He won't put me down no matter how much I struggle or protest, and he keeps touching my sides to make me jump and squeak. I don't say anything, because I know he won't stop, but every now and then I knee his chest, punch his back, or elbow his head or neck.

If it hurts, he doesn't show it, but one time, as he runs his fingers down my sides, his hands stray a bit too close to my chest and I flip.

"Pervert! Bastard!" I elbow the base of his head and kick him in the stomach.

"Ow! That actually hurt! Stop it!" Sasuke shouted at me, rubbing his head.

"Put me down and stop touching me and maybe I will!" I shouted back at him. "No!"

"Then I won't stop! Easy as that!" I retorted angrily.

We lapsed into silence again, him still touching my sides, me still returning the grazes with slams that will probably cause bruising.

"Okay, we'll stop here." Sasuke almost literally dropped me.

"Ugh..." I growled when he smirked. "Jackass.: I mutter to myself, but loud enough for him to hear. Sasuke laughs at my seriously pathetic attempts at burns.

I admit that I absolutely suck at burns. I do. I really, really do.

"You go scout the area. Dickwad." I grumble, scaling up a nearby tree and breaking off a couple small branches.

I toss the fresh sticks onto a pile of dry ones for a fire.

"Fine." He shrugs and heads off into the trees. I wait until I can no longer sense his chakra before I start hissing and spitting with irritation.

He is so annoying! I wish Father hadn't sent him with me!

I growl as I perform a Fire Style jutsu to get the fire going.

Why does Father think I need protection? Me?

My fury boils my blood and raises my temperature. I clench my hands into fists, snarling and snapping as I set my sleeping bag up on a high branch in a tree. I sat on the branch, folding my legs over the soft, puffy fabric beneath me. I scraped around in my pack until my hand closed over a coil notebook, my sketch pad. I take out a pencil and start to colour away the white of a fresh page.

The drawing is of a peaceful little hut sitting near a calm lake that stretches far out to a small mountain range far beyond.

This is what my home used to look like before the ninja came. Before the house was turned to burned up rubble, before the murder of my family, and before the lake ran red with their blood and became the final resting place for their corpses.

This is the way I want to remember my first home, but when I think of it, it is always the way it appeared on that night.

"What are you doing up there?" I curl my lip up and stuff my sketch pad back into my pack.

"I was relaxing. Until you showed up." I scowl.

"Perimeter's clear." He reports, as though I have said nothing. He is looking out into the trees.

I decide to test something.

"Screw you." I sat, crouching by the fire.

"What was that?" He sits down across from me.

He is spacing out.

"Never mind." I say, trying out waht is on his mind.

Sasuke shrugs. "Okay." He is still facing the trees, but I can tell that his pupils have shifted. He is staring at me.

But why?

I stare over his shoulder, at the small break in the trees behind him. The darkness of the shadows looks familiar.

I blink slowly, tilting my head to the side. Why is it stirring a distant memory?

I stand up and walk around the fire towards the small opening.

"Where are you going?" I don't answer, and Sasuke makes a move to catch my ankle. He has to roll onto his back to even have a chance at catching me. "Spyder! Get back here!"

I keep going.

I squeezed through two trees onto a small path that plants have invaded. I walk carefully. making sure I continue on the trail. It's dark, the trees casting huge black shadows, and I don't want to risk being discovered by using a jutsu.

"Spyder! Spyder!" Sasuke is somewhere behind me, but I don't know where though.

"Hssh..." Spindle hisses from his hiding spot in my tied- up hair, He doesn't like this place, it makes him nervous.

I ignore the sounds that come from him and follow the trail silently on soundless feet. Plants catch around my ankles, so I had to pull my legs forward a little harder than usual.

"Spyder! Get back here, you little brat!" I shrug off urge to attack him and keep following the winding path through the trees.

The shadows are growing thinker and darker as the sun slowly sets and I push further into the trees. The place gets creepy- quiet, and I can feel the pins and needles crawling up my skin like bugs.

It makes me shiver. It's unnerving.

The temperature is steadily dropping and I can feel the cold slowly seeping inot my bones, freezing my body from the inside out. I have to rub my arms to keep the blood inside of them from turning into ice. I have no wish to become a ninja- pop.

The trail twists around a boulder a foot taller than me and the path becomes steep and rocky.

The stirring memory is stronger now, closer to the surface, but I can't quite reach it yet.

Triumph hisses and coils around my wrist tightly, almost painfully.

I look around, my green eyes wide. To my right, an old, wooden swing creaks on a high branch. My skin crawls. To the left is a small, creepy creek, babbling lightly, like a whispering ghost. My heart pounds and an icy shiver wraps itself around my body.

I force my feet to move again, faster. This is like a nightmare waiting to happen. I can feel the evil waiting to pounce on me.

Or maybe it's just Sasuke.

The darkness is becoming thicker, darker. It's pooling around me, at my feet, trying to claw it's way up my body.

I bite my lip to keep quiet and wring my hands. I'm scared, but somehow I know that I'llonly make it through this place if I banish my fear. I look around me, the trees look evil. The shadows are dark and are waiting to swallow me. The cold is biting, chomping at me and filling my body with ice.

I'm giving in; I'm going to use a jutsu.

Don't use a jutsu, little girl.

The wind is whispering in a chillingly familiar way. It haunts my memory. It stalks my fear, trying to make the terror rise to the surface. I won't let it though.

I stop moving and close my eyes. I focus on the cold ball of fear in my stomach, I pull on the warmth surrounding it and tug it into the cold. i can feel my body thawing out, the fear retreating back into the dark crevice of my past.

The wind stops.

The cold disappears.

The trees are hushed.

Everything is the opposite of what it was, except shadows. Their darkness is natural.

I blink, taking the scene in once again. Tall trees, dark shadows, no sky visible. I start walking again, careful on the rocky downward slant. My surroundings are getting more and more familiar the further I go.

I brace myself on the big rocks and I carefully step over a stream, onto the other bank.

I'm straddling the creek, and I have to push off from the other side. My foot skims into the water and I cry out quietly in shock. I lift my foot out of the wetness and shake off the water droplets, my teeth chattering. I shake my shoulders. The shivers rolling off my back.

I stood up and padded down the twisting path. I turned around the last twist in the trail and stopped dead.

"Spyder!" Sasuke came up behind me just as I fell to my knees.

"No..."

I swore I'd never return here.