Smile and Look Alive
#50 Black Rose/Death
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
She turned her head from side to side - the stench of death was everywhere, decaying bodies of comrades, of friends, of lovers surrounding her, blood soaked sand, fires raging in the distance, the occasional clash of metal signaling that elsewhere the battle raged on.
Temari breathed in but nothing happened, she tried again and got the same result. What was happening to her? She wasn't badly hurt, just a few minor cuts and bruises littering her body. She tried to breathe and choked instead, then began coughing violently, violently. She sank to her knees, unable to breathe, the stench of rotting flesh clogging her nose, a sea of painful images filling her mind, her own hands stained in blood that would never come off no matter how many times she washed them.
She began to scream, a hollow, piercing sound, the sound of something dying, dying a painful, agonizing, terrible death, the sound of something frightened of what would come next, fearing the unknown. This wasn't how she should die, she who had caused so many deaths herself, she who had sent so many to the same place she was about to go. Her screams grew, in intensity, in volume, in agony, in -
"Temari! Temari, wake up!" Her eyes snapped open - Shikamaru's (beyond concerned, now downright panicked) face swam before her. She was breathing hard, taking one shaky, shallow breath after another - eyes widened, she was breathing. A sigh of relief broke the uneven rhythm of her breaths - she was breathing again. She wasn't dead, she wasn't dying. Not yet, not yet.
"What's wrong? What happened? You just started screaming in your sleep - it was...What happened?" He sounded breathless, he looked scared.
Temari shook her head - she didn't want to talk about it, couldn't explain that she had just foreseen her own death, couldn't express the terror she'd felt, the very, very real fear.
"It's - it's nothing." She climbed out of bed and walked out of the room, left him staring after her in bewilderment. She could feel his eyes on her as she left, as she walked through the hall and as she entered the kitchen, even though she knew he couldn't possibly see her there.
She paused and looked around the dark kitchen, unsure of what to do next - she'd just wanted to escape that room, with his confused, questioning gaze. She breathed in again slowly, deeply - she could breathe again. Relief, sweet relief.
She moved towards the cupboard, took out a glass, went to the sink to fill it. As she raised her hand to the tap, she saw it - the rose he had given her that day, that very day, it had turned black.
Breathing shakily, she stepped back, eyes glued to the black rose as the dream, nightmare, vision came back to her. Death, death as far as the eye could see. She dropped the glass and opened her mouth and it issued forth - that same, dark, hollow scream.