Second Chance

Companion?

For the last few hours since his grand escape, Zack has been doing nothing but repairing, or so he hoped, the lab's main computer. With all the bullet shells and burned wires he found, he was surprised that the only things still functioning in the lab were his and the other test subject's Mako chambers.

"Seriously, was there a war going on after I died?"

That was yet another question to add to his ever-growing list that he had asked himself today. And the only way to answer them was to get the damn computer up and running correctly. While all SOLDIER operatives were required to learn essential electrical maintenance, Zack was starting to regret having slept in most of the lectures, especially since he needed the knowledge right now not to fry himself with all these wires. Thankfully, he only had one wire left to connect, and there was only one port to combine it with.

"Well here goes nothing."

He crossed his free fingers and connected the wires, bringing life back to the dusty old computer and its console. He cheered in victory at his accomplishment, forgetting that his head was still in the console's panel. He accidentally hits his head on the inner panel's walls, giving him a headache.

"Ow ow! Note to self, do not do that again." Zack complained as he carefully pulled himself out of the panel and sat on the steel floor, rubbing his aching head. Then, after making sure his head was okay, he stood up on his feet and faced the large screen. As eager as Zack was to see what events had unfolded during his absence, a sense of dread crept up in him. What experiments did they do on him? What did they do to breathe life back into him? If anything, he was sure he was supposed to be a dead man.

The first thing that caught his attention before he started his search was the date displayed on the screen. It was November of the year 0011; instinctively, Zack dug a hand into his pocket, pulled a slightly wet cellphone, which surprisingly still worked, and flipped it open. The date on the cellphone's screen was September of the year 0007, four years ago! Had he been MIA for four years again? What kind of bad luck was he cursed with?

"What's up with me and these Mako naps? that's a total of eight years I wasted sleeping."

Eight years he will never get back, most definitely. His parents must be worried sick about him by now. He could picture them sitting on the couch, going over every Shinra newspaper and news source they could find to know what had happened to their only son. His parents were never the type to believe an MIA report anyways. If it were not for his cell phone not having a signal, he would have called them by now to finally give them some peace of mind.

"I'll call them when I get to some place with a good signal. Should I call her too? No, I'm eight years too late fix that relationship."

He sighed sadly, going over the photo album stored on his phone of his girlfriend, well, Ex-girlfriend given the circumstances, Aerith Gainsborough. He used to take pictures of her whenever he met up with her at the church. He even took some in secret when she was busy tending to the flowers; She looks best when looking after her little hidden garden. So imagine his utter shock when he realized he'd been gone for four years. He had left her alone for so long; she must have felt he didn't love her anymore. He was so close last time; if only Shinra didn't come after him, if only he were stronger.

"Well, there's no use crying over spilled milk. what's done is done so for now, I need to get back to work."

He sighed, slipping his cell phone back into his pocket. He needed to focus now, and there was no time to dilly dally. Relaxing his tense shoulders, he soon guided his fingers over the computer keyboard. He mentally listed that the first order of business was to know what they did to him. Then he could find out what he truly missed in those eight years he was sleeping in this cold dark lab.