fire drill | naruto

2. The Smell of Death

content/trigger warning: mild inferred violence

The bitter taste of ash in her mouth jolted Shōnetsu awake, eyes snapping open with such ferocity that her head started to spin. She winced, focusing her vision on the sky in front of her, clouds dark and the wind cold. "What the hell?" she murmured, bringing her hands to her eyes.

White bandages covered every inch of her arms that she could see. She shuffled around, trying to prop herself up when a deadly, sharp pain crossed her forearms and her left calf.

She audibly hissed. "Fuck!" Shōnetsu blurted, scrunching her eyes closed as if it would help.

After a moment of complete stillness on her part, she slowly but surely gave way to a sitting position. The pain in her leg dulled, yet her forearms ached with a dull —but definitely noticeable— tenderness. Why did she have bandages on, again?

Why?

The back of her throat felt dry just like the ash she had tasted before.

Ash?

A moment of silence. Shōnetsu hiccuped a little, and her shoulders trembled with the sobs she restrained. Tears built and overflowed from her eyes, round and vulnerable, chin scrunched into wrinkles and eyebrows tilted up. She sobbed and cried, squeezing her eyes shut every now and then and reaching up to wipe her tears no matter how much it pained her. Sorrow bled through her veins, flooding every pore with grief and sadness leaking from her eyes as if it were a malfunctioning faucet.

Shōnetsu recognized her surroundings— This was the forest just southwest of her school.

Oh, her school.

Scrambling to her feet, despite her shrill yelp of pain, she pushed herself through the grass, foot after foot, step after step, vision blurred over with tears as her bandaged white hands pushed through the undergrowth northeast.

During her painful trek, clothes ripped and dirtied and feet barely covered by her half melted shoes, she had passed by a creek. The surface was completely coated with ash and debris floated by, bobbing sorrowfully in the once crystalline water like a poor, drowning soul.

It took a moment, but as Shōnetsu waited and watched in silence for just a breath, more objects started pouring down river.

Backpacks, lunch pails, notebooks. Pencils and pouches floated down on the foam, jackets, and shoes, and uniform shirts passed by.

She gulped and looked away, continuing in a pace faster than before.

As the ground beneath gradually became more charred, Shōnetsu parted the outstretched branches of a tree, obscuring her vision, and the sunlight blinded her for just a moment.

The smell of fire engulfed her, and her eyes cleared.

It was silent as she closed them once again and turned the other direction. She started off in a slow walk, then a stroll, to a jog. Yet soon, Shōnetsu found herself running.

The smell made her head spin as she squeezed her eyes as shut as she could, sprinting through the burnt debris– tears trickling down her face at every crunch beneath her feet, knowing that she could be trampling people in her same classes.

She never wanted to stop running.

Never.

Maybe if she kept running, the smell would finally go away.