It starts with a viral video, as all trends seem to do so nowadays. The sounds are muffled, and it looks like someone filmed it with a potato, but what can be seen catches like a wildfire and has authorities become more alert when gathering news, a cloak of anxiety draped upon them and whispering in their ears. For in that video, as much as can be clearly seen, a child is on the ground, writhing, as adults, presumably the child's parents, tear him open with a kitchen knife and feast on his innards.
The video is censored as soon as possible, news teams reporting it as cultist activity, something only the truly depraved would do. But Sasuke has seen the video before it was censored on youtube, saw the shaky footage that was filled with gasps and growls and sobs until the meagre 37 seconds cut off into black.
Everybody is talking about it at school.
Teachers curb the gossip as much as they can, restrict internet access and websites when they can, have assemblies on the issue when they can, and yet they cannot stop it. The video. The rumour. The fear. Who's next? Everyone asks, many think it's a hoax, and would laugh it off with a bit too much unease in their voice. But time passes, other news happens, and everybody forgets about it for a little while.
And then it happens again.
Except this time, this time, it happens on live TV. They're just showing the local evening news, and Sasuke's whole family is sat down on the sofa, his father half watching while reading his paper, as his mother knits and he and his brother scroll through their phones. And then there's a scream on set, and they all look up, Fugaku's brows creased in confusion, Mikoto's gave flickering from the expressions of the anchors. And then a man that looks far too much like a corpse bursts onto the set, covered in gore and blisters and faeces-
And lunges at them.
Smashes the woman's head in on the corner of the table.
Tears the man's throat out with his teeth, blood flecking the camera.
Agonized screams sound throughout the studio as he feasts on them and-
Black.
Black just like the ending of the video one month ago, and the Uchiha household stares at the screen in shocked silence, whatever else they were planning to do forgotten. After a carefully measured silence, Fugaku announces, "Bed." and both of the boys stand, dazedly making their way to their rooms. Sasuke hears Mikoto stumble off and throw up into the toilet while Fugaku paces restlessly.
That night, they sleep with their door triple locked, their windows shut and covered with cardboard, and Sasuke sleeps in the same bed as his brother. And if his brother's grip is a little too tight and Sasuke shakes in spite of the shared warmth, neither brother says anything.
…
It isn't any better by morning.
The footage is everywhere despite the government's attempts to calm the public. Everyone is panicking, scientists are struggling to explain the events, and everyone is scared. Sasuke and Itachi still go to school, but this time their parents walk them, stances wary and gazes cautious, as if they could be taken away at any moment like the presenters last night. The news station has still not yet thought of a convenient enough story to cover what happened last night, the replacements sitting warily where the others died, where faint bloodstains can still be seen.
The school is in chaos.
Naruto, for one, is uncharacteristically quiet and subdued, sporting more bruises today that Sasuke has ever seen him have (what else is to be expected when he wrestles with every other kid in the school for fun?). But this time he is withdrawn, not boasting about his wins, and conveniently buttons up his collar from where some purple peeks out.
Sakura is filled with nervous energy, tittering to and fro between Ino and Sasuke, pointedly ignoring Naruto. Whether it is out of disdain or worry or something else, Sasuke does not know. Instead she rambles on about how more and more people are getting sick, discussing all of the systems as if she is the doctor she already wants to be.
But when they go to class and Iruka is not there, no one says a word. Instead, they all stay silent, keeping to the irrational fear that if nobody says it, then he'll be back tomorrow. They take their lessons as normally as they can, though with heightened stress this time. They aren't allowed outside for breaks as much, and police start guarding the perimeter. More and more teachers and older students are disappearing from the school from sickness, and Sasuke feels a deep unease weigh on his shoulders as dread makes itself at home in his belly.
Their substitute teacher doesn't last a week.
A day afterwards, the country is in a state of epidemic.
School is being shut for the time being, parents and the remaining teachers and councillors determining it a place too dangerous, for diseases can spread quickly. So they stay home, Fugaku doesn't go to work, and they do the only thing they can do. Watch television.
They watch as foreign medics make themselves at home in their land, determined to save lives as the patients spill into the hospitals like a tsunami. They watch as more and more police clash with random citizens, as citizens attack each other and end up having their heads bashed in by batons. They watch as everything starts falling apart, as the news becomes more and more scarce, as a pandemic is announced, as everyone is more afraid of what's happening than a nuclear war.
And then their TV is no more.
They turn it on one morning as they settle around it like a camp fire, Mikoto clinging to her steaming cup of tea and Fugaku clenching a week old newspaper and Sasuke hugs a cushion, Itachi remaining sitting solidly. A press of the remote and the screen comes up blank. No channels, not a single one. Sasuke checks his computer but the internet has gone down, and he can't contact his friends anymore.
Stress settles into the household more so than ever, and conversations are tense. Itachi has bags under his eyes and lines on his face that don't seem to go away as easily anymore. Mikoto slips up when knitting more often and stares out of the cracks of their boarded up windows, looking at nothing. Fugaku just paces, and paces, and paces. And Sasuke? Sasuke worries. They aren't allowed to go outside anymore. The only time when they're allowed to do that is to get food and this is a quiet and tense affair indeed. They all go in the car together, Mikoto and Fugaku running in the store and out as fast as they can, tending to stick to canned foods, ones that will last. Like they're expecting this to last, to not go away. But still, even though they've never been closer before (mostly in terms of proximity), times are still tense.
And then the power goes out.
This is something they had been expecting, at least, so they take out the candles they had been stockpiling and light them when it gets dark. They would often open the windows to let some clean air through, until they hear thumping and muffled screams from the house next to theirs, and then they don't open the door anymore, not for anything.
They store any and all water they can, expecting that to be cut off soon. They bathe infrequently and eat less. This doesn't stop Mikoto's worried glances to the pantry. But there are moments, though, moments where everything is not so bad. They all played scrabble past midnight one night, Sasuke ending up making false words as Itachi bumped him on the head with his dictionary. Mikoto would laugh and Fugaku would sneakily exchange some of his letters with Itachi's. They'd have some nights where they'd all sleep together in the living room and tell funny stories until they fell asleep. Sasuke once got so bored he even asked his mother if she could teach him how to knit. Delighted, she started showing him the basics and couldn't repress a laugh in time to see Itachi doing the same, and at a much swifter rate. It almost gave a feeling of normalcy.
Then Mikoto got sick.
It starts as a slight cough, Mikoto dismissing it as a lack of water and they carry on their day as normal. Or rather, as normal as they can. That night she throws up her meagre meal. Fugaku is concerned – she'd met someone in the store the last time they went – and so he shows his concern by putting her away in their room and keeps they boys out. For days. And days. He comes out for food, looking more and more haggard each time. Sasuke wants to intervene, and Itachi does as well, so he keeps Sasuke back, for all of their sakes.
Then Fugaku stops coming out as well.
Sasuke occasionally hears groans of pain from the room, wheezing sounds and the splash of vomit. The stench gets so bad one night he and Itachi silently agree to roll up towels and put them under their door. Sasuke pleads and pleads for Fugaku, for Mikoto, for his parents to come out of the room, to say something, anything. But instead, he is greeted with silence and is too afraid to disturb them if they are sleeping, and too afraid to go in if they are not.
So they wait some more, watch as their supplies dwindle, as their reserves of water get less and less, as they get less and less sleep and more and more stressed. And then, one night, Sasuke is woken by a loud thump from across the hallway. He looks to his side and finds the bed empty of his brother. Worried that his brother may have collapsed, may have gotten sick, Sasuke tiptoes out into the hallway and, upon finding it empty, follows the sound to its source. To his parents' room.
He carefully avoid the creaks in the floor as he gets closer, dust particles lighting up from the stray moonlight beams that peek through the gaps in their boarded up windows. And when he gets there, so slowly, too slowly, he realises the door is open. It is like permission is granted to him. And Sasuke, with an air of naïve hope that his parents are better he pushes open their bedroom door, eyes widening as he taken in the sight of
their mangled corpses
their blood shot eyes
their detached heads
and the sight of his brother standing over them – their corpses- with a shovel in his hand, bloodied.
And it is when Sasuke lunges at his brother with an anguished cry, it is then that he knows his world has truly dissolved into hell.
A/N: YOU GUYS Naruto keeps stealing my attention I NEED HELP. Also, if some of you may have noticed, this is heavily inspired by Charlie Higson's The Fear series, which is absolutely incredible, so if you've read it, you may have some idea of what's to come ;D Hopefully I can stick with my inspiration *knock on wood* and see this story to the end. Anywho, see you in the next chapter!