A tear, cold and icy- a single tear- cut its way down her smooth, dry cheek. Truly it couldn't be called a tear because it was microscopic, and it didn't leave a tangible trail on her face. But it didn't care what was thought of it, because it still made its way down and down to her jaw line, the corner of her mouth, to her chin and only now did it pause.

She didn't acknowledge its existence. Nothing existed. Well, more so nothing that couldn't care existed.

The clothing on her back didn't care what she felt. The air, cold and much too clear, wrapping its icy arms around her didn't care about what she had done. The warm liquid at her feet didn't care why. She closed her eyes. They didn't care therefore they didn't exist. What was lying on the floor in front of her couldn't care anymore. So they couldn't exist.

She squeezed her forest green eyes tighter waiting for pain, death, justice, whichever came first, she really didn't care which at this point. 'Breathe. Breathe.'

This was the first thought she'd had since it had happened. So far it hadn't killed her. She had read from articles those humans who underwent extreme trauma pretty much experienced an internal death if they didn't kill themselves.

Was she traumatized? And if so, what kind of death had she experienced? She didn't know. She couldn't feel anything. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't hear anything. Why? Because nothing existed. Everything that was, was dead.

Actually, she knew that nothing ever died. Not people. Not memories. They just found a way to leave the main room, which was life in the house that is the universe, and went to one of the back rooms. Apparently whatever or whoever went there was much better off than in the main room full of sick people who were pretty much capable of anything because they never returned.

But she wasn't in the main room anymore. She wasn't in the back room either. She was in the hallway of existence. The other rooms, they didn't exist. They were just places to kill time until you were ready to leave them behind. She was all by herself in this hallway. The only light she held was a single candle. Her life. It didn't make much of an impact against the void-like darkness, but then again, she didn't really want to. What she really wanted was to sink to the floor, to breathe in existence, or let it swallow her whole.

She went slowly down. Her knees steadily bent. Her behind met the warm thickness of the carpet, and then recognized the wetness that soaked through her skirt. She frowned, disappointed.

'What a mess!' A second thought. She stared at the carpet. It was a sickening dark brown with crimson still running brightly through it. In places where the area was not very well lit, the color was even a telltale black.

A third thought: 'Someone else will have to clean it up. I'm tired.'

She lifted herself up off of her behind, and shifted her weight until she was on all fours. She slowly crawled along the soaking, thick carpet to what was holding her attention. Nothing existed right? So why should she hurry? She pushed aside the deep purple material, and continued to pull herself ever closer.

She stopped, finally having reached her destination. She picked the head up and placed it on her lap. The raven strands of hair were slick with the same liquid on her and all over the once crème carpet. She smoothed them over her thigh, and out of the wide-open coffee brown eyes.

"You used to be so beautiful." She whispered to it, leaning her head down to lightly brush her own against the icy lips, locked forever in a silent scream. It was interesting because she had never heard a scream. She hadn't heard anything after what she had seen. She guessed that was when everything had stopped existing. Whether for her or the rest of the still sleeping world, she didn't care to know.

Tired of this, she pushed it off of her lap, and stood. She hated being here now. If she was going to be locked in a void of existence by herself for the rest of her life then fine, but she wasn't going to spend it here. She reached for her trench coat, tossed behind the door ages ago, three hundred dollars, and a single cigarette and lighter.

Standing out on her front porch, a good hour or so before dawn, she allowed the memory to come back. She would let it move on to the back room before she left.

The key didn't make a single sound when she pulled it out of her purse. She sighed, finally sticking it into the front door lock, and turning it slightly. Her journey from Suna was done. She was allowed the night to relax with him. Maybe if she asked nicely, he would rub her aching feet for her.

The key only made the smallest of clicks, then scratches as she dislodged it from its current position. She stepped out of her shoes and onto the cool kitchen tile. It was dark, not that she expected him to be in the kitchen at this time of night.

"Shika?" she called, removing her hair from its elastic bands and stepping onto the thick crème carpet of the living room. The couch was empty. 'Could he be in the back room? Well of course, it's five after midnight he's probably asleep.'

She couldn't have been more wrong.

She turned to the back room. The bedroom. The place where they had spent so many tender moments, where he had said he loved her. That was probably the best place for her to be right now.

"Shika," she whispered once more, pushing open the door. Her next words caught in her throat. There he was. She wanted Shikamaru and she had found Shikamaru…with Ino Yamanaka.

He was on top of her, raven hair plastered to his neck from sweat, her naked thigh was on the outside of his hip, and his hands were on either side of her platinum hair. He looked at the direction of the sudden light. Coffee brown eyes clashed with forest green. Temari's attention was then turned to the young woman, who was moving from under the Nara and covering herself with a sheet, embarrassment and annoyance prominent in her sky blue eyes. Their clothes littered the floor. A purple skirt here, a black mesh shirt there…

"Shikamaru, what the hell is this? I thought you said she wouldn't be home for another hour!" The other blonde ranted getting out on the other side of the bed.

'Well look at that.' Temari spoke in her mind.

"Don't worry about it, baby." He stated, pulling the comforter around his exposed bottom half.

'Baby?'

"Temari…"

She didn't wait for an explanation. She pulled the gun that she kept in her purse for protection out and shot the blonde right between the eyes. Who knew that she had such great aim?

"Ino!" Shikamaru screamed, turning to try to save the young woman. 'Oh, so he did scream.' Temari wouldn't let him run for her or any other woman again. She shot once in his back, twice, in his head, soon the she had emptied the gun. Not once did she hear a single shot. Not once.

The deed was done now. It was over. Those two weren't really dead, just still in the back room. The memory wouldn't die. It would be engraved in her heart, and soaked, like the blood, into her hands and clothing no matter how many times she washed. She would not die. She existed, and she had made it very clear to herself that nothing that existed could die.

She kicked over the gasoline tank that they always kept handy. It's contents spilled over the surface of the porch. It was too much like how the blood spilled from Shikamaru's back. She couldn't watch, so she turned around, but she couldn't escape the cruel smell. She lit the cigarette.

She herself didn't smoke. It was a nasty habit that Shikamaru had picked up from Asuma, but she lifted the burning object to her trembling lips anyway. It tasted disgusting. It was bitter, evil, and for some reason, tasted of death. It didn't matter; she wasn't going to smoke the whole thing anyway. It was more in homage to Shikamaru, and a flip off to Ino and what they did.She backed off of the porch.

"You used to be so beautiful…" she repeated again to the two ghosts staring at her from the window. They didn't bother her. They didn't exist. She flicked the lit cigarette into the gasoline soaked porch and it had barely touched the surface of the wood before the entire thing caught fire.

At forty-five minutes until sunrise the orange and ruby flames licked at the surface of the wood. It entranced her, spreading like water across the beautiful outside of the neat little house, leaving nothing behind in its wake but black ashes. The ghosts stared at the flames and Temari as well, looking slightly disappointed.

"Troublesome," she thought she saw the male mouth. She gave it a bright smile.

Time to go. She left the sight begrudgingly; she wanted to see the bright, enchanting colors of the fire light up the bluish-purple sky. She wondered if the blood was giving it such a deep red.

Twenty minutes until sunrise: she is walking out of the Konoha gates. She could not stay here. She refused to stay here. Maybe she could get a little help from Gaara in Suna. He had killed countless people. He would know how to help her.

She stared back at the retreating village. Somehow she didn't really want to leave. It was a beautiful place, truly. But she made it easy for her to leave. It too didn't exist. No one knew what had happened, thus they didn't care, and again, didn't exist.

How could she remain in a place that didn't exist? It wasn't logical. But she maybe she as well could discontinue to exist. She could get a little help, and then become a recluse.

She could live like that. She could little by little stop existing herself, and eventually go into the back room with them and the memories. Maybe by that time, Ino would've left, and she and Shikamaru could cease to exist together. Yes, she would be looking forward to that.

Sunrise and nothing existed.