Chapter 2
Just listen
By Windy days and daisy chains
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My eyes flutter open.
Is this a dream?
Ahead there's nothing but darkness. My heart beats loudly in my ears as panic swells inside me. To see nothing, to hear nothing. It's strange; I've never liked the dark. Travelling into the unknown, not knowing which path you're travelling on, the constant neurotic feeling.
It scares me.
I've always been so sure of myself, so confident and all knowing. It has always been me who takes charge and informs everyone what must be done. Me who forms up an indestructible plan fearless that it will work out.
But what if that plan isn't as indestructible as it seems?
That's the darkness.
Not knowing what happens next.
Please don't leave
I slip out of my train of thought when something drops on my nose. It seems like a snowflake but has a strange green mystique in its surroundings.
Then I realise I'm leaning against something solid. Not everything is shrouded in darkness. Reaching to my full height of five foot five I slowly turn around.
There planted in front of me is a tree.
I want to understand
All my previous thoughts seem to have diminished and I'm left with an overwhelming sense of emptiness. My very breathing is taken away.
Not by the astounding height of the tree nor the colossal width of the trunk- but of the branches. Well what was hanging off the branches.
Don't go
Instead of the usual cluster of leaves there lay what was recently on my nose.
Hundreds of viridian snowflakes.
What an earth is going on?
As I stood there dumbfounded by this extraordinary sight I felt something light and cold touch my shoulder, twisting my head I found another snowflake. But this time it seemed to have a much brighter glow then the previous one which had dropped on my nose.
No!
A gasp escaped my lips. I could see my vision getting blurry and the image of a darkened room flashed in my mind like an ever-repeating advertisement, desperate to catch your attention.
But regardless it was ignored.
I won't let you stop me!
Another snowflake dropped to the floor and another. Soon they were all floating off their perches and swimming around me.
"Wow," I muttered quietly, holding my hands out to catch a few, "it's snowing."
Shhhh, it's just me
It was getting louder now; I snapped out of my fascination of the glowing flakes and frowned. Why couldn't that pestering voice leave me alone? Why couldn't I ignore it and get on with life.
Where is it coming from?
Never forget who you are
So familiar.
I looked down at the glowing flakes mounted in my hands.
Even if I hadn't been in this place for a while I was beginning to grow a certain fondness for it. So peaceful, so serene. Away from all the problems and arguments, it felt nice. To be so far from any civilisation- but still.
Something about standing in this very space made my senses tingle. I couldn't put my finger on it but something about this place seemed so alluring, like a powerful sweet-smelling scent, slowly leading you away.
From where you should really be.
Never underestimate me
That voice.
SHANNARO!
And then suddenly like being struck by a bolt of lightning it came to me. And I knew suddenly that if I stayed where I was, in all the quiet and darkness and didn't run, I would hear it. I'd have to go back, all the way to the night when I was being chased by those wolf-masked demons, when I'd first heard those terrifying screams for mercy. To unlock those trapped memories I'd have to venture into the unknown, but that was okay. It was the only way, finally to get to the end.
All I'd ever wanted was to forget and move on. But even when I'd thought I'd finally done it, pieces kept emerging, reminding me they were always there.
Because that's what happens when you run from the past. It doesn't catch up; it overtakes, slowly blotting out the future and green landscape so that all you have left is a smudged blur. And the very path you're walking on is swept from your feet, this very path which leads you through everything, the only one which can solely lead you home.
I understand now. This voice, the one that has been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to listen – it didn't belong to a haunting memory. It belonged to me.
This sudden conclusion some how made me smile, a true smile. One which hadn't emerged in quiet a while. I turned my head to the side. I could see the light slowly increasing in the midst of the darkness, slowly reaching to grab me and bring me back. Back home, back to where I belong. The tree bark felt cool against my skin those pretty flakes were still falling, as I closed my eyes.
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The sun hung low over the horizon, leaving tinges of pink and orange mixed with a calm flash of sky blue. Clouds dashed slightly with rose hung over our heads as the wind gently played above.
Leaning over the bridge I smiled at my reflection, a happy toothed smile grinned back at me with sparkling jade eyes. I couldn't help but feel a burst of joy inside me, like a newly lit flame. Things were looking up now, our greatest foe had been defeated and it seemed that everything had returned back to normal. Peace treaties had been signed with other neighbouring countries and tranquillity had spread like wildfire across the village, as well as parties, laughter and such.
Turning round to my two team-mates I couldn't help but widen the distance between my lips. There lay my first team-mate dozing quietly on a tree branch his dark bangs concealing those mystical pools of onyx, seemingly lost in his own thoughts and my other team-mate. In contrast to the first lay sprawled out, limbs jutting out in all directions. A messy mop of sun-flecked hair piled on top of his face, nearly covering his half-lidded cerulean eyes.
"What's up Sakura-chan?"
I didn't realise I'd been caught staring at Naruto and mentally cringed at the thought of grinning stupidly at him.
I couldn't help but giggle, "Nothing Naruto, just thinking."
"Oh," the orange clad teen sat up and backed up against the tree trunk, ruffling his hair, "what were you thinking about?"
I couldn't help but laugh; my other team-mate turned his gaze to me, "What happens to us now?"
There was a paused silence then Naruto looked up at me thoughtfully, "We carry on living as ninja, you know protecting Konoha and all that stuff."
"All that stuff huh?" I mused loudly.
Naruto nodded and smiled, "yeah, all that stuff." His eyes lit up, "and I'll become the next Hokage! Believe it!"
I rolled my jade eyes playfully at him and turned to my other team-mate.
"What about you Sasuke?"
He seemed a bit startled at first at being addressed by me but quickly regained his composure and shrugged nonchalantly, "Stay in Konoha and train."
I suppressed a groan but Naruto being his usual loudmouth self couldn't resist a snort.
"God teme it's like your whole life revolves round training, geez you should really get out more."
Sasuke growled at him but Naruto seemed oblivious as usual to the death glares he was receiving.
I being my usual intelligent self knew at once that a fight was about to break out between the two rivals and immediately came up with a plan to evade it.
"Hey," I jumped off my perch and the duo looked up, "how about we go get some ramen?"
I knew at once I'd gotten Naruto hooked line and sinker, now I had to convince the brooding Uchiha.
"Yeah Ichakaru's here I come!" and then Naruto was off, singing about the different flavours of ramen and babbling on about something or another.
"Sasuke?" I started hesitantly. "Will you come with us?"
He was standing in the space where I was previously sat, concentrating on the burning sun as it slowly disappeared over the horizon, I cautiously walked up to him and gently touched his arm.
His head slightly shifted as his smouldering obsidian orbs burned forcefully into mine.
I just stood there a lump rising in my throat, then finally closing my eyes for a brief minute and opening them, to meet his with the same burning ferocity.
"Sasuke," my voice softly floated through the air around us, "please, for old time's sake."
He continued his gaze then grunted and turned away.
"Hn."
A smile lit my face and my grip on his arm tightened as I dragged him off so that we could catch up with Naruto who seemed so obsessed with his ramen chant that he wasn't aware that for the past few minutes he was chatting intimately to thin air.
But glancing up at my two team-mates, both whom possessed similar faces of contentment a flash of the same theme occurring more then four years ago flashed in my head. A sudden rising emotion burnt strongly within me at that moment. To be walking with my two team-mates at that singular moment to me seemed so indescribably surreal that even I couldn't comprehend it.
Joining Naruto's speed out eyes met for a brief moment in that brief moment a conversation which we had shared only a few hours ago. Now, we both shared similar looks of aspiration and reliance.
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The softly lit room cast shadows against my eyes, it was dark outside with a few lights poking in from the loud busy nightlife that I sheltered from. For some reason unknown to me I was lying on my soft velvet couch with my reading lamp gently illuminating the room.
Sitting up I couldn't help but feel a strange sensation as my gaze travelled to the large clock pinned above the front door.
Both hands pointed toward the large black ten.
Scratching my head, I swung my legs off the couch, gently patting them against the smooth lush chocolate carpet my eyes wandered to the door below the clock.
It was strange. The last thing which sprung up into my mind was opening my front door at precisely seven o'clock and then-
A cry escaped my lips.
It had all come back, my memories of my childhood, ninja years, destruction of the ninja era. All good, bad and those which seemed best to have stayed forgotten.
But why?
The reason for my five year amnesia perplexed me, what had caused me to forget more than a decade of my life? It had come to my attention that unfortunately there was still a gaping black hole in my memory in which the time approximately after the modernisation project was revealed to us up till waking up in Konoha North Hospital with a bandaged stomach and a broken arm, recuperating from a car accident.
"But why?" I voiced to myself, "why can't I remember?"
I pondered back to the whole hospital fiasco; perhaps the car accident had caused me to bang my head on something. And that head injury damaged a part of my brain, thus the memory loss. However that theory had many gaping holes itself. Why hadn't anyone told me that I had amnesia? Why had my mother not spoken a word? Surely my head would have been bandaged if it had been damaged in the accident.
All these questions. None of it seemed to make any sense. Why had I remembered it all so suddenly? Why were there some pieces that still were a mere smudged blur? And most importantly. What had happened to everyone over the past five years?
"My friends."
I had now resolved to pacing round the room, an old habit of mine that had recently been picked up during those times of too much paperwork from the hospital.
During that forgotten period of mine it seemed the entire whereabouts of my fellow comrades had dissolved as well.
But wait.
My pacing stopped in front of the coffee table.
I had to have something, anything to show the existence of them in my life. Perhaps a picture or maybe a phone number on an old post-it note.
Flicking on the light to my room, my mind raced with wild ideas, perhaps an old picture of Team Seven with an address scrawled on at the back. Or maybe a shabby phonebook dotted with mysterious phone numbers, or even an old medic-in-training book.
"Anything," I muttered, jamming the drawers open and emptying them onto the floor. Just give me anything, a photograph, an address, a hidden phone number or even a grimy old ninja textbook. Give me anything which will link me to my past. A sign that will point me in the right direction. Anything.
Tipping the bottom draw onto the floor I started to sift through my possessions.
An old empty notebook, an encyclopaedia based on human anatomy, 'Computers for Idiots, an easy step-by-step guide to the latest technology'. A hand held game console, more notebooks filled with useless doodles, boxes of hair accessories, mixtures of used and unused stationary, files filled with data from the hospital and more empty notebooks.
I continued to empty my room, inspecting every piece of furniture, leaving no rock unturned. Finally after what seemed like ours of searching my body collapsed onto my bed, the only thing which hadn't been attacked.
Staring at the flawless white ceiling I finally heaved a defeated sigh. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing in my room which showed any clues of my past, it was as if my past life had been completely erased from the face of the earth. Nothing had been left, nothing to enable me to keep in contact with them.
But why?
Giving one last glance at my ransacked room I ran a hand through my messy brown hair, observing its colour. I missed the soft luscious pink it usually bounced with, that was another thing I intended to do.
My rosette musings were interrupted with the sudden growling noise emitted below, a soft blush filled my cheeks and I giggled quietly. Apart from the rushed coffee and half eaten toast I hadn't consumed anything else today, things had been so hectic with the constant rush of patients waiting for surgery's and my ever increasing mountain of paperwork perched on my desk like an omen.
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"Damn," I blinked twice as I gaped at my open fridge. Shuffling through its contents I came out with a bottle of milk two weeks past the consume-by-date. A jar of marmalade, an empty carton of orange juice, a packet of carrots and a container which contained something that looked very similar to a blue ball of fluff.
Clearly I hadn't been grocery shopping in a while.
Tossing the bottles of milk and orange juice in the bin but leaving the mysterious ball of fluff in the fridge because it clearly disturbed me I had to resolve to the wonderful opportunities the fast food industry had to offer me.
Shuffling through the drawer in which I kept all these many fast food joint leaflets I finally concluded that a plain nine inch margarita pizza from 'Jeckys Joint' would be sufficient and typed in their number.
"Hello. Jeckys Joint?"
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"Yes I'd like to order one nine inch margarita with fries."
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"Just water please."
I twisted the phone cord round my finger, my eyes travelling unconsciously to the constant flashing lights outside.
"It's number twelve Thereath Avenue, the block of flats between Goggle Enterprises and Rosemary Flats. On the twelfth floor number seventy three."
……
"Okay then, thank you. Bye."
A soft click followed by a constant flat humming sound, filled the receiver. Walking back to my couch I swiped the remote off the coffee table and switched on the television.
A second later I was scrolling through channels, images and colours flickering across the screen.
Now that my memory had been restored, I settled with the News Channel, what was I going to do now?
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"What do you want to do now?"
"I want to get out of this place."
"I don't think getting out will be a problem, its more like figuring out what you are going to do when you get out."
"What do you mean?"
I smiled.
"I mean you can do anything."
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Should I just carry on with this life? There were no past belongings, no reminders. Perhaps they didn't want to be found, who was to say they wanted to see a face from the past?
I tried to focus on the pictures materialising on the screen, the reporters voice seemed to fade as I once again plunged into my sea of thoughts. Why had nobody tried to contact me these past few years? I would have thought Ino would have tried to hold on to our friendship, considering all we have been through together.
But what if she tried had tried to?
My stomach gave a funny jolt. I strongly shook my head, just thinking about all those gruesome possibilities sent shivers down my back. Bloody faces and salty tears flashed in my mind, what secrets and horrifying actions did my absent memories behold? Why had they been snatched from me in the first place?
Enough. I was just about to change the channel when the reporter's voice rushed into my ears. My hand stopped in mid-air it was like a rush of cold ice had been poured onto me.
"… Police warn the public that Araki is a dangerous E-Class criminal who managed to escape a heavily guarded prison earlier this week. Araki who was sentenced to a life sentence was guilty of setting off the five explosions on the 16th February more than five years ago. Killing 50 citizens and injuring dozens, police have been put on high alert to try and capture this criminal, the government has set up a hotline and any sighting of Araki should be reported at once…"
The familiar picture appeared on screen but this time I didn't hide my outrage. It seemed so ridiculous to think about it. Naruto Uzumaki the number one knucklehead ninja of Konoha, sworn to become the next Hokage and a loyal friend and member of Hidden Leaf village. It was difficult to comprehend why he killed so many people forget how he escaped prison. Now that required no thought.
He was a naturally gifted mischief maker back in the day and escaping cornered situations required no thought for him. Observing the aged face of my team-mate I couldn't help but feel a nagging sense of doubt. Had he really caused those explosions? There was a possibility that the nine tailed fox was the true criminal and naturally Naruto was once again blamed for its rage, perhaps he was innocent.
The sound of a bell brought me back to my apartment swinging the door open I found myself facing a young teen probably about sixteen with scruffy brown hair dressed in bright green uniform with the logo of 'Jeckys Joint' printed on the front.
"Sakura Mura?" his face was covered with spots and by the look of it delivering pizzas hadn't been what he wanted to do on a Friday night, "a nine inch plain margarita with fries and a drink right?"
I nodded and took out my purse, handing him the money and flashing him a quick smile I closed the door and walked into the kitchen with the warm pizza box, the smell of cooked cheese and bread wafting around the room.
The full odour hit me hard when I opened the box, an overpowering smell of stringy mozzarella, hot tomato and oven baked bread: depending on if you like that particular overload of pizza filled my nostrils.
But that wasn't the only thing which filled my senses.
As soon as my eyes caught sight of it my breathing abruptly stopped, nothing but the echoing vibrations outside and the music and voices emitting from the television in the living room around me. It was all so far away.
Lifting my trembling hand they brushed against its smooth surface, slowly gripping it and pulling it closer.
JZ5897
It seemed my sign had finally arrived. Strangely in the form of a scrap of greasy paper stuffed into a pizza box.
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Right now I'm having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time.
I think I've forgotten this before.
- Steven Wright
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So after one month I have finally updated one of my stories, note to all readers, this is normally how long my chapters will be for this story and they will usually be in Sakura's point of view.
Also thank you to all who reviewed, I hope you liked this instalment, many questions are raised in this section however most of them will be answered in the next chapter for example why Naruto is known as 'Daisuke Araki' and how he ended up in prison.
Apart from that, check out my other story which I am currently working on, please leave your reviews and tell me what you think.
Thank you
Windy Days and Daisy Chains
