House of the Lamb
Chapter Three
III
It felt as though three nights had passed, yet no sunlight filtered through the canopy of the trees. Hinata trudged sluggishly along with her captor, the invisible shackles bound around her body forcing her to move when her sheer will to move her legs had given up. Tears hadn't been wept yet, the silly notion that a rescuer on a white horse with shining armor would sweep her away from this literal living nightmare didn't yet blow away like an autumn leaf. The deeper they went into the forest the more the frostiness of winter imposed on them and she was glad for the heat he gave off lest her limbs freeze off.
Slick frost congealed over the trees, over the dirt of the forest floor and she was glad for the wooden geta shoes she wore else the frozen blades of grass would have cut her feet apart like a razor to wet paper. Surrealism and dark fantasy haunted this forest; leaves with drops of frozen water on them were stiff. The ground wasn't covered with snow, but rather normal looking were it not for the abnormal freezing of everything in time. Time in this forest ceased to exist.
Immortality would be easy to gain in this place of ungodly things, demons and devils, restless souls and monsters. For creatures such as her, pure and innocent, someone would come to take her away; not to leave her to rot and wither away in this place. They wouldn't abandon her, her faith in angels and good people would not fade and she would not cry for soon they would be here. They wouldn't let her be with this devil…they would come for her. She knew they would. They had to.
The light in her heart was closing and giving way to the welcoming darkness that kissed away her silent tears with tenderness never shown to her before this. Was it betrayal to turn to another? Despair hadn't closed fatal fangs on her yet and the lingering remains of hope had not flickered out. Her heartstrings tugged at the sound of a distant cry, caught between horrified scream of human and furious roar of beast. Something watered in her eyes. It was trying to break from her barriers of stubbornness, but she wouldn't let it. To cry meant to show him a weakness in her and the utter loss of hope.
She could not lose faith in front of this…creature. Within his cloak, she unconsciously clenched the velvet inner lining of the coat. It was still cold, icy breaths of winter mist swallowing her ankles and the chill traveling up her legs and up, up, up. His arm tugged her closer to him and limply, her cold body acquiesced to the unsaid offer. The top of her head was under his warm chin and for a moment, her vision faded out. If they truly had been walking for as long as she imagined, she was pushing the last of her body's reserves and soon she wouldn't…
Her left knee gave out and his arm continued to support her, moving along even while her knee protested by creaking loudly. Her other knee popped and gave way. Hands grasped him and he lifted her with one arm. His other arm unbuttoned his cloak, before wrapping her form about in it, gently lifting her prone form in his arms and carrying her with her knees of one arm and upper half supported carefully by one arm. He continued to walk without stopping. Her knees burned and so did her lungs. Gasping inhales took in frosty air that clogged and dried her throat, her bones felt brittle as thin glass.
Her eyes looked over at him, his gaze drew down towards her, "Wh-why i-i-is it al-alw-ways d-d-dark here?" she managed to whisper out. He leaned down a little to her, face emotionless, eyes blank and Hinata noticed something. No puffs of exhales were before his face, no clouds rolling in front of him. Her eyes widened.
"Noticing things from a different angle are we?" her eyes roamed and she felt a headache coming upon her. Everything warped and she could see everything around her. Moving shadows with four legs crawled over the trees; giant crows with three red eyes blinked and cawed, jagged eyeteeth shining. This was forest of sin, curses-a breeding ground for evil and abominations. She whimpered and buried further into the cloak, trying to will away this temporary new vision. Darkness crawled over shadows, flesh was torn and her eyes darted from side to side, shivering in his grasp she felt terrified. "Where is your light calling from now?" he whispered.
She didn't answer, continued to shiver and the world blanked out once more, everything was normal. Her wide eyes turned to him slowly, seeing him look down at her, smirking gently yet the look in his eyes was a dark amusement at the sight of her terror-or a smug reaction to her realization. He wasn't breathing. Why wasn't he breathing? Was he something undead or worst than a devil?
Her breath rolled out before her and she squirmed in his hold until the strings around her tightened and tightened till she knew marks of redness appeared from their path. "Still yourself lambling, I don't bite." There was a lilt of inky amusement at her expense and she felt her neck grow red from the teasing; naturally she was a flustering type of creature. Lambling, such an innocent word yet it held so much malicious meaning like the echo of elongated eyeteeth snapping together.
Lambling-an odd word in itself and for the life of her she couldn't shrug off why exactly it seemed like a pet name. She turned in his arms slightly looking ahead of them to spot the mouth of a giant, and deep looking cave. The moon gave off light, however sparse it was, and she saw it hit the cave. The behemoth that arose from out of nowhere within this timeless forest gaped like a maw of an unimaginably humongous…beast with a large appetite. Her heart stopped, air constricted out of her in complete fright and rusty colored eyes looked down at her, watching her expressions, knowing that her eyes caught the hints of malevolence that circled the cave. He analyzed her critically while her eyes widened, giving and showing things she never needed to see.
Her heart fluttered back to life after the feeling of suffocating intent, the feeling of drowning in black water faded and she slowly turned up to the eyes she knew were watching her carefully. "Wh-where does th-th-that g-go?" her stuttering came back full force, showing her fear from the encounter with the cave's mere aura. They drew ever closer and Hinata whimpered, drawing in on herself by curling into a fetal position. A slow, mocking smirk uplifted the left side of his lips.
He said nothing and only stopped calmly once they were right before the cave, standing out of it. Hinata felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up like a hissing cat's fur rippling in shock or pseudo intimidation. The cave was breathing. She heard wind escape from it and knew, she knew so deep in her bleeding heart that once they entered…there was no turning back.
The strings tightened around her tenderly, leaving red welts in their wake. He leaned till his lips were against her ear, while her eyes faced into the pitch black of the gullet of the beastly entryway. "Don't look so frightened of your new home. Are you ready, Hinata-chan?" he murmured. She trembled ever sweetly, "Lambling, lambling…you shake too much. Calm yourself…" she shook a little more. Lambling. A pet name for her, how befitting and frightening. For how long will a wolf with a charming guise and a sharp keep a bleating lamb with no talent? She turned and she was nose to nose with him.
"Wh-why?" his smirk widened into a languid, natural beauty that seemed to utterly hideous. He leaned in closer, bent over her form even while he carried her and the strings that bound her gently crawled over and under her skin like millions of small spiders.
"You, lambling, are too valuable to waste on mortality." Her eyes widened and cold sweat formed on her temples, dripping down through her bangs and drizzling down her neck. He pulled away from her and she continued to stare up at him, now knowing if she should gnaw out her own wrists like a starving dog to save herself or carry out her life and find out what made her so valuable. The shadows of the cave befell them and she looked in what little light was left to stare up at him.
The strings tickled her skin and something ugly buried itself into her heart. A dreaded dead weight lodged itself there, beating one with her heart and forcing wetness into her eyes, pushing at the barriers. It moaned and sobbed quietly. Hopelessness. The family which wanted the perfect first child had received instead a girl not befitted the position would not look for their lost one.
"Remember, Hinata that a good Shepard will look after his entire flock well, but should one lamb wander off why should he leave the rest to go after that one lamb and risk the rest of them? He will care for the flock. Not just a singular lamb, Hinata…"
Darkness flittered across the twin moons, shade came over them. '…The lost lamb…then…you'll feed me to the wolves?' he looked down at her. Rust eyes stared into her opal ones, still lingering between the twilight likeliness betwixt the moonlight and the shadows of the cave. She stared back, they looked at each other, observing and analyzing. He walked completely in the shadows; they were engulfed by the complete darkness that ate their forms away to leave away only them.
'Down, down-when will I fall?' the strings tightened over her form. The pain in her knees had long ago faded. His footsteps echoed and bounced off the cave walls. They would not look for her, the foolish lamb which tread too far from the pathway to look at bunches of flowers, compelled by pretty petals soft as velvet silk and bright, vivacious colors like a child to a mountain of toys. No hand would reach from out of nowhere to offer her a way out, to save her from her fate. Either way, she was dead to them. If she did in fact manage a plan to run away from the forest, she would be thought now a thing of the forest. They would execute her or she stay here, in the forest with him and them.
Sad, a choice to satisfy her curiosity of her importance to him then face whatever horrors that would come to life before her or to return to a family which went hand in hand with certain death. But at least she wouldn't be the same as them, even if she wasn't alive, she would know that she hadn't betrayed her family, kept true to them. The ugly thing in her heart pulsed and clawed at her heartstrings like a rat to a hole. She sagged a little in his arms, too defeated to tense up or even make much of a reaction.
She'd always wondered, in the corners of her mind what it would be like to be needed anyway. She eyes slipped close to catch a few moments inner peace from the world she once knew that was now burning and imploding beneath her feet. Like the sickly feeling of being on a step in the dark with no light and put another foot down only to find that you were on the floor. It had been the last step.
His mouth was a straight line and she couldn't see, but she didn't imagine that it was a smirk or a grin of a cat got the canary. She heard his voice spite now being able to see anything. "Sasori," she blinked and her eyelashes fluttered, long lashes kissing her cheeks.
"Sasori…" she mumbled sleepily, rest already beginning to overtake her body, taxingly. "Sasori…" she murmured once more, repeating herself while sleep claimed her.
The one called Sasori wondered how long it would take to turn her perfect little white coat into an inky, coal black that stood out starkly from others. His greatest and deadliest creation to date and all he needed was a little time. Just a little to shape the mold, make her pliant and shapeable before setting in the mold, allowing her to adapt in her own ways.
He told her his name, that in itself would allow a little trust to leak between the feeling of hatred and utter distrust. Just a small dosage, after all if he tried to insert too much at once, she would grow too dependant or would immediately back away knowing he wanted something. She was flighty and shaky, she would run at the slightest raise of hand and he couldn't have that. Coax her gently, show her sweetness no one ever had; hold out sugar cubes laced with venom in a cupped hand to show no harm.
The path of the cave winded down, and down underground in a spiral like stair case-darkness enclosed and left not a spot of their trail. The strings crawled beneath her skin with but a twitch of crafty fingers with darkly painted nails. She shivered and her eyes moved beneath her pale lids. Dreams of the dark, of fading light, scorpions, lilies, wolves and lambs invaded her mind's eye like thousands of enemies to a poorly protected fortress.
She frowned and made a noise in the back of her throat from a dream, and what some may have called fondly, others darkly but what truly was sick mirth at her position in her life currently, Sasori smirked softly then spoke to her in a hushed honey tones he knew no one else had ever used on her.
"Hist, hist…hush lambling. All is well, all is well."
-
Umm…before I go crazy and thank all who have reviewed, KAS (my abusive editor person) wanted me to explain what's up with the Act One and then the Roman numeral. 'Act's will be in a certain time, when it changes to Act Two; there is a time skip which will be later mentioned in the story. …Just thought I'd clear it up. Thank you for all your lovely reviews towards this unbearably short and not too well thought out story! I hope that this wasn't a disappointment and if it was…KAS will bitch slap me for you. X3 Also…how many of you think I'm a dude or a chick? I get a lot of questions like that so I was just wondering.
To Angst well, I took it off to revamp it since my editor found it and since I hadn't run it by her first…got a bit upset at it since she knew it wasn't the best I could do…. Ahahaha. Owwie. –sighs- Abusive editor person. -.-;; But don't worry! I haven't given up on it! I know I need to expand and it'll be my way there! So…expect to see it up some time this life (hopefully)… XD
To Necury holy…crap. I mean really; one of the longest reviews I've gotten in a while and to answer your questions, you'll have to wait till Act Two as it will explain a lot of the reasons to my madness. All of the questions are much too spoil worthy but I can say it will get darker. It will get horrific and creepier and it will not turn into a romance story. No need for romance when you've got old fashioned gore, right? –winks- And however this may hint at romance….well, Sasori is just very, very smart, kays? X3
Remember folks! Show platonic fan fic love to this hapless writer without talent and review for me. X) Please?
