Naruto: Blind

He stood before the door, his hands shaking as he pushed it open before him, knowing what lay beyond, yet hoping against hope that it he was wrong. His heart was beating so hard that his head throbbed with the very action; his stomach was clenching so tightly that when he brushed the handle on the door, his stomach seemed to sharply cease to exist— just an empty hole full of pain where it had been. His small hand turned the handle slowly and the door groaned open loudly in protest, a sickly stench meeting his nose.

Blood.

The disturbingly black moon cast wisps of dark gray moonlight on the floor from the window. Where the moonbeams were splattered on the floor, lay a dark heap; the dim light was not the only thing spilled on the floor. Dark stains stood out against the unnatural lighting, wreathing the undistinguishable pile in a grotesque frame. Though he could not see what the heap was, he did not need to see it to know what it was.

Taking a few cautious steps, nausea rose with each footfall; he knew what was waiting in that room for him, and even though he did not want to enter, he could not stop himself from moving forward. The door closed behind him once he was far within the reaches of the room, the deadly stench of blood rising beyond the sickening point. The sky was just visible beyond the glass panes of the windows, and was glowing a crimson red, where black clouds sped across at an alarming speed—yet none passed over the face of the black moon.

He choked out a sob as he could finally discern the figures lying in the patch of moonlight. Long strands of black hair was splayed out on the wood; fabric was wrinkled and stained; limbs were crumpled—the bodies had already been devoid of life before they fell to the floor—folding uselessly beneath the forms. His mother's face was hidden from view, but he could imagine a soundless scream fixed on her death-stiffened face, eyes wide and pleading. His father lay on the far side, away from him, the neat tie that held back his long hair was loose and his hair was matted with blood.

"…Kaa-san…" he sobbed as he knees met the floor hard, "…Dou-san…"

He threw himself to the floor and cried then, his grief beyond description, his trauma piercing his body, mind and soul. They were dead. All of them. All dead. His aunt, his uncle, his friends, his neighbors—his mother and father. And he was alive—the only one.

'Why?!' he screamed the question over and over in his head. Why was he the only one alive? Why, why, why? He hit the floor with his tiny fist, hoping the pain would ease his suffering, but it did not. He wished he was dead—he would rather be dead than come home to this. He wished he was the one who had died; he would rather be the one dead instead of all of them, than being the only one left living.

He was not alone in the room, he knew this—he did not have to look up to know that someone else was present. He did not have to hear any noise, there was someone there: the only other one alive. His fist clenched tighter, and he inhaled raggedly, dragging himself wretchedly into a sitting position, meeting the gaze that punctured out of the darkness.

Red eyes—eyes that belonged to him, belonged to Itachi, his elder brother, his clan's murderer—that was what Sasuke saw standing over his parents' bodies. The tomoe within the Sharingan eyes were merged into the pupil, and he knew he should look away from those deadly eyes, but could not.

An emotion of such violence and rage caused him to tremble as he stared at those eyes. Hatred. That was what burned deep within his soul, blacker than the moon that hung in the sky outside, blacker than the darks stains of blood on the floor. But while there was hatred within him, his found himself trembling, fear gripped him as well.

"Why?!" he shouted out at his brother's silent form, unable to keep the sob from escaping him, "Why did you kill them?!"

The eyes blinked once slowly in the darkness, and the form took a step forward; inadvertently, he found himself flinching backwards in response. A shuriken flew from the shadows suddenly, whistling by his ear and cutting deeply into his left shoulder. The pain was nothing compared to injuries in the past, the stinging blood running over him hardly worth mentioning, yet he crumpled on the floor again, sobbing. Why? Why did it have to hit his shoulder? Why hadn't he thrown it at his heart? It would have been much more welcomed; he didn't want to stay there, laying the floor, crying, breathing, living. He would much rather have been dead on that floor with his parents.

"For the next twenty-four hours…"

He snapped his head up instantly, fear reaching up and seizing his soul with an icy claw. His pupils contracted in terror, and he shuffled as far away as he could away from his brother. But no matter what, he did not seem to get any farther away.

"No!" he yelled out, tears running down his eight-year-old face.

"…you will witness me murdering our clan…"

"NO!" he screamed out desperately; he found he could not shut his eyes, nor break the gaze.

"…over and over again."

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