly liking the darkened shadows of the room but finding it rather exciting now. His eyes widened; there, straight out of a movie, was one of those special rolling library ladders.

He climbed up it without much thought, eyeing the books at the very top of the shelves.

He expected something like Being Creepy for Dummies, or Weird Decorating: Old Man Style. Instead, there was a bright green book whose spine read, Disco: the Rise and Fall of a Dance Generation.

Cloud gave a short laugh and shook his head. He was about to get down, but the ladder tilted. He obviously hadn't been careful enough up there… One of the legs was completely off the ground, and he was gonna fall—! Cloud gave an alarmed gasp and clutched on tight to the ladder.

The ladder tipped sideways, and Cloud shrieked as it fell over. It wasn't a terribly long way down, but it was enough to hurt him.

His head hit one of the shelves, and he busted his lip open. He hit the carpet hard, and the ladder fell on top of him.

Cloud was quiet, then let out a shaky sob as he raised trembling fingers to his split lip. Zack chuckled and tipped a book out of its place on the shelf, giggling when it struck the fallen blond in the head.

His headache had returned tenfold, if that was possible. It hadn't even been fully eradicated when he had entered the library. Cloud picked himself off the floor and stumbled out of the library. This house was a death trap, and he couldn't leave, thanks to Tseng.

Like a zombie, Cloud went through everything in the kitchen. It would have been an enjoyable experience, had he been in a better mood, but he couldn't bring himself to enjoy the weird bags of gummy worms he found, nor properly crack up at the sight of the old milk, chucky and practically alive.

He hadn't even been surprised when he somehow spilled the half-alive old-milk monster on him. He just sighed and trudged upstairs for a shower, lamenting the appearance of his poor, beat-up body. His lip was a mess, his cheek was discolored, his skin was burned pink, his back was scraped up, he had wounds in his hand and foot, his butt still burned a little, he had dark circles under his eyes, and he had a lump the size of an orange on the back of his head. Peachy.

He stumbled to a yet-unused, clean, safe bathroom and stood under the water, thankful that nothing was going wrong this time.

He was tired.

While Cloud was in the bedroom, the Invisibles used the opportunity to eat some dinner.

"Can you refrain from calling us 'Invisibles,' Zackary?" Sephiroth asked, eating his microwave-spaghetti with grace, not getting any sauce on his chin, unlike Zack.

"No," Zack answered bluntly, eating voraciously.

They ate quickly, trying to be as quiet as they could. They had to eat, after all, but they couldn't exactly do it right in front of Cloud. Most likely, they'd end up tied down in the labs, drugged up and on Mako with one of them dead before they could blink.

The food was disgusting, and they longed to be alone and have enough time to prepare a real meal. Not eating while listening for noises would be a plus, too.

"We did good today," Zack said, smiling.

"I agree," Angeal sighed, draining his glass of water in about four seconds.

When finished eating, they did the dishes at top speed, washing, drying and putting away everything so that Cloud wouldn't be able to tell that anything had been touched.

A wet, clean Cloud appeared in the kitchen a few minutes later, and three Invisibles smiled; the blond had no clue.

Zack, who still had a fork in his hand, whirled around and stared at Cloud with wide eyes. Not knowing what else to do with it, Zack hid the fork behind his back. He remembered too late that he was invisible.

Cloud stared at the floating fork for a long moment. Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal immediately noticed what was going on and tensed, preparing for Cloud to finally do something. Sephiroth inched forward, preparing to kill the blond in one blow if he made one little step towards Zackary.

Instead, Cloud's blue eyes turned huge and disbelieving as he bellowed, "GHOST!" He turned around and sprinted out of the room, looking genuinely terrified.

The four men watched him go, severely confused. Angeal's mouth was hanging open.

"…What just happened?" Zack said slowly, putting the fork on the counter.

Sephiroth was frowning deeply, eyes squinted in concentration. He said, just as slowly, "...I think I know how to explain our guest's behavior."

Genesis tilted his head and said desperately, "please explain, Seph."

The ex-General bit his lip, an unconscious gesture of uncertainty. "...I believe he does not know that we escaped the laboratory." Before anyone else could interrupt, he continued, "His actions so far do not add up. I would say that he would be unaware that we exist, but was handling had Mako earlier today." He glanced at Zack. "He thought Zackary was a "ghost." The only explanation is that he thinks we are still in the labs and do not pose the slightest threat to him, and that there is a genuine ghost in the house. Our actions would be self-explanatory to Hojo."

"So…" Zack thought. "He's afraid of ghosts? And thinks that we're ghosts?" He smiled slowly.

"So it would seem."

"What," Genesis breathed, "… an idiot."

Angeal shrugged, clearly deciding to take what he could get. Zack frowned and hoisted himself up on the counter, saying after a pause, "…he's one dumb blonde scientist."

Cloud was huddled in his bedroom, scared out of his wits. Hehadseenit—proof that he wasn't going crazy—that there actually were ghosts in his house! How the hell else did a fork float?

He wondered if it was a nice ghost, like Casper. He doubted it. Maybe… the thing with the shower and the tripping down the stairs and the ladder and the burning sponges had been the work of a ghost!

Having always been terrified of anything supernatural, Cloud was freaking out. However, there was some sort of giddy excitement that he couldn't shake away. He wanted to go confront that thing, figure out its secrets and tell the whole world! …Not really; he'd much rather get it the hell out of his house and live in peace.

For an indefinable amount of time, Cloud stayed in his bedroom. To say he was paranoid was an understatement—he sat with his head in his hands, back against the door in an effort to keep it closed, and sniffled into his palms.

Why did all the crazy shit have to happen to him?

There wasn't any noise for a while, and Cloud began to doubt himself. …Was he imagining all of this? Maybe he was in a crazy home somewhere, strapped down and dreaming all this up while on happy drugs? He didn't know—he didn't care—his brain hurt, his body hurt, and he was tired. Developing a cold too, if his sore throat told him anything.

He must have fallen asleep in that position eventually, because all of a sudden it was dark in his room, and there was noise coming from downstairs. His first thought was burglars! instead of ghost! but then he remembered his strange position and wasn't sure what to think. He was scared, of course he was, but he cautiously opened the doors and peeked outside. He was pretty tough; he could probably take on a burglar and win. He had punched the daylights out of a glass wall, hadn't he?

Cloud cautiously left his bedroom. He had been expecting his door to fly open and to be killed by something, but nothing happened. He tiptoed downstairs, blue eyes wide in the dark and swiveling in their sockets, unable to see much of anything.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw a sight that made him pause for a moment, then made him unbelievably angry.

Some fucking moron was in his house. Under a sheet. Pretending to be a ghost. It was like a cheesy Halloween costume. Cloud was more angry that they had broken into his house than that they were imitating his worst fear. It was probably some punk native of Nibelheim here to try to scare away the "city boy." His burglar thought hadn't been that far from the truth, sort of.

Cloud was pissed.

He stomped his way over to the man—it was a man, he decided; they were tall, and their profile looked a bit too… well, masculine to be female. They turned to face him and waved their arms around, saying nothing.

"Who the fuck are you?" Cloud spat, brows furrowed. He knew he couldn't have been that menacing, with his destroyed and beat-up face, but he didn't care. Now that he looked closer… there weren't little eye-holes for them to see him, so it was okay.

No answer.

Cloud 'tsked' and reached out, unceremoniously ripping the sheet off the man and preparing to sink a fist into his gut.

There was nothing under the sheet.

Cloud's mouth fell open. He glanced at his hand, at the limp piece of cloth. His eyes flickered forward, only seeing the far wall opposite him. He took a shaky step back and dropped the sheet.

He screamed at the top of his lungs, high enough to rival an opera singer's voice, and bolted. He ran all the way to his bedroom and slammed the door shut, sticking a chair under the door so that no one could get in. He dove under the covers and curled them tightly around himself, not letting an ounce of light in.

Downstairs, all four Invisibles were dying. Genesis was bent over on the floor, laughing so hard he was hiccuping. Angeal was in a similar state, but inhaled so much air weirdly he gave a monstrous burp. Genesis hiccuped some more at that and crumpled, lying on the floor as he laughed and panted raggedly. He had felt like an idiot under that sheet, but Zack felt like a genius as he laughed hard, clinging to a chuckling Sephiroth.

"Gaia," Zack giggled, "This is great."

Cloud was an afraid wreck that night. He itched to call Aerith, but she'd think he was crazy and wouldn't be any help. He suffered in silence, blue eyes wide and fixed on the door. He was tired enough to drop dead, but he forced himself to stay awake and watch out for himself.

But he must have fallen asleep eventually, because when he woke up in the morning and looked in the mirror, he screamed.

It was so cliché. But that was probably the point, because everyone immediately would have known what it meant.

Scribbled backwards on his forehead, so that when he looked in the mirror he could read it, were the words: SEVEN DAYS.