Cloud?
      Puppet . . .
            . . . clone . . .
                  . . . failure. . . .

The voices had started again. Sometimes they were silent, but then one - usually the girl's voice calling his name - would start and the others would follow.

      Puppet . . .
            . . . clone . . .
                  . . . failure. . . .

He shook his head. The words had no meaning. Nothing mattered here in the darkness. And yet. . . .

      Cloud, please. . . .

There was pain in the girl's voice, and in the man's voice that spoke sometimes too. He knew the voices, but the names eluded his grasp. But he knew them, and they had meaning.

Opening his eyes, he got up and started walking again. It felt wrong to just sit and do nothing. At least walking was something.

      Light?

At first he didn't believe it. But in the distance, specks of light hung in the darkness where before there had been nothing. Breaking into a run, he managed to get closer to the light.

      Beautiful. . . .

It was a stream of light, flowing from somewhere to nowhere, horizontal to him. Colors danced through the pale blue-green-white of the light, flashing sparks in the ever-flowing stream.

      Stream? Lifestream?

The light flared, and he staggered back. Yes, he'd fallen in the Lifestream after. . . .

      Puppet . . .
            . . . clone . . .
                  . . . failure. . . .

After a battle. . . .

The stream flowed on, taunting him with the knowledge it held. Gathering his courage, he reached out and touched one of the sparks.

      /flash/

"You are nothing more than a puppet, a Sephiroth-clone, and a failed one at that."
"Give me the Black Materia. . . ."
". . . summon Meteor . . . become one with the Planet."

      /flash/

He staggered back again, falling to his knees. The stream flowed on, oblivious to the pain he felt, the memories he'd reached. Sephiroth . . . Hojo. . . . He remembered those voices, those faces, the lies they had told him. And the other voices, calling his name . . . .

"Where am I?" He startled himself by speaking out loud.

"So you do speak."

Glancing up, he saw a black-haired man standing nearby. He got to his feet, noticing the man's sword slung behind his back, and reached for his own. His hand came away empty. My sword? Where am I?

"Who are you?" he demanded warily. "Where are we?"

The man folded his arms across his chest. "You don't remember me?" He shook his head. "That's a real shame, Cloud. I thought we were friends." He shrugged. "Well, this --" he gestured expansively "-- is your mind. Or rather, the trap that the Lifestream and Mako have made of it."

Cloud stared at the man, disbelieving. "My own mind, yeah sure. Then what the hell are you doing here?"

The man sighed. "Look, Cloud, you're gonna have to remember who I am before you get anywhere with the rest of it."

Cloud ignored him. "If this is my mind, then what's that?" he asked, gesturing at the stream of light.

"Residue from the Lifestream. Too much information poured into you through it. That stream is the knowledge the Lifestream left with you. And on the other side is the outside world you normally live in."

"This is crazy," he muttered, scrubbing one hand through his blond hair.

The man shrugged. "I'm not about to argue with you on that one. But do you want it to get sane again or not?"

Cloud glared at him. "Why are you here?"

The man sighed and sat down cross-legged. "You're still not getting it. You tell me. You gotta figure it out before you can cross that stream."

Glaring didn't change his answer any, so Cloud sat down as well, a few feet away from the black-haired man. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll go along with this game of yours. At least it's something to do."

Laughing, the man pulled his sword around onto his knees and started polishing it. "That's as good a reason as any, in this place."

Cloud?
      Puppet . . .
            . . . clone . . .
                  . . . failure. . . .

He shook his head.

"Something wrong?" the man asked.

Cloud scowled. "That doesn't deserve an answer. What's right with this place?"

"True."

He stared at the man, at his uniform, struggling to piece together the memory that seemed to lay just beyond his grasp. Sephiroth . . . SOLDIER. . . . "You, . . . you're Zack! But. . . ."

Zack looked up from his sword. "Hey, you do remember that much at least. Thought I was dead, I bet."

He waited, but Cloud didn't respond.

"Well, I am. And then again I'm not." Zack studied him for a moment, his blue eyes very bright in the darkness. "You see, all life is made up of energy. Plants, trees, animals, even humans, we're all just different types of energy. So when things die, their energy goes back to the planet, because energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Follow?"

Cloud nodded warily, thinking it best to humor Zack, since he had a sword.

"Alright. So my body died, but my energy just went back to the planet and joined the Lifestream. Then when you fell into the Lifestream, our spirits -- or energies, if you rather -- drifted toward each other, and I got stuck in here with you."

"Right." Normally, he didn't do sarcasm, but that one word was loaded with disbelief. "This is nuts. You think this is going to help me get sane?" He stood up and glared down at Zack. "This is probably another one of Sephiroth's illusion. I'm not falling for it."

"Cloud, it's the truth. And you're going to have to accept it before --"

"You said the real world is over there, right? Across the stream?"

Zack got to his feet. "Cloud, don't. . . ."

      Puppet . . .
            . . . failure. . . .

"Shut up!" He wasn't sure which voice he was talking to.

Walking forward, Cloud stepped into the stream. Zack lunged after him.

"Cloud! Noo!!"