Author's note: Soooo… I finally managed to upload my profile picture….. Anyway, on with the story…..
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to me about as much as I ship SasuSaku….Which is to say not at all. (Thank god!)
The Threads of Fate Chapter 3: The Girl Next Door
(Naruto's POV)
I hate dreams. They're horrible, torturous things, filled to the brim with malice and terror.
Tonight is no different, and I dream of a giant fox, with nine immense tails swinging around with a sort of predatory grace, like the silent, swift leap of a wild cat as it pounces upon its hapless prey. The tails swing down with incredible force, smashing buildings and mountains in a terrifyingly beautiful show of power. The fox turns towards me, and I know that it is hungry for my blood. I can't run as the mighty beast moves in my direction, as I'm rendered immobile by the suffocating darkness that grips me on all sides. The great beast moves ever closer, and I struggle violently, but to no avail. Right as the fox is about to devour me whole, a huge black portal opens in my stomach. The hole in my body grows impossibly large as it swallows up the fox, some invisible force dragging it, kicking, screaming, deeper and deeper into the hole, which I somehow recognize as it's prison. The pain I feel as my stomach is stretched to impossible proportions is indescribable, and I wake up. Panting, my body is in a cold sweat, the dream seemed oh so real.
Once my breathing calms down a bit, a strange noise grabs my attention. It sounds like some one dragging something up the stairs, and labored breathing. Always wary of attacks, I grabbed a kunai from under my pillow and walked slowly to the door. I put my ear up to it, listening for the strange noise. It doesn't repeat, and is replaced by a dull THUD. I open the door hurriedly, as that sounded like someone falling down. The sight that greets my eyes, however, is not what I was expecting at all.
There, laying on the floor in front of my apartment is the bloodied and bruised form of a small girl. Her face was buried into the ground, her brown hair falling over her face, tugged loose from its pigtails as though someone had used them to pull her up with. She was sobbing into the floor quietly, and wasn't making any attempt to pick herself off the ground. She looked strangely familiar, but I couldn't remember where it was I saw her.
I wasn't sure if she would want my help or not, so I just sort of stood there, waiting for the girl to get up. After a while she stopped sobbing, leaving only a still, silent body on the ground. Not a single movement.
Realizing that she wasn't getting up anytime soon, I walked over to her side, and knelt by her head. At this, she seemed to recognize someone else's presence, and her head flew up, eyes wide. Apparently, it either hurt, or she knew who I was and was afraid, as she flinched and shut her eyes tightly. This allowed me to she her face, and I recognized who this girl was. She's that weird girl who lives next door to me. I also remembered all the weird things she did to me. Like how every time I would call that jerk Sasuke a teme, she would either make a lewd comment about it, or say some kind of remark about how I " Was crushing on him like a weighted boulder " , not to mention all those " mysterious rope" incidents that usually involved Sasuke and me getting tied together in compromising positions.
As I thought about all the things she's done to me, I felt myself becoming more and more red in the face, until I heard a hoarse whisper , " p-please… don't… touch me." My neighbor, whose name was Karamiau, whimpered as she tried to curl up on her side.
That stung, though I didn't show it. Instead, I just scoffed and rolled my eyes, leaning down to lift her up by her underarms. I pushed on her shoulders, trying to roll her onto her back so I could see what the problem was. This, clearly, was not the correct where are you to go about things, as Kara let out a pound whimper, and fell limp…..
I decided to just suck it up and pick her up anyway, seeing as how she was unconscious, and carried her slack body into my apartment. I layer her gently on my scruffy couch, and routed through my cabinets for the first aid kit. I found it, and proceeded to patch up Karamiau's wounds. I'm no expert on injuries, but i had a lot of experience treating them from all the times I've been beat up by the villagers. From her reaction when I tried to pick her up, she had a messed up rib, not to mention bad bruises on her arms and legs, a nasty looking bruise on her hip ( most likely from when she hit the ground), and numerous scrapes all over her, including her face, and a nice black eye just to top it off.
Whoever had done this to her, it was no accident, and they were extremely vicious. I was alright with patching everything else but the broken rib, seeing as my broken bones tend to heal a lot faster than what is considered normal standards. This means that I was going to have to take Karamiau to the hospital. And it would have to be in the morning, since the hospital is closed right now.
Satisfied with my handiwork, I grabbed a blanket from my room and draped it over the still-unconscious form of my neighbor and classmate. Then I walked off to my bed, and fell into a nice, dreamless sleep.
Author's note: Okay! I'm done setting up the important part of the storyline, and the rest is a secret….. Please review and favorite this story! It makes me feel so special to know people like reading things I've written. Bye!
