Scarlet dreams

Prologue

The corridor was too narrow, dark and empty. It was also very quiet; the only things she could hear were her own breathing, her own heartbeats, and her own quick, desperate footsteps. She noticed her feet were bare; she could feel the soft carpet against her skin, burning and caressing at the same time. But... why was she bare-feet? Where were her shoes?

Where was she?

She was in a house, but it was not her own. She'd never been there, and she didn't wanted to stay for too long because it was a dark, lonely place that made her feel trapped like a bird in its tiny cage, and scared like a shipwrecked person in a huge island. She wanted to leave, but she wanted even more to know how the hell she'd gotten there and what she was doing there.

Her heart was hammering against her chest. Was it possible, she wondered, for it to break her rib cage? She guessed not.

There were doors at both sides of the corridor. The ones at the left faced the ones at the right, and each of them were placed two meters away. She knew she had to try to open them (perhaps the exit was behind one of them), but she did not do it because she had a very strong feeling that they would be locked anyways, that there was no point on trying, that she just had to keep running, to keep seeking desperately for an exit, because, God, this place was suffocating her! She was not claustrophobic, but it seemed like she had just turned into one.

Run, her mind screamed. Find an exit, if it exists. It must exist. There has to be a way to get out of here. Find it, find it...

Gasping for air, she stopped running. Her legs could not keep moving anymore; she was just too tired. How long had she been running? Minutes? Hours? Days? Years? She had no idea. Dammit, she barely knew who she was; she did not know anything else.

She straightened up when her lungs stopped agonizing. Her head suddenly turned to the right, as if pulled by invisible strings, and she faced a door. But it was a different door. It was not gray, like all the others: it was bright red, like the petals of a beautiful rose, and it stood out in that place where everything seemed to be colorless, dark and dull.

She didn't need to look at it for more than two seconds before realizing – feeling it was not locked.

Hesitantly, she reached for the knob. Her pulse had slowed down and her breathing was steady again. She was calm, but worried about what would happen next, what she would find at the other side of that red door. She tried to pluck up courage, to be brave, but didn't succeed. Anxiousness was eating her up.

Finally, she pushed the door open, and she was blinded by an extremely bright white light. She closed her eyes, rightly protecting them from the blinding light, as she opened the door wider and stepped in. Behind her eyelids, everything was pink, and millions of tiny white stars adorned the surface.

Suddenly, the pink was replaced by black. The light had been turned off, or perhaps it had died out. Slowly, she opened her eyes, only to find herself in a small, dark room filled with beautiful furniture: a small coffee table on the middle surrounded by two leather couches; a tall, wide bookcase filled with books sitting against the wall; what appeared to be a very elegant and old-fashioned desk; a wood chair with tall back. The dark, mysterious beauty of the place left her breathless.

The room was semi-dark; she could only see because of the silver moonlight entering through the window at the right. Said window was open; a gentle breeze made the transparent curtains dance to an exotic, silent rhythm. She stepped forward, towards the window, and looked outside. She noticed she was in the second store of the house, because from there she could only see the peaceful night sky, a dark blanket covered by hundreds of stars and a huge full moon, and the crown of several medium-height trees.

How had she gotten there?

Her pulse quickened again, and she breathed the pure night air in to calm down. Exhaling, she turned around and started to walk towards the door, but she did not take more than two steps before something suddenly blocked her path.

A person stood in front of her. She was facing a flat, muscular chest, which clearly belonged to a man. She hadn't seen him there before; he just appeared out of nowhere, or so it seemed. Slowly, she gulped and raised her head to look at the man's eyes, to find out who this person was, if he was dangerous and she should run or if he was harmless and he could help her out of that creepy place.

Her eyes met the darkest eyes she'd never seen before. She couldn't even see his pupils. They reminded her of coal and of the night sky. His skin was pale like snow, and his hair, falling messily over his forehead and temples, and sticking out under his ears, caressing his neck, was as black as his irises. His lips, thin and pink and soft-looking, and his nose, straight and small and perfect, and his jaw line, manly and seductive and delicate...

He was beautiful.

The corners of his lips were pulled upwards, as she stared at him, amazed. His smirk slowly melted into a smile and then into a wide grin.

And then his white, straight teeth were uncovered. They looked perfect but normal at first, but then, under the dim light the moon offered her, she noticed his fangs... and the blood soaking them.

A scream filled with horror, shock and despair rose up from her stomach, through her throat, and escaped through her lips. Then, everything turned as black as the irises of the young man in front of her, and she started to fade away.

Notes:

Well, this is my new story. I've been wanting to write a SasuSaku fic about vampires for a very long time (check out my story The Beauty and the Beast, in case you don't believe me ;D). However, I don't mean to write another cliché story, because I despise clichés, even though I enjoy some. I will do my best to make this interesting and something I'd enjoy to read.

If you've read me before, you've to know this will be different from my other stories, because, well, it won't be about teenage drama or fairies anymore; I want this story to be darker, in some way, to show I'm maturing as a writer (wow, I feel so professional). Expect some horror in this story, by the way! (Yeah, I've been reading too much Stephen King :s)

Oh, and one more thing: I don't have a beta writer, so I'll edit my own stories, and since English is my second language, there might be a few mistakes (hey, I'm not perfect, okay! D:) I don't want a beta, though, because, well... I like to edit my own stories because it's fun :)

Hope you found this prologue interesting and that it made you want to read more. Review and let me know if you loved it and now you're my fan or if you hated it so much you puked all over your keyboard. :D

~tragedyneverends