[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Mad Pierrot

The ending touches

Spoiler for what the:

one of the OG's most emotional scenes complete with Cloud crying, Sephiroth's sword actually being covered in blood and then... what the heck is going on? It's like the ending has a paranormal ending from Tifa's point of view as she is scared while Cloud is suprisingly better despite not being aware that he is still Sephiroth's puppet due to wielding the Black Materia on the Buster Sword. I'm not sure how this whole timeline works but Zack appears to die again.

Spoiler for endings:

Sephiroth tells Cloud as he's falling through the white void that there are multiple timelines created whenever there are multiple choices.

We can see this with Zack when he has to make a choice between going to save Clloud and going to stop Biggs. The biggest hint is that Shinra's dog mascot, Stamp, is a different breed between timelines.
The original Stamp we first see in Remake has droopy ears and is wearing a military hardhat/helmet.
In the first timeline where Zack survives, Stamp now has shaggy hair and is wearing a cap.
Then in the timeline where Zack goes to meet Biggs at the reactor, Biggs is eating a bag of chips with Stamp on it, except it's now a pug.

From this we can guess that there is a timeline where Cloud does save Aerith, but the one we end up with is still the one where Aerith dies.