A/N: One of the longest chapters I've ever written by far, and I'm really not that happy with how it turned out. Hopefully everyone else likes it, but I couldn't be more disappointed with myself. Oh yeah, and the reason I wanted to make Cynthia a man is...
If you don't know the Silent Hill series (specifically 4), or you just don't want to spoil the rest of the fic... you might want to go right on ahead to the beginning of the chapter
... because I want to keep all of Walter Sullivan's victims male so it won't seem as odd that Shikamaru of all people is the 20th "Mother Reborn" victim. So if Sharon Blake decides to make an appearance, then she'll likely be male too. The only exception to this will be Miriam Locane, and only because her twin is male, and they don't really end up as ghosts.
Okay then, on to the fic!
Chapter 5-
o(O)o(O)o
Stay with me, James! Don't ever leave me alone!
You're supposed to take care of me!
-Maria, Silent Hill 2
o(O)o(O)o
"And you got over there how?" Sasuke asked wearily, walking down the hallway towards the living room.
It'd finally happened. He'd resorted to talking to furniture. Sasuke Uchiha, the last of his family, the boy that had survived every mental beating his brother or the Hokage could deal out, had finally snapped. And all because his side table had decided to magically slide across the room.
He'd woken up after his little nap with less of a headache, but with a coffee craving that would put even the biggest caffeine addict to shame. On his way to the kitchen however, he noticed that his magical moving table of doom had once again... well, moved. It had been sliding across the living room since his door locked itself, and each time he'd moved it back, only to have it return to its favorite spot in the corner when he wasn't looking.
Sighing heavily, Sasuke walked up to the table, picking it up slightly and shifting it away when something caught his eye. It wasn't much, just a flash of something dark he saw out of the corner of his eyes, but it was enough to make him drop the table and go investigate.
In the corner where the table once sat, there was a gun and a note on the floor and a cluster of bullet holes in the wall, which had cracked open a peep hole into his neighbors apartment. Picking up the gun and the note, Sasuke flopped down on the floor next to the wall. He examined the gun first. It wasn't new, or very expensive looking, and with him being a shinobi, he really had no idea as to what constituted a good gun... but if it could blast that big a chip in his wall then it had to be powerful. And with everything that happened to be going on lately, it certainly might come in handy. Still, since he was locked in his house and he had absolutely no desire to go back to subway land, Sasuke really didn't have any need for it.
The note on the other hand was a little more interesting. Not only did the author seem to be in the same situation as him... but they also mention a Shikamaru not noticing, "Not noticing what...?" And what Shikamaru are they talking about, Sasuke thought. He only knew one, and he really wouldn't be surprised if that guy didn't notice... whatever he was supposed to notice. He thought that maybe it would be the bullet holes scarring his wall, but then he would have to—
"Oh, good god no." Sasuke groaned miserably, just catching sight of the coat that was hanging over the chair in his neighbor's apartment. The same one Shikamaru wore every single day... the one with the Nara crest on the sleeve.
"Fuck, I forgot someone lives there!" Sasuke shot to his feet; both note and gun in hand as he stalked over to the sink to fill up the kettle. Coffee, he needed coffee. How could he not have noticed that the man that was next in line to become Konoha's war tactician was living in the apartment next to his!?
"He not have been home a lot. Probably just has this place for when he needs to get away from his family." Sasuke deduced, pouring himself a cup of coffee. He couldn't think of any other explanation. He certainly would have noticed Shikamaru in the halls, getting his mail, leaving for work every morning, or even complaining if he hadn't been so worried about the dead bolted chains on his front door, the indestructible windows, and the growing hole in his bathroom wall. There was a vast and growing list of reasons that Sasuke would have loved to go over, if only to make himself seem like less of an idiot...
But unfortunately, the phone decided to ring.
"Shit!" Sasuke jumped, almost spilling his coffee. He took off down the hall towards the phone, his caffeine craving completely forgotten in his moment unabashed excitement. The phone was ringing. The phone was actually ringing! Something that could connect him to another human being was actually working! It didn't occur to him however, to even take a moment to think before he picked up the receiver. If he had, he'd have noticed that everything that's happened in the past four or five days had been carefully timed and thought out. If he had, he'd have thought twice before taking the call, if he even decided to take it at all. If he had though, he'd have noticed how futile it would be to try and ignore the goings on in his apartment and would have, no matter how badly he'd wanted not to, answered the phone.
"Hello...?" Sasuke asked tentatively, raising the receiver to his ear.
"...Where did you... go...?"
"Who... who the hell is this?" Sasuke demanded, his hand tightening impulsively around the receiver.
"Hurry... Save me..."
"Starla?"
"If you... need a token... I have..."
"Hello?" Sasuke pleaded, refusing to believe that his one human connection from inside his apartment within the past five days just hung up one him, "Hello!? Please, for fucks sake-!"
Only after listening to the droning of the dial tone for a while did he decide to give up. Sighing, he placed the receiver back in it's cradle, only to realize that the phone wasn't even hooked up to the wall.
Sasuke froze, his eyes wide with shock, and even though he'd suspected something was up from the moment he pick up the phone, he slid down the wall, landing with a dull thump on the carpet. He didn't want to think, hell, he hadn't sat down and thought about his situation since he found he was locked in. But he found he had to, once his mind supplied him with this valuable tidbit of information:
There was someone in there with him.
Someone who didn't want him to stay put, but who didn't want him running a muck either. Someone who had planned this whole scenario from beginning to end, mapping out every possible move he could make, and setting up traps to stop him. Someone who wanted him to follow their painstakingly beaten path, and end up at their carefully placed finish line.
So what was he supposed to do now? Was he just supposed to stay there and rot away in his little one bedroom apartment? Or was he gonna screw his captor over royally, and fight his way out.
"Fuck it." Sasuke muttered as he stood, storming over to his front door and reaching into the hall closet. If he was going to go back to that funky subway world, he was not going in his slippers again.
"I'm not gonna rot in here." He said to himself, grabbing the pipe he'd found before and slipping his other sandal on. Standing before the hole in his wall, Sasuke breathed in deep, steadying himself for no matter how hard he tried to stay tough, the wailing emanating from the giant gap was enough to make him shiver with anxiety.
Steeling himself, Sasuke crawled into the hole, not even noticing the fact that his shower had started to rain blood.
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
He'd just started to think that maybe things were okay, that maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to deal and carry on without screaming like a little girl. Then the giant dog jumped out of the display window of "Francesca's Jewelers", and he was proven wrong once again.
Neji stood up straight, wiping the blood off the bottom of his shoe on the dirty tile floor. No matter how many creatures, mutant dogs, spinning beetles and giant men in straight jackets came after him, it still got to him. Hell, the whole fucking place got to him, and why wouldn't it? He felt like he was going crazy!
"At least Kiba saw it too..." He tried to tell himself, but it only served to make things worse. Who cares if he could see what he saw, and hear what he heard, it doesn't change the fact that if it wasn't for him, Neji would never have ended up in this horrible predicament.
"Daddy..."
Neji whipped around, stopping his ascent up the elevator to look at a small rack of televisions. He could have just sworn he heard someone say-
"Da... Daddy..."
His eye's widened, and he backtracked off the escalator. He saw something in the static of the TV screen, a face. A little girls face, and he knew now, he knew that he heard that little girl say "daddy". He moved closer, until his nose was almost touching the screen, straining to hear anything behind the steady, static drone.
Nothing. He could hear nothing, he could see nothing, and as frustrating as it was, he couldn't help but feel relived. He didn't think he could handle another shock today.
Sighing he stepped back, content at the moment to just let his mind take a back seat and continue on his journey to god knows where. But something was troubling him. It had been troubling him since he stepped off the escalator and onto the cracked and moldy tile. It was a door. A gigantic steel door. An eerily foreboding door, one that, unlike all of the other doors he had walked through that day, and in his lifetime of walking through doors he had yet to come upon.
It was a door of insurmountable proportions, covering the entire span of the wall with it's massive girth, and reaching far beyond the ceiling and into the next floor. It looked as if it would take all of his power to open it, and the deep red makings that formed the shape of a moon underneath an inscription gave him the feeling that he really, really didn't want to go in there.
But something was pulling at him, telling him to go on, that he had to do this, that this is something he was sent here to do. Something deep down in the pit of his stomach was taking over, invading his mind and his body, pushing him aside like a rag doll, and leaving him to watch as it did what it want him to do, but that he refused to. An eerie feeling swept over him as he realized that this was exactly what happened in his dream. He hadn't wanted to step onto the roller coaster tracks, he hadn't even wanted to leave the entrance of the park... but he had. This feeling, this thing that was pushing it's way up through his gut had made him take those first steps, so softly, so smoothly that he didn't even realize that it wasn't him moving, but someone else. Someone who had laid dormant inside him for a very, very long time. Someone who was making him take his first few steps through the giant door, and someone who was closing the great slab of metal behind him.
That was it. That was the last straw. Neji struggled to get control over his legs as his arms flailed out at his sides, "Get out!" he screamed wildly, trying to push that sinister presence out of his mind, out of his body, "Get out, you piece of shit! Get out and leave me alone!!"
And then it was gone. Just as quickly, just as effortlessly as it had arrived, it was gone. Relaxing as much as his body would allow, he looked back at the overly large door, knowing for a fact without even having to try that the door would not open. And that it was never going to open again. If he ever wanted to get out of here, he'd have to find his own way out.
And as determined as he was, he didn't notice the floor had given out under his feet until he landed ass first and a pile of rubble.
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
There. Kiba looked up the escalator once again, certain now that he had heard someone scream, not once but twice. Berating himself for not bringing Akamaru along (for the company if nothing else), he headed towards the sound, only to come face to face with one the most gigantic door he'd ever seen.
"For god sakes, whoever designed this place has crappy taste." Kiba muttered, giving the door a mighty push, hearing it squeal on it's hinges as it slowly opened. Looking past the giant slab of metal, all he was met with was darkness. Complete and utter darkness, drowning him as he walked past the enormous door, towards the only patch of light in the room.
Then he heard it. From the direction of the single spot of light, he heard the sound again, the scream. Only now, he knew what it was, who it was. It was a sound he had become all too familiar with in much too short a time. It was Neji.
Running towards the patch of light, he had to skid to a quick halt to avoid falling into the hole after Neji. Looking down, he saw the other boy, backed up against a wall, a bare light bulb hanging over his head, gun pointed out before him and shooting frantically at a tunnel in the wall before him. Before Kiba had a chance to react, something shot out of the hole below his feet, jaws wide as it lunged for Neji. The Hyuuga was as quick on his feet as always however, and managed to jump out of the way, leaving the snake like creature to dive head first into the wall.
The thing writhed around a bit, it's jaws snapping wildly, before it regained it's bearings and turned back towards Neji. The Hyuuga started to fire round after round at the snake, backing up towards the rows of tunnels under Kiba's feet, shouting madly at the beast, his hands shaking to the point where he could hardly keep the gun level. He recoiled with every shot, pitiful yelps escaping his lips everytime he started to lose his footing atop the piles of rubble.
Not being a lucky sort of person though, it obviously didn't come as a surprise to either Neji or Kiba when a familiar telltale clicking filled the room.
Staring at the gun in his hand as if it had personally done him a great disservice, Neji shook his head, unable to believe that this had happened to him not once, but twice, and this time it didn't look as if the creature was just going to decide to keel over.
"Neji!" Kiba shouted from above him, startling him out of his musings, and bringing him back to the predicament at hand, "Shoot at it's head!"
He was about to retaliate with a snappy response when three small red boxes hit the pile of rubble beside him. He snatched up the handgun ammo without a word. Neji could have kissed him if he wasn't seconds away from being eaten by a giant snake with thousands of large, pointy teeth.
Moving out of the way yet again, Neji leveled the gun at the things head, and waited for it to open it's colossal mouth, before he fired shot after shot into the snakes throat. The creature let out a disgustingly guttural cry as the seventh bullet ripped through the back of it's neck. Without warning, the snake fell forward, and before Neji could react is left leg was crushed under the immense weight of the monstrous beast.
Neji let slip a cry that rivaled the snakes as the bones in his left calf cracked under the overgrown reptile, his eyes watering and his stomach doing flip flops as he tried desperately to free himself, succeeding only in causing him to almost black out.
Kiba jumped down into the pit, intent on helping Neji and not thinking about how the hell that thing (and all the things he'd seen that day) had gotten there, when the world moved from under his feet and a ear splitting static filled his head as he blacked out.
(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)(O)
Neji was awoken by a horribly drilling pain, one that was immediately cast as the fourth "Most Painful Awakening" in his life.
The first was undoubtedly the night after he got his seal. The pain was so horrible he had spent the rest of the night curled up around the toilet on the bathroom floor, a bag of quickly evaporating ice held to his forehead. He had spent two full days in that bathroom, his father coming in periodically to flush the toilet, wipe the sweat and bile from his neck and face, and bring him a fresh bag of ice. It was, without a doubt, the worst pain he had ever been in, despite only being six years old and not even a shinobi yet.
The second would have to be after his fight with Kidomaru. He couldn't walk for a month and a half, and for almost a year, he had to go to the hospital every second week so that the nurses could work on the slow healing, indescribably painful wounds in his side and shoulder. He couldn't sleep any other way but flat on his back with his arms at his sides for months afterwards, and even then, the dull, painful throbbing was enough to keep him awake.
The third was after his... incident. It wasn't as much painful (though thats not to say it wasn't at all) as it was embarrassing. He knew nobody but Gai, the Hokage and Sasuke knew what had happened, but everytime he limped, everytime he winced as he sat down, he felt as if the whole world knew, as if they were mocking him for being too soft, too weak, too pretty to be a ninja, much less a man, and god knows he'd been emasculated enough as it was. And the fact that he had a burn on his right thigh that festered and oozed and bled and refused to heal no matter what products, what jutsu's were used on it didn't help any.
This however, was undoubtedly the fourth, and he didn't even know what it was. All he knew was that his left calf was being jostled and shifted and it hurt like a son of a bitch. It wasn't like he had never broken his legs before, hell, he'd done it multiple times (especially when training with a pissed off Lee), but whoever was trying (futilely) to tie a splint around his leg was doing a really, really shitty job of it. They were jolting and shoving and all but manhandling his leg, all the while cursing loudly, in a voice he wished he didn't recognize.
"Kiba?" Neji mumbled tiredly, wincing as the other nin dropped his leg, the sighed as he cursed under his breath, "What the hell are you doing with my leg...?"
"Trying to tie a fucking splint." Kiba muttered, obviously upset with himself for not remembering the most basic of first aid procedures, "I swear to god, if I had a dollar for every time Hinata tried to show me how to do this, I'd be rich, and I wouldn't need Claudia Wolf's filthy money."
Sitting up slightly, Neji looked over at Kiba's handiwork. It was sloppily done, and wasn't getting any better, so Neji swatted Kiba's hands away, taking over. But not before he noticed the familiar scenery of the normal Konoha mall. He was back.
Sighing softly, he went about bandaging up his leg, wincing slightly whenever he jostled it. He was relieved to see that it wasn't crushed or splintered like he thought it would be, just fractured, "When did we get back?" He asked, not lifting his head from his handiwork.
"I woke up about ten minutes ago," Kiba replied, "But it happened right after you killed that thing."
Neji looked up this time. Kiba sounded so despondent, and for Kiba... it was almost as strange as seeing a serious Gai, "What's wrong?" he inquired warily, moving towards him a bit, though still being mindful of his leg.
At first he thought Kiba was just going to ignore him, and hope he wasn't going to repeat himself. Then he moved closer to Neji, taking his chin in his hands and forcing him to look at him. Neji tried to look away, to move back, knowing that he should be terrified, that he should be angry. The only thing that terrified and angered him at that moment however, was the fact that he wasn't upset with Kiba, that he wasn't scared of him. That he did in fact feel sorry for him.
"Don't you ever, ever run away like that again, okay?" Kiba whispered, albeit a bit harshly, "I don't care how pissed off you get with me, how much you want to kill me for what I've done, for what part I've played in this mess... You can't run off on me again!" He bit his lip, trying to calm himself down as he continued, "You... I don't know why, but there's something special about you. Something that these monsters, that Claudia, that whoever else might be here wants. And by the looks of things, it's not going to stop anytime soon."
Neji turned his head away, choosing to look at the fountain instead of the other man, "By the looks of things, it already has." He turned back towards Kiba, "So I'm going to leave."
"Do you choose not to listen to anyone else but yourself, or is it just hereditary?" Kiba shot back, standing next to Neji as he struggled to stand, "Jesus man, you can't seriously be thinking that this is over. Poof, done, just like that? You killed the big monster and now you can just go home!? It doesn't work that way Neji!"
"What the hell do you know!?" Neji replied sharply, "You spend a few hours in this place and you think you know how it works? I can tell you right now with almost complete certainty that you haven't even touched the tip of the iceberg! There is so much you don't know, so much I don't know, but you aren't a part of it! You never were! You're just some ninja that Tsunade picked out of a hat to follow some crazy chicks orders! You shouldn't even be here!"
"But I am!"
Neji's rant stopped dead in it's tracks, his mouth snapping shut as he tried his best to look just and indignant.
"As much as you wish I wasn't here right now, I am." Kiba continued, "Trust me, I'd rather be at home, with friends and family, enjoying my Saturday, but I'm not. And neither are you. We're both in the same fucking situation Neji, so get it through your head and stop fighting me!"
Neji opened his mouth to reply, but quickly stopped himself, struggling to stand, "I know we are, Kiba, but I'm not just going to grin and bear it." Using the fountain as a crutch to help him gain his footing, he wobbled to his feet, trying to keep as much pressure off his left leg as possible, "I'm not just going to sit here and wait for someone to show. I'm not so stupid that I'd expect anyone to-"
Kiba quickly sprang to his feet the second he saw Neji start to wobble. Catching the other boy, he moved him to rest against him chest until he could regain his balance...
"This can't be real, how can this be happening...?"
A smile, a genuine smile, one so sincere he was certain he'd never see one like it again.
"Then it isn't."
"How?"
A kiss. A touch. A pale foot running up the side of his calf. And then the eyes. The eyes so white and young, that seemed to know so much more then they should, that seemed to house something, someone else within them.
"Trust me."
Kiba started, shocked out of his thoughts as Neji pulled away from him. He stumbled back a bit, though not enough for the other to notice. What the hell was that? Why did he have to remember that know!? It was bad enough he had that vile dream to begin with, but apparently now everytime he touched Neji he was going to remember it? Uh-uh, that wasn't happening.
It wasn't that he didn't (or refused to) recognize Neji as a good looking young man, hell, he even commented on it from time to time. But the fact that he could even think of doing something so horrible, so despicable...
"Neji, please. You have absolutely no reason to trust me," Kiba, seeing that he was obviously going to interject, cut in, "But I'm the only chance you have of getting out of here, and you mine. We are the only two people here besides Claudia, and since we're already working under the suspicion that she's a maniacal freak who wants us dead... well..."
"I get it." Neji answered a snappily, all resentment gone from his voice this time, "I understand what you're trying to say and I'll... stick with you... but so help me god, if you do one thing to make me think that you're going to hurt me, you son of a bitch-"
"Alright, alright let's just... get a move on." Kiba interrupted, placing his hand on Neji's shoulder, only to have it brushed off the second it touched skin, "There's a subway up ahead, we can that that back to our district and get you home."
Nodding almost unnoticeably, Neji started to hobble towards the direction of the subway, brushing past Kiba. Head still held high even though he had a splint on his one leg, a burn on the other and one hell of a chip on his shoulder. Still proud after everything he'd been through, and what he was undoubtedly (at least in Kiba's mind) was going to go through again.
"You coming, or you just gonna stand there catching flies all day?"
"Cool it, I'm coming." Kiba shot back, a ghost of a smile flitting across his face. "It could have been worse," he thought, "I could have been stuck with a crier."
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
"The one day Gai insists everyone has to show up..." Tenten grumbled, "And I'm the only one who does!"
Sitting down heavily onto the wet grass, she leaned back against the dummy she had been impaling for the past hour and a half. She was used to getting stood up at training, as Gai and Lee usually have their own little training sessions they cook up for themselves, but not by Neji. Never by Neji. She heard he was in the hospital, and she would have gone to visit him, if it weren't for the two stationed guards at the doors to his room. So she sent him a letter and some flowers instead, hoping that he'd be back on his feet soon to help her deal with the rest of their team.
"But he should be out by now..." Tenten said softly, to no one in particular. Grunting a bit, she picked herself up off the soggy grass, wiping the stray blades off of her ass. "First no one shows up, now I have to change," she grumbled, "What else could happen?"
She had meant for that to be rhetorical.
Just a few hours later she found herself on a train headed towards a little out of the way town with Sakura Haruno.
It was a missing persons case, just a simple look around for three people who had gone missing from a few nearby villages and who had last been seen in the town. In all honesty, Tenten didn't know more than that, as she hadn't talked to Sakura since they got on the train. The other girls seemed tired and miserable, like someone had just ran over her cat. She really didn't want to bother the girl, but she had to know, "So, who are we going to look for anyways?"
"Just three missing people. A store clerk, a delivery boy and a runaway. Nothing really special." Sakura replied, staring distantly out the window, "Their names are James Sunderland, Angela Orosco, and Eddie Dombrowski."
"That's it!?" Tenten exclaimed, "Just three, ordinary people? The Hokage sent us to go search for three ordinary civilians? Didn't she have anyone else to send?"
"She did, but that's not why we're being sent there." Sakura stated a matter o' factly, "We're being sent because a young girl who was friends with Sunderland's wife has wound up dead. She was also seen in the vicinity of the town. Her name was Laura." She said somberly, looking over at Tenten for the first time since they were sent on their mission, "She was eight years old."
"So she thinks the others might be dead or in danger too?"
"Right?"
"So we might be in for a fight?"
"Yup."
"So why the hell are you in civilian clothes?"
Sakura looked down at herself. She wasn't wearing anything much, just a baby blue tank and a skirt, "Well, I figured we're going after three civilians who obviously don't want to be found, so why, in the interest of the mission, should we let them know we're ninja? It'll just give them reason to bolt."
"Shit, you're right..." Tenten muttered, looking down at her usual training outfit, wishing she had thought to bring something a bit more casual, "Damn."
"Here." Sakura handed the girl her back pack, "There's a change of clothes in there. Jeans and a tee shirt, nothing fancy, but it'll keep us as incognito as we're gonna get." She said with a smile.
Tenten smiled back politely, heading towards the washroom in the other car. The train rocked as it sped down the tracks, the hanging overhead lights swinging side to side. "That's funny," she thought, "Where the hell did everybody go?"
There was no one in any of the other seats, and all of the tables in the dining car were empty except for plates of half eaten food. Tenten frowned. She knew, she just knew thatthe dining car was full of people when they first arrived there.
Slipping into the small bathroom, Tenten shut and locked the door behind her. Even though there was no one there to lock it against... it still made her feel safer. She dressed quickly, wanting to be out of the claustrophobic little room as soon as possible.
She had barely finished with her belt before the lights overheard started to shake and flicker violently. Running out into the hall, Tenten took off running down into the dining car, only to fall flat on her face the moment she reached it.
The breaks squealed as they ground to a sharp stop, throwing plates and glass and silverware off the tables. Tenten covered her head against the barrage of cutlery, wincing as she felt a steak knife nick her ankle. Jumping to her feet, Tenten made a run for the door to the car, only to have it slam shut and lock itself.
"Fuck..." She muttered, her eyes wide as she stared at the window next to the door. A slow, steady fog blocked out all outside scenery, leaving only a shifting inky blackness outside the tinted glass. She tried the door, but to no avail. She couldn't for the life of her get it open.
Looking back outside the window, Tenten tried to see through the fog, wanting to at least know where she was, and maybe if she could see any other passengers. She didn't she anybody. She couldn't see anybody if she wanted to, and for the love of god, she wanted to. The second she looked out the window she wanted someone there. Someone who's hand she could hold. She was scared, and she didn't have the slightest idea as to why. That was until the windows began to fog over, however.
Tenten frowned as she moved closer to the window, her nose almost touching the glass in an attempt to figure out what the hell was forming on the window. It was like fog, like the inside of the train was too warm for the outside, but it was pink. A light pink, like diluted red paint. The kind of colour you get when you accidentally throw a red sock in with a load of whites.
She raised her hand to the window, dragging her index finger lightly across the glass, just enough to take some of the light pinkish substance (that was gradually getting thicker and becoming more red, less pink by the second) with it. Bringing her finger up to her nose, she gave it a quick whiff and touched it to her tongue before recoiling in horror and wiping her hand and tongue furiously on her (Sakura's) tee-shirt.
"Blood..." She stammered, "It's blood... and it's everywhere."
The blood was no longer diluted with the fog, now staining the windows a deep red. Long rivulets of crimson ran down to the window sill, dripping of the ledge in large, fat drops. Each drop hit the parquet with a sickeningly loud 'plop', gathering in pools around the off white molding, turning them from a half decent but yellowing white to that horrible pinkish colour.
Standing in the middle of the dining car, Tenten stood perfectly still. She didn't know what else to do. She wasn't going to touch anything, she decided. She was going to stand there and slap herself until she woke up, probably after just having fallen asleep in her and Sakura's seat. They would arrive at the destination minutes after, locate the missing people and bring them back to their respective villages, and then she could go home, have a bath, and forget the whole thing.
Unfortunately, things never work out the way you plan them.
The blood on the window directly in front of her moved to the side, droplet by droplet until only a thin sheen was left covering the glass. Stepping forward, Tenten looked out the window. There, walking into the forest as if by someone else's will, was Sakura.
Tenten cursed under her breath, heading towards the exit. To her surprise, the doors slid open easily, letting the rain that was pounding on the roof of the car start to soak her new clothes.
Running off in the direction of the forest, Tenten didn't even notice the sign on the side of the road:
"Welcome to Silent Hill! The Happiest Place in the West!"
ooooooooooooooooooooooo
Sasuke didn't know whether to kill it or poke at it until it did something.
He felt stupid. Of course he felt stupid! He was standing in the middle of an abandoned subway, doing absolutely nothing when he was supposed to be saving Starla from whoever else was in there with them. Well, that was a lie, he wasn't doing nothing. He was staring dumbly at a pulsating string of flesh that was coming out of the wall.
"It looks kinda human..." He muttered as he stooped down to it's level, reaching out a finger to poke at it. He wasn't sure what kind of germs or diseases that thing could have, but it was just so bizarre, he couldn't help it. He was just about to touch the thing when the loudspeaker crackled.
"Sasuke!? Sasuke, come get me, please!"
He jumped back, wrenching his hand away from the cord of rotting human flesh and cradling it to his chest.
"Sasuke please! I'm in the terminal! He's coming for me, oh god, he wants to kill me! Please!"
"Oh, God." Sasuke took off towards the Lynch Street line, his sandals slapping against the tile in his mad rush to get there in time. He didn't understand it, he'd just met the guy. He didn't know a thing about him, so why the hell did he care what happened to him?
"Because he's in the same situation as me." Sasuke thought to himself, pushing himself to move faster, telling himself that if he didn't step it up, he'd be too late, that he'd never make it in time to save Starla...
God, he hated when he was right.
Stepping into the terminal was one of the worst experiences of his life. He wished he could have back outside and locked the door. He wished he could forget about the drag queen he just met and go back to hi stuff apartment and wait for the whole thing to blow over, even though he knew it wouldn't.
It was the hardest thing (besides burying his entire family in one day) he ever had to do to sit down beside Starla, to sit down in pools of his blood and watch him struggle to breathe. He could hardly bear it as he lifted the mans head just enough to let him rest on Sasuke's thigh, the gouge in the back of his head dripping blood onto his bare skin, staining it along with the hem of his shorts. He couldn't watch him try to talk through a mouthful of blood.
"It's just a dream right?" Asked Starla, his eyes swollen shut, "It's all just a dream..."
Sasuke nodded softly, focusing more on the mark on his chest than to what he was saying. He'd seen a system of numbers like that before... only different. And not just once either, but twice. One was crossed out on Neji's thigh and covered with a burn the night he found him. That one was an incomplete form of Starla's, 16121. But the other...
The other was the night of the massacre. The only person in the Uchiha complex who was dead before Itachi got there. His uncle. With the numbers 13121 carved into his neck.
"Sasuke...?"
"Yes?" Sasuke snapped out of his daze, leaning forward so the other man wouldn't have to strain himself too much.
"I feel like... I'm dying..." Starla coughed, blood spraying from in between his clenched teeth, spraying Sasuke in the face and staining his white button up. His hands clutched at his shirt, leaving fingerprints up and down the front of him, as he curled up into the fetal position against Sasuke's thigh.
"It's alright." Sasuke whispered, hating how miserable, how guilty and how pitiful he sounded. He didn't sound like himself at all and he hated it, "It's... just a dream."
The hand against his chest tightened to an almost painful grip, before sliding away and hitting the floor with a dull thump. The head on his thigh rolled off, landing gently onto the tile as Starla let loose his last breath.
And then he was back in his bed, safe, sound, with only the blood stains and fingerprints on his white shirt to stand as evidence of him ever being there. And a dark red plate on the foot of his bed to show that Starla was there too.
TBC.
A/N: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IT'S DONE! I hate this chapter, I hate it. I re-wrote it six times... SIX TIMES! I'm in need of a new beta, seeing as mine just doesn't like to return my emails anymore, so this chapter was (obviously) un-edited, but as soon as I can get someone to do that, it's coming down and being put right back up again. Hopefully when I get a new beta the time in between each update will start to go down a bit (or a lot, whatever).