Groaning in pain Deidara brought a hand up to his head where it had made contact with the metal floor. He rubbed it gingerly before opening his eye and looking at the high ceiling. Realizing he had blacked out and was now laying down on the filthy metal floor amidst all the Akatsuki members, panic set in. With a yelp he jumped to his feet, immediately regretting his actions as he swayed while the blood rushed back to the rest of his body.
After stabilizing himself and letting his vision return to normal he slowly looked around the room, the whole time waiting for the others to laugh at him and ridicule how weak he was to have passed out for whatever reason. No such thing happened though. The room was completely empty.
"Oh, come on! Did they seriously just leave me here?! Hm!" He huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the empty doorway across the room from him. 'That's not the door that was open when we came in here...' He thought, immediately realizing that something very strange was going on.
Deciding to ignore the open door for the moment Deidara made his way around the large meeting room, trying to open every door he walked past and trying even harder on the one he had originally come through. Finding that he wasn't going to get anywhere if he kept messing around with all these doors Deidara instead decided to make his way through the only open door.
'Fine, if they want me to go this way, I will, but only for now.' He thought as he made his way through the door, entirely expecting to be pranked the moment he stepped through. 'If I don't like what's down this corridor I'll just go back and blow open the door leading out of here.' With this thought complete, the eerie squealing of rusted hinges resonated through the hall before the loud slam as the door closed behind him.
Turning around and running to the door to open it Deidara found that yet another door had been locked. "Damn it!" He shouted. "Fine, I'll just blow all the doors open, hm!" He huffed, reaching into his bags of clay so he could begin moulding his Art, only to find that the bags were empty. "What the hell?" He exclaimed as he quickly undid his utility belt and turned the bags upside-down, shaking them before turning it back up and peering inside. To his horror, they were completely empty.
Now seething mad Deidara kicked the steel door with all his might, a crunching noise sounding as his foot made contact with a thud. "OUCH!" The blond grabbed his foot and began jumping around, tears starting to sting at his eyes. "JUST GREAT!" He continued as he slumped down against the dirty walls, resting in a thin sheet of water which had been brought in from the storm outside. Taking a moment to calm himself down so he could figure out what was going on Deidara closed his eyes, trying hard to ignore the pain in his now broken foot as thunder vibrated the floor beneath him.
Breathing now becoming steady despite the still painful throbbing in his toes and foot, Deidara opened his eyes and looked around the hall only to discover a group of figures standing at the far end. Figuring they might be the other members of the Akatsuki coming back from wherever it was they had gone, Deidara pushed himself up from the wet floor and began to hobble onward, calling out to his fellow members. "Oi! What's the big idea leaving me like that, hm?" He demanded, nearly falling as he slipped against the wet ground, grasping the metal piping which protruded from the floor of each level and ascended to the next through the ceiling, slicing his hand open in the process. "And someone seriously needs to do maintenance on this place! Hm!"
Paying more attention to his hand than the shadowy figures Deidara now began to bandage his wound with a piece of his cloak, whining as the fabric pressed against the cut which had slit open the lower "lip" of his hand-mouth. Gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut he finally managed to tie the makeshift bandage. "I knew that joining the Akatsuki was going to be nothing but trouble, yeah." He groaned as he slumped further against the wall with a heavy sigh.
Deciding that he had sulked enough and that it was time to find the others so he could finally get some answers, Deidara pushed off the wall and once again began limping his way through the corridor in search of the figures he had seen. The figures were no longer at the end of the hallway which only caused the anger Deidara was feeling to intensify, knowing that they most likely sensed his Chakra or at least heard him yelling in pain. Bringing to light both of these factors Deidara then realized that while they should have sensed his Chakra he should have been able to sense theirs as well, which he was not able to and even now while focusing still he could not. "What the hell is going on?" He mumbled as he started to round the corner where the group of shadows had previously been standing.
When the young blonde finally turned the corner he had to stop himself from screaming, clamping a hand over his mouth as he came face to face with an oddly placed Alabaster Stone statue; nose almost touching the statues as he stared into the blank stone eyes. Eyebrow twitching and heart rate erratic Deidara slowly took a step backwards, realizing too late that he was stepping down with his broken foot. In an instant he was now on his knees, biting his lip as pain shot through him.
Glaring up at the statue Deidara began to stand back up. "Stupid thing! Hm!" He snorted, rolling his eyes at the obvious trick that was played on him. "Well played you immature losers, yeah." Believing that it had to be the other members, most likely that Tobi fellow and Hidan, Deidara pushed the statue over, watching it shatter on the ground. Now that his heart rate had settled he decided to continue, looking up only to find a hallway full of the statues. "Well, this sure is creepy, hm..."
Carefully manoeuvring around the rest of the statues Deidara finally made it to the end of the next hall. Turning around to glance back at the creepily placed statues in farewell the bomber now screamed, coming face to face with the statues all over, only this time they had devious expressions carved onto their faces and had walled off the corridor.
"What the hell?!" He shouted, twisting around and beginning to sprint only to fall flat on his face, water splashing up and raining back down on him. In a hurry to escape the hallway of terror Deidara didn't even check his surroundings as he scrambled back up and began moving forward. "This isn't funny you guys! This is way too childish! Come out and knock this off! Hm!" He yelled, limping and stumbling blindly forward, only acknowledging where he now was when the lightning ripped through the sky accompanied by a scream in the distance.
"OK, Deidara, calm down! That was pretty freaky but there has to be an explanation, yeah!" He reasoned with himself as he looked around. 'To begin with, I shouldn't be outside.' Feeling the rain soaking him and the wind giving him a chill Deidara quickly moved under cover of one of the buildings. 'I was up on one of the upper floors of Leaders Tower in a hallway with a bunch of creepy statues.' He looked up through the rain at the tower he was now hiding outside of, at the Tower he was supposed to still be inside. 'The other thing is those statues themselves. At first, I thought they were placed there by the other members merely to freak me out as some sort of Halloween prank, but now I'm thinking something else is at play here because they shouldn't have been able to move and change expressions like that.'
Running his hand up toward his eye scope Deidara began to remove it. 'This leaves me under the impression that this is just another one of Itachi's Genjutsu's! How idiotic of him to play such a childish prank, hm!' Closing his right eye Deidara began to focus with his left. 'I haven't had a lot of time to train this eye but hopefully, I'll still be able to break this Genjutsu.' Using his left eye to focus and performing the Hand Seal Ram, Deidara tried to release himself of the illusion but nothing happened.
'Well, that's just great.' He thought as he sighed in frustration as another scream pierced through the rainfall. 'Guess I need to do this the hard way.' Pulling a Kunai from his holster Deidara prepared to wound himself just enough to break the Genjutsu, stopping short of stabbing himself in the leg when he saw the make-shift bandage wrapped around the wound on his hand. 'Wait a moment,' he thought, lowering the Kunai. 'If this was a Genjutsu I should have been able to break out of it long ago! I've broken my foot and sliced my hand open so I shouldn't be under the illusion anymore!' Confusion setting in Deidara looked up at the Tower again. "Itachi, if this is you knock it off! You already won that stupid battle! Leave me alone! Hm!" Nothing came of his shouting.
Looking back down Deidara's heart skipped. Now standing in front of him with that same creepy expression was the first statue he had run into. What was really annoying was the fact he knew he smashed it and yet this is the second time he's come face to face with it.
Giving no thought to his actions Deidara went to push the statue over again in order to make a break for it but to his surprise the statue moved, gripping his wrist painfully tight. In a deep, gargling voice the statue then spoke.
"Do you want to become Art?" It asked, an evil grin cracking its face causing a black liquid to dribble out of its mouth. "Become art."
"NO!" Deidara yelled, trying to wrench his hand free which was quickly losing feeling. "Back off! I'm not ready to die yet, yeah!" At this the statue chuckled, causing more of the black liquid to pour from its mouth.
"You won't die." It spoke, now inching closer. "Art is Eternal."
At this Deidara lost whatever fear he had and clenched his teeth. "No! Art is an EXPLOSION! HM!" Kicking the statue and then sticking a paper bomb to it Deidara quickly removed himself from the statues grasp as its arm was blown off. "Ha! See? That is ART, yeah!" Grinning like a fool himself the Explosion Artist began running for his life.
"Art is Eternal." Came the echo of the statue, its broken voice mixed in with that of many others. Looking around Deidara now realized there were many more statues lining the streets, all their voices repeating the same thing he so hated to hear.
"SHUT UP!" He screeched, looking around at the statues as they slowly began closing in on him, all their faces cracking, allowing the black liquid to ooze out. Not wanting to get stuck between the moving statues Deidara began running, heading for anywhere there might be a large group of people or any amount of people for that matter. "Where the hell is everyone?"
Pace now slowing, Deidara looked down, remembering that his foot shouldn't be holding up this well. "What!?" Nearly tripping as he began to come to a stop Deidara watched his foot slowly encase in stone. "What's happening to me?" Panicking now he began moving more frantically, reaching out for the wall to stabilize his movements which were becoming increasingly difficult the more his foot and leg turned to stone.
With wide eyes, he now noticed his hand had become encased and the stone was slowly creeping up his arm. Looking over at the other hand which he hadn't been able to feel for some time he saw the flesh tips of his fingers disappear into stone. The place where the stone statue had gripped him now had stone expanding outwards. More than panicked Deidara went to break the stone off, kicking his stone-covered foot against the metal building only to have it shatter and crumble away, blood now spurting from the break.
The statues slowly began circling Deidara as he fell, bleeding onto the ground. Unable to grasp anything to break his fall he had instinctively put his hands down first to catch himself, only causing his stone arms to shatter and produce more blood flow. Deidara's consciousness faded to black as the pool of blood beneath him grew wider and wider, washing away in small streams in the rain.
"Art is Eternal." The statues spoke in unison as their broken, black bleeding faces stared down at the young artist as he finished turning to stone.
{**A/N: Deidara doesn't want to be Eternal, he wants to be an Instant in life so having creepy statues stalk you and try to turn you into Eternal Art sounded like something he would fear.
Deidara is also a pretty intelligent character who is also very easy to set off so this turned out a little comical in areas.
Also, I think I might have ended up rushing the end... But with everything else and trying to stick to a 2,000-word limit it was difficult. (I'm no good at short stories... haha)
What do you think? Was it creepy enough? What would you do/feel if you had moving ghostly white statues following you around, trying to turn you into one? Was there enough blood?
I love your feedback!
Until next time, thank you for reading, My Darling Sweetsparks!~**}
[Posted: Oct. 29, 2018]-[Wordcount: 2,209]
