Why?
No!
Terror. Indescribable panic closing in, seemingly from every direction, as a small boy with long blonde hair raced forward, pumping his arms and stretching his legs out as far as they would go. His breath came in ragged gasps, his eyes were wide, and beads of sweat dripped slowly down his face, leaving a trail through the dirt coating it. Deidara's face was red and his limbs were starting to ache, but still he pushed himself forward struggling to push himself to greater and greater efforts until it became a chore just to stand up. Never, in his entire life had he run so hard for so long and far. He also knew that he would not last much longer.
Almost as if agreeing with his thoughts, the boys legs crumpled and he collapsed in a gasping heap on the dusty ground. His eyes began to droop, he was so tired that he could no longer see clearly and everything around him sounded as if he had clapped his hands over his ears. The only thing keeping him awake was the dull, steady throbbing of his limbs, and even that wasn't going to keep him awake for long…
"NOOO!" he screamed, waking himself up. "I have to get back to the hideout! I can't leave Sasori all alone out there!" With that he forced himself onto his feet once more, whimpering in pain, and began to stagger towards a dilapidated building just thirty yards away.
He was so close to his goal and yet so very far and in so very much pain that he couldn't even breath. The yards were crawling by, slower than unmotivated snails, almost taunting him as he labored to take each step, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and nothing more.
Twenty yards. Deidara had never known anything as simple as walking could hurt this much!
Fifteen yards. I think I'm going to die, Deidara thought, barely feeling anything anymore. He looked up, in doing so he noticed he had been looking at the ground as he walked for a while now, and saw that he had drawn closer to the old building.
Ten yards. Deidara began feeling a small surge of energy, probably just enough to help him stagger to the door and collapse inside. Unconsciously, he began to walk faster.
Five yards.
Three yards.
One yard. He was so close to the building that he could see the spider web cracks running along the gray plaster walls, when suddenly his legs locked, and he fell, too tired to go on, and too drained to even pull himself into the shadow of the doorway. He simply lay on the ground slowly sinking into the deep dark sleep that only truly exhausted people experience, otherwise known as the sleep of the damned.
Sasori awoke to much pain in his neck, the bag was still on, and felt that he was lying on rough, cold stone. He realized how cold he was and decided he must have been asleep for several hours. He began to wriggle slightly, trying to undo the thick, tight knots that were cutting off the circulation to his hands.
"Damn it!" he cursed quietly as his struggles were only managing to pull the knots tighter, "Just a little more and they'll be lose. That's all I want! Just enough so that my hands don't fall off, that's all I want."
After what felt like, and probably was, hours, Sasori finally managed to loosen the knots enough so that a violent tug pulled his hands free. He nearly bit his tongue of when he felt the pop of one of his fingers. Even after so much struggling had worn away at the knots, his hands still got terrible rope burn from pulling them out of the bonds. After yanking the sack from his head, he clutched his hands in his lap and leaned over them slightly rocking back and forth, silently bearing the pain. He felt a sticky wetness around his wrists and the rest of the skin on his hands burned as if he had stuck them into a volcano.
It shouldn't hurt this much, he decided, and gritting his teeth, he pulled his hands up to look at them and gasped. He wretched at the site of the oozing blisters that coated his wrists; even the slightest movement popped the sores and sent new waves of pus and occasionally blood pouring from them. The skin on the backs and palms of his hands were the least hurt, surviving with mere burns and only stinging a little, but the skin on his knuckles was nearly as bad as his wrists. Most of the joints were cracked open and bleeding, not all the wounds being from the ropes. Two of his fingers felt broken, one he decided was from his fight with the snake rapist's flunkies. The other must have been from when he pulled the ropes off his hands.
Both fingers were on the same hand: his left. He felt the first finger. He realized it really was broken when he nearly screamed after just brushing over it to see if it was still in one piece. The other finger, his ring finger, didn't hurt quite so much, so he continued to feel it. The finger lay at an odd angle and wiggled around much more than it was supposed to. It was only dislocated.
Steeling himself for what he was about to do, he gripped his finger and pulled sharply on it. White stars erupted in his vision and he grunted as the finger snapped back into place with a gut wrenching pop. Tears slowly leaked from beneath his eyes as the pain in the digit slowly lessened. As soon as that pain was gone, the other finger became almost unbearable. He gently held it as straight as he could then pulled it back into place, biting his lip until it bled to keep himself from screaming.
Sasori didn't understand, he'd broken his leg before. It was a splinter compared to the agony he was in over a finger. Either he was getting weaker, or his finger was worse off than he had first thought.
At least my arms and legs are all right, he reasoned with himself, now, if need be, I can run when I get the chance. He curled up on the floor trying not to scrape his sores on the ground and avoid touching his finger. He would take stock of his surroundings later, when he woke up. For now, he would sleep even more deeply than Deidara.