Her mother stands at the end of a hallway, smiling, and holding her arms out.
Come, Sakura, she says, her voice a whisper of wind that blows down the passage, ruffling her hair. She begins to run, but the floor stretches out and tears, a gaping mouth appearing, snapping at her heels.
Mother, mother! She screams, and reaches out for her mother's hands, but her arms go straight through them and she falls, her eyes always on her mother, who simply smiles vacantly as she watches her daughter torn to pieces by a monster.
She awakes, shuddering.
Next to her, Naruto rolls over, mumbling.
She gets up, her naked skin shivering in the cold air and makes her way to the bathroom, clutching at the walls as she goes. Suddenly, she is running, because she can hear the monster behind her, and she trips and falls in through the open door, landing sprawled on the frozen floor, gasping for breath that doesn't seem to exist. All she can see are her mother's eyes, staring blankly down into hers, damning her.
She screams.
He is there, collecting her in his arms, calming, pressing her to him, carrying her back to the bed, curling close to her beneath the blankets, with her wrapped as tightly around him as she can get, shivering, frozen to the core. She hears that she is whimpering, and he gently strokes her hair, until she is calm, until she is quiet. She can hear the thunder of his heart and it sounds so good, so alive. And slowly, sleep comes.
The next day, she goes over to Ino's.
"I had nightmares," she says as they sip warm tea and watch the snow falling, Ino finishing up a report of her latest mission.
Ino remains silent. She is the only one who knows. Maybe she will remain that way. Maybe not.
"All I can see is her eyes. I'm running and then falling, and then dying, and all she does is look at me and smile and her eyes are so uncaring. It's like a void and I'm drowning in it, and there are people all around, people that I love, but they don't try to help, they just watch me drown." She takes a sip of tea and shudders slightly.
Ino nods. "I get those too, sometimes…different dreams, of course, but still…it's so…absolute." She scribbles something on the report then pushes it away. "I feel like I'm breathing but I'm not getting any air, I just think I am." She sighs. "I haven't had one in years."
They sit, one drowning, one suffocating, both waiting for that gasping breath that renews life and hope, but that seems to never come.
That night, she sleeps peacefully, curled in his arms. That night she breathes, but shallowly.
Weeks and weeks go by, and she sometimes wakes up on cold tile, sometimes in the hall, sometimes in bed, sometimes alone, but always, always gasping for something that she cannot get. The water runs over her head and it turns red, filling her up with itself until she bursts like a balloon that is too full, and she can only hope that someone is there to pick up again and put her back together.
But one day, no one will.