Synchronicity

Down The Rabbit Hole Part - 2

Naruto sat himself on the couch warily.

Almost immediately as he had sunk with great hesitance into the cushions, still concerned over whether he would black out again, a knock interrupted the gloom of his apartment.

He felt he didn't have the energy to cross the room and answer it. Luckily, Kakashi had already begun speaking.

"Naruto-kun?"

Kakashi-sensei.

"Can we come in?"

We?

He heard whispers from the other side of the door. Strange...he could never hear them before.

"Sure..." His voice was low, almost a whisper.

The door opened easily: Kakashi emerged, standing with a book in hand, Sakura behind him peering over his shoulder with large eyes. Sasuke stood off to the side, leaning on a wall and looking and watching the proceedings with decided, staunch indifference. Kakashi sauntered in, Sakura following him along with a sullen and put upon Sasuke as they peered around his very unfurnished apartment. There wasn't any litter on the floor, although there was a thin sheet of dust blanketing everything.

Naruto was curled on the couch, looking uncharacteristically bleak; fitting, considering the undisturbed gloom of the house.

"Are you feeling alright, Naruto-kun?"

He was about to say he was perfectly okay, but something halted the words before they could form.

"I think...I'm just a little under the weather."

Kakashi raised a brow, but he said nothing to rebuke that. "I see. I hope you get better soon. We came to check and make sure your getting rest.

" He looked over to his teammates owlishly.

"Oh sorry..." He examined their features indifferently. "I'll try to get better so we can train."

"Yeah! So, rest up and don't take too long!" Sakura chimed in agreement, as they trudged out of his apartment with the same abruptness they had come in with.

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief when they took their departure. His head pounded against his skull, and his vision swam until the world around him devolved into indeterminable colors. Deciding that the bed was better than the couch, Naruto crawled off of it tentatively, gingerly taking steps into the other room. So far so good, past the threshold and-

-He never remembered hitting his bed.

When he awoke again, the sun outside his window had seared the horizon into a scorched orange, diffusing his bedroom with a soft, ephemeral glow.

Dusk.

He didn't even want to look at the clock, but he did anyway.

7:47 PM, April 24.

Almost a week. He tried to calm himself down, through a still achingly tired mind, and a body that wouldn't comply. He coursed himself through breathing tactics that Kakashi had once suggested when trying to meditate, the exercises he did when trying to calm himself from the villager's rage.

None of it worked.

His body was just so exhausted, that even getting the blood pounding in his ears and his heart pumping seemed to drain him.

He ended up collapsing again on his bed, closing his eyes as his stomach turned in different directions.

.

.

.

Naruto woke up in cold sweat. Everything in him ached and his bones seemed to protest even the slightest of movements. This time, with determination etched onto his face, he marched straight out his door and down the street. Sometimes, the world would blend into an amalgamation of bright colors, unfocused, and the people on the street changed like a flickering screen, but he made it to the hospital. He courage turned cold and grave though, looking at the looming glass doors of the hospital.