Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7 > Center of the World
He wakes up to the doubletime staccato of his heartbeat, his ragged gasps echoing off the ceiling. He can’t remember the dream. The sour aftertaste of fear is heavy on his tongue. His hands grope blindly across the nightstand. His knuckles graze cardboard. The pack falls; the sudden thud sends a jolt through his body. Zack eases his lighter out of the side of the pack and lights a cigarette, hunched into himself. A deep drag and he relaxes into his pillow. He sighs, exhaling the dream in a lazy curl of smoke that twines once around his fingers before dissipating. Only vague impressions linger: a weary smile and blue, blue eyes.
Dust motes drift in the muted sunlight seeping through the blinds. He glances at his clock.
9:47.
He’s up, tugging on crumpled fatigues and reaching for his PHS, jamming it in his pocket and staggering to the bathroom. Splash of cold water on the face, into the mouth, rough fingers through his hair. He’s halfway to the kitchenette (and halfway into his shirt) before he realizes: it’s Saturday.
He’s uncomfortable, disoriented. He brews a pot of ShinRa commissary brand coffee, strong and inky black. It’s barely done when he pours the first mug and gulps it down, hot enough to kill taste buds so he won’t have to taste the second cup. He refills the mug and takes it back to the bedroom.
He sets it on the battered fake-wood nightstand. His lighter is resting near the edge. He picks it up to slide it back into the pack.
It’s cool and smooth in his palm. The metal is so battered its hard to make out the engraving from scratches, but he remembers the cactuar design well. He found the thing years ago, playing in the gritty dirt around the reactor back home. Everyone at school thought it was so damn cool. He started smoking just to live up to his own reputation. Caught hell for it from his parents too, but he never got rid of the lighter. It survived Wutai and since then he’s never gone on a mission without it. It’s heavy weight is reassuring and he holds on to it. It takes three minutes of sitting on the edge of the sagging mattress, warming the lighter in his hands, for him to realize he’s in Junon. On Monday they depart for Del Sol, and then Nibelheim.
Dust motes drift in the muted sunlight seeping through the blinds. He glances at his clock.
9:47.
He’s up, tugging on crumpled fatigues and reaching for his PHS, jamming it in his pocket and staggering to the bathroom. Splash of cold water on the face, into the mouth, rough fingers through his hair. He’s halfway to the kitchenette (and halfway into his shirt) before he realizes: it’s Saturday.
He’s uncomfortable, disoriented. He brews a pot of ShinRa commissary brand coffee, strong and inky black. It’s barely done when he pours the first mug and gulps it down, hot enough to kill taste buds so he won’t have to taste the second cup. He refills the mug and takes it back to the bedroom.
He sets it on the battered fake-wood nightstand. His lighter is resting near the edge. He picks it up to slide it back into the pack.
It’s cool and smooth in his palm. The metal is so battered its hard to make out the engraving from scratches, but he remembers the cactuar design well. He found the thing years ago, playing in the gritty dirt around the reactor back home. Everyone at school thought it was so damn cool. He started smoking just to live up to his own reputation. Caught hell for it from his parents too, but he never got rid of the lighter. It survived Wutai and since then he’s never gone on a mission without it. It’s heavy weight is reassuring and he holds on to it. It takes three minutes of sitting on the edge of the sagging mattress, warming the lighter in his hands, for him to realize he’s in Junon. On Monday they depart for Del Sol, and then Nibelheim.
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