Waking up in Church

Hey, Buddy. You Okay?

Cloud stared at himself and blankly noted the white surroundings around him. If this was ****, then so be it. At least he wouldn’t have to experience the waking nightmare of his mind short-circuiting again. He felt relieved of the burden he had some how picked up after taking the Avalanche job. “Yea.” Cloud responded passively looking over his knees.

Made it through with just a couple of scraped knees back then…

“Back Then?” Cloud asked with cotton in his mouth. Faintly, the blonde SOLDIER could recall that time.

Whaddaya say? We doing this?

Cloud hesitated. Confused, he furrowed his brow and started to ask in confirmation, “Have we-“

Never mind about that. Right now, you need to focus on yourself. Move something. Anything.

“Why not?” Cloud yawned. The voice sounded eerily similar to his own, as if he had a cold or some other gravel in his throat. Cloud focused on the mirror image of himself, really examining the figure. It had the same spiky blonde hair, Mako-dyed eyes, and sleeveless-sweater vest uniform- sans the Buster Sword. Ah, but the mirror was cloaked in shadow, the more Cloud tried to piece together the finer details, the larger his headache became. A moment later, Cloud exhaled and thought about how he got here, the white nothingness oasis. As he reflected, he started rotating his neck and extremities- warming them up.

Good. Easy does it. Slow… And Steady…

Cloud last remembered the brutal fight against the Airbuster. The muscles in Cloud’s legs groaned in recollection. He and Tifa had been largely irrelevant in that fight, dodging bullets and protecting Barret. The Avalanche leader was a hail of bullets himself; directed at the Airbuster of course. Standing up and stretching his arms over his head, Cloud thought back on how it went wrong. The Airbuster had been rigged to explode and when it did, the catwalk Avalanche stood on fell apart. Tifa and Barret were almost inside the building proper and were able to safely hop aside of the blast. Cloud wasn’t so lucky; his luck was used up by the active barrier which shielded him from the blast. He was thankful for his SOLDIER training once again; those drills Zach Fair had drilled into him became helpful when his fingers tightly grasped the edge of the falling platform. Either his weight or that of the Buster Sword he still possessed was enough to separate the platform from the guardrail. He had fallen and woken up here- in the white nothingness.

“Hello!?” A sweet voice asked. In the nothingness, Cloud couldn’t see who it belonged to, but he knew that voice. It was feminine and mysterious. The owner of that voice haunted his dreams. How he wished he’d somehow gotten her name. The Flower Girl, Cloud thought. The alarm in her voice awakened his adrenaline. He didn’t know what was going on, but he needed to find her again.

Suddenly Cloud’s mirror evaporated into dark smoke, a single black feather lazily floating to the ground, or what the ex-SOLDIER assumed was the floor. “Hey!” Cloud demanded, spinning around and instinctively reaching for his sword, which he found was not clasped to his back as it should have been. Eyes wide, Cloud crouched defensively and assumed a fighting stance as the black smoke coalesced in a shape not too unlike a man’s. “Who are you?” Cloud asked cautiously. In response he heard that mirror voice deepen into someone else’s voice, the same one that Cloud heard when his vision’s were triggered. The smoke dissipated again, and Cloud called, angrily this time, “Who are you!?”

In a flash, Cloud felt a hand on his shoulder and a presence behind him, leaning over to whisper dangerously, “I am… Your everything.” The whiteness darkened and Cloud swore as he fell.

“Hello in there!?” The disembodied voice called. Cloud felt more than saw a light shine from his breast and his fall quickened. Wind ripped the breath from his mouth, and he heard the dark voice laugh maliciously.

Oh, Cloud. There’s still so much to be done.

“Maybe you’re not okay…” Cloud heard, the despair evident in her voice. He wanted to allay her fear, but he didn’t know how, so he concentrated on his breath. One breath in. Hold for fifteen seconds. One breath out. Hold for fifteen seconds. Then he closed his eyes. One deep inhalation and exhalation later he opened them.

Through bleary eyes, Cloud saw Heaven. Her face was etched with worry. Her luscious brown braid hung over her left shoulder and green eyes stared down at him. Her mouth moved, but Cloud couldn’t make out what she said. For some odd reason, his eyes drifted to her ruby lips. Blinking a moment later, Cloud felt her voice matriculate into his ears. He grabbed that voice like a drowning man does a rope. As the words were processed in his mind, the haze he was in evaporated, and he belatedly heard her say “Ah. He Lives! Finally awake, are you?”

Cloud looked down and his eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. Her pink blouse, nearly transcendently white in the sun beam, was loose, leaving her braless bust to hang free between them. They were magnificent. Pale and full, her breasts would have spilled over his large hands were he to cup them. Blearily, Cloud would have thought there should be some sag, but there was none; each tit hung firm to her chest and were perfectly rotund. He watched her breathe, mesmerized by the up-down motion of her breasts. Cloud gulped nervously, there was no way she hadn’t registered his lusty stare. Prepared for the worst, Cloud attempted to say, “You’re-”

“Aerith. It’s Aerith Gainsborough. And you are…” She interrupted, relief flooding her pretty features as the tension left. Gathering his courage, Cloud propped himself up onto his elbows and confidently proclaimed. “Cloud.”

The pretty flower girl, Aerith, leaned back on her knees and waved serenely, “Nice to meet you again!”

Cloud grunted and affirmed, “Again?”

“What? You don’t remember? What about the flowers?” Aerith queried rapidly. She set her hand against his forehead as if to check for a fever. A heartbeat later, Cloud responded.

“Ohhh! The flower girl. And this is…?” Cloud remarked, chagrined. He looked around and surveyed his surroundings. He was laying in a bed of yellow flowers, he didn’t know what kind, but they were of the same type that Aerith had given him. To his left was a delipidated podium and what looked like bare wooden walls stripped of their riches. In front of him was a broken stained-glass window that blessed sunlight filtered through, dappling the building in golden brilliance. On his right Aerith kneeled beside him; beyond her form, crumbling pews guided his eyes to the front of the building and it’s large double doors.

“An old church in the Sector 5 slums. You came crashing through the roof without so much as a "look out below. Fell right into my flower bed. Lucky for you. Like, really.” Aerith laughed. She cocked her head and queried Cloud, “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” He responded. “SOLDIER modifications make me heal faster and stronger.” He responded tersely. Lifting his arm, Cloud picked off one of the flowers stuck below his arm. “S-sorry. I didn’t mean to-”

Aerith leaned across his body and brushed the flowers off. “Don't worry about it. They're a lot tougher than they look. This place... It has a kind of power.” She whispered, draping lithe body over his and cupping his head.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Cloud murmured. Staring into her verdant eyes, he gently rose and embraced her. Foreheads touching, they kissed.