Disclaimer: Fantasies usually don't come true, so yeah, I don't own Naruto.
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Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned."
Bronte, Charlotte
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PRELUDE
6th January, 2012.
Footsteps.
They copied her movements, stopping when she stopped and resuming when she did.
Fear clogged her throat, causing such a suffocation that she breathed harshly, trying to take in as much air as possible however noise she created, despite her decision not to make a sound.
Her eyes darted back and forth across the shady, deserted alley. Murky shadows stretched out in front of the short walls, merging together incoherently. The wilting plants lining the walk swayed gently in the night breeze.
The place was empty.
She deliberated for a second, clenching her hand tightly around the strap of her bag, and looked far up at the dark velvet scattered with twinkling stars, that provided the only glow in the lane – there was no moon tonight.
The dim streetlamp flickered feebly once…and then died.
She gasped involuntarily, and backed a few steps. For a moment there was total blackness in front of eyes; the sinister milieu raised the hairs on the back of her neck, and sent a chill down her spine.
Crunch –
There came the sound she had been anticipating fearfully – sound of a crackling, wilted leaf being crushed beneath a foot.
She turned around and ran.
She knew in the deep recesses of her mind that someone was pursuing her, but aside from the noise of her overexerted breaths and her scampering feet, there was nothing else, however much she strained her ears for it.
She rounded a corner, and sprinted headlong along the dusty walk, searching blindly for a speck of light to appear, indicating that she had reached civilization.
She indeed stepped into a dim light after a moment, but it was merely a fluctuating streetlamp once again, and it just revealed that the path was extending onwards.
She slowed her pace as she neared the lamp pole, which was dangerously tilted to one side. Her eyes found nothing again as they circled around the shadowy alley. There were too many places to hide and to camouflage completely…advantageous for her, as well as any chaser.
She took a deep breath. I may as well have been imagining things, she thought.
And then she froze.
Her dark shadow stretched out on the sidewalk, motionless. As she watched, another silhouette ghosted forward, slowly, slowly, until it was right beside hers, quite still.
She was too terrified to turn around, and she just watched with wide, fearful eyes as the shadows merged together.
The figure touched her back.
She gasped and spun around – smack into the front of the body.
Her face smashed on the man's hard-muscled and rock-hard chest, and before she could do anything, strong hands grasped her waist brusquely and firmly.
Her screech was muffled into the fabric stretched on the man's torso.
"I've got her."
She didn't recognize the deep, booming voice.
Footsteps drew towards her, getting louder as they approached. The man whirled her around, with only one hand now trained on her left shoulder.
The tall, statuesque figure with billowing, fiery hair was now eye to eye with her, and she could not misinterpret the wild excitement on the white face, eerie in the dark, nor the contemptuous guise in the fierce-looking eyes.
"You -!"
A sharp palm whipped across her cheek before she could complete her sentence; the impact was so sudden that her knees knocked out beneath her and she dived headfirst into the ground. The hand on her shoulder vanished, and her torso met the dirt, followed by her head.
Pain shot like a current through her, as the tiny, prickly particles on the ground dug into the half-bare skin of her arms, and her face mashed into the dirt and pebbles.
A sob escaped her throat.
She braced a hand on the ground and kneeled on all fours, gasping in ache and bewilderment, while her other palm was against her sore mouth. She felt a sticky liquid seeping through her fingers and staining the rock-strewn ground. Blood.
Someone giggled – a feminine, memorable voice.
"Come on." The wild one said.
Fingers grabbed her throat, yanked her roughly from the ground, and shoved against her so that she stumbled forward. It was the man, no doubt.
She staggered in the alley, and at that precise moment, the lamplight died.
What perfect timing!
The people on her side didn't notice; however, their feet gained speed and they pushed her through the dark alley, further and further until the path grew more and more indiscernible: wounding into a narrow aisle leading to the woods.
The woods behind the alley. She had always been afraid of those woods, and the reason was not any kind of creatures or frightening mammals. Of course not. No animal roamed this forest. It was still, unnatural. Like a deceased woodland. Like a place fittest for the dead.
She had not meant to, but a terrified squeak made its way out of her mouth. She clamped her bloody hand on her mouth to keep from making any noise that would motivate her capturers further.
Her precaution was futile, as the group didn't notice. With quick steps they ascended into the dark assemblage of trees, unafraid and unbothered.
She went along with them, considering that the hands trained on her were now tighter, and impossible to escape; they were so strong.
Goosebumps erupted on her arms and legs as they walked in, twigs snapping underneath their feet, the only sound interrupting the unearthly silence in the forest. She closed her eyes as the violent hands guided her forward, and tried not to let her imagination go astray.
But she came up with the worst-case scenario imaginable.
They are going to kill me here in the dark.
"You guys…do what you say, don't you."
She snapped back to reality, where they now stood underneath an arch made by two gigantic old trees, their branches forking over and meeting with each other in tangles. She strained to observe in the gloom, and made out a dark, regular shape: a tiny, perfect black cube, set among the wild grass and flowers, half-hidden among the looming trees, their boughs like creeping hands over the roof and most of the side walls.
In another place, the cabin would have looked like something out of a fairytale. But here in the shadows, it seemed like a sinister crypt.
Someone wearing a black cloak stood with his/her's back to them, gazing up at the cabin, the one who had just spoken. It was a shrill voice, high and trilling, and apparently of another girl's.
"Well…" One of the two stepped away from the just-arrived set, and proceeded towards the hut, intent on opening the door to it. "It just goes with our policy, if you know what I mean."
"Of course." A trilling laugh. Then the cloak-clad sobered up, and turned around to face them. Even though the hood partially hid the face, there was no mistaking about whom it belonged to.
She immediately recognized this person, as well as the one now pushing open the wooden door of the hut, which opened with a rattling of rusty hinges and squeaks. It seemed to be uninhabited by anyone for quite a while.
The next words made her breath hitch.
"Bring her in."
"No! No! Please!" She yelled hoarsely, now realizing the group's actual intention – to lock her inside that horrible, mysterious cabin. She thrashed, trying to ram her elbows into the rock-hard muscles behind her, stamping her foot on the hard boots, entirely on the offense, but in vain.
She couldn't make the man even gasp, let alone letting go of her.
The wild one with the fierce eyes, standing beside the man until now in suspicious silence, growled. It was a menacing sound, and that was all she heard before a thump.
She again hugged the dirt, her face sliding into moss and grime and it was even painful and degrading than before; the attacker's heavy boot had slammed onto her back. Her eyes rolled back into her head.
A shrill scream rent the air, and it was a moment until she realized it was hers. It made the attacker even more ferocious.
"Don't make a move, you bitch. It will just double on your worthless hide!"
The contact lenses she had been wearing for the first time to replace her thick glasses, they were now smeared with dirt. The filth dirtied her eyes and irritated them; she had lost one of the lenses earlier, and the surviving one in the left now itched and clouded her field of vision even more.
They grabbed her hair and heaved her into the cabin.
She let them. She was helpless; she couldn't see well, and she wasn't strong enough to escape. Pain reared in her head as they dragged her over the rocky ground and inside the wooden floor of the hut.
She hit the back wall and whimpered again. Two sets of feet backed away from her a few feet, and stood motionless, watching.
The other two, females, kneeled in front of her, one of them still digging sharp nails into her scalp. She could feel their excited breathing, as they gazed at her, cowering in pain and fear.
The girl with flaming hair tightened hold over the poor captive's head and jerked it towards her knee. The other one grasped her wrists.
She wheezed, sobbing in extreme pain, but forced the words out of her mouth: "What – What are… you going to do?"
Two things gleamed spontaneously in the dark.
A grin. And then a flash of silver.
A blade...
The two in the audience clapped their hands.
...But it didn't hurt her.
Through her clouded vision she saw tendrils, hundreds of them, scatter on the floor, some in heaps and some in all directions. They rained down as the girl shook her knee and stood on her feet.
The other female let go of her wrists and watched her for a second. Then she smiled coldly, and the menace was visible even in the darkness. "That's what you get for even thinking about taking someone else's possessions, let alone making them yours."
The trilling voice added, "You don't get to the top when you're just the bottom of the heap, sweetie. Learn your lesson." She giggled shrilly again. "You'll have all the time and quiet for that here."
The sound of footsteps walking away from her, even though they were her enemies, they terrified her. She lurched upwards from her crouch, ignoring the throbbing in her head, and the stinging pain in her back and legs. Wisps of silk slid down her grimy shirt and met the other piles on the floor.
"Please! Don't leave me here! No! Please!"
She staggered towards the door, which was slowly closing with the same noisy squeaks. She just glimpsed the solemn faces in the dark, beautiful yet terrifying, hanging there like they had no body, their accusing, hateful gazes drilling into her, burning into her with a sense of degradation.
Her fingers slipped on the door handle, and then it was too late.
It snapped shut.
It closed, leaving her in total blackness.
"Please! I'll do anything! Let me out of here!" Out of sheer desperation she pounded the door with her bruised fists, screaming beyond control. Her tear ducts pricked and the salty droplets trickled down her cheeks, homogenizing with the grime and blood coating the skin of her cheeks. Her knees buckled and she fell, but her hands still pounded on the locked door. Desperately. Insanely.
"I'm begging you! Please!"
There was no sound outside. The footsteps had long faded into a distance.
"You can't do this to me! I can't bear this pain…! Please…Please let me out of here, I'll do anything…anything…anything…you want…please…!"
The woods were still, unnaturally silent. The alley was hushed and deserted.
"Can't…bear…pain…please…"
No one.
"…pain…"
There was no one around for miles.
HOMECOMING QUEEN
By berryboom
So vivid, so saccharine, like deep red cherry wine…strength-giving, just the sight of it. Beautiful faces, suited to death.
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[And of course]
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Pain.
Prompts: secret place, "vengeance is sweet", "…how did we get from the top of the world to the bottom of the heap?" , exile
A/N: I just thought to sneak in the opening, see what response it gets. Then I'll think about writing chapters and fitting it in my busy-as-a-bee schedule, even if I do late updates.
Anyway, if you read this, do review and tell.
Me+lotta reviews=happy to find my efforts fruitful :D
bErrYbOoM