A/N: This was something I did for my English class with the task "write your own horror story". I don't know how much horror there is in it, but I got an A, so... I'm pleased :D My friend who is into Naruto did not understand it, though. If anything seems obscure, feel free to ask, and I will explain ^_^
Naruto is copyright to Kishimoto!
Illusionary Marshlands
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A train roars in the distance, but with it disappears every other sound, except for the raindrops on the leaves and the tap of my feet on the pavement. Maybe a scream from a bird sometimes. At least I hope it is a bird. There is nothing out here, only some trees and a pavement. The sun is setting soon; I hope I can reach my destination before it gets all dark, so I speed up my pace. Tap, tap, tap.
It is getting colder, and this playing hide and seek with the Devil is wearing me out…
He is watching him – always just watching, but each day walking just one step closer to his back. He doesn't know, does he? No, not yet, not until – and then it is too late. Soon the kid will belong to him, soon, without the other one ever knowing.
My spiky hair is being flattened by the humid mist which is white and everywhere. I pull my dark blue hood closer around me while I almost run along the path – the pavement ended at the last house I passed.
I must have kept my eyes closed, because suddenly I am on the ground, staring blankly at the dark grey sky. A raindrop hits my face just under my eye and runs down my cheek. I shake my head and lower my glare to whatever I might have hit; a man or a boy, taller than me indeed; he is wearing a dark coat and a scarf is covering most of his face; still it seems familiar.
»Excuse me…« I mutter, I feel my cheeks turning red and I try to get back onto my feet, but the man pushes me back on the ground.
»You should not go any further,« he says, and his voice too is familiar. It seems to me that his irises are red, blood red. How can they be?
»Who are you!?« I call out. »Let go of me!« My hands grab a hold of the man's ankle, but he is too strong for me to move his leg. Instead I find a branch on the ground beside me and throw it at him.
He only steps aside with a slight smile that I cannot figure out.
»You're not strong enough,« his voice sounds as if it comes from somewhere else, and before my eyes his body is ripped up and turns into black birds, they are crows or ravens, and they scream and scream, and suddenly they are gone.
I sit up. My heart is pounding and I can hardly breathe, I must hurry on and I cannot heed such strange things just now; it is still getting colder and the sun casts a red light on the clouds in the horizon. So I make my feet carry me on and on through this godforsaken landscape, though I shake myself each time I hear the caw from a bird.
He is getting closer to the kid – almost too close. Too close when that other guy is around, at least. He will have to get rid of him, distract him, so that he can keep the kid to himself. There is no way he is going to share. But soon the kid will, all by himself, have wandered too far, so far that not even the other can help him out…
I stop running to catch my breath. It is dark now; I cannot see a thing and I am no longer sure of why I chose to come here. I check my pocket – Yes, I still do have the note that told the time and place and that 'something interesting will show up'.
I do not know if I find the red eyed boy interesting. I must have been asleep then; someone cannot just turn into something else and thereafter vanish, can they? But, that really isn't, what I should be thinking about now. Shaking my head I start running again. This place only has grass and trees and it is dead silent. I am not entirely afraid of the dark but the silence is creeping me out; I feel like I am trapped and no matter how fast I run, I do not seem to get out of the place. I keep seeing the same trees and the same turns of the path I run along, but it is so dark that I cannot be sure.
A man stands on the path. His long, black hair flutters in a nightly breeze which I don't feel.
»Finally I've found you,« he says.
The kid is his now. Now he can look at his face; it is as beautiful as he had imagined, though he is pouting and confused. But he approaches, apparently he is not afraid.
»Sasuke,« he speaks, slowly. »I've watched you for awhile, for years, actually. But you've finally come to me, and for that I am grateful.«
I have no idea of how he knows my name, and it is a little creepy this »I've been watching you« thing, but I walk up to him. His arms are pale as they reach out for me; his hand, touching my cheek, he leans over me, his face is at my shoulder, no, at my neck, and – something warm and wet is slowly sliding around my throat – is that a tongue?
A tongue cannot be that long… I am fading, but are these sounds from the wings of birds?
Too late he realizes that he is no longer in his own illusion. Someone else has taken it over, or was this just never his illusion?
»Damn you, red-eye,« he mutters, as the surroundings are torn apart in a whirlwind of black feathers.
Home. The sun is rising in east and I am yawning. On my table I find a note, similar to the one in my pocket.
»You will come for me,« it says. My window is left open.