"On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women". - Henry Louis Mencken

I dreamed. Which I thought was especially weird considering I'd just drowned. Maybe when people die, they just dream forever. I'm not sure, but being dead isn't so bad.

In my dream, I was running with my sister. She was running a lot faster than me and all I could wonder is how she could run so fast on such short thirteen-year-old legs? I called to her to slow down and that I can't keep up.

Our father ran behind me, but he looked so angry. Every time I turned around to glance at him, he looked angrier and further away. I yelled for him to hurry up, that Kyan would get hurt if she got lost, but he just glared forward until suddenly, he was bloodied and lying on the filthy ground.

I screamed a soundless scream, but instead of running toward him, my feet were stuck to the ground. My sister's high-pitched yell forced my gaze to her.

She was naked, underneath a large man. His body overtook hers easily as with every thrust, she cried louder. And there was blood, so much blood. I didn't think a body as small as hers could hold so much blood.

"You blame your piece of shit father for this!" the man bellowed at her between grunts. "He caused this on you! THIS IS HIS FAULT!"

And Kyan kept begging him to stop hurting her. And I stood there, watching him rape her until he was finished. And I didn't do anything.

()()()

I gasped to catch my breath, feeling as if my lungs were no longer in my body. I couldn't get enough air in me and the air that I did get tasted stale. My eyelids fluttered about, blinking the tears from my eye.

I couldn't tell where I was. It was creepily dark, but even if I wanted to get up to explore, I couldn't. Something was holding my wrists to a cold wall above my head, but my legs were free.

Cold air settled on my skin. I was naked except for something that covered my breasts and pelvic region. But other than that, everything else was exposed. Someone had stripped me of everything that I was wearing and carrying on me when I was attacked.

I tried to pull my hands free, but the jingle of the chains bounding my wrists stopped me short. There was no way I could get out of a binding like that. I wasn't as strong as Kankuro or had an outside force to help me like Gaara's sand. I was trapped, and that was that.

I'm not sure how long I stayed there. A few hours, I assumed. During that time, my arms became sore and my stomach started to growl and the urge to pee was slowly rising. This was very bad and not knowing where in the world I was only made it so much worse.

Finally, voiced echoed around me. My head snapped up from its dangling resting position and I tried to squint to see anything in the darkness.

"So what do we do with her now that we have her?" a male voice asked. Two pairs of footfalls came closer and a door creaked open, letting in light.

I shut my eyes tight and turned my head away from it. The sudden brightness of the room caused a dull pain in my head, even though it was one of the many things I was longing for at that point in time. Dark shadows slowly started to form until their faces came into view. It was then that I recognized the man who attacked me and Serisu.

She looked only slightly different. Her hair had been cut nearly to her scalp. A deep gash was beginning to heal on her right cheek. And she was covered in dirt, almost as if she hadn't bathed in weeks.

"We'll keep her for a bit," Serisu replied, putting her hands on her hips to show some sort of power. "At least until we get the information that we want from her. After that, I don't really care what happens."

Information? What information was she talking about? I didn't know any secrets worth keeping someone hostage over. The only thing that would be remotely considered important was the recipe to the restaurant's soba noodles.

"I don't know anything," I whispered. Part of me expected my voice to come out clear, but I wasn't surprised in the least bit when it came out as quiet as it did.

"I'm sure," the man replied. "That's exactly what your father said."

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?" Serisu added with a smirk. "We'll deal with her later. Did you report back to Noja?"

As they left me alone, they carried on their conversation about this Noja person. I'd never heard that name in my life, but I was guessing that whomever they were, they thought I knew something that I didn't.

()()()

I was hungry. Absolutely starving.

Thoughts of being back in Sunagakure with Kyan and the siblings and the new food I never had the chance to experience lingered in my mind. I was horrified that they decided to let me be and not come for me. Maybe Temari had listened to my plea of independence and told the others to do the same. I hoped not. I really hoped she decided against listening to me.

"Stupid," I hissed to myself.

I should've known not to do this alone. I should've listened to Temari and waited for everyone else to assist me. There was nothing I could successfully complete on my own. Nothing at all. More than anything, I made the situation worse. There was no doubt that Kyan was worried about me, and with her sickness overtaking her, that was the very last thing I wanted.

I wanted to just give up and die. I wasn't strong enough to break the chains and I certainly wasn't strong enough to keep myself from crying.

The tears burned the scratches on my face as they rolled down my skin. I wanted to wipe them away, but I couldn't get my hands close enough to my face. So instead of continuing with my struggle, I just bowed my head as much as possible and hoped they would just fall onto the ground.

I waited for them to come back. And when they did, I hoped they would kill me. But instead, they just stared at me for a very long time.

"We can make this easy on you Hateka," Serisu said, putting her face only inches from mine. "If you cooperate, it'll be painless and we'll let you go so you can scurry back to that piece of shit you call a man."

"What do you want to know?" I muttered, glaring daggers into her eyes.

"Where is your family keeping it?"

"Excuse me?"

I was thoroughly confused at that point. My family wasn't keeping anything, except maybe tips on how to successfully run a restaurant business. Other than that, we had nothing to offer.

"The money," the man answered. "Your father owes our boss a bit of change and we've been sent to collect it."

I couldn't keep my eyes off Serisu. "You were a part of this the entire time?"

She only grinned. "Not at the start. My only main goal after that little spat we had was to kill you myself. And then I came into contact with these men. For the little information I had about you, they rescued me and helped me escape."

Nothing was making sense at this point. What money were they talking about? We barely had enough to keep the restaurant running. And how exactly did Serisu meet these people if she had been locked away? She must've met them beforehand.

"My family doesn't have any money," I told them. "The only money we make is the money from our business."

I'm not even entire sure what happened after that. Serisu's palm smacked against my cheek but at first, I didn't feel anything. Then slowly, the stinging pain came, causing my eyes to water up again.

"Don't play dumb, you bitch," she hissed, grabbing my face. "All you have to do is tell us where the fucking money is and you can go."

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT MONEY YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" I screamed. Then another slap.

This went on for hours. Finally, my face had become so numb that I couldn't feel the pain anymore, but I knew it was extremely swollen. The punches to the stomach I received by the man were the only thing that hurt anymore. With every punch, I felt as if he'd destroyed a part of my lungs. They would give me a few moments to catch my breath to tell them, once again, that I had no idea what money they were talking about, and then I would be harmed again.

"This is getting us nowhere," Serisu finally said, taking a step back. "Maybe if we cut her up a bit, she'll be more willing to share."

My heart dropped. Torture didn't seem as horrible as I thought it would until she said that. That's when I knew the true pain would come.

"I'll get the instruments," the man said before taking his leave.

I closed my eyes tight, trying to get away from it all. But I couldn't. As hard as I tried, I could still hear Serisu taunting me, calling me names, even over my own screaming inside my head.

"Serisu, what are you doing?" an older voice asked.

I opened my eyes to see a very large man looking at her. He was missing an eye and wore a Sunagakure headband around his silver hair. My eyes burned too much to pick out any other details, so I just gave up.

"We found his firstborn for you, Noja. She isn't giving us any information, though," Serisu answered.

The man, Noja, pushed her out of his way and glanced down at me. "Well, aren't you just a splitting image of your father?"

I didn't reply to him. I just stared him down and continued to wonder what else was going to happen to me.

He reached up and played with the chains. I suspected he was tightening them until I fell onto the ground. My arms throbbed in pain so I decided not to move them at all. I just remained on the cold stone floor, curled into a ball of myself.

"What did I tell you?" Noja asked Serisu, turning back to her. "I specifically instructed you not to harm anyone. This wasn't a hostage mission for you. It was supposed to be a simple one."

"But I thought you wanted your money," she whimpered, looking at him as if she were a puppy who had just been kicked by her owner.

"NOT THIS WAY!" he bellowed and delivered a fist to her cheek, causing her to stumble to the ground in a puddle of sniffles. Then, he turned back to me. "You don't know, do you?"

I couldn't reply. My mouth was too swollen to even form the letters with my lips. So I shook my head.

I was lifted from the ground. Everything about my body just felt so heavy and uneven. I let him carry (well, I really had no choice) me out of wherever I was. There was a long corridor that I saw and then finally, I felt the wet mist of the outside air.

"You will never come back here. Do you understand me? This deed is done," Noja told me in a voice that only someone with too much authority would have.

As he placed me down, I felt the tickle of the cold grass on my bare skin. I couldn't see the sunlight through the mist, but I knew it was there somewhere.

I turned my head to look at Noja. He was a few feet away from me, rustling around in his pocket. Then, he pulled out a small item I was very familiar with and threw it to the ground. Before the smoke engulfed his figure, he had run off to return to his employers.

I waited for hours for someone to come. Once the sky started to grow dark, however, I gave up and accepted the fact that I was going to die.

Suddenly, I was very warm. Skin was pressed against mine and the sensation of trickling sand ran down my arms.

"She's in worse condition than Kyan," Temari's voice said.

Finally, they had come.