A Day in the Life
Reno.
---29---
Shinra Headquarters is on fire. Except, it isn't, and Reno wonders why it takes so much alcohol for the building to finally lose. He can feel the burning liquid warming his already heated body, sweat beginning to form on the surface of his skin. His white shirt is slightly damp from the heat—dark red blood staining the hem—blazer forgotten in the car.
Any other mission and he wouldn't be here.
He wonders if one day he'll ever leave—then he remembers that no one ever quits—and wonders if they'll ever get tired of him, of putting up with him.
The smell of something burning, the taste of ash in the air—it clings to his skin and mixes with the sweat trailing down his neck. He can feel it leaving muck and grime in the creases of his skin, but he isn't compelled to move. Instead, he brings the cigarette in his left hand to his mouth, the glow of the embers creating a halo around the SEC building standing tall in the distance.
The warm evening air is stagnant.
From where he stands just outside Midgar, beyond its walls, he can almost hear nothing—there is a level of silence he has never heard before. And it is so tempting to keep walking. But the sight of the mountains off in the distance reminds him why he's even standing there.
Most nights, he simply walks home. This night, however, he wanders into the sunset where the pollution begins to thin and the city walls are at his back.
In one direction, his downfall—in the other, the cause of his failure. And yet, he blames himself. He can feel it clawing at the blood slowing in his system.
Any other mission and he wouldn't feel this.
And the sunset fades into the dark.