Cloud Strife is on the ground; face down with rocks digging into his mostly numb face, covered in blood that isn’t entirely his own. It’s amazing how much blood tends to splatter every which way after a gunshot. He’d think something so precise wouldn’t bleed as much as it does, but the thought fades from his mind.

He’s covered in blood.

Cloud tries to move, but he just can’t. He tries to move his head or do something more than blink; because He is dead. Cloud can only see the back of his friends head, but something about four rounds of bullets and pools of blood and the motionless body of your best friend is enough to signify it. He’d think that death wouldn’t announce itself so loudly in the absence of other sounds, but there it was.

Though, all Cloud can really focus on is the sword is a few feet off; it’s dull from everything it’s been through, and wet from the rain.

There are footprints in the mud from where they came, and then where stood. Where they stood and shot him to death. Footprints from where they walked away after deciding not to kill him too.

Cloud stares at the body because he can’t goddamn move. He could, but he won’t. The only nerves in his body that were functioning suddenly have failed him.

He. Is. Dead.

It’s still raining when Cloud forces himself from the ground, his arm muscles twitching painfully as he drags himself forward.

He hates them. He wanted to be one of them.

He pulls himself to the sword, and he looks up into the foggy distance to the mechanical city. He is overly conscious of the body behind him, but none the less, he wraps his fingers around the hilt of the weapon, determination flooding through his tired body.

This is his new beginning. Everything and everyone else is in the past.