She dreamt of eyes.
Well, she wasn't completely sure, but they sure did look like eyes.
Two glowing orbs floating next to each other in pure darkness.
This wasn't the first time she dreamt of them.
She had been having this same dreamt for as long as she could remember.
Sometimes the dream didn't come for a few weeks, and she would be relieved, hoping that the creature which the eyes belonged to had finally left her alone.
But it always turned out the creature came back for her.
It was unsettlingly familiar.
Every night it showed up, she had this paralyzing urge to not look away.
Never look away.
It terrified her to her very bones.
She never told anyone about these dreams.
She was afraid they'd think she was going crazy.
She was afraid she was going crazy.
After years, she had finally worked up the courage to look away.
She closed her eyes and counted to three.
One, two, three.
She opened her eyes again and woke up screaming.
It had been closer.
Terrifyingly closer.
It was still too far away to make out what it was in the darkness, but it was more the thought of the creature closing the distance that kept her safe from it.
Her teammates had of course been alarmed by her screaming.
They had shared a tent.
They were in the middle of war.
That day, Neji died in that war.
She saw it as a sign.
The creature had punished her for looking away.
Yet she did it again the next night, because she felt broken and she needed to know.
Eyes closed.
One, two, three.
Eyes opened.
It was close.
Too close.
It was barely twenty steps away from her.
It was still too dark to see, so she closed her eyes again.
When she opened them again, all she saw was darkness.
It wasn't there anymore.
She spun around desperately, trying to find it.
But it wasn't there.
She collapsed down onto her knees.
She had screwed up.
Looking down at her hands, she found that even that she couldn't see, so she looked up again.
She did not have time to scream.
The eyes were right there.
She felt empty.
Like her heart had been ripped out, and the pain was so numbing she didn't even know.
Oh.
Oh.
Shouldn't have looked away.
Never look away.
That morning, Huuga Hinata did not wake up.
Her teammates were severely confused by her unresponsiveness.
When they removed her blankets, Kiba threw up.
Shino was barely able to keep his own bile down.
There was a hole through her chest.
No blood.
No marks.
Just emptiness.
That night, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino had the same dream.
A dream of two floating little orbs in the distance, surrounded by darkness.
Both of them had an unsettling feeling.
Don't look away.
Never look away.