ᗰOᑎᔕTEᖇ [🧡 ᑎᗩᖇᑌᕼIᑎᗩ 💜] [Ɱҽէąʍօɾքհօʂìʂ] Bσσƙ Oɳҽ

Desert Nightmare

Chapter Twenty-Four

Desert Nightmare

April 8, 2010

"You think I'm losing it, don't you?"

Sakura looked up from her mug.

The distraught woman seated at her kitchen table waited in stony silence for her response. Weary, bloodshot eyes burrowed into hers. The shimmering cerulean depths almost accusatory as a fresh bout of moisture gathered.

"I don't think you're losing it," Sakura denied, returning her friend's gaze with a gentle one of her own, "but maybe you could use a break from all this."

Ino shook her head, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Dressed in a pair of Sakura's pajamas, the weepy blonde looked haggard but a sight better than the hysterical scantily clad woman that had initially beat down her door an hour before sunrise.

Ino's flight of terror in nothing more than a tank and panties had left the medical nin shocked and deeply concerned. Coupled with her staunch refusal to believe her nightmare had been naught but a horrible dream concocted by her stressed mind, Sakura had already made up her mind own to speak to Kakashi-sensei at the first opportunity. She understood her friend's work was important, perhaps invaluable, but she wouldn't stand by and let her destroy herself over it. Ino needed time to heal her own mental space before she probed around in the murk of someone else's. This assignment had taken its toll on the psyche kunoichi from the beginning, but ever since her involuntary purging incident three days ago, her mental health had been in a downward spiral.

Ino swiped a trembling hand over damp eyes, a small sniffle following.

Despite her assurance to the contrary, Sakura did think her best friend was losing it.

After tonight, she would even go as far to say she had already lost it.

"I don't need a break," Ino refuted, "I know what I saw. What I heard. It was 2:14 and my door creaked. It wasn't a nightmare. It was a premonition. If I had stayed there, if I hadn't run when I did...it would have happened. I would have died."

Sakura sighed, turning her distressed gaze back to the hot liquid in her cup. She ran her spoon around the inner rim of her mug, watching the dark whirls twist and coil as she contemplated a response. She didn't want to sound dismissive. Or upset her friend more than she was at the moment, but she refused to feed the hysteria.

"Ino," she began, "You know I wouldn't lie just to make you feel better but it was well past two when you got here. Look out the window if you can't take my word for it."

The window closest to her little dining area was alight by the rays of early morning sun. Beyond the glass, the sounds of a village preparing for another day.

"Sunrise is around 7 am and you were pounding on the door an hour before that."

The battering blows to her front door had startled the sluggish pinkette. In the middle of brewing life saving coffee, Ino's desperate pleas from outside had woken up her tired brain faster and more efficiently than any caffeinated drink could ever hope to.

She gentled her next words even more.

"Ino, it was just a nightmare, a horrible, horrible, nightmare. With everything that's been happening, with the Jubokko and your assignment, its only natural that your mind would revisit the most stressful things in your life right now. You've told me about the things you see in there, and I can definitely understand why it would terrorize you when you sleep. It would keep even the bravest up at night."