Chapter 8: Timeless

Two men laid on the living room floor of a cobble stone house on the street corner of Angel Avenue and Hero Lane in the town of Promise, called the "New Midger", next to the bustling city of Kalm. And on the living room floor of a cobble stone house on the street corner of Angel Avenue and Hero Lane in the town of Promise, called the "New Midger", next to the bustling city of Kalm, one of these men was falling, not down into a bottomless pit, but falling into a sort of state of mind, a depression, which was just what she had planned. 

She knew how he would do it, with what pills, when, and where. She knew it would be an accident, an overdose. She knew how they would find the body, who would cry and who would call for help. She thought she knew everything. That was the only flaw in her plan. After all, if you know everything, there's no thinking of "what if's" and "just in case". She thought she knew, but she really had no idea. Neither did he.

If Cloud had even suspect what was to happen, he wouldn't have taken the pills. If he had waited until Vincent triumphantly, or as triumphantly as his placid manner allowed, walked through the doors of that cobble stone house on the street corner of Angel Avenue and Hero Lane in the town of Promise, called the "New Midger", next to the bustling city of Kalm, Cloud would have found out that the "parasite" lived in his mind, accessing his thoughts and memories whenever she "damn well pleased", as Cid would put it. Cloud would have learned that he was to battle a sorceress, the first being to come in contact with Jenova, by the name of Medea. And he would have learned that he could not kill her. Medea was already dead.

As it was, Cloud was on his own. To the world, he was in a comatose state; his heart beat so faint and slow that it was just a matter of time before it stopped all together. Inside, his mind was alive, alive like never before. He was having an "out of body" experience, as they say: one of those dreams you take part in and watch simultaneously. 

Cloud moved in slow motion, his body weightless: gravity did not exist. Although every direction showed the same endless blackness, he propelled himself downward. Cloud supposed that there was a ground, which in turn must be somewhere "down there". Sound reasoning, at least to him. So down, down, down he went. He paddled and kicked, "swimming" until his face was drenched in sweat. Then he realized that maybe he wasn't moving at all… there was no air, no wind brushing past his skin, no variation in the darkness around him, no goal to move toward. It was empty. He was in the same emptiness as before… 

Why does this have to be so difficult? Cloud wanted to punch something… but he couldn't even do that. He sighed, wiping his brow on the back of his hand, I wish I were on the ground… 

No sooner had these words formed in his mind, hanging soundlessly on his lips, then something began to happen: Cloud could feel the weight of his shoes suddenly pulling him down, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Cloud flared his arms, feeling for something, anything, to grab hold of. He had butterflies in his stomach, and a sick feeling climbing up his throat. When Cloud finally hit the ground, he bounced twice like a lifeless doll and proceeded to lay sprawled on the ground for a long time.

He slowly began to move, pushing himself up from the floor. He was pretty banged up, blood gushing from his forehead and leg. Cloud knew if he were awake, if he had fallen like that in real life, he would be dead. He figured that in his “dream state” (as he called it) he could endure around ten times as much physical damage… of course he was just estimating but it seemed logical. It's always important to know your limits…

Out of the corner of his eye, Cloud saw a red flash. He turned, facing his opponent in his fighting stance, but it was just a light… a red light radiating from a black metal door.

"… Strange," Cloud's words pierced the silence like knives. He shuddered. It was getting a little too creepy… Still, there was no turning back, and he was on the clock.

Cloud tested the sturdiness of the floor. It seemed safe, and what could he do if it wasn't? As he walked toward the door, Cloud realized that the pain in his leg was gone. But his head! His head pounded as if someone were playing drums inside of him, blasting the bass.

This is just what Cloud needed on top of putting his life on the line in order to find and fight a thing inside of him that he didn't know anything about, let alone where to find it.

Cloud shrugged it off and started at a jog toward the light. As he got closer, its rays warmed him, from the inside out. The whole time, though, he kept wondering if he could get radiation poisoning. Tifa was always telling him to "slather" his entire body with sun block whenever he went out. She didn't want him to get cancer. She even bought him a hat… a big straw thing that looked ridiculous. Still, Cloud wore it while building the new deck in the back, and Cid laughed instead of helping. Cloud would try hard not to get burned, but nine times out of ten he would. And Tifa would shake her head, look crossly at him, pointing her finger. "What did I tell you?" she'd say. "Do you wanna get sun poisoning? Huh?"

For a minute, Cloud almost reproached himself for forgetting his sunglasses, knowing Tifa would have them in her hand when he got home, waving them in front of him with a smirk across her face. Then he remembered. He wasn't off on some trip, or on the job. He was actually inside himself, as hard as that is to grasp. And Cloud didn't think that he had radiation inside of him… although he HAD been outside an awful lot lately.

Cloud shook his head. I should be concentrating. With that he blinked all the trivial thoughts out of his mind and focused on the door, which to Cloud's surprise was only an arms length. How that happened, he didn't know, but he assumed more unexpected things were going to occur.

So with a deep breath, Cloud grasped the handle of the metal door and turned. He was consumed in red light, red heat, red fire…

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