"Hey Naruto!"

He turned, smiling instantly as he recognized his pink haired friend.

"Hey Sakura!"

She tilted her head to the side, pink lips turning up in a warm smile.

She opened her mouth as if about to say something but stopped suddenly, gasping softly.

"Sakura-chan?"

She stared at him, green eyes wide and accusing, skin paling slightly.

"What's wrong Sakura-chan?" He asked, feeling cold panic rising in his chest, it was as if the world had suddenly slowed, the colors fading to grey.

Blood trickled from her lips and her mouth hung open, eyes glazed over, unseeing.

"You monster..."

She whispered, her voice shaky, hurt, and she fell to the ground in a heap, unmoving.

"Sakura!"

He stared down in horror at her lifeless body and suddenly felt a cold wet on his body, something he knew was not there before. Slowly, as if afraid of what he would see, he looked down at himself.

Blood.

Everywhere.

On his clothes, on his hands, tainting his warm sun-kissed skin, painting him with the stench of death.

Blood.

He screamed, trying desperately to wipe away the cold cruel wetness, his clear blue eyes wide with pure stark fear, his breath heavy and frightened, his heartbeat quickening, reminding him to try to breath normally.

Breath in, breath out, breath in...

He gasped, sitting bolt upright in his bed, his heart hammering at his chest, screaming at him to breath.

Instantly, he looked down at himself, as if trying to reassure himself it was gone, that his skin was not stained red, that he was alive.

"Sakura?"

He tried to breath, remembering the look in his friend's frightened green eyes, the blood on her lips, the blood on his own hands...

He had killed her, he had murdered his friend, he had... He had...

His eyes were wide and panicked and he clutched at his sheets in fear, trying to calm himself.

He was alright.

There was no blood.

Sakura was alive.

"You monster..."

He thought back, back before he had fallen asleep on his old hard mattress, back to what had happened with the villager, with Sasuke...

He had called him the same thing, a monster.

The same word that haunted his mind so often, the same word he heard whispered on the streets as he passed, that one single word that caused so much pain in his heart...

"Monster"


---TO BE CONTINUED---