The desert sun beats down in full force upon a river of sand. It looks uncrossable, at least by any normal means. Though it's clearly grains of dust and dirt, it flows naturally, rippled with small waves. Dead trees grow within it, with only barren branches.

A boat approaches, a ferry carrying a hooded and cloaked figure. It glides noiselessly atop the sand. Slowly, finally, the ferryman brings the vessel to a halt just nearby. Her face is still hidden as she waits, hand out, for her fare.

"Hop on," she offers, and the voice is clearly feminine. "And unburden yourself." In the dream, everything lost can be regained come morning.

"You have something you want to leave behind, don't you?" It's a shrewd guess; very few people are without regrets they'd like to forget. She makes it sound almost enticing.

It's a sky of storm clouds, dark and threatening, piled against each other, the air thick with the scent of ozone - but it's a silent sky.  The clouds don't move, there's no storm wind, no rumble of thunder or flares of lightning.  Instead the sky is static, heavy.  Indifferent.  Strange streaks of a living, glowing green trace across the sky in slim arches, frozen in place, paths or trailing ends of forgotten energy.  Underfoot, barren, ancient, rocky ground falls away on every side.

It's an island of rock floating in an endless sky, flat on its surface, bottom a jagged mess, as if it was ripped out of somewhere better by its roots and left to drift through a sea of storm clouds.  Far in the distance there are other uprooted clots of earth, just as barren, just as forgotten.  This island in the middle of nowhere however isn't empty.  There are ruins here, fallen pillars.  And there are bodies.  So many dead bodies.  Soldiers, scientists, civilians, scattered around the ruins, each one dead, each one bearing the traces of a violent death even if they blur at their edges and become indistinct if looked at too closely. 

There is one body that's still alive though, deep in the heart of the ruin, sitting on weathered steps that lead to nowhere.  There's a giant sword driven into the stone near his right side and a thick leather wing spreads out from his left shoulder.  He's not dressed in his usual garb, instead a ragged, lethal mix of clothes from memory, not always his, and he doesn't look up from where he has he mouth and chin pressed into the hands of flesh and clawed steel woven in front of him, elbows resting on his knees.  The stairs are clear of bodies beyond his. 

Except for two. 

On his right, near the bloody sword is the body of a dark haired man in SOLDIER uniform, spiky hair clotted in his own blood, blue green eyes closed for good.  On the left, almost under the stretch of the wing is a brunette woman, dressed in pink, flowers scattered dying and forgotten around her.

Blue eyes the color of the lightning that doesn't move through the empty clouds lift at intrusion but other than that Cloud doesn't rise or move at all.  He's here with his dead. 

What do you want?

ooc. so, another Cloud's-messed-up post.  Because we have got to get through these so we can move on to the naked in high school dreams  that just killed the atmosphere I was trying to set didn't it?  Anyway, I am shamelessly swiping the Dissidia setting and his alternate Kingdom Hearts outfit from that too.  He's not Kingdom Hearts Cloud, though feel free to think he is if that applies.  And yes, that's Zack and Aerith quite dead on the stairs with him (though that doesn't mean if you're Zack or Aerith you can't still come for the sheer mind screw of it all).  Be prepared for the emo - or conversely, some violence.  He's just come to the realization that he's going to have to abandon his family in his waking world and he's not in a chatty mood.

Tick tick tick.

The walls of his shop are lined with clocks and books, the two things which consumed his life before Chandra found him. Clocks were his focus. Books were his escape. Time spent between them was frightening and lonely. Trying to hold conversations with clients, with strangers, with his mother. Trying to sleep. Trying, a few hours later, to get out of bed. He eventually did, because he had to run the shop. He went home in the evening because he had a book to finish. That was all there was, and that is all there is here.

It would be comforting to Sylar, but it isn't.

Tick tick tick.

The ticking isn't right. Every clock is slightly out of sync with the others. One clock reads 2:25, while another reads 10:52, and another 7:03. What time is it really? Which clock is right? He spots his father's clock, the only one he left in Virginia's apartment when he abandoned them. He takes it down from the wall and pulls on his glasses, popping open the back.

He pauses.

Tick tick tick.

There are no gears.

( Warning: Gore. )