Chillin' in the library after a compact breakfast consisting of a Subways breakfast sandwich and a mug of coffee. Not too shabby…
Disclaimer: I suppose since these are required,nd I must say, "I do not own anything of this fic but the idea!"
xlvi — purgatory IV
The night was an absolute calm without roaming winds, not a single intrusive sound piercing through its still atmosphere. Gleaming at the focal point of the starless sky was a moon seemingly swollen with blood, its round proportions and distribution of red-tinted beams both full and generous. Placed underneath it by the gods was an expansive body of water, unmoving, bordered on all encompassing sides by hulking walls of coarse gray-white stone. There was a peculiar and striking scent in the air, mingling amidst the overabundant saltiness… that of scorched human flesh. A splendid fire burned in the middle of the red-glowing sea, reaching up toward the black heavens with supple hands forged of flames—and dancing gracefully around it were two mortal figures.
He stood before the scene with impossibly wide eyes and bated breath, sweat raining down his temples and amassing at the back of his neck. Anxiety coiled up like a predatory snake in his stomach, ready to lash out and sink its fangs into him from the inside. His feet were frozen to where he stood, his cowardly spine stiff, and he himself inebriated with fear.
They were oblivious to him, the two faultless dancers, the fire that refused to sink under acting as their sole buffer in between. He might have heard their voices through the distance, and believed it to be laughter as they twirled and spun together in a perfect circle, breaking away and coming together again in symphony. But he knew better than to be so naïve. As various elemental attacks arose from the wine-colored water and materialized out of thin air, struck down from the bolt-less sky and shot up from the very flames they danced for, he knew one of them was soon bound for death.
He screamed for them to stop, his eyes deranged and his throat hoarse. Spit flew from his mouth as he bellowed desperately at the peak of his lungs.
She turned to him with flushed cheeks and a sweat-glistened complexion, her expression that of shock and utter disbelief. Her lips then parted in realization before twitching at the corners in newfound relief. Yet, as her battered arms lowered to her sides and his own mouth started to form the line of a weary smile, she suddenly spewed blood from her throat and descended forward. He was no less horrified when the woman was seized at the waist by her opponent, the other contending performer, and brought as close to his chest as the metal spear impaling her own would permit. The adrenaline began rushing again in his system as his sights zeroed in on the defeated hanging head of raven locks, eventually rising to capture a pair of ruby-red orbs. They flashed at him, devilish.
His victorious elder brother smiled, holding out the vanquished woman in his arms as though he were displaying a magnificent prize for his sibling to behold. The crackling fire beside the man cast shadows over his pale, haunted features as he spoke, composure and pride simultaneously dripping off his words. A deep, rumbling baritone informed his lone and grieving spectator:
I have done it, Izuna… for us.
…
…
…
Sasuke entered consciousness howling the name of his elder brother—the one whom was not Itachi, and whose infernal name and face evaporated from his mind the second his mournful cry subsided. He found himself floating (which was what he hypothesized, after an impromptu trial of frantically pinwheeling his arms until he dryly determined he wasn't going to plummet to oblivion) in an interminable void of darkness. There was a terrible throbbing present behind his eyes that incited him into cradling his head. Sasuke cursed the familiar migraine, and then he cursed the dream he had just experienced for being the likely cause of it.
This particular dream had felt far too realistic for his approval, more so than its just-as-unwelcome predecessors. The gut-wrenching emotions he had been subject to in it had been intense and nerve-wracking, as though they were his own. The boy vaguely wondered if the woman he saw killed was the same one he associated with a sickeningly cheerful field of sunflowers.
His musings were cut short when a hovering black casket manifested before him.
Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.
—Richard Bach
Author's Note: I know these 'drabbles' are no longer exactly 'bite-sized'; some chapters in Reverie will continue to be, while some won't. Hope you guys don't mind! As for this chapter, I wonder what is inside that coffin?