The Girl They Never Saw [Completed]

Chapter 1 ~ Cotton Candy

    "Can you hear them? The one's you've killed? I can. They're always whispering in the back of my mind, condemning me for the things I've done." -Sakura Haruno

      Sakura watched the rain fall, her emerald eyes reflecting the stormy gray sky on the other side of the window. She was five, and still found pleasure in the simpler things like rain. She sighed, and put her chin in her hands. It was late, and she should go to bed. But she didn't move. She watched two drops race each other down the pane of glass, and silently cheered them on. She was asleep before either of them hit the sill.

      Sometime later, she woke with a start as a clap of thunder reverberated through her home. The world was dark, the only sound being the patter of rain on the roof. She crept down the hall toward her bedroom, careful not to disturb her parents, who were sleeping peacefully. A foul odor gutted her senses, and she came to a dead halt.

      Suddenly the sound of rain became menacing, and every shadow seemed out of place. Curiously, she padded into her parents room, and when neither of them stirred, flipped on the light.

      She gaped at the sight before her, trying to process, and at the same time block it out. There was no blood. No sign of an attacker. But her parents were undoubtedly dead, their faces twisted in expressions of immense pain. Their sheets were coiled around them, and the pillows were scratched open and shedding feathers.

      Sakura stared in utter shock. There was no way this was real. It was a trick. It was a dream. It was a nightmare. There was no strange smell coming off the mangled bodies. There was no bodies to begin with. There was no death. There was not. There was not. There was not.

       But there was. There was a vile stench. There were two bodies in her parents' bed. There was a girl, standing in the sound of rain, staring at the corpses of her own parents.

       Sakura ran. She ran out of the room that would never leave her memory. She ran out of the house that would never be the same. She ran through the rain, every drop like a needle piercing her skin. She ran until she could run no longer, and collapsed to her knees in front of the place her subconscious had directed her to.