Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Warnings: This is not a happy story, it is very dark and extremely bloody.
It is my take on the Uchiha massacre.
Sasuke is about six in this story

Nightmare

Warm…It was so warm. Such a soft warmth. So warm it felt hot and uncomfortable. There was music in the background…It sounded like festival music. What a pretty sound. That light, happy music that made you drunk with sleep. And burning. It smelled like the oven had been left on again. That sickening, bittersweet aftertaste of rust and ash…

Sasuke awoke with a start, staring around his dark room. As he tried to calm down his breathing he recalled the fragments of his dream.

But…he wasn't really asleep.

He was just pretending so when Itachi came by to check on him he'd think he was sleeping and Sasuke could finish reading the story he started.

Getting out of bed he heard the record player emitting a soft music. Festival music… They never played that unless it was a special holiday. Now that he had woken up he could smell the left over scent of incense. Itachi liked to burn a lot of it, but never enough to fill the whole house…

Stopping at the door and turning back to get his blanket, Sasuke saw his pillows and sheets soaked with wet blood. He squeaked as he frantically checked his body for any injuries. Shaking when he found none, he walked he walked down the long hallway to Itachi's bedroom at the other end.

He glanced around curiously at the deep gashes in the walls and the smeared handprints on the ground. When he opened the door to Itachi's room and peered inside he found it in perfect order as he always kept it. Itachi always had been a perfectionist…

"Nee, aniki?"

"Yes, Sasuke?"

"Can you read me a story?"

"Which one?"

"The one with the red cover. About the two boys."

"'In a village hidden in the leaves, there lived two boys who met in an untimely circumstance… "

He ran out into another hallway and wrenched open his parents' door. Scrambling onto the bed, he buried his head into his mothers' neck. Now she'd put her arm around him and ask him what was wrong. And then his father would wake up and make them all some tea and Sasuke would sleep there for the night.

But she never put her arm around him, and when he looked up he could see why.

Blood. Everywhere.

The candles burning on each of the nightstands made it a sickening blackish color. It was everywhere. Smeared on the mirror his mother looked in every day. Splattered on the door of the closet his father had fixed just the other day. It coated every wall in the bathroom that he had helped clean yesterday.

"Kaa-san? What makes people pretty?"

"It's how others choose to see them. You're my beautiful little boy, though I'm sure everyone can see that."

"Kaa-san? Will you brush my hair?"

"Of course sweetie."

"Tou-san! I want to fix the closet with you!"

"Oh? How come Sasuke?"

"So that I can show Itachi how cool I am. Then he'll come play with me!"

"Alright. You can start by bringing me that tool over there…"

"Is this right Kaa-san? Like this?"

"That's right Sasuke. And when we're all done do you want to wash the floor?"

"Okay! Where's the bucket again?..."

Blood caked onto the bodies of his parents.

He looked at his father; regal face massacred with so many cuts he no longer even had a face. His stomach had been torn open and his intestines were splayed out over the side of the bed, twisted around his arms and legs. His neck had been slit deeply right under his chin and the blood had leaked down his chest and run into the hole in his stomach. His chest and arms had been burned; those that he proudly displayed with his advanced techniques, and his legs were fractured at the knees; he had been the fastest in the whole village.

And his mother…Her chest had been ripped open and stitched back shut, and upon it laid her heart. The heart that had cared so deeply for her two sons. Her lovely face had been painted in blood and the hair she took so much care in had been chopped off and strew about her legs. The arm she had always wrapped around Sasuke was chopped off and was holding her other arm across her stomach. The neck he had buried his face in was cut off almost completely from the rest of her body and was staining Sasuke's shirt.

Sasuke quickly jumped off the bed and collapsed on the floor as he vomited all over the carpet. When he could stand, he raced back down the hall and into the living room.

He had to find Itachi. He would know what to do. He could make it all better.

"A-aniki…I'm scared. The thunder's really loud."

"Come here Sasuke. You know what you can do? Pretend that sound is you, playing the ceremonial drum in the festival."

"You mean like how you do?"

"Yeah. But it's you now."

"And what about the lightning?"

"That's everyone taking pictures of you."

"Why would they do that?"

"Because you're Kaa-san's beautiful little boy."

But the living room was no better than the bedroom; the cushions had been cut open and the stuffing lay scattered on the floor soaking up blood from the drenched carpet. The shelves were knocked over and torn pages from the books Itachi would read to Sasuke were now unreadable.

Sasuke ran into the kitchen, leaving little footprints on the tiled floor. The refrigerator was open and inside were cups of hot blood. The oven had been turned on and Sasuke saw the head of cousin sitting inside a carefully decorated pot. The walls and floor of the kitchen were a maze of hand and footprints leading in all directions and when Sasuke looked up he saw the rest of the body of his cousin pinned to the ceiling, dripping blood onto his hair.

And then Sasuke found him.

There was Itachi sitting over at the table with a cup on the table.

Sasuke climbed into his lap and hid his head in Itachi's chest. When Itachi started to stroke his back, Sasuke lost it and screamed into his brothers' chest, crying for all he was worth.

"What's wrong little Sasuke?"

"A-aniki… Kaa-san and Tou-san are h-hurt. T-they aren't moving and t-there's lots of blood."

"Shh, shh."

And Itachi was petting his head and Sasuke thought everything would be alright.

But when he looked up at Itachi and saw the blood that was smeared on his cheeks and over the front of his clothes, and when Itachi started laughing he knew something was wrong.

Because Itachi was holding his face now and whispering what he did to everyone in the clan, and he was still laughing and Sasuke couldn't get away.

Even so, when Itachi handed Sasuke the cup, he took it without hesitation and drank. As soon as he had swallowed, the contents came back up and all over the floor and his legs when he realized that it wasn't water or tea, but thick blood.

And Itachi laughed harder as Sasuke stared up at him with big eyes filled with tears of disbelieving.

And just before he was pushed off Itachi's lap and before he cracked his head on the tile floor and passed out, Itachi kissed him on the forehead and said quietly,

"Happy Birthday, Sasuke."

This is my tribute in "honor" of 6/6/06. Have fun you little sadists. By the way, I'm not serious...