Scene 14: Awakening

By: DropDeadThenDance

…

"Why is it so fucking cold?" I twitched as I spoke, my voice a low growl and my breath a swirling cloud of steam. My feet crunched below me, but I couldn't see what was in front of me. Everything was black…

I stopped for a moment, my head feeling strangely light, and my body crumpled into a heap on the ground. Why can't I breath? My mind screamed down into my consciousness, my throat burning as the darkness seemed to become something more than my perception.

It started to squeeze me, like a boa constrictor, and I felt as if there was a pair of hands around my throat. I chocked, twitching in my little pile on the frozen floor.

Everything was fading in and out, like rave lights, and my fingernails dug into my scalp.

Sound fluttered into my ears, echoed like a tornado siren and a tiny, slender figure appeared; she was doing dangerous looking pirouettes across the black ice. Twirling around, one spin, another, and her eyes met mine for a moment. She laughed brightly, than seemed to fade into the boa-like darkness, squeezing…

I gagged again, throwing up solid stones; yellow, green, red… I hacked up blood, my body convulsing again as the darkness crushed my ribs, my shoulders… My lungs were on fire, my throat was backed up with blood as my powers turned against me, turning everything in my throat into a jagged edge, cutting me up from the inside…

Red stones hit the floor musically as she laughed in the background, leaving me there to die.

…

My body jerked, my heart slammed into my ribs, and I screamed as my whole form came up. My head was rushing around in circles, my hair a disheveled mess in my eyes as my hands frantically went over my face, my shoulders, through my knotted hair. Still alive, you're still alive, cooed my own inner voice, calm as a stoner.

I struggled with my breathing, gasping and choking as my hand settled on my throat; I could breath, but the sharp cries in between my breaths made me light headed. I hadn't cried this hard in a very long time. Had I almost died? Was that it?

Or was it my best friend pushing me to my death… Maybe that was it?

Another sound entered my earshot and I jerked to one side, my back hitting a wall and I cringed. A man stood in a doorway, and only now did I take notice of my surroundings; I was in what looked like a bedroom, the walls looking like thick plaster with a thin coat of cream colored paint over them, and the only other things worth noticing were the dresser and chair... I twitched again, feeling something around my arm, and I glanced down to see a silver ring around my wrist, a chain connected to another ring in the wall.

"I see you're up," the man said, drawing my attention back to him, but I didn't look at him at first. My attention was more affiliated to the handcuff holding me to the wall. "The restraint is just for security, don't be alarmed," now I looked at him, just through the strands of my hair though.

He was tall, very lean and built; his eyes were damn near electric blue, unnaturally bright, and his skin was too perfect, without flaw or blemish. His hair threw me off some, shock white with tinged in blonde, like he'd failed bleaching it, and his face was sharp, his jaw crooked…

"Where am I?" I squeaked, flinching at the rasping crack in my voice. I looked down at my hands, studying the slight blue hue they now held.

"The Land of Snow," he said evenly and my head came up again, my eyes boring right into his. He didn't look amused, but rather looked completely serious. He stepped into the room and grabbed the chair, pulling it over to the small bed where I had been placed, and sat down a few feet away from me; just out of striking distance. "Now you know, now tell me how you got here?"

My hands felt numb, like they'd been cut off and no longer existed, and my heart was starting to pump again. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? I opened my motuh, wanted to say something, maybe lie, or try to explain, but I chocked on it before the lie even began and I buried my face in my hands and started to cry… Again.

My stomach churned and I gagged, my sobbing turning into chocking, and I found a bucket in front of my face. I wrapped my arms around it and hurled, my body jerking harshly, my shoulders tightening to the point I thought my collar bone might snap under their pressure. I choked again, an image of stones coming up making it impossible for me to force the vile back down.

After the fourth round there was nothing left for my stomach to give and I dry heaved for a second or two, tasting nothing but this disgusting tang that lingered on the back of my tongue; I knew why I was reacting this way, but then I should have been able to reason myself out of puking, out of the sobbing, and sniveling… I chocked again, about to hurl up my stomach.

I felt a hand on the small of my back and then a warm, tingling feeling shot up my spine and I inhaled sharply, suddenly able to breath, but I was still gasping like a fish out of water. The bucket was pulled away and my hand went over my mouth; with the puking stopped, the taste of vomit was suddenly overwhelming potent, and I was still rasping in short breaths.

"Breath," was the instruction, his hand taking my wrist and pulling it away from my mouth. "I'll get you some water, but if you keep hyperventilating like that you're going to blackout again."

I nodded best I could, trying to force my breathing back under my control, suddenly aware of my heart still slamming against my ribs. "I'm sorry," I wheezed out at last, hand against my chest as I focused on my heart, my lungs.

He still had his hand resting on the small of my back, that warm tingle still filtering into my spine and out through my ribs. "It's fine," then his hand came away and the warmth shot out with it. I shuddered. "Okay… Can you talk?" I glanced at him when he said this, the man sitting there looking pensive to say the least.

"I… I think so, but… Well, I don't think you're going to hear anything helpful," finally able to talk again I inhaled slowly and then looked back down at my hands. He nodded simply and then leaned back in his chair, giving me a second to reevaluate his appearance.

Everything I picked apart at first was correct, but now I noticed his outfit; thick boots that came up almost to his knees, baggy pants that looked like they were made of some black coarse looking material, and a white turtle neck with a powder blue, standard chunin vest over top. He also had a Snow hitai-ate across his forehead, keeping his hair up in a style that reminded me of a less ridiculous Kisame…

I shook my head, pushing any information about the Naruto universe out of my head, and fast. I didn't want to know any of it, not now that I was here. I knew too much about it as it was, and as they say in Back To The Future: "It's never good to know too much about one's own destiny."

In my case, it wasn't my destiny I was worried about. It was everybody else's… By the time Megan threw me overboard I'd made it almost through the Third Shinobi World War arch, and Tobi announced who he really was…

I knew way, WAY too much.

"Here, let's start simple… What's your name?" I glanced up again, the snow nin seeming a little less hostile with every minute that passed.

It crossed my mind to give him a fake name, try my hand at something Japanese, but I could only think of a handful of names off the top of my head. "Han," I tried simply, hoping he'd buy it.

"Han-san," he repeated, looking me in the eye. It was a nickname, part of my name, and I think he knew I was giving him a half ass answer, but he let it slide. "Alright, you may call me Gousetsu,"

He nodded once as he introduced himself.

Great, we're using all the little quirks on the names…

"Ok, Gousetsu-san," I rolled it over carefully, making sure I said it right. I'd read a lot of manga over the years, sure, but names had sometimes been an issue for me; especially longer ones.

He didn't give me a dirty look though, so I figured I said it right. "Good. Now, I am part of this region's patrol, and I found you out in the woods half frozen to death. Do you know how long you've been unconscious?" he was very professional.

"Um… I don't know, few hours?" I wasn't sure I really wanted to know as my fingers slipped between the loose space between my wrist and the handcuff.

"Three days, total. You're very lucky I found you," I flinched at his tone, feeling like I was being scolded. He shifted in his seat a bit, brushing down a few wrinkles along the knee of his pants. "Given that, I really doubt you're a shinobi, and you're too old to be a Genin," he made a gesture as if I were to continue with his train of thought, his hand making a small, circular motion.

"No, I'm not, and I'm seventeen," no point in lying… My pointer finger wrapped around the cuff for a moment as I debated on what I should say next; what was he wanting me to tell him? My life story?

Ha, fat chance.

"I'm not sure what else to tell you, honestly… I'm Han, seventeen, not considered extremely intelligent," it was kind of a pathetic thing to say, but I figured it true at this moment. Having found me frozen in the woods, he probably thought I was a total moron. A really lucky moron.

"No, if you were a total idiot, you'd be dead. At some point, you had a fire going, when I found you it was down to the embers, but you'd managed to get it going, so you at least knew well enough to try and stay warm," wow, a compliment this early? I must be far more charming than I thought. He shifted again, as if uncomfortable, and then spoke. "I'm wondering where you're from. You had no papers in your coat, no weapons, nothing for me to go off of."

I didn't know how the Land of Snow felt about trespassing, and I didn't particularly want to find out either, so I tossed my previous decision aside and made something up; something small and believable, easy to refer back to. "I think I lost them when I fell in water, although I'm not entirely sure how I got here in the first place," pieces of a lie, pieces of the truth, and something is about fifty percent more plausible, easier to believe with hints of reality sprinkled in there.

He looked… Concerned.

"I see," was all he said, which in my experience never means anything good. I watched his hand slide back towards his weapons pouch and my breath caught in my throat, knowing that if something bad happened here, I was probably dead.

What's that saying? You can't cheat death twice?

Scene End