Zack lifted an eyebrow and blinked up at the sky. After a moment, he looked down at his hands and stared, at a loss for why they no longer held the buster sword. The last thing he remembered, he had been about to swing the sword into enemy ranks. He had known he would die, but he had been ready to take everyone else out with him to keep his friend safe.
Now, though... the sword was on his back again, held in place by the strong magnet attached to his SOLDIER-issue harness.
"Weird..." Zack muttered, scratching the back of his head before tilting it to one side. "I don't... remember that fight ending."
More than a little disturbed now, Zack shook his head to clear it of the haziness that had taken over with his confusion. He needed to focus! Nodding to himself, Zack quickly checked himself over, even twisting his head as far as he could to see what he could of his back.
Right. So no bullet wounds that he could see or feel. That was really weird. There had been far too many troops for him to get away without a scratch. Despite what he'd like to believe, Zack really wasn't a good enough fighter to pull that off even with the use of all of his materia. No one could do that.
Zack rubbed the back of his head again, considering the possibilities. One particular unnerving one was that maybe, just maybe, he had never managed to escape Hojo's lab with Cloud. Everything had seemed so real, but who knew what else had seemed real over the past four years. Most of his memories of that time were a blur, which he was glad for. There were things that had happened in that lab that Zack never wanted to think about again.
He sighed with that thought and dug into his pocket until his hand closed around his cell phone. It was sort of pointless if this was a dream, but he could at least try to call someone. He hadn't tried before out of fear that Shin-Ra would be able to pinpoint his location more easily, but did he really have anything to lose now?
Zack flipped the phone open and scrolled through his messages out of habit, ignoring Yuffie's spam as he searched for anything new. Once that was finished, he flipped to the main screen and scrolled through his contacts until Kunsel's name was highlighted. Out of everyone who was still with Shin-Ra, he trusted him the most.
"C'mon, work," Zack muttered, putting the phone to his ear after dialing the number. After only two rings, the phone clicked off. Not dissuaded, Zack punched in Aerith's number next with similar results. Tseng didn't answer, Cloud didn't answer (though Zack hadn't expected him to), and even Sephiroth didn't answer (something Zack was a little relieved about -- he would have freaked out if he heard the other first-class SOLDIER's voice on the other end of the line.
Useless... Zack thought, then turned his attention to the world at large, looking around until he spotted what looked like another man a little ways off.
"Oi!" he tried, starting to walk toward Chase. "You there!"