Title: Backwoods
Pairing: Naruto & Sasuke
Rating: MA
Genre: Horror
Notes: AU, so no spoilers. It will be disturbing at times, so please don't read if you're sensitive.
I thought I should apologize for starting yet another story without finishing those in progress already, but I won't. In my opinion, it is much greater sin to let a story go to waste before it ever got a chance, and I will finish all of my stories anyway. In what order probably depends on you just as much as it depends on me.
I hope you'll like it!
Backwoods
Prologue
It is pretty much ridicules to stop your motorcycle in the middle of a lonely road on the very edge of the world, or even further, just so you could take one more look at a photograph. Naruto already knew everything on it, every tree, every shadow, every little stone at the base of a roughly craved gravestone and even the exact shape of the cloud that found its way into the scene by pure accident. He knew it so well; he could describe every detail with his eyes closed.
Nonetheless, Naruto stopped by the road, took his helmet off and fetched the photo from the front pocket of his jacket. He glanced at the site, but what really wanted his attention was the word written on the back side, Konoha.
Handwriting itself was unfamiliar, branded forcefully into the paper, with the vertical slant and perfectly formed words. But as every other time Naruto saw it, a wave of mild nausea washed over him. It was familiar, the word felt almost, but not quite sweet on his tongue, like a chocolate cake from behind the window of a shop. Naruto thought, for who knows what time, that if he could just close his eyes and reach, he would remember it not as a small town in the middle of the rich forest Google search came up with, but as something more significant, something his. Very aware he's doing it, again, and on some strange road instead of on the bed back in his dorm, Naruto closed his eyes and tried to see it.
Konoha….
But aside from the feeling of familiarity and even stronger nausea, just like every other time, there was nothing. Naruto sighed and climbed back on the bike, tucking the photo on the safe place again. There's nothing for it, and he knew it, no matter what he told Gaara to convince him he was not stupid enough to fall for an obvious provocation. This was not a prank. This was not about yet another moron who thought Naruto's shady history is a laughing matter, or something to be afraid of. He was going to that town. He had to; he kept seeing strange blurry outlines of it in his dreams ever since he had opened the yellow envelope and saw the picture, and he knew every time those restless dreams woke him up that he had to go to Konoha. He had to see, he had to remember.
Naruto was never closer to his memories. Never, for the ten years since he woke up in the hospital unable to even lift his hand without a great effort and with his life and identity completely wiped out from his brain, he had a feeling of familiarity about anything. Well, there was once some stranger in a bathroom of a bar, but he disappeared before Naruto could react and ask questions, and this - this was solid, this photo… it was a clue. A real trace of hope.
All the answers Naruto ever wanted were just behind that unmarked gravestone, in the name on the back, in the person that left the photo in his mailbox. Naruto had to find out. He had to know who he was, who his parents are – were. He had to find out why was he left in the emergency room of the city hospital, full of bruises and covered in dry blood, with only a dirty sheet of paper with a name nurses decided to adopt as his own.
It was maybe insane, but Konoha seemed like a key for all his mysteries. For night walks he couldn't remember, for the strange markings on his body that he was sometimes waking up with, odd sores and maybe even for the nightmares full of grotesque shadows and corpses. And even if Konoha wasn't the solution, Naruto was definitely feeling better when he was moving, trying to solve it all – even if the price was to be expelled from the university.
Naruto added more power into the engine and a satisfying roar accompanied the burst of speed down the road that definitely saw better days. According to the map and the old man back at the last gas station, Konoha was just behind that hill.
Konoha… I'm almost there.
It has been a long time since the last time Naruto was nervous about something, but right then, it felt as if butterflies in his stomach grew teeth. Was he fooling himself? Or there were really answers waiting for him beyond this road?
Naruto added to the speed, despite of being unfamiliar with this freeway surrounded with the claustrophobically thick woods from both sides. After all, the sooner he arrived, the sooner he could start asking questions.