When Everything Was Lost

Chapter 1: With Broken Glass

By: dgames

Disclaimer: Naruto characters are Kishimoto's

"Come on Sabaku. Move." Gaara mumbled to himself. His legs felt leaden and he put a monumental amount of effort in every step. That's what he focused on, putting one trembling limb in front of the other. If he let his mind wander he would be in a state of blind panic and rage. It was only shear force of will that he pushed the panic down but he could still feel it tickling at the back of his mind. The anger, on the other hand, was what kept him going. His breath got a little more labored. His limbs shook a little harder, but he kept moving.

The blood was dripping down his leg now, but he trudged on through the thick foliage. His movements were sluggish from the pain searing through his side. In a futile attempt, he gripped onto the gaping wound to stop the blood from leaking. Not for the first time Gaara cursed his father for getting him into this mess. Even in death the old man was ruining his life, and if he didn't find someplace to rest soon he might not make it through tomorrow. And tomorrow was a long ways away.

It was mid morning and the white sunlight contrasted with the dark of the forest as it made it's way through the leaves. It was a blinding effect which was why Gaara had to do a double take. The house was small and white, and he would have thought it was sunlight filtering through a large break in the trees if he didn't look twice. With slowing steps he approached.

From the far distance he had thought it might be abandoned. The paint was chipping off the wood siding and the grass around it almost reached the windows, but as he got closer he saw a neat and clean garden in the back and flowers framing the walkway to the door. He would have dismissed the place if he wasn't in such dire need of a place to rest. He had no desire to break in to someones home. He tried to brush off his discomfort by reasoning that the place looked empty.

Gaara crossed the dirt driveway to peer into a window. The house was only illuminated by the sun peaking through the windows. He was looking into a sparsely furnished living room. Nothing moved. To reassure himself that no one was home he moved to another window. This one around the corner in the back. It was a small dining room. All was silent, except for his labored breathing. He could feel the blood squelching in his shoes as he moved to the back door. He could make out a tiled kitchen through the window of the door. He was up the three steps to the door slower than he would have liked. He tested the handle.

Locked. It was wishful thinking to believe he could just waltz in. The handle jiggled in his grip. He yanked on it harder. The door groaned under the pressure. He snarled at it. He would not be stopped by a locked door. This was his salvation. Gaara threw his shoulder in to the door. It shuddered this time. He yanked and he pulled at the handle. Nothing. He was practically seeing red from frustration, and with a shout he slammed his elbow through the glass of the door.

The glass shattered and clanked on to the floor of the once pristine kitchen. With the newly made entrance he wasted no time in reached through and opening the door. It creaked. Gaara stumbled his way through the threshold, leaning heavily on the door frame. With gasping breathe he fumbled his way towards the counter across from the door. The exhaustion was kicking in. That last stint of desperation taxed his already strained body. He knew he didn't have long, and in his near dive towards the counter in search of a towel he stopped.
A large mass was in the door way off to his right. He could see it out of the corner of his eye. Slowly, he turned to face the darkness. It was a mammoth of a dog. All gray and muscle. And it was just standing there watching him. Its head hung low.

He had thought he would die from blood loss in the end, but this was a turn of events. Being mauled to death by a dog was the last thing he expected. But it was still just standing there. Watching him. Than again, the anticipation might get him first.

Slowly, carefully, he straightened himself from his hunch position, which wasn't much. His fingers gripping the wound had gone numb at some point, he wouldn't have known they were still holding himself if he hadn't looked. But looking made him sick to his stomach at the sight of all of the blood. He could hear it dripping on the floor.
Suddenly, the one dog split into two dogs. "Shit." The room started to spin at an alarming rate, and he closed his eyes. It didn't help. If anything it made the spinning worse. He threw out a hand to steady himself. It landed against something solid.

A crunching noise started to reverberate in his ears, and it hurt, and the dog looked like it perked up and it wasn't looking at him anymore. Things were getting fuzzy and dark now, and he felt like he was falling. The crunching noise was getting louder. Then, everything disappeared.

This was a darkness he hadn't experienced before. It was an endless void making him feel suffocated. It tossed him about till he was bruised and battered, and could take no more. Inescapably, it went on and on. He was being spread and flattened like a flower being pressed. It sucked up any optimistic thought that could have possibly crossed his mind.

Then his eyes flew open to welcome him to a dark and fuzzy world. A sense of panic trickled up his spine, leaving goose bumps in it's wake. He strained to hear over the labored breathing and the pounding in his ears. Faintly there was shuffling and tinging, some sloshing and humming.

His vision was clearing and through the darkness he could make out shapes. A dresser at his feet. A table by his head. A door that was securely shut. A window that channeled the last rays of sunlight into the small room.
The pain, that had before been near crippling, was a dull throb on his abdomen. He tested his limbs, they were stiff. His joints cracked and he grimaced at the discomfort.

He had thought that he would be dragged off by the cops already, lying in some prison cell at worst. This didn't look like a hospital room, or a prison cell. The homeowner must have gotten home in time to save him. He couldn't fathom why anyone would do something like that. He had clearly broken into their house, but here he was alive and patched up.

He lifted the thin blanket that covered his nearly naked form to find the white bindings wrapped around his middle, and from the looks of it they did a good job. The wrappings were clean and tight and the pajama pants lay loosely on his hips.

Dropping the blanket, all he could do was stare at the ceiling. He couldn't imagine the kind of person that would go through all this trouble to clean, change and dress his wounds by them self. Really, he thought, why wait. From the sounds of it that person was somewhere in the house.
He wasted little time sitting up, but it left his side sore and aching. His head spun from the sudden movement. He

gripped his head as it started to pound from all the blood rushing down to his extremities. Laying back down and sleeping off the pain sounded like a wonderful idea now, but he was already up he reasoned. With a soft thump his feet hit the cool wooden floor.

The door opened easily. Light was shining into the long hallway. Steadily, he made the slow and arduous way towards the light.

Each step was harder than the last, till he was panting from the effort. A trickle of sweat slithered down from his temple. He put a hand against the wall to help push himself towards the light.

A click-clacking was coming from the end of the hall and a large canine head peaked around the corner. It's head shadowed from the light streaming out of the room. The dog was watching him with curiosity. The sloshing and humming stopped as did Gaara.

He could hear their soft foot steps and then a pink head appeared, casting a shadow down the hall mirroring it's dog counterpart. His rescuer was definitely female, with her pink shoulder length hair and petite form. Her eyes were wide as she stared at him in shock, but she soon came back to her self and rushed towards him.

"What are you doing?" She admonished him. She slipped an arm around his waste and started to turn him around towards the bedroom. He sagged into her side. She practically dragged him back to bed, and he was left to marvel at the strength the petite woman contained. The dog's click and clacking paws followed behind them.

With a huff, she deposited him onto the bed in the dark room he had vacated only minutes earlier. He felt exhausted from the small trip and the woman was moving his arm out of the way to get a better look at the bandages. He looked down with her and saw black stain blossoming on to the white wrapping. "Damn it." She whispered under her breath. She turned quickly to the desk beside the bed, yanking open a side drawer.

"Stay." She said as she pulled out clean bandages. "Here." She finished and turned around and walked towards the door. The dog plodded after her.

The throbbing in his side started to flair and burn with each passing second. Gaara hissed as a wave of fresh pain rolled through him. When he thought he couldn't take anymore his pink haired host came back to distract him.

A brown bag was sitting snugly on her shoulder, It looked to be as big as her torso, and a bowl of fresh water was in her hand. She flipped the light switch and the over head light flickered on. It was dim and barely reached the dark corners of the room. His petite host wore an expression of determination. Her lips were set and brows lightly creased. The soft light made her expression look sharp and contrasted with her graceful movements as she maneuvered into the room.

"Alright." She said as she placed the bowl on the desk. She deposited the bag next to him and snapped it open. It fell completely in half and laid flat on the bed. She opened the container with red tape on it and pulled out a pair of scissors.

There was a glint in her eyes as she turned her full attention on him. She was tenacious as she set to work on taking the bloodied bandage off of him. Blood was making his skin slick and she did her best to wipe up the excess with the ruined bandage. He couldn't help but watch with a sick sense of fascination as his blood oozed out of his body. The blood looked nearly black in the faint light and he couldn't help but think of his father. Had his father's black heart been passed down to him? That was a terrifying thought, and as the small hands mopped up the inky blood he resolved himself to never resemble that man.

His thoughts were cut short as a new gauze concealed the gore on his side. The pale hands applied pressure, and that's when the pain set in. It sent a shock through his system.

"Fuck!" Gaara exclaimed. It felt like she was rubbing rocks into his side.

"Sorry." She said breathlessly. Her gaze never left his side. "The gauze has some chemicals in it that help stop the bleeding." She explained to him. "See." She said as she pulled away. It left his skin looking red and raw, but he wasn't bleeding any more. But it hurt too much for him to really care about the miracle gauze. The sharp pain hadn't lessened even a little. He grit his teeth and tried not to grown in agony.

A cool damp rag mopped up the blood staining his skin. It helped to ebb the fire that Gaara felt had engulfed his side. After his skin dried she started to wrap him back up. Smoothly she covered his wounded side with the bandage. Her arms wrapped around his back as she passed the end of the bandage to the other hand. Peaches and an acerbic smell of chemicals wafted up to his nose.

She smelled sickly sweet, and her small body emanated a warmth he hadn't felt in a long time. The pain in his side was slowly abating and turning into another ache. Her wrists brushed against the sensitive skin of his ribs and he nearly groaned. She did it again and he froze this time with the realization that this was the woman that saved him. Gaara looked down at the pink head under his chin. She was so close he could feel her puffs of breath caress the skin of his chest. It was too much and than she was pulling away.

She moved her bag onto the desk and pulled down the blankets as far as they could go while he was sitting on them. A cool hand pressed on his shoulder, pushing him towards the bed. His body sank into the soft sheets with little resistance.

"Try and get some sleep." She said as she snapped the brown bag back together. She collected the soiled bandages and bowl of now bloody water and her bag and was out the door with out a backwards glance. Her faithful companion followed her out the door and it clicked behind them.

Before he knew it his eyes were growing heavy. With the next blink he was falling into darkness, but this time it wasn't so empty. This time there was a pink haired woman and a gray dog.

A/N: I don't really know where this idea came from, but it sucked me in. This is also an attempt at a new type of plotting, which is not plotting. I don't really know what's going to happen next. I just have the basic idea for the story, and I'm just going to run with it. This is the kind of plotting Stephen King does and he expands on it more in his book On Writing. It's a fantastic book that I would suggest to any aspiring writers.

Thank you everyone for reading. I would love to hear feedback, so please leave a comment. With lots of love

~dgames