—Quantum: Part I—
I want your innocence as long as it's dead
Sakura woke up with the scent of iron sweeping through her nose.
The odour was off-putting and almost eerie, to say the least. It had a sweet tinge that was all too familiar but left a sourness in the air.
She opened her eyes, blinking once, blinking again. She never remembered everything being this dark. The black spots in her vision cleared, however it wasn't much lighter to her view. All Sakura could see in front of her were bars. Bars placed strategically apart to give the illusion where escape was capable.
That's when it hit her. This place smelt like prison. Well, not that she had ever been; yet it would be what she would assume. It was humid and dirty but there was a hint of antiseptic. She had always hated antiseptic—it was always too clean, especially in such a contaminated area as this.
In anxiety, she hurriedly checked her own state, only to no avail. Her wrists were locked with a pair of chains against the war behind her, and her legs were bind together with rope weathered enough to give her a burn if she had fidgeted around too much.
She leant on her side, her cheek flush against the damp cement that was oily with something liquid, something too warm. She stared forward, expecting to see the banality of nothing. Hopelessness.
Instead, she met the closed eyes of her best friend.
—
She knew it was him.
Nobody else had the exact idiosyncratic blonde hair and tanned skin, even if his hair was tattered and bludgeoned with blood and his skin was scarred with wounds and bruises. He was similarly inhibited by chains and rope as she was.
Naruto...
Suddenly Sakura didn't want to even look at herself closely.
She reached forward as instinct to inspect, care, save. Of course, she was restrained by the chains and the soreness of her muscles and aching of her bones only intensified with this slight movement. She felt she had been beaten savagely, but under the guise of unconsciousness.
She probably had been.
—
She wondered if their captors were going to starve them to death.
Dehydration could probably do it quicker, though. Sakura had grown accustomed to licking her lips every few seconds just to salvage the saliva that now acted as her only thirst-quenching resource.
Naruto still hadn't woken up. She had to remind herself he wasn't dead by the slow rise and drop of his chest. She forced herself just to go to sleep, to hide away from the horror of the situation, though it was difficult to fall into slumber knowing that she might wake up and find Naruto truly dead.
Her lapses into sleep were fleeting anyway, often woken up by clattering sounds that she couldn't distinguish. Maybe it was her captors.
Maybe it was more victims.
—
One night, Sakura catches a faint discolouring in the darkness amongst the bars that laid in front of her.
Movement was enough to find in the constant static of the location, and she knew she saw something in the air falter. Perhaps she was dreaming, or at least half-asleep, when she finds a pair of obsidian eyes gazing into her fading emeralds.
The eyes stay there for minutes. She questions the coal of the eyes. They are so pure and potent as the black of the night, but they are bright.
That is, until they blaze into red so infernal she swears she sees the sun.
—
This time, when Sakura wakes up, a rush of air as fresh as the snow floods her senses.
The air feels like drops of icicles down her throat and the coldness of it sets the adrenalin rushing through her veins. The humidity of the barred room is not missed, but the familiarity of it is.
She feels a congregation of presences around her, hooded in shadows and dead silent. There are whispers of voices that flutter away from her ears, and she feels afraid to open her eyes. When she does, there is a burning that aches in her eyelids from so many nights spent struggling to say awake.
She opens her eyes to meet several turned backs.
A figure steps forward, escaping from the mask of the shadows, only to reveal a great mane of stygian hair. The person walks towards her with deadly intent which could've been so easily mistaken for heavenly grace. A menacing grin slips onto the now established male's lips, and his red eyes glint with diabolic phosphoresce. Multiple pairs of eyes follow, unravelling in synchronisation.
His grin only widens as Sakura darts her eyes back and forth between the mysterious and frightening people. Her skin freezes and she feels brittle and alone. Naruto remains unconscious and she is afraid, so utterly afraid—until the enthralling man slips his hand forward for her to take.
She hesitates, and he laughs melodically, too clean for someone who seemed so tainted. "Now, dear, let's not take too much time. We have a preposition to grant." His voice is sickly sweet; a captor seducing its find.
Deliberating no other option, she reaches forward, meeting her eyes with crimson. She sees how aged this man really is in the few seconds she nears to him. He has wrinkles on his skin, but he doesn't fail to pronounce a strong facial structure, his jaw sculpted into blades. The other faces that leer towards her remain hidden in the dark.
She grasps his hand and the second she does, she is electrified with an unknown force that churns up her wrist and into her body. She feels stunned as she falls onto the floor
He laughs again, and his tone becomes much more harsher now. "Or should I say a demand to force. You will not be able to refuse. For now, sleep, my dear." The words drain into the distance as she disintegrates into oblivion.
—To Be Continued—
Questions can be asked in reviews