Chapter 3
September 6, 1999, 3:05 p.m.
Naruto sprints to catch the bus after his first day of sixth grade. Sakura Haruno, one of the Konoha North side girls, sticks her foot out, sending Naruto sprawling across the gravel. Sakura laughs all the way to her mother's shiny red Jeep Cherokee. Naruto fights back the urge to cry, and dusts himself off. He climbs on the bus, flops into the front seat, and looks at the dirt and blood on the palms of his hands, and the rip in the knee of his already well-worn pants.
Sixth grade makes his throat hurt.
He leans his head against the window.
When he gets home, Naruto walks past his mother, who is on the couch watching (Guiding Light) and drinking from a clear glass bottle. Naruto washes his stinging hands carefully, dries them, and sits down next to his mother, hoping she'll say something.
But Naruto's mother is asleep now.
Her mouth is open.
She snores lightly.
The bottle tips in her hand.
Naruto sighs, sets the bottle on the beat-up coffee table, and starts her homework.
Halfway through his math homework, the room turns black.
Naruto is rushed into a bright tunnel, like a multicolored kaleidoscope. There's no floor, and Naruto is floating while the walls spin around him. It makes her feel like throwing up.
Next to Naruto in the tunnel is his mother, and a man who looks like a blond Jesus Christ. The man and Naruto's mother are holding hands and flying. They look happy. Naruto yells, but no sound comes out. He wants it to stop.
He feels the pencil fall from his fingers.
Feels his body slump to the arm of the couch.
Tries to sit up, but with all the whirling colors around him, he can't tell which way is upright. He overcompensates and falls the other way, onto his mother.
The colors stop, and everything goes black.
Naruto hears him mother grumbling.
Feels her shove.
Slowly the room comes back into focus again, and Naruto's mother slaps Naruto in the face.
"Get offa me," her mother says. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Naruto sits up and looks at his mother. His stomach churns, and he feels dizzy from the colors. "I feel sick," he whispers, and then he stands up and stumbles to the bathroom to vomit.
When he peers out, pale and shaky, his mother is gone from the couch, retired to her bedroom.
'Thank God', Naruto thinks. He splashes cold water on his face.