Someone was weeping.

Someone was weeping.

The heartbreaking sounds came from everywhere in the darkness that enveloped him. Zack walked forward into the endless void, paused, changed direction, but the crying never seemed closer. The deep, choking voice did become more familiar.

"Angeal?" Zack called. "Angeal, what's wrong?"

The darkness seemed thicker, more stifling. Zack's chest constricted; it was hard to breathe. He felt a drop of moisture land on the back of his hand, then another. Rain? He sniffed his skin and detected salt. Tears?

Now Zack was really worried. Why would Angeal be crying? Everything was going so well. He was growing his new body. He would be well soon. He would be himself again, strong and capable and—

Everything was perfect, or as close to perfect as Sephiroth and Hollander could make it.

The weeping sounded muffled, as though Angeal had turned his face away. Two other voices joined, male, familiar yet unidentifiable, murmuring unintelligible words.

"Where are you? I can't see anything." Zack couldn't tell wall from doorway through all the murk. "Help me find you, Angeal."

The space lightened ever so slightly, a dim, hazy light that hid as much as it illuminated, and punctuated with flickers of magenta and purple and electric blue—and other colors, colors Zack couldn't name, all flashing like weird fireflies. Shadows surrounded him—thick, twisting, coiling clumps of darkness. Like ropes, like headless snakes, like...tentacles. The scent and taste of iron and magenta, of burning—blue? Yes, yes, electric blue and purple—the contradictory, mingled sensations of sight and scent and taste seared his vision, filled his nostrils, and coated his tongue. Electricity prickled his skin, raising the hair on his neck and arms in great patches of gooseflesh.

Against the sobs, the soft, random tones of a thousand discordant flutes rose and fell in the dense, otherworldly atmosphere. A thousand hearts pulsed softly, almost inaudible, but the air vibrated with the irregular, overlapping beats. The air vibrated, Zack felt it vibrate, yet it also remained perfectly still, stifling and cloying, filmy with otherness.

Green and blue flashes joined the flickering, the magenta and blue and purple lights and scents and tastes—eyes, Zack realized. Green and blue eyes blinked in the rustling shadows, along the ropes of darkness: deep blue eyes like the ocean, acid green eyes with slit pupils, and bright gemlike eyes of aquamarine.

He staggered aside, avoiding one ropy limb of darkness that reached out to touch him, and looked aside, ahead, every direction.

And finally the murky fog and dark shadows thinned.

There. There, in the distance. A lumpy outline, dimly illuminated, the source of light and sound and all sensation in the void.

Zack walked closer and squinted, and the vision resolved. Three men. Three. Angeal in the center, weeping desperately. Sephiroth to his left, long silver hair waving in the non-existent breeze, one hand on Angeal's shoulder in a consoling gesture. Brilliant auburn hair and crimson clothing revealed Genesis to Angeal's right. His lips moved soundlessly, and he gently stroked Angeal's cheek. Veils of hazy, preternatural light surrounded all three.

Three who were one-One-one.

Sephiroth's arm blended into Angeal's shoulder in a seamless stretch of skin. Genesis's fingers wriggled and burrowed deep into Angeal's face and neck. Angeal's skin reacted, his muscle and tissue and even bone—in turn it rippled and stretched out and engulfed his friends, blending with them, blending, merging—Genesis and Sephiroth's bodies undulated, growing extensions that crawled forward, meeting Angeal's skin, sinking in, joining, mutating, a never-ending pulsation of twisting and sinking, until the three were one mass of heaving, writhing flesh surrounded by twining coils. It bubbled, that flesh, forming globules and pustules, and myriads of eyes blinked open from them, eyes of ocean blue, and acid green, and aquamarine like gemstones. Wings both dark and white burst out, erupting from thick clots of pink-tinged ooze. Endless, fanged mouths split vaguely human skin sheened with unfathomable, prismatic iridescence.

Three heads on long, sinuous stalks sprouted up; they swiveled and grinned at one another. Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis, made one-One-one...

The flutes rose shrilly, magenta and electric blue flashed, iron and purple burned. Drums beat like a thousand hearts. The weeping sounds grew.

"Reunion," three voices whispered as one. The sibilant hisses echoed though infinity.

Zack gasped in disbelief, in horror. He wanted to turn and run, but his feet were frozen in place. He wanted to escape before the awful thing—things?—saw him, swallowed him whole. He knew he was destined to join them. He knew. They called-Called-called to him, they wanted him with them, they wanted—they wanted—How did he know?

He just knew.

Shadows twined about his legs, holding him still. He couldn't move—he couldn't speak...

They called-Called-called to him, and something deep inside him twisted, wrenched his soul sideways, and answered-Answered-answered. Light burst forth from his inner core. His thoughts glossed over and fixated on visions of everlasting connection, enthralled by the numinous glory that spilled into the emptiness inside him, by the understanding, by the comprehension and magnificence. By the promise of ecstasy and endless fulfillment, joined with All Things, All of the One, One mind and One soul, glorious, eternal and forever. The flutes were beautiful music, the drums pulsing like hearts in perfect counterpoint.

He savored it all: the luscious taste of magenta, the music, the experience, the whispers of knowledge and the thrill of rapture beyond mere human awareness. He inhaled deeply the glorious perfume of burning purple and electric blue. He opened his heart, his very soul...

And in that moment he was suddenly free, free to move, to walk forward, to join his friends, his beloved brothers—to join them forever, in perfect joy—

—in perfect harmony—

—in perfect completion—

—in Reunion—

Something thumped on an unseen wall behind Zack. It banged, and banged, and banged again, as though throwing itself at the barrier. One last thump, and then there was a crash. A dark, irregular shape burst into Zack's field of view, full of wings and eyes, human and monster faces.

"Stop it!" a voice called out in the infinite darkness. Angeal's voice, breaking with effort. "Stop everything! Please, you must end it before it's too late—"

The winged entity blocked his exquisite-horrible visions and knocked him out of his dream-fantasy-nightmare.