I'm awfully sorry for the late update! :O But I wrote the last flashback.

Chapter 3

The Blade

Sometimes, kismet happens.

He toppled down the slope in one flash. I heard his and mine scream of agony pierce the air.

And then I was seeing the man come out, wet and matted, and he lay my love's listless body onto the sand. I had collapsed. And I didn't remember how I came home, what did I do after I saw him being lifted into a stretcher by the paramedics.

I saw my hands forcing my dresser's drawer open, and I frenziedly searched for anything to extinguish the fire in every vein of my body. I threw my socks and pants out of the drawer and then attacked the other one, spilling the contents. My face burned with heat, and the intensity of the salty tears still flowing.

I couldn't think clearly, I couldn't see clearly, and I couldn't hear the pounding on the door as loudly as anyone.

"Sakura Haruno! OPEN THE DOOR RIGHT NOW!"

"Oh, my poor daughter...Sakura, c'mon, please! Open up!"

I ignored them, because I had finally found what I realized now I had been searching for it.

My hand clenched around the silver hilt of the dagger, my knuckles turning white as I held it tightly.

Now was the time.

The pounding grew ear-splitting.

The door knob squeaked, the hinges rattled.

The floor beneath me shook.

The room was a blur.

But soon I'd get around it.

I hit the dagger on my chest, ripping the cloth as I made a great, crescent wound , that immediately gushed scarlet blood. I was about to plunge the weapon right into my heart with a final flash when -

BANG.

"Call an ambulance! Oh, my daughter!"

"Sakuno, she's insane! Totally deranged!"

...

My eyes fluttered open, and I blinked a few times as the sunlight bathed my dark cell, using the break-proof window.

The bed sheets were drenched with cold sweat, I noticed as I sat up, breathing heavily. I was soaked through my clothes with perspiration and when I touched my face, I realized that I had been crying.

Damn it.

I had been crying, but why had not I screamed?

Why had not I screamed like I had or when they snatched the blade from me and dragged me to the hospital?

I should have. But I could not see why. I was terrified, and a bit consoled that all the nightmare was behind me, and that the cell, instead of driving me crazier, was driving the memories out of my mind, slowly.

But I could not let them be driven away! The bliss of those moments with him before the nightmare: the cell was turning it into a deep oblivion, so that my mind would be empty, could forget it.

And as much as I believed that Sasuke was alive, because he talked to me and held me together in this gloomy place, I was terrified that all of this was changing.

I was forgetting, and I was becoming less affected.

I could not accommodate another change that had settled with me in a year. Without Sasuke, in my life or memories, I was dead.

Why the heck did those people say that Sasuke was dead? They were killing the hope and the desire in me - but of course, Sasuke returned every other day and I was confident that he was alive.

I could not live in a world where he was not in my vision. I put my head in my arms.

Without him, I was a cracked shell, embedded in the sand as the surf washed the land. And it was so bad that I already felt that way.

I did not know what to expect now. I was terrified to forget all of it. I was terrified of any kind of change. Today, I would figure out how to escape from this asylum with Sasuke, and then we could live somewhere else.

"Breakfast, Sakura dear!" Miss Dara called.

I sighed.

Whew. Short and tasteless update. I have something coming up in the next chapter. O_O

Got questions? Concerns, requests, or ideas? Drop a review or PM and I will be there to sort it. 'Cause I need encouragement and concepts from readers too!