WARNING: Please exercise discretion when reading this story. Readers have been warned about the content of this story. NOT FOR CHILDREN.
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Its unedited, guys. There are going to be a lot of mistakes. Please excuse them.
Words: 4.1 K
Published On: 02.12.18
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This is a terrifying tale of a man who lost the only woman he ever loved to something he never could have imagined. Fate had long since decided how their tragic story would end. And it all started long before they were even born.
1948
She sits by the merry-go-round in the empty park, swaying back and forth on her feet. Her head is dropped onto her knees and the midnight moon is knocking on her small form.
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes..
She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes..
Her pretty dress is torn at the sleeve, exposing her shoulder. Her wet hair is matted against her skin. The night air is freezing and biting against the skin and she is shivering inside. Her heart is quaking and trembling.
And we'll all run and hide when she comes..
A chuckle trembles out from between her lips as the time nears. The bells ring thrice from the tower and she breaks into laughter. The sound is jarring, malicious.. evil. Her head lifts from her knees and a grin splits her lips. Stained teeth expose themselves in the moonlight and grey eyes gleam with mirth.
She'll be wearing blood red death when she comes..
2002
Sasuke is late, but he thinks she might appreciate his reason this time as he races down the street. She is already sitting in their regular booth, chin dropped into her palm, looking out the window. He gets in beside her, apologizing as he does and has to nudge her to get her attention for her mind is somewhere else again.
"Sakura, are you feeling fine?"
"Of course, yes." She looks down at her watch and frowns. "You are late again."
"With good reason," he holds up a finger and then presents a small box to her.
"What's this?"
"Just something I thought might look good on you."
She has to blink twice because never before has her boyfriend given her a gift. Sakura gingerly opens the lid - half expecting it to be a joke, but Sasuke doesn't do much of that either - to discover a small pendant sitting in the velvet. Her eyes widen.
"S-Sasuke," she stumbles upon her words, for the pendant is far from ordinary and she has long suspected the man's feelings that he does not say out loud. Hell, she's known it for a while and he has mumbled it in his sleep to her once too. But this - this - is a declaration and she knows it.
To give her a pendant of his family crest - though he tries to play it off as casual, she knows it is anything but - is him clearly putting his intentions on the table. Knowing Sasuke, he considers this a natural progression of their relationship and perhaps it is, but her heart soars anyway. He has never said it before, but if this gesture does not scream his feelings to her off a rooftop, she can't guess what could.
"This is priceless," she tells him and suspects she's about to cry of this overwhelming emotion. "Thank you, Sasuke."
"Are you crying?" he demands and she can hear the uncertainty in his voice. It makes her smile because for all his stoical demeanor, he has always reserved his emotions for her alone. She takes pride in the fact that he does not put his guard up for her. He trusts her - she understands the gravity of that and intends to fully honor it too, always.
"No, silly. Just something in my eye."
He scoffs, but an arm comes around her shoulders anyway. She does not want to discomfort him by kissing him in the coffee house as he is not much for public displays of affection either, but as she turns to meet his beautiful eyes regarding her with a care that will only ever be hers, she can't help herself.
He doesn't move or pull away, simply squeezes her shoulders tighter, because she needs to know that he accepts her gesture, understands her emotions and is eternally grateful that she has never demanded of him to announce his own.
She grins at him when she pulls away and says, "I love you, too." His only response is a familiar grunt, but the back of his neck promptly turns red. This woman is going to be the death of him, he considers exasperatedly and her grin grows wider as if she knows exactly what he is thinking. She might even - Sakura seems to have an uncanny and sometimes, annoying, ability to read his mind.
A Month Later
His fingers move with surety and a purpose. He knows exactly what he is doing. He has studied her all those times when they've made love before and knows just what she likes. He savors the way her body wriggles underneath him in pleasure, the way her back arches and falls at his ministrations. He worships the way his name falls from her lips, wrapped in a luscious, delightful climb to orgasm.
He gives her no time to descend from it, slipping inside of her, setting an age old rhythm between their bodies. Her moans are louder than usual and music to his ears as he delivers thrusts inwards and upwards, her naked body pressed against his, their tongues entangled - he loves her mouth against his - and comes just after her, calling her name as she does his.
"Well, that was a good way to break in the new bed," she jokes later as they lie sated and spent.
"Hn," he agrees, planting a kiss on her temple and pulling her closer. Then he adds thoughtfully, "I think the shower also needs breaking in."
She raises her head to grin mischievously at him. "My turn this time."
...
His back seems to glisten and she cannot help reaching over to plant a kiss on it. She feels his muscles move under skin on impact and she can't help the tinge of pride in her chest because she alone can make him respond so. He spins around and grabs her lips with his own for a moment she thinks is too short. Then he is pulling his shirt over his shoulders and handing him her own dress.
"We are already an hour late, Sakura. Since that idiot got married, Hinata ensures they are on time."
She sighs. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Besides, its our last chance to meet them before they return to London."
"Who knew the dobe would make it this far?"
"Oh, come on," she waves her hand. "You knew he would."
"Well, he's still an idiot," Sasuke replies with no real meaning, allowing her to comb his hair with her nimble fingers.
...
"I can't believe Hinata is pregnant!" Sakura exclaims as she parks his car.
"Looks like Naruto can do something right," comments Sasuke, earning a nudge in the shoulder. As they head toward the elevator, a man bumps into Sakura and he smells the distinct stink of alcohol on his breath. He automatically puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her closer when the man stops to take a look at his fiancee.
"Well, hello!" he coos to her. "I'm Marc."
"No one asked," Sasuke says stonily and she nudges him again. "Be nice."
"Sakura, he's blind drunk. I could nicely punch him and he wouldn't remember tomorrow."
"So, you live in this building?" he slurs with one brow raised in appraisal of her shapely, bare legs.
"Mm-hm," she nods. "Third floor."
This time Sasuke is the one to squeeze her shoulder tightly in disapproval. "You don't need to tell him what floor."
"You're the one who said he won't remember," she whispers and he rolls his eyes. When they turn back to look at the man who introduced himself as Marc, his eyes are wide and blown with something Sasuke can only name as terror. Before he can quite stop it, Marc abruptly grips Sakura's shoulders with a bruising force.
"Why the hell would you take that place!? Leave at once! Leave before she catches you!" The alcohol induced slurring is all but gone from his voice, replaced with a scary, shaky aggression. Sasuke attempts to push him off her, but Marc's grip is iron. What's worse is he can tell the aggression is born of real or perceived fear. "Get out of there and go far awa-!"
Marc's face is met with Sasuke's fist as he pries him away from Sakura. "Get off her," he snarls to the man who has now passed out.
Sakura is frozen to the spot, her green eyes terrified, wide and unblinking. She is understandably rattled. Who wouldn't be? The moment he touches her shoulder, she throws herself into his chest and he can hear a soft sob coming from her.
"He was drunk, Sakura. Ignore it," he tells her reassuringly, patting her back with one hand and combing her hair with the other. It takes her twenty minutes to pull away from his chest, but he can see that she is still shaken. Even at night, she curls herself into him as if he were her fortress.
Once he is sure she is fast asleep, he pulls out some medicine from the nightstand and applies it gently to both her shoulders where there are clear markings of two fingernails and a thumb on the right and three fingernails on the left. The fucker bruised her, he thinks angrily, knuckles twitching with the need to sock the man again.
...
As they exit the apartment building the next morning, they find Marc still passed out in the exact same position as last night. Sakura jumps and steps closer to him instinctively. He notices her tense grip on his arm.
"Is he dead?" she asks. Sasuke reaches out a foot and nudges the man with it. He groans, but doesn't wake up. "Unfortunately, no," he replies, glaring at the unconscious figure.
"Sasuke!" she admonishes, but follows him out quickly.
"Do you really have to go? Its the weekend." she asks him.
"You know I have to travel, Sakura. Its for work," he reminds her. "I'll be back before you know it."
"Somehow, I doubt that," she mumbles.
Sasuke places a hand on her cheek and perhaps it is the incident from yesterday that tells him she needs his reassurance, he leans down and kisses her on the lips. "Will you be okay?" he tentatively asks, eyes flitting only briefly toward the elevator.
"I'll be fine," she assures him. "As long as you don't take too long."
He looks at her uncertainly.
"No, really! There is still so much unpacking to be done and then I am meeting Ino too. I'll be fine. Call me when you land."
She waves him off as the cab departs and turns around with a sigh. Time to put the incident behind me. Still, she makes a wide arc around Marc to climb in the elevator.
...
The light streaming through the windows and their balcony dulls.
"Can't believe I spent half a day setting up the kitchen," Sakura comments to herself. She checks her phone. There are two messages.
SASUKE
Work might be done sooner than I thought. I should be home by tomorrow.
She smiles.
INO
I'll be there by 7. Bringing wine. Which one do you want?
She types her reply and gets to clearing the living room of boxes. As the warm water falls on her skin, the tension and stress in her muscles from the work and yesterday's incident ebb away. She smiles at her reflection in the mirror after blow drying her hair. Her skin is getting better. Her new diet might actually be working, she considers.
Something makes her eyes flit briefly to the reflection of the room beside her face. She frowns.
A shadow of the curtains?
When she looks back ahead, her mouth falls open in a gasp and she jumps away from the mirror. Her heart jumps to her throat. No, she couldn't have imagined it, could she? Something just moved behind her. She turns around to check, but nothing's there. Her heartbeat rises and her feet take a step back on their own.
She gets the distinct sense of something, but she can't tell what it is. Then there is a loud sound ringing out in the silence that makes her stumble and her head hits the mirror behind her.
"Ow," she rubs the area. "Its just the doorbell, Sakura, you idiot," she mutters, but her voice comes out shaky and she tells herself it means nothing that she races to answer it. Her eyes are bombarded by bright hues of violet and blonde as her best friend grins at her. She felts palpable relief run through her - for no reason whatsoever - and she hugs the woman abruptly.
"So, who's the guy passed out by the elevator?" Ino asks as she pours them both wine.
"He's still there?" Sakura questions in mild disbelief.
"Yeah - you know him?"
She shakes her head. "No, but his name is Marc. Sasuke punched him last night."
Blue eyes widen. "Shit. Is he dead?"
"I don't think so. I hope not."
"Should we .. check? I mean.. he did look kind of hot."
"Ino!"
Sakura nudges the man with her foot, wondering what she is even doing down here. Marc groans and starts moving. "Still think he's hot?" she raises a brow at her best friend.
"Maybe not," she chuckles. "But we've gotta help him."
"I don't want to." She eyes the man as he tries to sit, moving away from him. Regardless, Ino and her end up helping him to his apartment. He thankfully lives on the first floor itself. They dump him on the couch and leave.
...
There is a sound of glass crashing. Green eyes snap open from her strange dream, blinking to adjust to the light. She realizes she slept on the couch after Ino left. Her eyes move to the floor as she grips her head and the wine spilling from the fallen glass across her floor unsettles her. She hates how it reminds her of blood.
She moves quickly, cleaning up the mess before her mind could be distracted again. Suddenly, her hair stands on end and the same feeling occurs to her as the night before in her room. The something she couldn't pinpoint. Her hand stills, eyes slowly roving left and right and she hates the dark right now for it makes everything worse.
She feels a sudden blast of cold by her ear and she gasps and looks back ahead. Nothing. You are going paranoid, Sakura, she berates herself. But when she looks down, her breath hitches and she falls back. She had cleaned it. She was sure she had cleaned it. But the wine is still on the floor, yet the cloth she'd used is colored with the stain. She puts it back to the floor and swipes.
This time, she lets out a scream when her white floor gets stained red and scrambles away from the floor, hitting something with her back and then there is a sound but she can't make it out and suddenly, her front door bursts open, nearly making her scream again, but when Sasuke's familiar silhouette rushes toward her, she slumps against him, sobbing.
"Sasu..ke, there was someone.." she rambles. She can't stop shaking. "..and blood on the floor and - and.. shadow - there was a shadow.."
But he hushes her gently, firmly keeping her against his chest. "Sakura, how much did you drink?" he asks softly. "'You'll be fine."
He thinks she's drunk? But - no! "Sasuke there's blood .. on the floor - there!" she points to where her cloth lay. He walks up to it, cleaning up the liquid. "Its red wine, Sakura."
So, she really did imagine it? She exhales in relief, but can't shake the strange feeling off. If anything, it deepens. The moment he returns to take her to bed, she jumps him, needing him as close as she can possibly have him.
She still wakes up with a nightmare setting her nerves on edge. Marc's haunted eyes dance before her vision and a song she is familiar yet unfamiliar with is just out of her reach.
This repeats several times over the week. A shadow outside her window. A reflection that doesn't show her room exactly as it is. One time she falls asleep in the bathtub and dreams of Marc gripping her shoulders and warning her, but she can't hear him this time. She wakes up with her shoulders hurting. Another time she feels a choking sensation but no one is there. The area around her throat itches throughout the day.
Even when Sasuke is there, she sometimes feels endangered, alarm bells going off in her head that she cannot possibly ignore. She mentions an incident or two to him, but he thinks it might be the aftermath of her shock after what happened with Marc. She now knows that's not the case. She cannot sleep anymore and when she does, she dreams of strange things.
Then, they encounter Marc again.
She stills in her step on seeing him. She doesn't smell alcohol on him, but she does sense Sasuke moving closer to her, guiding her body away from the man. He is glaring at him, she knows. Then, Marc speaks just as the elevator dings open.
"Two swings.. a merry-go-round.."
Sakura's step freezes and she resists when Sasuke tries to get her to move. She spins on her heel. "What did you say?"
"My mother used to say that," he answers, eyes looking beyond her. "Then, she died." He looks at her and she flinches at the pity in his gaze. "You didn't leave, Sakura."
"I will kill you," growls Sasuke, pushing her in. "Don't pay attention to him, Sakura. He's done enough. As the doors close, she hears him say, "It has begun, hasn't it?"
Later that night, she decides to tell Sasuke of her odd dream. "I see swings, Sasuke. And a small girl. She's alone. Her clothes are torn. I can't see her face."
This time, instead of dismissing it, he hugs her, onyx eyes burning with concern. She rubs his back. "I'm afraid. Something's happening, Sasuke," she implores, but he remains quiet, continuing to smooth her hair. "Everything will be fine, Sakura," he says. "I'm here."
She pulls away, ready to lecture him about not believing her, but the thunderous concern on his face melts her frustration immediately. Instead, she asks, "Can you apply medicine to my shoulders? It sort of hurts."
"Still?"
"Yeah. I guess Marc is a strong guy."
Sasuke says nothing, just begins applying the cream. Halfway through, his hand stills. "Sasuke?" His eyes fall on the marks of her wound. Four fingers and a thumb on the right shoulder and three fingers and a thumb on the left. He frowns. "Sakura, did you scratch your shoulder? Did that Marc try anything again?"
"No, neither. Why?"
"..no reason."
...
"Just stay with your parents till I return, Sakura," he tells her, seeing her utter unwillingness to let him go.
"Sasuke, is this meeting so important?"
"You're the one who pulled strings to get me this meeting," he reminds her.
"Yes," she sadly admits, looking down.
"I'll be back soon, okay?" he says, kissing her.
"Yeah."
Sasuke is frustrated. He doesn't understand what has happened to Sakura all of a sudden. She is always jumpy and scared. She keeps forgetting things here and there. She is somewhat absent during their conversations and now this. He tried to deny it at first but now, he thinks she actually believes what she is saying.
When he returns home he will talk it out with her, he decides. With the concern brewing for her, he rushes to pick her from her mother's a day after, only to find out she has gone home to pick up a few things just this afternoon. She should be back by now, right?
This time when he sees Marc in the elevator, he swears he will snap his neck if he says a word. But he doesn't. He gives him a look of utter pity though - one he remembers him giving Sakura the other day. The house is dark when he enters, except for the light streaming from outside.
"Sakura?" he calls. No answer. "Sakura?"
"Sak- whoa!" He takes a step back as she rushes into his arms and then before he can fully realize it, her lips crush his. He finds himself under her on the couch and then she's tearing at his clothes as if her life depended on it.
"Whoa there, easy Sakura," he says when she takes him in hand. She likes to lead a lot of times, but he can tell this is different. As she takes him in urgently, his thoughts waver, overtaken by the sensation as she rides him. She moans as her pleasure builds, a sound different from what he's used to hearing from her, almost sinful and then she falls apart into an orgasm above him.
Something about the exchange plays oddly on his mind, but he comes soon after. Moments later, they are at it again.
He wakes up in the middle of the night due to some disturbance and realizes its because of the odd sound coming from outside. Sakura is missing from her side of the bed and he climbs out to follow the sound. It seems to be coming from the kitchen. As he approaches, he finds her familiar figure squatting indecently on the floor and she's eating something noisily -
His eyes widen and breath stills. His heart itself seems to still. He cannot comprehend what his eyes are showing him, but he knows it isn't normal. He suddenly knows, nothing that has happened tonight was normal.
And that the naked woman devouring raw flesh on the kitchen floor like an animal is not his fiancee.
...
She wakes up on the cold kitchen floor, stark naked. Her head hurts and she feels sick. She clutches her stomach, unable to understand the pain there. Just what happened? As she struggles to stand, she feels a familiar soreness between her legs. Then she's racing to the bathroom and throwing up violently.
She doesn't understand why her vomit looks like it does, but it isn't normal. Something is happening to her and it is undeniable now. As she rises and looks at herself in the mirror, a scream tears from her throat. There is flesh and remnants of something all around her mouth. Half her face is covered in it, in fact.
She does not recognize this woman who looks like her but isn't her. She fiercely washes off her face and runs for her life out the bathroom and then slumps against the front door, still utterly naked. Her heartbeat is erratic. She feels different. She cannot tell what it is, but she feels utterly violated.
Some time later, she sees Sasuke standing before her. His looks afraid. She realizes with a start a moment later that its her he's afraid of. His body is angled defensively and his eyes hold suspicion. It prompts a fresh bout of tears and she clutches her hair. "What's happening to me, Sasuke?"
She hears him drop to his knees before her and she sees raw, undisguised pain in his onyx eyes. He is in pain. He carefully reaches for her, as if expecting her to do something to hurt him, but when she doesn't move, he relaxes a little. Seeing the mistrust for her from the man she had promised to honor the trust of breaks her spirit and she wails into her palms.
He holds her against him lovingly as he always has, but she can sense the hesitation. She knows its there. And its strikes her then, that something has happened - something that he has seen that has caused this change.
"Sakura?" he asks. She continues to cry and he asks again. "Sakura?'
It hits her then, that he wants to know if its really her. Terror runs rampant through her body, providing answers she isn't ready to hear - asking questions she doesn't want to answer.
"Sasuke," she affirms, for his name is all that she can manage.
"Do you remember anything that happened last night?" he carefully ventures.
When she speaks, its between hiccups. "I came to - pick up - my dress - and then I - don't know - what happened. I woke - kitchen floor - dirty-" She breaks into sobs again. "Sasuke, help me," pleads she. "You - know something," she states.
"Do you remember us having sex?"
She stills, becoming aware of the soreness between her legs. "No."
"Do you remember leaving our bed?"
"No... yes."
"Were you hungry?"
"...yes. I think so."
"..."
"Sasuke?" Her voice starts to break again, but he places a soft kiss on her temple and replies, "Its okay. I will protect you, Sakura."
What do you think, guys?
Of course there will be another part to the story, but I need to know how you guys feel about this one.
How was your experience reading?
What do you think has happened to Sakura? Will she survive?
Do you see why kids can't be reading this (other than the sex)?