// @freeheroed // Lost Below Ground // Zack Lives Verse
It had been the Turks who had come to him, to tell him that there was something amiss. Mako readings, in large amounts, out in the middle of nowhere. They couldn't see anything that would be causing them, but it wouldn’t be the first time Shinra or Hojo hid their secrets well.
Cloud wondered if they called him because they had just gotten used to asking for his help or if they did so because they considered him an expert on the matter, but either way, he agreed to go. Even if being around Mako made him wary.
“We’ll be in helicopters to back you up.” Reno had promised and Cloud agreed, but he rode Fenrir to the sight anyway. He liked to be in control of his own means of escape.
When Cloud arrived, he saw why the Turks were confused. There was nothing. If the Turks hadn’t marked the area then there would be nothing to distinguish it from the land around it. Still... looks could be deceiving.
Cloud climbed off his bike and started to look around, kicking the dirt for signs of weakness or loose earth. Nothing at first... Then almost by accident Cloud kicked the edge of a bush and hissed when it hurt like hell.
He stooped down to examine the offending thing, brushing gloved fingers over its edges and then carefully digging around it until his fingers slipped beneath it. He tugged and it rattled.
A door. A locked one... but still. Cloud stood up and pulled First Tsurugi from his back. He took a deep breath and then jumped into the air, he spun the blade until it started to glow, then he slashed downward, cutting through the door in one clean slice that made the metal sizzle like magma before it cooled and he was able to pry it out of the way.
Beneath it was a drop into darkness, a ladder descending down. Cloud motioned to the helicopters watching him that he was going inside, then mounted the ladder.
It was cold beneath the earth, but not as dark as it should have been. As soon as his feet hit the polished metal floors below, lights were triggered on the walls that lit the narrow hallway in front of him. Cloud was feeling claustrophobic already.
Most of the doors he passed looked like offices. Useful information could be in there, he guessed, but not particularly useful to him. He would leave the Turks to check it. Instead, he continued his search elsewhere, sure that he would know what he was looking for when he saw it. After all, Hojo wouldn’t have buried just anything this deep. Whatever was down here, Cloud was sure it would be something more than paperwork.
His first signal that his instincts were right was a door with an eerie glow radiating from it, a glow Cloud would know anywhere by sight. Mako. This room must be where the readings were coming from. Cloud took a deep breath to steady himself before approaching.
He slid the door aside and when he did the room in front of him hit him like a punch in the gut. It was full of Mako tanks. Just like...
Cloud shook the memory off before it could take over. His breathing was already too fast. He couldn’t let himself have an episode right now. He needed to focus.
Cloud had started inspecting the tanks, in spite of his own discomfort, surprised that most of them appeared to be empty. What was Hojo’s plan?
Cloud had almost thought he had checked all of them when he turned around and came face to face with the one he had missed. When he did, his entire body went ramrod straight and he was sure he had slipped into one of his hallucinations... a memory taking over his mind.
Zack... Zack inside a tank, just like he was in some of Cloud’s nightmares. Zack covered in scars like the battle wounds he would have had at his death.Zack, Zack, Zack.... he had to be dreaming this. It had to be his mind again. It had...
But it couldn’t have been. Because this Zack didn’t look like his. Didn’t look like the one his memory played for him in dreams. He looked older, not in ways that Cloud’s mind could have made up. He had aged.He was real.
Cloud hurt all the way through him. His head, his chest, his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.
His hands reached out without him thinking, to press painfully against the glass. Pounding on it like a confused child. “Zack!”
Finally, Cloud came to his senses and started looking at the controls. He found the button to drain the tank and then as soon as the Mako was gone he released the door.
Zack’s body-- unlike his-- did not fall to him. It was restrained by brackets that pinned his arms and legs. Cloud wasn’t surprised, honestly. Zack had escaped once after all.
Cloud climbed up on the ridge of the tank to reach him and started popping open the restraints to free him. Once he had, he pulled his body into him for support and brushed a hand over his hair.
“Zack?” Cloud’s voice broke on his name this time. When had he started crying? His cheeks were hot and wet and stung with salt. Had he been crying this whole time? “Zack? It’s Cloud. Please... if you can hear me...” Cloud swallowed what would surely have been a sob. “Please, I need you to hear me.”
