Lean On Me (FF7)

54

~Cloud's POV~

How many days has it been? I don't know the night or day, they put me in the cell at random. I can't sleep, I'm in too much pain. I'm slowly dying and I can't help it. I've got nothing to think about except for hope that I'll survive, or that someone with save me. Who am I kidding? Every time they give me 'shock therapy', my entire life flashes through my mind, including Zack and Aeris's deaths, Yuffie's animated death on the TV they torture me with regularly, and my mother burning it death in the Nibelheim fire.

My back and stomach are torn up, my head still is healing where the spikes dug into my head, my mind is jumbled from the shocks, and occasionally I black out at random. I'm starving and dehydrated, I don't know how I'm alive. The cell door scrapes open and Kadaj drags me to my feet.

"Stand up, you idiot. We're going back to the pole."

"You make me sound like a stripper," I grit.

"How would I know if you are or aren't," he shrugs. "Now get in there, the whip awaits you."

Once again, I'm tied to the post and beaten, Loz occasionally punching my face for no reason whatsoever. Then I'm shoved in the chair to be attached to the wires by Yazoo.

"Can you tell me what say it is?" he smirks at me.

"Tuesday?" I frown and he shakes his head in victory.

"You've been here longer than you think."

I shrug indifferently and try not to move my raw wrists against the leather straps holding me to the metal chair. Then he turns the zap-o-meter on, or at least that's what I call it. Electric shock racks through my body and messes with my mind until all I can think is Make it stop! No, there's no way I could get used to something like that. I'm not the kind of person that can just get used to pain. But he shuts it off a lot sooner than usual and looks down the hall. A loud bang echoes through the room, like a gunshot, and Yazoo looks around desperately before glaring at me.

"I'll be right back."

I frown at him back, panting and trying to clear my mind of the electricity. The sounds continue for seconds before dying down, and the clash of metal ensues. I hear a soft scraping sound and look over at the torture box, or the shock control, whatever. It slides slightly, barely on the table as it hangs over the edge. I will it to stay, but with my luck, it falls with the knob turned to maximum strength and turns on as the button hit this the floor. The pain is extreme, I can't explain it. It's like getting struck my three bolts of lighting at the same time, over and over and over again. I can hear the screeching of the machine and my screams echoing through the large room. I'm going to die. My body continues to try to fight the approaching light, but it just get brighter and brighter until I let myself into it. Don't fight it.

"You'll be okay," I hear a voice. Spinning around, I register a couple things.

1) I'm fully healed and standing in a completely white nothingness

2) Aeris and Zack are here

"Why didn't you tell me about the black materia," I demand angrily. She looks off into the distance at nothing and Zack lays a hand on her shoulder.

"I didn't get the chance."

"You've got to be kidding me," I groan. "You had plenty of..."

"Cloud," Zack interrupts. "Now's not the time."

"Then when is the time? When I'm dead? Oh wait, I probably am and Yuffie will have to try to figure it out before Sephiroth kills her!"