Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto.
"I can't sleep. I just can't. Every time I close my eyes, I can see it it happen again and again...and it just wouldn't stop."-Anonymous
Ninth Chance
Prelude
It was chaos.
A devastation that had shook the earth to its core. Fire was the only sight for miles and miles, its ashy grey smoke displacing the oxygen in air. The sky, once a bright cerulean blue was now a sick crimson and the clouds no longer white and fluffy, but black and charred as the darkest coal. The moon dominated the high heavens, the sight of the Sun only a rare occurrence in these dark days, leaving a chill to pass over in its absence.
Nothing seemed to be alive. The plant life had long since died away, along with any animals and humans, all consumed by the fire. It was a nightmarish fire, dark and shadowy, its scorching touch causing death in an instant. It never went out as it burned for seven days, and seven nights. Seven days, and seven nights...its fiery touch had corrupted and consumed, and destroyed everything. Seven days, and seven nights...
And that was how long it took to bring the whole world down to its knees.
.
.
.
Hope was a child's fairy tale. There had seemed no salvage from such destruction, and hope had shriveled up in the hearts of survivors, leaving behind voids of emptiness. There was no hope. Only survival now.
Days had passed seamlessly, since the Fall. The black fires of Amaterasu had long since extinguished itself, leaving behind trails and trails of red ashes of barren wastelands. Food was non-existent, and so was water. Large lakes which once were filled up to brim with water were as dry as the gritty sands of the desert. Survival looked bleak, with starvation snapping at their heels, just moments away from claiming them right in the jaws of their own hunger. The odds of surviving were stacked high against them, and yet they did.
Altogether, there were nine of them who had escaped. When the world collapsed they had ran, ran far away from the apocalypse lunging straight from behind them. They were alive, but it was at a high cost. Millions and millions dead. They remembered the stench of burning flesh wafting through the air, the screams of agony painfully piercing through their eardrums, and the horrific sight of bodies, all charred and mangled beyond recognition falling right and left to their death.
And their punishment for living was nightmares; guilt and anger played and toyed with their minds every night, when they are at their weakest. And images seared so vividly in their minds, repeating and replaying, cruel and tauntingly, never letting them forget. Each night, they would wake up sweating, their breathing hard and labored. Each time, they would find each other in the darkness of the eternal night, and hold on to one another, reassuring themselves that they are not alone.
And as each second passes by, they would all wonder to themselves, whether or not death would be a more merciful fate than living, surviving as they did. At least in death, they thought, there would be no pain.
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.
.
Despair and madness had never mixed well together. While he had experienced madness, never before had he ever felt despair. Unlike now.
His cheeks sting against the cold air, his breath creating miniature puffs of white clouds as he exhaled. It was unbearably cold, but he did not care. Silence permeated around him, the snow crunching underneath his boots, as he hiked higher up the mountain side. The gourd at his back shifted slightly, the sand churning, tense and alert for an attack.
In his arms, he cradled a body.
Her skin was pale as eternal winter around them, and cold to the touch. She wasn't light nor heavy; not at all that difficult to carry as he trudged along through the thick snow. Her head rested snugly in the crook of his arm, her pink hair fanned across her face like flower petals that had been carefully strewn about her, framing her delicate, porcelain face. Her eyes were closed to the world, and her face was relaxed and peaceful that he almost could fool himself to believe she was slumbering. Almost.
His fingers were beginning to feel numb from carrying her and from the chill. His light green eyes squinted hard against the densely falling snow, trying to see past it and find a sign. And suddenly, something glinted at the edge of his vision, to the right. Tightening his grip, he quickly moved towards it, to find someone impatiently waiting for him.
The teenager did not speak. He only nodded at him in acknowledgement, before turning around and jumped into the hole next to him, not waiting to see if he followed. Without a moment's hesitation, he adjusted his grip on the girl and jumped down after him, the hole swallowing up behind him, plunging him into total darkness.