'Th—is—di—'nt—hap—pen'

Sakura Haruno was four years old when she first heard the voice. She didn't understand what it said, didn't know where it came from. It sounded hoarse, the words choppy.

She stared up at the blonde man who suddenly showed up on her doorstep who introduced himself as Inoichi Yamanaka, Ino's dad. He was telling her to go to the park, her new friend waiting for her at their usual spot by the swings. She shook her head, glancing behind her to look back inside the house. She wanted to, but her parents told her never to leave the house unattended. He must've seen the look in her eyes when she turned back to him, raising his hand to pat her on the head and smile reassuringly.

"Don't worry, I got permission from your parents, you can go."

The voice made itself known the moment she spotted the scroll he had grasped in his other hand.

'Th—is—n—ot—hap—en'

It was a woman's voice, and it echoed inside her head. It made her dizzy, made her want to sit down and close her eyes. She felt sad, something felt wrong, and she didn't know why she suddenly felt like this but whatever she was feeling—it feels terrible.

She was startled out of her thoughts when the man moved, crouching in front of her. She was confused when she looked at him and it was blurry, and only when he swiped his thumb across her cheek did she realize she was crying.

Crying for reasons she didn't know.

'Why does it hurt so much?'

'I'm—s—ry' The voice in her head seemed to reply. It was still choppy, but she understood what it—the woman in her head— was trying to say.

She was apologizing.

Sakura was at a loss, something was off, everything suddenly felt wrong, she didn't know what was happening and it was all becoming too much as she threaded her fingers in her hair and pulled, wanting her head to stop throbbing from the inside, breathing heavily and feeling terrified. Inoichi looked worried, holding down her biceps in an almost bruising grip to stop her from further injuring herself, locks of her hair still tangled between her fingers, and his lips were moving but she couldn't hear a thing and when she wildly looked around and saw the scroll abandoned down on her doorstep, the pounding became worse and everything went black.

She 'woke up' with the knowledge that her parents were dead.

After her breakdown, she felt herself being carried, felt the wind as she was rushed to the hospital, or so she assumed when they stopped and her nose was bombarded by the smell of disinfectants. She couldn't open her eyes. She didn't feel tired, didn't feel so sad anymore. She just couldn't open her eyes but she had been in a state of awareness the whole time.

She was in the hospital, has been there for a week. For the whole duration of the time she was there, she had been faking sleep. She didn't know why, but despite having her eyes closed and overhearing a passing nurse say she had been asleep the whole time she was there, she knew she was awake because she was aware of everything that transpired inside the four corners of her hospital room.

Like when she heard two people talking on a later time on the same day she was admitted.

"I wanted her to at least enjoy her day before I tell her." It was Ino's dad.

A sigh. "It would've been better to have told her straight-up the moment you arrived at her house."

She didn't know the other person. Judging from the voice, it was a man and he sounded tired.

"She's just a kid, Shikaku."

"It doesn't matter. You think you would be saving her the pain she would inevitably feel if you prolonged it, but for what? She'd grow up with a grudge against her parents, thinking they left her to die, only to find out that they were murdered and you couldn't tell her because 'she was just a little girl'. It would be like rubbing salt to the wound."

It was silent.

She wanted to cry. She was only four, and she suddenly found herself orphaned. Her parents were dead, murdered. What was supposed to be a simple trade became a means towards their end. She was alone now.

But she couldn't cry, couldn't feel the sadness that she was supposed to be feeling, because she felt like she already knew. Already anticipated it before it was said. Maybe it was because of the scroll she saw, how the voice inside her head reacted. And now, everything finally made sense. The terrible feeling she felt after seeing the scroll, now she knows why she felt it.

But knowing it beforehand didn't stop the small welling in her chest. And maybe if she had her eyes open, she would've cried. Her heart sped up a little after hearing the news, felt the pang in her heart and the sorrow that followed when the news finally processed, but everything felt dull. Because she knew.

And suddenly, she was scared. Because it wasn't normal. The voice, the feeling of already knowing something before it was said, feeling emotions beforehand before anything tragic even happened—it wasn't normal. She should be sad, should be crying, but something in her didn't allow her to do any of those.

Her parents are dead, and that's that.

'It wasn't supposed to happen..' A small voice at the back of her head whispered, but she felt too hopeless to take note of it.