I
Most days were torture for Sasuke Uchiha. He was an intelligent young man at college with good prospects for the future, a group of friends to support him, and he was described as a quietly happy guy, and people really believed that he was ok. They couldn't have been further from the truth.
The death of Sasuke's parents was a shock that killed the poor young boy. Seeing his parents lay, mangled on the floor in a puddle of their own blood sent the once sweet little lad insane with horror and grief. The murderer was never found. There was no one to blame for the atrocity, and somehow, that made the whole thing worse.
Sasuke and his older brother, Itachi, had to start a new life for themselves, but surviving without parents was not an easy task. Every day they struggled to function normally rather than break down and sob as they would have liked to do. Life was hard.
And just as Sasuke was getting over his parent's cruel deaths and felt like he could go on, fate dealt him another blow, and his older brother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. He only had a few months left to live, or so the doctor said.
Again, Sasuke carried on as if nothing had happened, hiding his agony behind a painted smile, and nobody knew at all. Nobody would've guessed what the handsome, smiley male was going through internally, because he wouldn't let them in.
Finally, one day, as Sasuke visited Itachi, he snapped. He walked into the hospital room where Itachi was being treated, brandishing a bouquet of his favourite lilies, and his brother was dead. He laid silently, his glassy eyes staring at Sasuke without seeing him. He screamed and the nurses came rushing in to find the teen curled up in a ball beside the door, and Itachi, dead.
The funeral came and went, and in those numb moments as he worked mechanically, without any feeling, Sasuke could feel his sanity and his emotions draining away from him, till he was left with an empty shell.
Then the agony set in. Every day was manic, his mood plummeting to ridiculous lows, all the while still laughing that wrong, echo of a laugh which once meant something, but was now just a way to placate people and stop them asking questions. His mind was frantic, his body tired, and life became unbearable for the boy.
And one day, the grief cleared away, leaving him with utter clarity and an understanding of what he had to do. Calm washed over him as he walked up the stairs and locked himself in the bathroom, the sterile surroundings seeming to suit the occasion. He glared at his reflection in the mirror and turned away in disgust.
Slowly, deliberately, he opened his cupboard and took out the razor. He pressed the cool steel against his pallid flesh and took in a deep breath.
He dragged the blades across his wrists and with a satisfying rip, blood poured from his wounds. The agony of his tortured soul disappeared, escaping with his blood. Everything else faded away, dissipating, till only the searing pain was tangible to him. It made him feel weak and strong at the same time; he was able to do this, unable to control his emotions any other way. As the blood stopped flowing as his wounds began to heal, as he sat on the floor looking numbly up at the ceiling, a flurry of conflicting thoughts attacked his mind. It was wrong, his entire being knew it to be true, but the feeling had been so right. A single pearl of a tear rolled down his cheek.
He left the bathroom, his blood still staining the floor, all he could feel was the desire to harm himself again. His heart ached as the ecstasy and agony of the moment disappeared and he was returned to reality.
So each evening, as he returned home from college, he would go about his ordinary routine, then slip into the bathroom to pick up his new friend, the razor, slash at his scarred flesh, not caring if he should die, and enjoy those few moments of blissful clarity, peace, of living in that singular moment without having to be dragged into the past, of being able to control the emotions that killed him each day. It became his drug, an all encompassing parasite which live inside his mind, an infection spreading through him until his whole life was governed by self-harm.
And as he slowly sunk into the endless abyss of his own creation, there was no one there to offer a hand to pull him out, because no one would've ever guess that the smile on Sasuke's face was just a mask.
I don't really know how this first chapter went, I'm not sure whether it's any good or not. It was kind of difficult to write this since it was like revisiting my own past, and I wasn't really sure of how to put those emotions into words. Hopefully you enjoyed it, please send me reviews of how to improve, and I'll try to incorporate said improvements in the next installment. Thanks for reading 3 xxx