If You Don't Have a Smile

Warnings: Alternate universe. Uh, more confusion? Blood and gore!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters found here in. They belong to their rightful owners. I am merely a humble Clouffie servant, trying to spread the unconventional love.


End 5: CHIMERA VAGARY


They say humans, after only ten days without sleep, will become insane.


Cloud doesn't have a father.

He used to; the kind that when he came home would kiss his wife and hug his son like there was no tomorrow, like he actually missed them and was happy to be back. He'd bring presents and help around the house, play with little Cloudy and read bedtime stories. The best sort of father, if only for the fact that when he wasn't there, at least he was thinking of them.

When Cloud was seven, he had a nightmare. These days he can't really remember what it was, but in his heart, the imprint remains as a steadfast tattoo. When he couldn't get back to sleep after screaming for his mother, for someone to hold him, his father did so with the sort of countenance that expressed a lack of knowledge on what to do.

And so, to sooth the crying boy, his father recounted a little trick that he would use when things for him got especially hard; when the gunfire wouldn't cease and the enemies drew closer in an all-consuming horde. He said to take a breath and dream.

So Cloud dreams. He has long since realized the advice from his father is of ill-use in his position, but now it's like the mantra of his heart. First, he takes a little bead of thought, fresh-cut grass or a pebble in his shoe, and thinks bigger, expanding expanding expanding, until the world is a stone covered by moss, nestled snugly in the black-spackled white noise of sod in a field. The fireflies are dancing as kids skip rocks across a pond and break glass. Whoops. The ball went too far when he swung the bat. Mrs. Wilson will be furious, sitting atop her gilded couch, out of sight and out of mind as he flies kites in the winds of a hurricane.

And isn't it easy? His father would be so proud to know that Cloud no longer has nightmares. He merely dreams, and it is enough until the waking period.


What about humans who can't wake up?

Are they insane, too, without cognitive function to confirm their existence?


He can't get up. It's too hard; he can't keep trying anymore.

He rests against the dented lockers, and licks idly at the blood dripping from his nose. It tastes a little like salt water.

He's not sure how long it is before he hears it, half-asleep as he is in his daydreaming. The distinctive scritch-scratch of shadows on cheap tiling. From the left, he envisions its encroaching form; can almost taste the pulse in the air, its breath. It reminds him of the beating of a heart, heavy and gasping. A deep inhalation, like a vacuum, a black hole; then an exhalation, wind through a crack in the door.

He strains his eyes, pushing past the swelling skin of his lids to squint at the side, where a presence more akin to a glacier than anything sniffs about. It's a funny-looking thing. Like an ant, with little antennas, staring at him, like…

A god. Like Cloud is the purpose of its existence. It climbs reverently onto his chest, settling as a block of ice; it's going to enjoy itself.

What a little piece of shit.

He stares it in its dead eyes as the tiny tines of its claws fumble on ripping slowly through the fabric of his dress-shirt. They're glass, so smooth and clear; he can see his reflection.

He shudders and convulses, the touch unbearable, the sight maddening. He wants to scream, so much, so much, but the audio cable's been ripped out, all sound sucked into the vacuum of the shadow's lungs, in and out again.

"Hey!"

It's like a gunshot, pointblank and sudden.

Bang.

The creature's gone. Cut in two, it arcs in hang time before dissolving, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

He can't breathe, can't think; the shadow might be gone, but it stole something before it went. A pair of bright blue eyes, luminous in their quality, stares down at him worriedly, shaking his shoulder, "You okay?"

He wants to say he isn't, has never been, really, but he can't; he lets the blood draining from his nose like a faucet fall onto the stranger's hand, lets it tell him what it is Cloud can never speak.

Another person comes into his line of sight, a girl, blurry to his unfocused vision, with beautiful green eyes. He wonders if they're angels, then throws the thought away; he knows one, and she could never be so heavenly.

Blue Eyes is shoved out of the way, gaining a kicked puppy look as the girl sits in front of him, muttering questions that she probably knows she won't get an answer to. He's cold.

She smiles at him, a little sadly, "This is all I can do for the time being. I'm so sorry."

She touches his chest, practically sighs out a word; a sweet wind, fields of summer, "Cure."

All at once the cold of oceans and snows dissipate, replaced with a terrible ache; skin stitching together, blood clotting into heavy scabs.

The girl smiles again, "I don't have enough left for this little one to be okay. There are still more people we need to help."

She rests her warm hand on his cheek, and he leans into the touch, breathing a gasp of relief.

"Aerith, we have to go! I can hear screaming!" the girl startles and is up on her feet, running after the spiky black hair of a boy he thinks he's seen before. She calls over her shoulder, "We'll come back for you!"

He closes his eyes, and breathes, in and out.


Or are they just dead?


"Cloud…Cloud, wake up!"

Someone's shaking him. The voice is familiar; has that girl come back? He opens his eyes. No. It's Yuffie. She looks panicked, eyes swerving around like jittery purple bugs.

"C'mon, get up. We have to go. Now!" she tugs at his arm. He doesn't want to, not with her. She's trouble through and through. He's better off here, waiting for those two to come back for him. They promised.

"Cloud, c'mon c'mon! If we don't leave, if we don't leeeaave!" she's tugging, using all of her insubstantial weight, until finally he gives in and pushes himself up, leaning heavily on the lockers behind him. The lights to the school have gone out, and an eerie green permeates the air filtered in through the windows.

"We need to go, Cloud! I know it hurts, but, please—"

He starts moving, stumbling along. Yuffie, to his surprise, doesn't dart forward and surpass his ungainly strides, but props herself under his arm instead and helps him along. It's slow progress, but they're not far from the school's entrance. If they make it there, they can start for home; have more cover than in these open halls.

As they move, he manages to look out the windows; green clouds on rust-red. Day of shadows.

They're there. The school's entrance is comprised mostly of paneled glass, swinging double doors allowing students to pass in and out every day. There's nothing unusual about them, usually. Today, though, a trail of red has formed on the right door. A hand print, scraping fingers.

He tries not to think about it.

Instead, he tries to walk forward. Out and free, out and free. Yuffie remains stock-still, eyes darting around in a frenzy, looking, listening. She tightens her hold on him, turns him around, "No, not that way. We need to go, now. Now."

She keeps mumbling, 'now' hammering into his head like a curse. She turns them the way they came, pulling and tugging, but even then Cloud can't hold on. It hurts, and it looks like whatever that girl has done to him has worn off. His nose starts bleeding.

"Cloud! Cloud, please," she begs, kneeling by him as he sinks to his knees, "Please try!"

He gazes at her, takes in her disheveled state, scratches on her arms, dress tattered and torn. She looks like she's going to cry.

He pulls his arms around her; she understands and slides her fingers through the belt loops of his pants, pulling him up. His weight staggers her, but she begins to totter up, away away away.

Not fast enough.

A shadow, larger than anything he's ever seen, consumes the world outside, hazard green evaporating to all-encompassing black. Yuffie stops, unsure of what to do, tries to say anything, even as he is about to say something back.

The shadow punches past the thick, bullet-proof glass, arm disintegrating from the effort. The shards shoot like stars, not down but at.

Cloud is sure he is going to die, perhaps even before the spear-like sliver of glass enters his sights, before he has time to realize that its destined path is to pierce his chest.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

Am I okay with that?

It hits, the sound of a knife ripping through skin and muscle and bone. Yuffie slumps down, knees splitting open as they skid across the debris-strewn floor. He falls with her, pulled by her weight. The large sliver protruding from her abdomen sticks through and pins her to the ground, a lewd needle.

Gravity pulls her along the rest of the glass' length until she rests on the floor, staring up at him with wide eyes, a little stunned. Surprise. What a twist. Who could have seen it coming?

She weakly grasps his hand. He's surprised, almost recoils as gore seeps past the webbing of his fingers. She opens her mouth, gags and coughs; her teeth are stained orange and a bead of saliva-soaked blood dribbles down her cheek, into her ear.

"To…the…," she stutters out, tries tightening her hold on his hand. He finds himself squeezing back. "To…t-the, church."

It's not like the movies. Her eyes don't close; no letting go of his hand; the release of a world-weary sigh. She just stops.

A hair-line crack creeps past the neck of her dress, spiders along her jugular to expand its web across her face. He watches it, unmindful of his surroundings, the monster looming outside, poised to strike, the shouts and cries of a battle unknown. It worms its way past her hairline.

She shatters, body falling apart into a thousand effervescent beads. They skitter away, falling through his fingers like sand, popping onto the ground and bursting into tiny pools of green.

He grasps at nothing, stares at nothing.


Is death really just dreaming?

Is it like a bubble of coalesced thoughts and intentions, the conscious mind trapped inside to deteriorate amongst the putrescence of regret and desire?

And when it finally pops, the quagmire dissolving to naught but idle birds, do you wake up to begin life anew as something completely different?


He pulls himself up, staggers under the great weight of the world.

Am I okay with this?

He can't feel much of anything; it's all numb and empty spaces.

Am I really okay with this?

He walks to the gaping maw, once-entrance to hell, and exit into Pandaemonium. The monster is nowhere in sight, though there's still the echo of screaming. He doesn't dwell upon this, merely limping beyond the schoolyard, onto the sidewalk, down the road.

Please try!

He can't dream. There's no time for dreaming. The waking period is now, raw and painful in its clarity.

I'll keep trying. Just for now.

And it'll be enough.


Sometimes, I wish I could just sleep for days, lost in the dreams of my father and afternoons passed in pleasant waiting.

And other times, I can't help but carry on into the dark of night, unblinking; the sound of silence the only balm to my nightmarish visions.

Maybe I am crazy.


Um, er…I plead the fifth.

Sorry for the long wait. And the really crappy chapter. I'm so sorry, please forgive me! I am experiencing the most terrible writer's block with this story. I pushed through this chapter, 'cause I figured you guys deserved at least something, but, with how it turned out, you guys might just wish I had waited for the writer's block to pass.

No, Yuffie! You guys might just want to kill me with what I did to her. Confused? Well, reading 'To Smile Through' will probably clear up a few things, and settle your minds. But there are also other things to still confuse you! Like, who were those two 'mysterious' people? Figure it out, or wait for the next chapter. What's up with the monsters? Wait for the next few chapters. Will Cloud ever stop being an emo-angst muffin? Wait for hell to freeze over.

There's a lot of repetition in this chapter, so yeah, please look at this chapter as a whole to receive full artistic impact (lolwhut?). Also, refer back to chapter three for a reference to the 'green clouds, rust-red skies.'

Thanks to all you lovely reviewers!: Kaikai PANTS, always-kh, SeeminglyAdorable, Filipina Shortaay. Also, thanks to everyone who faved and put this story on alert. :) Hope to hear from you guys again.