SCREAMING INFEDELITIES
CHAPTER ONE: Off Guard
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I'm just learning.
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His smile gleamed terrible. It gleamed terrible in the way only a shit-eating grin can. How it gleamed terrible I can't exactly describe. It split his face in to two parts, one of which was in a way sad looking and in another a way that looked somewhat amused. Half grimace, half surprised delight. This is what adorned his face from time to time. By time to time I mean not very often. By not very often I mean I only saw him smile once-and that was when he found me. Half dead on the side of the road. I should hope that if I ever find someone half dead on the side of the road I would never smile. It really is a terrible thing to do when you think about it.
I can't say I hated the way his eyes fastened on mine that day because to be honest I kind of liked the feeling. The tension. The seemingly deafening silence. The terror lacing its way in to your blood stream. It made your insides feel too big for your skin. Like your skin would separate and at any moment your organs would start to slip out on to the grass and there he'd be; wearing the exact same shit eating grin on his face and his eyes still locked on yours.
I felt like one of those stupid kids who kept filling the water balloon even though it was on the brink of exploding, as if they were testing the strength of the elastic sheath. Except my hands wouldn't be saturated by a bit of water. It was something much bigger than that; but I hadn't known it yet.
Hell, I hadn't known him yet. After all, we'd just met and he hadn't made a very good first expression by smiling at my demise. But I have to say; lying half dead in the middle of nowhere wasn't much better so I deemed us equals. The truth was, we weren't. He wasn't even human.
I knew this when the smile left his face to let out a roar erupted from his lips.
It was a distinguishable sound. It wasn't just any old roar like one of a lion. Lions; they don't roar just because they can. Oh no, they roar to show the other animals that they are inferior to him. To show that he truly is the king of the jungle. But this roar; this roar was one of pleasure and one of triumph; loud, clear, unashamed, and proud. This roar was his way of showing that he had no remorse for anything he had done and in the way the sound was carried it sounded like the things that he had done weren't good by anyone's standards but his own yet it was not exactly the type of thing you pray to God about either.
Yes, it was then.
It was then I knew the true meaning of the word.
Monster.
Creatures like him; they're not born like this, mind you. They're created by the consequences of their own actions, so intricately warped in their own desires they can't tell right from wrong until it's too late and they no longer care.
I crawled towards him that day. I'm not sure why I did; I don't remember ever being that stupid. I was just a little girl then and I was scared more than I ever remember being. Ever scary story cliché I read began to go off at random times. My Goosebumps had Goosebumps. It felt like I was like in those cartoons; how they exaggerate a character's heart pounding out of their chest except it wasn't only my heart it was everything; my lungs, my organs; my throat. Hysterics. Insanity. Adoration. Idolization.
Monstrosity at it's very best.
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"Mr. Hyuuga, there's someone who wants to see you."
Click.
I don't remember when it all began, who started it, and if it really mattered. But it started with that simple announcement.
With that simple statement, "Mr. Hyuuga, there's someone who wants to see you." to be exact, my whole life changed. I mean to be perfectly honest I wasn't always like this.
Or maybe I was.
Maybe my mind was closed to that fact.
Maybe my eyes were just lying.
It was disgusting about how it all happened. How, without hesitation I clicked that button and told my secretary to let them in, how by just doing my job I was punished.
I was just your average businessman. Firm handshake, dead personality, and a perpetual stack of paperwork accenting my desk at all times. So why did they choose me?
Anyone else could be more qualified than me. My special talents include being able to not say a word for weeks on end and the ability to outstare a lamppost. Whilst there are fascinating people in this world. People who can fly airplanes through hurricanes and walk on tiny planks of wood hundreds of feet in the air which really does require large amounts of talent and is quite special when you really think about it.
Think about it.
Yet, they choose me. Hyuuga Neji. A man who can't fly an airplane through a hurricane, let alone fly an airplane itself. A man who can't walk over thin planks of wood hundreds of feet in the air.
This world, this terrible, horrible world never fails to astound me.
BAM.
BAM.
BAM.
It was quick. Fast and sharp. A knock that was full of business and not much else.
"Come in"
And with a twist of the doorknob my adventure began.
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Sundown painted purple across the building that Hyuuga Neji spent most of his days in.
Haruno Sakura, in said building, looked steadily the horizon from the window of his office, Neji looking steadily at her.
After a record setting fifteen minutes of nothingness Neji impatiently decided to make small talk.
"What do you want?" Neji addressed everyone in this manner. Short, rough and essentially to the point.
"You." Sakura said sharply, as if he had no other option but to oblige to her wishes.
Truthfully, he didn't.
But try telling Neji Hyuuga that and see where that gets you.
A one way ticket to the center of the earth and not much else.
His mind worked like that.
"An odd but not rare request." Neji mused, rolling her answer around in his mind, loosening his tie, thinking of all the girls who tried to ask him for "coffee", "Thanks but no thanks."
"I need you to come with me."
Neji raised one eyebrow, "Look, Miss," He looked at Sakura blankly.
"Haruno. Haruno Sakura." She returned the look.
"Miss Haruno, I need you to get out of my office and preferably sometime in the next five seconds because so help me God I will snap and rip all that pretty little pink hair from your skull," he smiled politely.
Sakura smirked as she sat atop his desk, "I don't think you'd want me to go down there alone," she cooed, placing her lips next to his ear, "it's a little dangerous,"
She giggled.
It was official; this girl, this Haruno Sakura, scared the living shit out of him. But he opted for not showing it. She was a girl. An extremely demanding bipolar girl but she was a girl nonetheless. He was; he was a man. Although he couldn't have been more than a year older than her the difference between him and her was that he knew when to stop. That separated the boys from the men and although she could never be either of those choices without aid of surgery it was clear that she hadn't grown up yet.
"Get out," he said, pretending to be immersed in his paper work.
"I told you, Neji-kun, it's dangerous," she batted her eyelashes, "especially for a girl like me to be walking alone,"
Alone.
That caught Neji's attention immediately.
"If I walk you out will you never come back again?" he grunted, putting down his pen, watching the blue ink slowly ooze out of tip and looking up at the girl who had her head cocked and sideways smiled at him innocently.
"That's a possibility," she purred.
"If it's the only one then let's do it," he sighed, getting up from the hard wood seat letting a few papers drift lazily to the floor.
Screaming.
Lots and lots of screaming. All at once, as if he triggered a special button by opening the door that made every man, woman, child, thing, in the building, in the town, in the world, scream with pure unadulterated terror.
He didn't know why he started to walk down the hallway, toward the screaming. He knew that it couldn't be something good but each time the voices jumbled together it only deepened his curiosity more and more and more until he could hardly stand it and he started to run.
Each step, leap, bound he took seemed like they echoed more screams, not loud terror induced yelps but soft, beautiful screams. Screams of a different kind of beauty, the kind that most people don't see if they aren't looking for precisely that.
That is exactly what he got.
The beauty of seeing his secretary in-between the teeth of a creature he could only identify as a monster.
The beauty of seeing his friends, his enemies, his colleagues, complete strangers, strewn across the over turned tables, festering in their own blood.
His eyes widened.
The beauty of it all had gone straight to his head.
Maybe his mind had opened.
Maybe his eyes had stopped lying to him.
Probably.
It was so red, so very, very red, he noted, hardly noticing the beast staring at him with sudden interest.
He didn't even notice when Sakura pressed her smirking lips to his ear and whispered,
"Told you,"
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PLAYLIST
Rockstar Nailbomb! – The Fall Of Troy
Jesus Christ- Brand New
Run, Gunner Recall, Run! The Town Wants You Dead- The Prize Fighter Inferno
I Hate Jimmy Page- Mindless Self Indulgence
Closing Down The Pattern Department- Daphne Loves Derby
It's All Downhill From Here- New Found Glory
Calling All Cars- Senses Fail
Act Appalled- Circa Survive
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Well Jesus Christ I'm alone again.
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
Cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend.
Well Jesus Christ I'm not scared to die.
I'm a little bit scared of what comes after.
Do I get the gold chariot?
Do I float through the ceiling?
Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark.
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