On the Border of Despair

A (mild) ItaSaku Oneshot

Written by eifi

She didn't know what was wrong with her, but she knew something was definitely wrong.

The first sign of her self proclaimed insanity was when she lashed out at Ino for sneaking away her math textbook for one lesson, when she hadn't even needed it. At the time, she had felt that she had every right to scream the never ending string of curses at her, and didn't even feel guilty when her best friend had bowed, apologised and rushed off awkwardly. With everyone staring at her amazed at how angry she had become over a little textbook, something started to break inside of her. That was the beginning.

She couldn't describe it, but if she was forced to, it felt like the slow peeling of leather wallpaper that was streaked across the walls and ceiling in black, checkered patterns, whilst ripping apart the monochrome colours with a blood red ice scraper. It was suffocating, she was being suffocated, and no one around her understood. Barely containable rage was filling her, and she either didn't even realise it, or knew but was helpless to do anything about it.

Within a few days after the incident with Ino she had become withdrawn, angry and extremely hostile to anyone who tried to come near her, including her friends, her family, even her pet cat stayed away from her. Heck, even the crazy druggee kids at school stayed the fuck away from her, compared to her they were a bunch of angels. Well, to hell with them she had thought, she didn't need them, she was so angry and they just didn't understand. It was like having a screw hammered into her stomach whilst eating a hot ice cream sandwich with a ticking bomb chattering away in her teeth.

Shuddering from excess adrenaline, she glared at anyone who even looked at her. She was livid, her paranoia biting away at her and making her shiver in fear. All of those people looking at her as if she was mad, who the fuck did they think they were? So what if she was angry, she had a goddamn good reason to be angry. She just couldn't spout it out just then.

When she got home, her parents stayed far away from her. You could tell that they were worried, but Sakura just couldn't. Eventually, she cracked, breaking both the crockery in her hands and her parents hearts as she cried and screamed at them, cursing them in psychotic ways and screeching about how she hated them and life and everything in the whole world. She was breaking, and she was breaking fast. She grabbed her favourite mug, currently filled with the hot chocolate her mother made her, and threw it at them, before storming upstairs and collapsing on her bed, crying her eyes out in a flurry of confusion.

Soon, she was told by her parents that maybe, just maybe, she should go to an institute. Why the fuck would she want to go to an institute she asked, not even noticing the fear in her parents eyes. She couldn't even recognise the fact that she hadn't eaten for a week, hadn't slept with the lurking paranoia keeping her awake, that she looked like hell right now. Angry again, she saw the closest breakable thing that she saw, a china vase to her left, and lugged it at her mother.

She would have probably seriously injured her mother and herself if not for two strong arms holding her back and pulling her away. Screeching at whoever the fuck was behind her, she elbowed her attacker and smashed a fist into his face. Looking back at the person she had just injured, her heart suddenly stopped when she saw her fathers bleeding face, and started to wail. What the hell was wrong with her? How could she even think of attacking her father, the man who had helped her so much throughout all of her life and had vowed to love her unconditionally. Crying, she withdrew a little from her crying mother, who was right now frantically trying to get her husband to wake up. Violently shuddering from the tears, she ran upstairs to her room and locked herself in. Leaning against the door, she let herself fall into a huddle, hugging herself as she cried.

A loud ambulance wailed, along with a tell tale voice of concern from her mother outside the door of her bedroom. It had been around 20 minutes since she had smashed her father's face in, and she had ripped apart her clothes, her pillows, even her duvet. She refused to come out of her room, terrified of what was happening to her. Her mother was begging her to come out, and when Sakura imagined her mother's crying face, she finally broke down and understood that something indeed, was wrong with her. All the more reason to stay in her locked room and protect the world from this evil monstrosity.

Suddenly, a different presence approached her door, and she was greeted with a confident solid knock. She flinched, her eyes red and wide, staring at her door with fear. She couldn't hear her mother anymore, did she finally give up on the bitch that she was and sent the police on her? She was overreacting, but she couldn't tell the difference between black and white anymore. Suddenly, she was fearful of the presence outside of the door, and she screamed hysterically. The person outside of her door apparantly was a male, as he knocked again, more urgently this time, and asked if she was okay. Not even hearing him, she couldn't stop screaming as the world around her seemed to grab at her, fear was crippling her.

Apparantly, this was all he needed to break the door hinges and smash the door open, and he was genuinely surprised at her hysterical screaming, and the destruction she had dealt to her room. Having faced many situtations similar to this, he waited for her to stop screaming, before approaching her.

When he did, just the slightest movement made her flinch, and she crawled away from him. He was one of those people with a white coat who dealt with crazy people like her, and dragged them off in a straightjacket into some asylum filled with other crazy people. She didn't want anything to do this guy. She told him to get away from her, not to come near her, to literally fuck off. He told her that it would be okay, that she should calm down, and that he wasn't here to hurt or harm her. She obviously didn't believe him, and flung the most painful looking object that she could see. Making to grab a broken shard of glass, he managed to swiftly grab her arms, and made her face him.

She tried to struggle, she really did. Screaming and thrashing about, she kept staring at that piece of glass. He ignored her screams, and eventually pulled her into a bear hug so that she couldn't thrash about. He was stronger than he looked. However, he was worried at what she kept staring at. Following her line of sight, there was absolutely nothing. When he told her this, she looked at him as if he was the mad one, but she really wasn't even looking at him either. Her eyes saw nothing where there were things in front of her, but saw inaminate objects where there was absolutely nothing.

Sighing, he put her down slowly, still holding her arms down next to her torso. She was sat up, and scowled at him. He told her once again to calm down, and that if she did, she wouldn't have to put into the institute, that she could be home schooled and looked after. He told her that her father was okay, and that both of her parents were just worried for her wellbeing, and that he was too. He told her his name was Itachi, and asked for her name too.

She told him to fuck off, before bursting out into tears. She was crazy, proven by the blood on her hands, the wreck of her room, and by this man in front of her. He once again told her to calm down, that they were there to support her, not to ridicule her, and that they could help her out of this mess. Holding her more tightly, he asked again in a whisper.

Letting out a sob, she whispered back to him.

"My name is Sakura."

This... isn't really a romancey one like most of my stories are, but I felt like I had to write this. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to write in this, but I felt like I shouldn't. I had a friend who was a severe schizophrenic, we lost contact with each other a while ago, and she described to me some of the things she had experienced, and although this oneshot doesn't describe it to its full extent (or very well either), it is terrifying. I guess I wanted to tackle a point of view of society that people kind of want to ignore, the part where people need help for reasons that that they can't control because they were just born with it.

Bleeeeeh, being corny right now, I guess I could say everything could relate to a bit of madness at some point of their life xD

I'll be updating my other stories after my exams i_i wish me luck!