Shuddering breaths left Sasuke's open mouth and clouded in front of his face in puffs in the cold air. His throat felt raw, as if he had been screaming and crying. Maybe he had been. He couldn't remember. All that existed was the prone form that lay so still in front of him. Nothing else. Not the past, or the future. Nothing.

"Nuh-oh." Sasuke's tongue didn't work right. The word "no" was drawled out from him in a voice that wasn't his own, it was twisted and the word was not pronounced right. It sounded tortured and pathetic.

Looking once again down to the twisted, mutilated form of his mother, carefully he lowered his face near hers and put his arms around her.

"No," he choked out again, biting down on his lip.

Cries were clawing at his through in an effort to escape him, like they were demons looking for escape from the cavern that was his lungs. Sure enough he felt a hysterical sob break free. His eyes filling with tears, he moved a hand to cover his mouth, but it was no use.His already quaking body began to tremble harder as his soft cries became harsher and he began screaming. Tears dripped down his cheeks as he took his mother by the shoulders with his small hands and shook her.

"No, no, no! Mommy, no!" he cried out over and over again. He could feel hysteria sinking in. It was like a poison, almost as if he had been bitten by a snake. Slowly, it moved through his body, to all his organs, like it was killing him. He felt it reach his heart.

Mothers weren't supposed to die and leave their six year old sons alone. It wasn't fair, Sasuke loved mommy, and he was a good boy.

"You can't die," he said it in a strangled voice that broke. The tears continued to flow down his cheeks and he looked down to his hands. Wet. They were wet and red. Blood. He looked around the room and at his mother. Blood. It was everywhere. He hadn't noticed it before. His mother really was dead. Gone. Forever. Dead. Dead. Dead. She was dead.

Sasuke began to hyperventilate. Black dots danced across his vision, and the world turned and seemed to spin sickly, the last thing Sasuke saw was a large animal. A wolf. No, a werewolf. Right near the door, outside in the black night that's peace hadn't been broken by the massacre of his family.

The sakura trees had been so red that day. Sasuke wondered how many people had died beneath them.

Sasuke fell, and the world went black.