Emptiness is a feeling he's well and truly familiar with; he'd felt it too many times to count, down in the labs, on the bad days when Hojo was at his most sadistic and Cloud was non-responsive. When the loneliness kicked him so hard and so deep that he almost celebrated the appearance of one of the lab techs, because it'd been too long since he was able to interact with anything except the slow, weightless gurgle of flowing mako in his tank or reinforced glass so thick it took days for even SOLDIER fingernails to carve marks into it. Those were the days he let his mind drift into the black, trying to forget everything. It's not a talent anyone should have, but once it's learned he doubts that it's one that can be forgotten.
He's there, now. That empty dark swallowed him whole as soon as they'd settled and he let the world cease to exist around him, and just like that, he's floating again, surrounded by green. (that's just the forest.) Someone taps on the glass of the next tube over, muttering about injections. (Cloud's here. Cloud's there.) He's talking, his mouth is moving and the words don't mean a thing. (He hasn't said a word in days, he just stares and stares and stares at nothing. Gave up calling for him yesterday; it's another episode, he'll snap out of it soon-)
He's pulled, suddenly, against another body, and the dark curtains part enough for him to take a sharp breath in. He's here, he's here. Still a good man. A good man, who can see half of a face staring up at him from a shattered helmet, neatly split in two, terrified and tearful. Hadn't been that old. Shinra's recruiting young, as usual.
God but he hates mako eyes. They see too much too quickly.]
...I was thirteen, last time I was here. Ten years. Joined Shinra pretty soon after I left. [He exhales, the sound heavy, blinking the rainwater off his lashes and feeling wet fabric on Cloud's shoulder. He didn't notice the rain until just now.] How many innocent people you figure we killed, following orders like that?
[Shinra... it all comes back to Shinra. He'd had a lot of time in the lab to think about all the missions that felt wrong, the years he'd fought against that feeling. Wutai, Banora, Modeoheim. Countless others. Why did it take until Nibelheim, when it was too late to get out, for him to realize how wrong it all was? And now, because of him, Gongaga...
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momijizukamori
pls forgive my slow vacation brain
Date: 2020-06-20 10:09 am (UTC)Emptiness is a feeling he's well and truly familiar with; he'd felt it too many times to count, down in the labs, on the bad days when Hojo was at his most sadistic and Cloud was non-responsive. When the loneliness kicked him so hard and so deep that he almost celebrated the appearance of one of the lab techs, because it'd been too long since he was able to interact with anything except the slow, weightless gurgle of flowing mako in his tank or reinforced glass so thick it took days for even SOLDIER fingernails to carve marks into it. Those were the days he let his mind drift into the black, trying to forget everything. It's not a talent anyone should have, but once it's learned he doubts that it's one that can be forgotten.
He's there, now. That empty dark swallowed him whole as soon as they'd settled and he let the world cease to exist around him, and just like that, he's floating again, surrounded by green. (that's just the forest.) Someone taps on the glass of the next tube over, muttering about injections. (Cloud's here. Cloud's there.) He's talking, his mouth is moving and the words don't mean a thing. (He hasn't said a word in days, he just stares and stares and stares at nothing. Gave up calling for him yesterday; it's another episode, he'll snap out of it soon-)
He's pulled, suddenly, against another body, and the dark curtains part enough for him to take a sharp breath in. He's here, he's here. Still a good man. A good man, who can see half of a face staring up at him from a shattered helmet, neatly split in two, terrified and tearful. Hadn't been that old. Shinra's recruiting young, as usual.
God but he hates mako eyes. They see too much too quickly.]
...I was thirteen, last time I was here. Ten years. Joined Shinra pretty soon after I left. [He exhales, the sound heavy, blinking the rainwater off his lashes and feeling wet fabric on Cloud's shoulder. He didn't notice the rain until just now.] How many innocent people you figure we killed, following orders like that?
[Shinra... it all comes back to Shinra. He'd had a lot of time in the lab to think about all the missions that felt wrong, the years he'd fought against that feeling. Wutai, Banora, Modeoheim. Countless others. Why did it take until Nibelheim, when it was too late to get out, for him to realize how wrong it all was? And now, because of him, Gongaga...
What's good about that?]