Lightning slowly opened her eyes and wished she had not opened them at all. The blindingly bright light from the window was searing her retinas, but she pushed her self up anyways. She felt the blankets fall away from her bare torso and the cool morning air bite her flesh immediately after. Lightning quickly got to her feet grabbed her robe and wrapped it around her naked form.
Lightning turned back to her bed and was expecting Cloud to not be there because he was always awake first. Not surprised by not seeing Cloud she looked at her clock which read eight forty-one. The small piece of paper beside the clock caught her attention. Lightning walked over to and lifted the small piece of paper.
"I'm sorry?" Lightning read with a confused tone. It took her a few seconds to recognize Cloud's writing and as soon as she did she dropped the paper. She had no idea what to think about the note.
Lightning looked over to the chair where Cloud hung his uniform. It was still there. She looked over to the desk where they both put their keys. His were gone. Lightning slowly made her down to the living room and scanned it quickly. Cloud's Fusion Sword was gone. She looked out the front window and saw that his motorbike was gone.
Thinking nothing of it she proceeded back to her room to get dressed. Plain black bra and panties, a black sleeveless blouse and faded black jeans. Lightning brushed her hair and slung it over her left shoulder before grabbing her phone. She flipped it open and pushed the number three for the speed dial of Cloud's phone.
It rang and rang . . . and rang. It rang until the auto answer, answered. The voice was the default feminine voice recording. The usual message of someone not being there played then finally the tone to start the recording.
"Cloud?" Lightning started, instantly realizing she had no idea what to say "Uh, call me when you get this," She flipped her phone closed and slipped it into her small purse.
That was something Lightning just simply was not able to adjust to. Even after ten months, Lightning absolutely despised carrying the small hand bag around with her. But she had to carry it with her because her pockets were so small and tight that they were rendered useless. She could not determine why there were pockets on her jeans if they were completely unusable. One small detail registered right before she took her hand off her phone.
Lightning pulled her phone back out and flipped it open again. Across the panel were the words 'One New Message.' She navigated to her voice mail inbox and played the message.
"Claire," The recording of Cloud's voice said "I'm on Pulse and I've disabled the GPS in my phone so don't bother. Please try to understand, I don't mean to hurt you but it has to be this way," Lightning felt her legs growing weak "I'm sorry."
Lightning felt the floor crash into her knees as she felt a wave of depression wash over her. Cloud was gone, he left without saying anything to her, he had left while she was asleep. She did not realize she was crying until she saw the drops of water on the floor.
Lightning had a single question and several points slipping through the mind shattering depression. Why would Cloud leave? The Sephiroth plague was becoming an epidemic, several soldiers had disappeared, the three male Oerbans had disappeared, and the amount of petty and major crime was increasing exponentially.
Lightning's depression had overpowered her logical thinking and rage took the place of depression in a matter of seconds. She slammed her right fist into the floor repeatedly for three minutes before noticing that she had broken three of her knuckles and split the skin on them. There was now a puddle of blood and tears on the floor in front of her.
After swallowing her her emotions, she grabbed her phone in her left hand and dialled Serah's number.
"Hello?" Serah asked, sounding confused. Which was expected because Lightning never called at random "What's up Light?" Lightning still couldn't believe she was going to ask this.
"I need to talk to you, could you send Snow to get me? I messed up my hand yesterday."
"Okay, Snow will be there in, liiiike, ten minutes? See you soon, sis."
"Bye," Lightning said before hanging up and going to bandage and splint her hand. She was determined to tell Serah what happened and not break down.
Twelve Minutes Later
"I may not be a doctor Light, but that looks rather fresh," Snow said, referring to her broken hand. Lightning looked down and saw a red spot that was slowly getting bigger.
"Whatever," Lightning huffed and turned her head to look out the window to avoid any more conversation.
"So where's Cloud today?" Lightning saw her vision swim with tears at the simple question and quickly blinked them away.
"He's at work," Lightning said flatly.
"Okay, how is it you still don't like me?" Snow asked Lightning, genuinely curious about that.
"Its because you're annoyingly cheerful," Lightning revealed one of the many reasons why she did not like the oaf. Snow just laughed at the reason.
"Well then, I'll try to be more depressing," Snow laughed.
Fifteen Minutes Later, Villiers Residence
Serah had managed to shoo Snow off the property so she and Lightning could talk privately. They had spent the first few minutes talking about how Serah's pregnancy has been gong, what the baby might be like. Until Serah finally approached the subject.
"What happened with Cloud?" Serah said calmly, taking Lightning by surprise.
"He-" Lightning felt her throat close and her vision began to swim again "H-He left," Lightning stuttered as her voice threatened to break.
"What?" Serah asked, her eyes widening "What do you mean he left?"
"I-I woke up this morning and he was gone," Lightning was trying to blink away her tears but had to start wiping them away "He left a note o-on my night table," Lightning's voice broke and the tears began to run down her cheeks "A-and a message on my phone," Lightning handed her phone to Serah as she tried to regain control over her emotions.
After Serah listened to the message, she closed the phone and gave it back to Lightning. Her sisters condition was deteriorating very quickly. Lightning was taking ragged breaths and had tears rapidly flowing down her cheeks.
"Why would he leave? Why now? He knew that he was needed here, but he left anyways," Lightning had sunk to full blown bawling now "And there isn't even a way to know where he is, if he's alive, or dead. I just . . . I just . . . I don't know."
"What about Vincent?" Serah said with a small smile.
"What?" Lightning said as she wiped her eyes.
"Call Vincent. He's always on Pulse and the others say he can find anything," When said others she was referring to Avalanche "Pass me my phone and I'll tell Aerith to call him."
Lightning was already starting to feel better, now that she could at least know that Cloud was alive.
Pulse, Two Days Later
The wind through his blond hair, the rumbling of the engine, the shaking of the bike as it raced over rough ground. Cloud loved all of those things but he did not feel happy. He felt terrible, and for good reason. He left the woman he promised to marry and he didn't even tell her why. Cloud knew that if he did tell Lightning, it would have been much worse.
The sun was almost completely down now. It was almost time to set up camp for the night and let Fenrir rest. Fenrir, the large custom built motorcycle that all of Avalanche pitched in to buy the parts for Cid to build it. Cid had told Cloud that only he was allowed to work on the bike, any other mechanic would just mess things up.
That was six days ago. Cloud had only owned Fenrir for six days and he had not let anyone else drive it at all. Not even Lightning had driven the very large motorbike. It was understandable, Lightning did not like bikes, she preferred four wheels because that was a safer number.
Cloud drove over to a rock overhang and drove under the ledge. He climbed off the bike, untied his bedroll from the back and tossed it down. Cloud sat down on the bed roll and took his phone out of his pocket and pushed a few buttons. He sat staring at the name of his fiancee with his thumb over the send button for several minutes, but like the dozen other times that day he just flipped his phone closed again.
Pain shot through his left arm for a moment and winced at it. The pain was growing more fierce every twelve hours. Cloud looked at his sleeve covered left arm for a long moment wondering how the plague spread. The title of plague was a fairly good hint at how it spread. Air, water, insects, rodents, touch, bodily fluids; it could have been one, some or all of those. All Cloud knew was he could not risk exposing Lightning to it.
"Cloud?" Cloud almost jumped at the deep, gruff voice "Good you're awake. It will make this easier."
"Make what easier, Vincent?" Cloud asked without turning to the gunslinger.
"I shouldn't have to say this, but when you left you destroyed Lightning," Vincent said in his usual emotionless way "Don't worry though, I'm not here to take you back. It would be stupid to risk exposing everyone to the plague by forcing you to go home. However, I was asked to find out how you are," As Vincent finished talking he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and grabbed Cloud's out of his hand.
Vincent found the number for Lightning in Cloud's contact list and punched it in his phone. He flipped Cloud's phone closed and tossed it back to the blond swordsman. After three seconds of holding the phone to his ear, Vincent spoke.
"Lightning, Cloud is fine . . . I just spoke to him . . . I can't answer that for you . . . I promised not to . . . I'll see what I can do," Vincent flipped his phone closed and put it back in his pocket.
"I know she wants me back, so there is no point in saying it."
"That's not what I was going to say. Cloud, there is something foul approaching. And I have a feeling that you are going to be the only one who can deal with it," Vincent turned away from Cloud and began walking away "By the way, Shinra actually named this plague, Geostigma. Also, there is a cure."
"Really?" Cloud asked, a bit too excitedly.
"Yes, but the cure is raw energy from the life stream. And there was only one way to get that," Vincent turned back to Cloud before the shadows of the night consumed him "Good luck, Cloud."
Cloud thought about what Vincent had told him. Raw life stream was the cure for this plague.
"So in order to cure the Geostigma, a mako reactor needs to be built. Can this get any more complicated," Then, as if on cue, the pain in Cloud's arm became so great it almost made him pass out. Cloud was drifting in and out of consciousness and his mind went blank with the exception of one new thing.
"Oh Cloud, things can always get much worse," A deep, smooth and unforgettable voice echoed in Cloud's mind before he blacked out.
First off, sorry about any errors because I pretty much wrote this entire chapter in a total of four hours. I usually spend 2-3 days writing a chapter.
Second, Final Fantasy XIII-2 was officially announced yesterday (Jan. 20 2011). It is supposed to be in stores next winter.
Sorry about that randomness, but I'm excited. I also knew that Squenix would make a sequel. Call it writers intuition.
Anyways, Please Review.