The room was hot and misty. Lights and lasers bouncing wall to wall as the loud music surged through the bodies flailing around. People packed together, rubbing up against each other. This was the kind of rave you'd find in Midgar. He often wondered why he came to these things. He enjoyed the music, and the feeling he got when he was under the influence of a green alien or two. Things were popping out to him. The lights had more color to them, the music had more feeling, and the bass seemed to hit harder. He forgot for a moment he was there with the girl who he loved. He placed his hands on her hips as he snuck up behind her.

"Lets get out of here." She said to him winking.

The next morning he had woken up to a loud, "Cloud!"

He sat up and shook his head looking around. He had almost not recognized his own girlfriends dorm.

"Cloud! Get up! You are late!" Aeris said, literally shoving him out of bed. He stood up, slammed his fist on the annoying alarm clock button., and scrambled around for some clothes. He found his large black baggy jeans, with blue designs and chains hanging from them, along with the dead glow sticks from the previous night. Threw on his Cannibal Corpse T-shirt, grabbed his bag and ran out the door.

"Tifa!" called out the Professor, Hojo.

"Miss Lockheart are you present?" He looked around the room and saw out of the corner of his eye saw a skinny girl with long raven colored hair come running in.

"Sorry Professor.." she gasped, " I was up late last night finishing my paper for today." Professor Hojo smiled and nodded at his best student as she took her seat. Tifa was the campus "Nerd." Though she had the body of a popular, and hot, high school girl, she had the appearance of a bookworm. She caught her breath as she pulled out her books from her bag, prepping herself for today's class.

"Now, as we see here…" Professor Hojo was interrupted by a train-wrecked Cloud, stumbling into his classroom. Noticing the whole class was staring at him, he gave a stupid, cool guy, smile as he threw his bag to an empty seat in the front and walking up to Hojo. "Sorry Prof. I was…" he was shortly cut off by a very annoyed looking Tifa, "Out partying like always, and coming in WAY too late to even get by in a class and interrupting the lecture!" She rolled her eyes. He looked at her with a snide expression on his face, then looked at Hojo and said, "Well. Pretty much what she said. But here's my paper." Hojo thought Cloud would be one of those get by, BARELY, kind of students. But the quality of his work was A material. It confused him highly, yet gave him high standards for every under-achieving student.

"I am impressed Mr. Strife. Now.. Can I continue my lecture?" Cloud grunted and took a seat next to his bag, nodding off every now and again.

A loud alarm like sound woke Cloud up at the end of class. He shot up and looked around, noticing everyone was gathering their stuff. The Professor, naming the top three students of his class. "Tifa!" He called out and motioned her to his desk. "Zack! Zack Fair! Front and center." Zack excitedly shot up and ran to the desk. "And… hmmm…" Hojo paused as he examined Cloud, searching for his headphones for his Zune. "Cloud… Strfe…?" Tifa read aloud. "How could he ever have a top score on anything? He's a moron!" She exclaimed, Zack clearing his throat hoping to hush her as Cloud stood behind her.

"Moron?" He glared. She gave a scared giggle as she turned and noticed him hovering above her. He was rather tall compared to her.

Hojo cleared his throat and said, "Good work Mr. Strife." he handed back Cloud's paperwork. He smiled and walked off. Zack had fallen asleep, Tifa nudged him with her elbow.

Cloud was walking lazily back to his dorm, thinking he needed a shower. He was tapped on the shoulder by Tifa. "You bribed Hojo didn't you?" She said, still in denial he could ever write A material.

Not wanting to be bothered at the moment he pushed passed her and walked up to Aeris who was gossiping with her friends. Tifa stared at him, letting her mind wander.

Later that night Cloud found himself going to another rave. As he stood in line he bought more green aliens to share with Aeris. He took one, and almost instantly it started acting up. He felt in such a good mood, not knowing that later that night he'd come crashing down harder than normal.

Tifa and Zack drove by the club and they both pointed out the people they disliked from the crowd.

"Oh look. There's Cloud." She said gritting her teeth. She didn't know what about him bothered her so much. It was so irritating. She snapped out of her thoughts to a Zack poke her arm. "So where'd you wanna eat?" He asked. She shrugged and stared out the window.

In the back of the club, was Cloud having a smoke. He was there with his usual crew of Cid and Vincent. All laughing about one thing or another. Aeris came out and shooed them away.

"Whats up babe?" He asked Aeris who had an angry look on her face.

"We're over."

Cloud exhaled a puff of smoke. "What do you mean?" He started to panic.

"I mean. I want to see other people. You are just yesterdays thing. I want someone who's rich and classy."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'Rich and classy? What did she mean by that?' he thought. She just walked away and jumped into the arms of a tall silvery haired man, Sephiroth.

"Ready to go?" Cloud heard him say as he watched his now ex leave in a black Lamborgini exported from Italy.

The next few weeks, no one had seen Cloud. Or even heard from him.

"Dude where the hell is Cloud?" Vincent asked. Cid just shrugged and went to class. Vincent had though he just left town for a while and walked away himself. They didn't know the horror of what actually happened.

Tifa had been called into the main office later that day. The administrator had asked her if she knew the whereabouts of a Mr. Cloud Strife. "Like I'd know where that asshole was! Excuse my language.." The administrator didn't mind, so he just nodded.

"What was that about?" Zack asked her. "He wants me to find Cloud…" She sighed. She wondered why everyone made her go off on these random adventures. She dragged Zack off with her, so she would not have to deal with the OH-SO-ANNOYING Cloud by herself. They got to his dorm and pounded on the door. ….. No answer. She tried again … Still no answer. Zack pounded hard on the door shouting, "CLOUD! YO! YOU IN HERE?!" … Still nothing. They started walking away, when Tifa thought she hears a crashing noise. She shrugged it off and kept walking. Later on that day, the administrator had called Tifa back into his office. Still with the same questions.

"No, he wasn't in his dorm. I don't have a clue where he'd be." She sighed and shrugged.

"Well could you please go try again. I know its late, but I know that you wouldn't let me down." He gave her a smile and she nodded.

"I guess…" She sighed and walked off towards the absent Cloud's dorm.

Cloud barely awake heard a muffled knocking sound at his door and his name being called. He thought it was Aeris so he shouted, "Go away!" … Or at least he thought he did. Everything was blurry. He'd been like this for the past ten hours.

Tifa getting annoyed, just decided to go in. She checked if it was locked, unfortunate for her it was. However there was a slightly cracked open window next to the door. She slid it open, and crawled in. She fell to the floor, and rubbed her knees from the carpet burns. " I couldn't have fell that hard." she said aloud examining her hand and knee. Her hand had blood on it, and her knee didn't. This concerned her a lot. She looked around Cloud's dorm. It was a bit frightening to her. The walls had been painted black, there were dark posters of gruesome things and death metal bands. The whole place smelled of smoke. Fresh smoke. So he HAD to be here. She cautiously looked around the place. It was much bigger than the regular dorms. It was like a small apartment. She had stumbled over something in the tiny hallway to his bedroom. She felt something warm sliding down her leg. She examined it, and she had accidentally kicked over a very large sword and had cut her calf. She winced as she noticed the pain pulsing to the wound.

"This place is a nightmare." She said trying to pick up the blade. But she failed. The blade was so heavy, she wondered how anyone could ever use it.

"I'll just leave it as it is."

As she walked in his bedroom she noticed more blood. A LOT more blood. It was everywhere. The walls, the floor, his bed. There was a large trail of it heading into the bathroom where the lights were flickering. She pushed open the slightly cracked door and looked to her left. Nothing but a toilet and sink. She walked over to the light fixture and tried pulling the cord. Didn't help. The lights still flickered on and off. Giving a horror movie like ambience with the change between the darkness and dim lighting. She heard was sounded like water sloshing and looked to her right. She yelled at the top of her lungs when she saw what it was. Cloud lay sprawled in the bath tub covered in crimson. He had gashes on his face, chest arms and wrists. She noticed his wounds were still bleeding somewhat so he was still alive. Maybe. She ran for help.

What seemed like the next day Cloud woke up in a wet bed. He didn't have the strength to look, but he saw someone there and asked, "Why is my bed wet?" in a very dull and soft voice. He stared hard at her and noticed she was a nurse.

"You are still bleeding a lot. Please try not to move. We will change your bed when you stop."

Memories of the night before had flashed into his mind. He had committed suicide and failed. He remembers someone in the room yelling. The door to the room had shut and the Doctor walked in. He started to say something, but Cloud could not make it out. He saw a clock on the wall and tried to read what it said. He finally made out, "4:37 a.m." He sighed, which turned into a gasp for air as he felt blood rushing up through his throat. He heard the doctor say something about stab wounds in the neck and chest and that he needed some gauze. The rest… He didn't remember.

He awoke to a sharp pain everywhere. He lifted his head and saw that he'd been stitched up, but he was still in the bloody bed from before. He thought. He couldn't remember.

"What the hell happened?" He thought hard and remembered that he had taken some drug hoping it would elevate his mood ever since Aeris. But it made it worse. One hundred times worse.

"It's past visiting hours Miss." The nurse said to a familiar raven haired girl.

"I cant leave. I don't know what it is… But…" The nurse smiled and nodded.

Tifa had felt bad for Cloud, after hearing what happened. She wanted to kill Aeris. It made her angry just thinking about her.

"Uuuughhh…" Cloud groaned.

"What do you need Cloud?" Tifa frowned. She jumped up and grabbed a glass of water for him. "Drink some." She said as she gently poured it down his throat. She watched as he struggled to swallow it. She stared at him with loving eyes. She was thinking about…

"Wait! What am I doing?"

"Hey…" Nudge nudge

"TIFA!"

She woke up to Zack shaking her.

"What are you doing? I heard you were here."

She just gave him a blank stare.

"Whatever.. Come on lets go, weekends over. Class is starting soon." He said pulling at her hand dragging her away.

She got back to her dorm and plopped down on her bed. She decided not to go to class for once. She noticed a letter on her nightstand. It was from the administrator himself. She read it to herself. It had stated that he was sorry to have put her in that situation. She put it to her side and fell asleep.

Three weeks later, Tifa had gone to see Cloud, but he had already been sent home. She felt kind of disappointed. She felt she should have stayed with him longer. She had gone back to her dorm to get her things for her next class. She slowly pushed open the door and to her shock, there lay Cloud on her small sofa.

"What are you doing here!" She said happily, but then covered it up with a pretend scowl.

" I heard you had called for the paramedics. I thought I'd come thank you." He said, which shocked her so much it took her speech. She stumbled with her words. He smiled, slowly walked up to her and hugged her. She was confused, thinking he resented her. However it made her happy.

"Please don't hug me…" She lied almost hugging back.

He left, going back to his dorm to get some rest.