Chapter 1

Summary: Sakura wonders why life feels like a sudden hallucination and Naruto finds it hard to explain. Apparently, death has that kind of effect.

She thinks it feels like sliding thoughts, like dying in a dream and walking through another. To move is to dream a step, to feel the path ahead, a heavy dream that's stilled and breathless and bright.

The world gives a waking turn and her eyes open. She has only herself, this feeling, this glass name on her tongue, and it's as clear as the rest of her.

She is confused, and it's not because the sky is moving or the flowers blurring. It's not because she can't remember herself or the time before, but rather…

This isn't right, she thinks. It isn't.

There'd been all those secret promises, all those frantic wishes, from them, from her--where was she, again? Did she know that? -- and there'd been other faces, so why, why, why was she the only one here? She'd tried so hard, hadn't see? She'd never let herself be left behind, so being alone made no sense-

Wait.

Just wait.

The thought blooms white in her head, soft and knowing.

This is better. This is so much better than how it could have gone, and could and might are spiders in her heart, a dark and crawling knowledge that she feels with every breath.

She looks around and really sees.

The world is suddenly too bright, the trees sinister, and the flowers swell and throb with living breath, blurring when she squints her eyes. It was morning when she noticed things, and now, it's almost evening.

A stiff, growing fright straightens through her spine.

It's not right, it's not right, she thinks firmly, growing frantic, because she knows this. She hasn't always been here.

So she takes another step, another dreaming movement, and then she's not confused. There's memory, a bright beating of wings against her mind, and then-

she remembers how she's still afraid of things in the dark of things in her heart and all the spidery thoughts and shadows of promises and love and impossible things-

Panic.

All she can think of is everything wrong.

I shouldn't have been that way, I'm sorry I didn't, all weak, sorry, I was wrong, please, I'm sorry, sorry-

Sad secrets roll in the shade of her bones, and she doesn't know…but it's all too late, isn't it? It's all gone now, there's nothing she can do, and oh, God, this can't be all, there's another way, another way, no-

Watery light--

Gagging pain, pain in throat, pain in chest--

No air, no air, there wasn't any air--

Please, she thought, desperate, reaching.

She was gasping suddenly as oxygen slammed her face, had her choking, air sticking like glass to her lungs.

There was water, then hands-- the white flailing of her limbs, shaking, shaking-- and then nothing but blur and blues as pale as dreams.

Numb, just numb all over, from her lips to her toes, and just so fucking cold. She turned her head, opened her mouth, and hacked so hard her ribs ached. There were so many falling thoughts, black, nonsensical, and she felt herself fall with them, unable to stand in her own mind.

Then there was touch.

Awkward, frightful, she turned her face towards the palm, the tips of fingers. She tilted her head, wanted to see, and tried wringing the wet pain from her voice--

A quelling movement slid down her jaw, her ear, to the wet mess of her hair.

There were words, had been words for awhile, cold and foggy in her head.

"…move.. don't move, Sakura-chan."

And even though Sakura barely knew, she suddenly felt like crying.

Author's note: Yeah, it's a little chaotic, but it's the way I like it, given the circumstances. I have an idea as to where I want to go with this, but we'll have to see!