It all started with a dare. It all ended with a dare. That dare would end up changing your life more then you would ever know, the odd thing was you didn't even know about it, all these life-changing events going on beneath your sensor range, something that would have normally enraged you, and in the end I suppose it did, but you'll find that out later. It all started with an intensive round of truth or dare, whilst you were asleep in your bed miles away your fate was being sealed. Ino scoffed as she looked around at Naruto, Sasuke, Kiba, Neji, Shikamaru, half-awake, and Gaara lurking in the corner.

"I've got a good one for all of you" said Ino. Kiba raised an eyebrow. Oh you're going to thank me for this later... or kill me.

"And what exactly would that be?"

"Which ever of you can steal Nyx's heart in two weeks, wins. I suppose it's more of a contest really, may the best man win." That last bit sealed the deal. You watched as each of them perk up slightly. Every guy is always looking to defeat another in some way, usually in a competition odd isn't it? While girls tend to be subtler about it. Somewhere far away an alarm in Nyx's head went off. Her face twitched into her pillow and suppressed it. And so the hot-blooded competition of men began…

Day 1

You were slightly disturbed about your dream last night. It had really freaked you out. It was all you could think about as you walked down the street on edge. You didn't remember all of it precisely but you did remember most of it. You were in a ring, a dark pit if you will. There were people around cheering for something. The pit began to fill with water. You were drowning. There were a few floating rings, but every time you tried to get close to one another one would bump it out of the way. Just as your miniature head had sunk under water you awoke cold sweat beading your head. It was just a dream, just a dream. You relaxed and continued on your way.

"Hey -" you turned around so fast you couldn't even control yourself. You'd panicked apparently the "it's just a dream" thing doesn't really work too well. You froze, your foot still suspended in the air above Sasuke's grounded head. He looked up at you with an expression that read something like 'I should not have gotten out of bed this morning'. You grimaced and held out your hand.

"Sorry," you couldn't even think to say anything else, how lame. He was obviously angry, but withheld it. "So did you want something or…" you said after a while. He paused probably debating whether this was worth it or not.

"I'll be right back." You sighed, shrugged, and you were on your way. Someone was losing it and it defiantly wasn't you. You winced as the difference in light from the nice cool shadowed alley you had been walking down to the crowded sun filled area that was where you now stood, disturbed. You had merely wanted to get some breakfast then go back home and sleep and sleep until lunch then get some food the sleep maybe train a bit and then maybe some more sleep. That sounded perfect to you.

"Hey" you groaned extremely loud not wanting to see which poor unfortunate soul awaited your wrath. And as usual, it was the worst possible… Naruto. It wasn't that you didn't like Naruto, and I assure you, you do. Its just Naruto was so very…. "Hey, you wanna go get some ramen or some breakfast or something?" … So very active. "Oh yeah I forgot how moody you are in the morning but you wont get mad at me, will you?" your glare was the answer to his question. As soon as you'd lost Naruto in a large crowd of touristy shoppers, you snaked your way stealthily between legs. At last you had gotten your bagel without any disruption. You and your bagel were headed over to the training grounds, to train? What are you crazy? You'd simply sit in the grass nap and watch other people practice. As you closed your eyes and let the warm sun wash over your face you relaxed almost completely. A shadow disrupted your sun.

"Whoever you are, move… please"

"Your in a good a mood as ever, Nyx" you fake laughed and rolled over praying to god that he wouldn't sit down. But sure enough there was now a shadow blocking your sun.

"Neji, MOVE" you shoved him out of the way. "God, shouldn't you be, I don't know training?" you did not like Neji.

"Probably, although I'd rather relax" at that you really had to open your eyes to check who it was. Neji, the guy who always told you you were incompetent and told you to train every second of the day, something was really wrong you had been approached by 3 people already, something was weird. "…With you" you inched slowly away from him.

"Who the hell are you? Because you are not Neji about now Neji would say something like" you put on a fake manly voice "'the truth is you can ever beat me' and then I'll say I know and then you'll get angry and leave, that's just how it works, are you not yet familiar with the system?"

"And what if I want to change?" you shook your head unable to believe what he had just said. He was out of his mind, completely insane, no longer then Neji you'd learned to hate.

"I suppose its like you say we've all got a destiny and I'm afraid you cant change it. I don't need a crystal ball to see that I'm not in your future." You stood up, not looking at him for effect. You were so tempted to see if you'd really landed that one, but you couldn't. You continued to walk, rocking to the beat of the song you had stuck in your head. You were in a good mood now. As you walked, not looking where you were going, across the training ground dodging attacks from younger ninja who wanted to prove that they were not completely inept, not that they were really doing that purpose justice. You'd finally escaped the clutches of some academy student's rather pathetic possession and had started heading home. You entered the light shadow of the back alleys toward your apartment. A soft wind blew, causing your hair to go crazy. It was really starting to aggravate you. You squinted as the locks fluted clouding your vision. There was someone at the end of the alley. Around your height with short hair, brown, you thought, it was blurry, hard to see with sleep still pulling down on your eyes. The wind stopped and your hair settled. He was there someone was defiantly there. You stared curiously as the wind blew again. Maybe he was magic or maybe you were insane but he seemed to be crumbling away into the air. By the time you'd blinked, he was gone. Maybe he wasn't even there, you walked over to the stream and washed your face, maybe if you woke up you'd stop hallucinating, only if you were lucky. A twig snapped far off in the woody distance. You stood at attention like a deer that sensed danger.

"Who's there?" there was a shadow creeping sketchily along the trees, dodging in and out of sight obviously not wanting to be seen. A voice echoed from the trees

"I could ask you the same thing." You looked around. Shadows everywhere, his voice was coming from every angle all at once, clones?

"I've got nothing to hide so I guess I'll go first. I'm Nyx, a ninja…" you heard a leaf crunch from the tree closer to you. Instinctively, without thinking you threw a kunai at the tree. A poor disheveled half asleep Shikamaru stood with his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.

"What brings you to this neck of the woods?" he said in his sleepy, I-wish-I-never-had-to-do-anything voice. You laughed sarcastically.

"Your just so punny I can't stand it, stop it before my spleen bursts… nothing just trying to wake myself from the nightmarish hallucination that is my day so far, you?"

"Just sleeping. I can't remember how I got here but that doesn't matter." You looked at him like he was insane. How could you just wake up somewhere, not knowing how you got there and be completely fine about it? Shikamaru was a puzzle you were missing a ton of pieces for. "What's so nightmarish about it?" you sighed and thought.

"Nah, don't listen to me I'm being over dramatic." You stood "I'll see you around." He nodded and you took off. You looked both ways every time you rounded a corner just to make sure that no one was there, you simply wanted to go home. Was that so much to ask? You looked left and shifted right, no one. Somewhere in the depths of you mind the jaws theme was playing, overdramatically. You fumbled with the key, trying to make as little noise as possible. The door creaked open slowly light flooded every corner. You dumped the groceries on the floor and flopped down on the couch trying to ignore the irritating stinging that was flowing through your veins. Especially around your ankle, you could only assume this was pins and needles, so again you were forced to go for a walk. You'd been tired for almost a week now it was getting old, very old.

"Hey," said sakura in a more bubbly way then usual.

"Hey," you said off in space. She stared at you in horror.

"Nyx-Chan its 8 in the morning where's angry Nyx?" you looked over at her. You could tell she was staring at the bags under your eyes.

"She's asleep right now but leave a message and she might get back to you later, and she also requests that you don't call her –Chan, it make her skin crawl." She gave you a very sakura look.

"Ha, ha, ha, Nyx-Chan your so edge you need a safety guard. I'll talk to you later when your more you, bye." You watched her walk away. -Did she not hear me?- You muttered to yourself out loud. You could barely even keep your eyes open anymore and this pain in your ankle was ridiculous. Your head slowly drooped down to a place where you were literally walking around in an un-wake able coma.

"Ngh," groaned your sleep walking self. "No, no more."

"Bad time then?" you looked up into Sasuke's ice-cold eyes and met them with your fiercest glare, the one you reserved just for him. "Hmph I'll take that as a yes." You glared at his back as he receded into the distance. You'd never know him to act like that. No one knew him to ever act like that, was he flirting? Maybe he was taking your hate the wrong way, maybe he thought you liked—you common sense took over after that, refusing any thought about Sasuke to cross your now fully awake mind.

FF no one had tried to talk to you while you trained a good sign that things were getting back to normal. It was about 4 so you were in a much better mood, being more of a night person. You smiled as Hinata approached you.

"Hey," you started.

"Hello, how are you Nyx-Chan?" you felt the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

"Good, and don't call me Chan, you?" there was no particular reason for you to dislike being called Chan you just felt it made everything more complex and you'd rather have it nice and simple. She smiled

"Okay then," she looked off into the darkening street. Neji stood waiting for her at the far end. "I'm off." You waved feeling stupid noticing she hadn't looked back anyway. You looked at the elongating shadows. It would take a while to get to your place and the shortest way was through eerie dark very narrow alleyways, somewhere you didn't want to go. You calculated what would be then next best way and while you thought the sun continued to set without your awareness. Once you had snapped fully into conciseness you were almost completely surrounded in the thickest darkness you'd ever been in. you'd been to many villages but somehow this was the most threatening and ominous. All you could do was sit in a small rundown pie shop. The old lady at the counter was staring you down with beady nasty old lady eyes, frown marks and everything.

"How are you doing deary?"

"Oh uh fine." She raised one eyebrow. You stared at her in a jealous wave. You'd always wanted to do that.

"You waiting for someone?"

"No… not necessarily," she looked sour now.

"Come now deary, don't go ahead and spill out your life story I haven't got the time. It's real busy around here lately. " She picked up the broom and started muttering about how horrible children where these days, when a poor old lady tries to make some small talk blah, blah, blah. She looked up as thought she'd had a brilliant idea.

"Want a piece of pie, darling?" ugh you thought. You gave her a look. She smiled revealing missing teeth and the yellowing others that would soon follow. The sight of her face sent shivers down your spine.

"No thanks, I'm not very hungry." You ignored the piece of ice-cold unidentified red filling filled piece of pie she'd set down in front of you, you thought it was some sort of berry.

"Have some, sweetie, you seem down." You pushed the pie to the other side of the table

"Really, its ok." The lady sat down across from you and smiled her freaky twisted, toothless smile. She looked you in the eye. She wouldn't look away. You knocked the plate on the floor.

"I don't want any of your freaking pie."

"I think I know what's the matter." You saw it in her eyes it was terrifying. She saw right through you. "You know you can't hide it." you heart almost stopped as the bell jingled. You looked at the boy in the doorway with a calm mask covering your face. Your insides relaxed as you let out a breath.

"Hey, Gaara." He looked at you with an amazingly expressionless face. He looked at the lady, the pie on the floor, your clearly fake calm face, and the freaky old lady who seemed to blink less often then most people.

"Am I interrupting?"

"Uh, no I was just on my way out actually, uh, bye." With a whip of your hair you turned out the door in the ominous too thick to be natural darkness. Gaara began to walk away something inside of you panicked. You didn't like to be alone. You hit something hard, a wall of sand.

"are you following me?"

"No, just headed in the same direction." The sand pushed you to your feet and retreated. An awkward silence drifted over the two of you. It wasn't a comfortable silence. you both felt it. He continued to walk and you continued to follow, like a puppy who'd lost its owner. You were a bit nervous. I mean, you were only human. You'd heard a lot of rumors about him, Not very good ones at that, but right now he was your only option.

"I haven't seen you around before." There had been this one rumor. "Where are you from?" it had freaked everyone else out.

"Around." Why? It was only a rumor. It shouldn't scare people that much.

"Where do you live?" he was a…

"Around." He'd killed? No, that wasn't it. it had something to do with a demon you knew that, like Naruto the rumor was that he was like Naruto with a demon sealed inside of him. There had been something else, blood? Sand? It had been a story that was it, one from the chunin. Gaara had killed someone with sand… and it smelt like blood. He also like to… that was it. You couldn't even bear to think about it. You knees were weak.

"You're scared aren't you?" you groaned internally. Had it been that obvious? Could he sense it? "Then why are you still following me?"

"I told you. I live around here." You might not be very good at masking your emotions but you were an amazing liar. He wouldn't be getting the truth out of you ever. He obviously sensed that he wasn't the only thing you were scared of.

"I'll walk you there then." He puzzled you. His icy inflection suggested that he'd rather eat cow dung then walk you home and yet he was still forcing himself to do it. He followed you for a while in a chilly silence. He forced himself to speak. "Are you scared of something?" you glared at him.

"No." you snapped. You had to force the temptation to sneer away. "Sorry," there was an awkward silence as you reached the door of your small apartment "thanks, a lot."

"Hmph" an enigma, just like Naruto. You flicked on the lights and slammed the door. You flopped down on your bed after traveling over the sea of decay that was your floor, fully dressed and gently closed your eyes.