Disclaimer: Duh I don't own Naruto, come on people, its kinda easy to figure that out!!
AN: Hey there, Sedaika here with another FanFic!! Its mostly in Gaara's POV. I don't want to give out too much so keep on reading!! I don't want to beg but please review, and tell me how I could improve in my writting style, you can even flame... wait no don't flame!!
Catch me from drowning
I feel as if I'm drowning. Bit by bit falling into a dark abyss, a dark lonely abyss of nothingness. This strange feeling has encompassed by whole being, my whole self.
I stared out my window, behind the fortress of my desk. A desk filled with the reason of my existence. They were filled with mission statements and village complaints. I knew for a fact that my face must have had some kind of solemn stone glare. Along with this stare, my arms rested in their customary crossed position.
Why am I so different from others? Why can't I speak my mind, or feel at ease next to friends. I crave people's attention, and then when I receive it I only grow irritated. As if I am only meant to crave and long for that feeling.
Why can't I be like the loveable blond? A blond whom everyone loves, but dare not say so out loud; who brings people to flock around him with a mere smile. Why can't I be like the stupid bowl-haired cut guy? He can express himself in seconds and make others laugh; and even follow his sensei through the gates of death and beyond.
Emotions to me are something I have never fully understood. If I cannot feel these, love admiration, camaraderie, how am I to give these to others?
Or maybe even like the brooding genius. How can he keep to himself and only have thoughts of revenge and scorn, while at the same time he inspires these types of emotions to the people close to him.
I feel like I'm an island of myself, drowning ever so slowly. Like an iceberg sinking into freezing waters. I feel as my motivation to keep me afloat has left me. No. That's a lie. I've never had any real reason to stay over the water's line; the water's line of sanity and of loneliness.
Slowly I spun around away from my open window and towards the desk. There was a dagger dug into a certain file. I was only procrastinating my decision from a useless query of a villager. Although this… this one file had made me think about my own life, about my feelings about others, my feelings of relationships, and my feelings of… this life.
Yes, this life. It's not my life. No, it was and never will be my own. I'm only a body who watches the exchanges and transactions around me, for I am only a body. I was only the shell of a demons cage, a body without a soul, a monster, as I have been called numerous times. How can I ever find happiness?
I can remember clearly the first time I was called a monster. I had felt so alive, yet that person had called me dead inside. Dead. Even though his life passed between my fingers and he was the one that was gone, he claimed that I was soulless, just a shell.
Soulless, without a soul, a shell of a being without meaning.
Had that not been the reason I turned to killing and murdering others? To fill myself with the feeling of being alive. To ease myself of being empty.
I turned my head to the side, not wanting to look at the dagger anymore.
To die… It would be easy to die, right? To just give up, not eat for a couple of weeks. To not drink anything for a couple of days. This village would be fine without him. They're scared of me anyway, their Kazekage. Their frightening weapon.
No. I won't think this way again.
With a sigh I stood up and walked over to my door. Pulling it open I'm greeted with the smell of sand. A short-lived comfort as I gazed into the empty cold room. The bedroom that was installed next to my office was once disguised as a cell, but it had become a part of me.
A cot stood in the corner of the room, and an empty desk across from it. The desk appeared to never have been used before. An open closet to the left revealed clothing arranged in color, mainly red, black, and gray. Then in between the shabby cot and desk sat a gourd half the size of a man filled with precious chakra filled sand.
My bedroom had exactly the same cold feeling of the room adjacent to this one. Why couldn't there maybe be something for me to look forward to? A goal, or a desire, or… a person.
I flopped onto my bed hands over my chest, one foot still on the floor. --Sigh-- I focused on how my chest went up and down, the sun's heavy rays on my face, and the fan's slow circle. Then my thoughts faded back to before.
Drowning. Again, I found myself in the cold frigid waters. What was it that had saved me before? Took me away from sinking into nothingness. A blond. A blond with blue eyes… Naruto. What had he told me to do, to trust and protect others?
I turned over keeping my hands folded behind my head. I wasn't looking forward to a long night, by myself, surrounded by these thoughts. Sleep has never been a good friend to me.
Again, another sigh escaped my lips. With no effort to get off the soft yet cold bed, I allow my eyes to flutter shut.
Instantly I can feel water surrounding me. Quickly feeling no steady footing, I thrash about. I can feel something holding me down, not hands but some kind of force. Air, I need to breathe. Slowly the water reaches over my eyes. Where is my sand?! Kicking around, my lungs choke in the water. No, help… someone help me.
Thrashing wildly, I realize who would come? Body going limp, I can feel my mind turning hazy. My body sank deeper and deeper. No one would save a monster, the cage of a demon.
Opening my eyes, the room blurs into vision. Was that a dream? Turning over in my bed, I faced the door, hands face down next to my side. I couldn't have been asleep for more than five minutes.
This feeling, this darkness that devours my soul, how do I rid myself of it?
"Shukaku…" my lips whispered the name. I missed him… I needed someone to take my mind away from these ill thoughts.
Quietly I turned again on the bed facing the ceiling, mind blank, and eerily silent. The fan's breeze lightly played with my hair, the rays from the now setting sun were close to my feet.
Chakra was coming. Someone was coming into the office. Finally, it looked like company would come, someone who thought about me. Yes, I need someone to save me from myself, from drowning.
Whoever it was stopped by the door. They never knocked, so presumably, it must be my advisor, the old man with a heap of bandages around his face. Deep down I was hoping he would come into my room. It lingered there for while. No, that fool would never dare to look me in the eyes, why would he suddenly come to my room?
My hopes rose a bit when little by little the chakra glided over to the door of the bedroom. It could be one of my siblings. A gentle knock could be heard. Yes, it was probably, Temari, she always cared about boundaries, Kankuro would never have knocked.
"Come in, Temari." my voice sounded a little raspy.
Door opening a blond stepped in. Her eyes instantly connected with mine. Yes I was right. I made no attempt to move from my bed. Waiting for her to say something, I could feel my irritation rising to the surface.
She stood quietly, hand on the door, one foot inside the bedroom and the other in the office. It irked me that she had nothing to say. Her eyes wandered from the desk of my room to my bed. Did she come just to stare at me?
With a sigh, slowly sitting up on the bed, I turned my body towards her, to give her the illusion that my full attention was on her. She opened her mouth then closed it again. I could almost see her thoughts on her forehead as she shifted her weight from foot to foot.
"Have you finished most of the requests?" Her voice was low, almost like she had growled the last few words. Her head was cocked to the side a bit. Without noticing I was subconsciously registering every movement of her body.
I nodded my head as a reply. Temari didn't move, only stared back. As if she was trying to look into my soul. Look as hard as she might, all she would find would be nothingness.
Laying back down I turned my back to her. Still I could feel her eyes on me. If that was what she wanted to ask, she could have simply looked on the desk. Was she waiting for me to say something? Was she waiting for me to tell her that I was drowning?
Then, just as she came in, she left.
Hearing both doors click, I let in a deep breath and released it. If only I could laugh… here I was alone in my room, begging for someone to come and save me from loneliness. Instead I only grew angry with a presence near me.
Again I uttered his name. The sarcastic tanuki, my talkative prisoner. What would he have spat out at a time like this?
With an inhuman speed, leaping from my bed, I headed for the door. Tearing it from its hinges I moved towards the office desk removing the dagger. Tucking it into my robes, I glanced at the desk.
Temari knew I wasn't finished. She knew, yet she came into my room and asked. After marking a giant red 'x' on the parchment, I left into the empty corridors.
My mind was buzzing. Where should I go, why did I get up, sand, I left my sand gourd. My feet kept walking in their path then suddenly stopped. My gourd wasn't on my back. Patting around my clothes, I found my trusty canteen inside the breast pocket.
Inside it was not water, why would I, the great Saabaku no Gaara, need water. It was filled with sand. Opening it and letting a bit of the chakra-less sand touch my hand, I was satisfied and continued marching. Even if I was forced to use this sand, I would have the environmental advantage.
I couldn't believe that still, there was not a single soul in this dome like castle but myself. Or could it be that they were all avoiding me. Avoiding the cage, that once imprisoned the fearful raccoon demon. I looked back hoping to see someone. But I was met with an eerie silence of the hall way.
I turned back and continued walking. Finally reaching the destination, I opened the double doors. I was welcomed to the site of a ceiling less room with nothing in it but sand. It was filled with nothing but mounds and mounds of sand, and walls to keep others out.
It was once used as a training ground, but now… ever since the one-tailed spirit was taken from me, this was the only place that had a bit of his comfort.
Slowly raising my arms, I readied myself as the chakra flowed from my shoulders to my fingertips. Swaying quickly, the sand leveled itself. Then bringing my hand down then back up over my head the sand violently exploded in an upward motion, then fluttered back down.
A trickle of perspiration ran down the side of my face. Controlling the sand was not as easy as it once was. Although thankfully enough, my muscles and chakra memory served as enough. Walking slowly to the center I laid down placing my head in my hands. I could feel the sand molding into my body.
Taking in long breaths, I could see the stars beginning to show in the dark sky. The wind was beginning to cool my warm skin. In such a state I began to drift back to my thoughts once again.
I couldn't possibly close my eyes, and hope to rest.
Maybe if I committed myself wholly to the village. Will they… would they need me? Will they need me as leader, and not a frightening weapon? I hadn't noticed that a smile had crept onto my face. Where had I learned that? Slowly my eyes had closed again.
I could see the water's surface beneath my feet. I waited, knowing full-well that I would fall into its shapeless mass. I looked left, then right, would someone save me this time? But nothing happened… nothing, just nothing.
I was awake again. However this time without opening my eyes I was aware of a weight over my midsection. A breathing weight, two at that. How had it gotten close to me, without my being aware of it? Am I losing more of myself?
These two chakras were familiar, but at the same time, how could I trust that feeling.
Then I heard the voice. "We came to rescue you Gaara." It was Temari's voice. Rescue me? Did I need to be rescued? I could feel my tensed shoulders relaxing for the first time in months.
Opening my eyes I could see her head lying on my chest and next to her was Kankuro over me as well. Their feet were lying in opposite directions. Kankuro looked asleep, while Temari's eyes were half lidded.
"To rescue me?" I whispered to her with my eyes furrowed together. The only response I received was a nod and a sigh from her.
"Yeah, you looked like you were gonna cry little brother." Kankuro answered slyly.
I couldn't hold it in. First a deep chuckle, then full on laughter escaped my lips. Here I was trying to hide from myself, and my siblings had come to help me out. To rescue me as they put it, pull me up from these cold lonely waters.
Both siblings had their heads up staring at me, as if I had grown a second and third head. Just looking at their faces and a new fit of cackles ripped through me.
Then I heard their laughter join mine, until we were all holding our sides. This feeling, this is what I wanted, yes. We all sighed again in unison. My eyes slipped closed again. I could feel them on top of me, all three of us relaxing.
"I'm fine," I grunted. I added in a whisper knowing full well they were close enough to hear me, "now I am."