Promise

One-Shot

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story.

Author's Note: I know I haven't been updating, it's just that I'm doing my diploma right now and it's really difficult. Thank you to all who stuck with me! And I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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In our hearts we promised love, until the ones we do have let us down and left us behind
Will you promise to stay by me?

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The sobbing figure of a girl, chest heaving up and down as she curled up to a fragile ball in the dusty corner, not knowing where to go or what to do anymore…she was going to be stuck there forever.

"We can't do this." Haruno Sakura said and stared out of the window, covered in a layer of dust. "I don't think I can do this anymore."

Long pianist fingers ran through dark strands of hair. Uchiha Sasuke was on the other side of the room wondering how to escape too. He stared at the torn wooden walls, the dent caused by scraping and broken pieces of nails stuck within, he looked at the floor and the splatter of dried brownish blood, taken in the scent of death and other things foul within this room and finally glanced at the girl who spoke.

"There's a way, there's got to be one."

She narrowed her green eyes at him, dull and lifeless. "You have to stop being so stubborn and just give up—there's no way we're escaping this place. It wants us dead." Her voice denoted no fear, just acceptance of fate and he realized this.

"Sakura…" He tried to change her mind but he doubted himself too, just as they had weeks after being stuck in this place. He knew after that thing had dragged his friend into the other room, did who-knows-what and left her broken and bruised, clothes torn in places he didn't let his mind wander into. It dressed her like a doll, chained her wrists and left her on a pedestal for days like a priceless piece of art. All Sasuke could do was stare helplessly from the other room, chained to a boiler and watched as blood trickled down her bruised legs—mimicking the tears rolling down her cheeks.

She sighed and her pink hair, once bright and lively now dried and pale, curtained her grief-stricken face. "I'm going to die here, aren't I, Sasuke-kun? In this house, in this…in this—"

He clenched his fist. "No you're not, Sakura. We're not going to die here. We're going to get out of this alive."

She laughed dryly. "When are you going to give up…"

"Just listen to yourself, Sakura. Why are you so—"

"Negative? Upset? That thing broke me. I'm no more human than the animals out there, Sasuke-kun. It tore every fibre of life there was from me. I'm already dead."

"—don't give up."

There was a moment of silence, dry and prickly like the air around them. He glanced quickly across the room and looked at the bruised form of what once used to be his cheerful friend. He noticed the color stripped away from her skin, leaving it dull and pale, the iridescent glow of a living corpse, the sheer look of a death close on its verge.

Sasuke refused to leave her that way.

He tried to take a step toward her but the chain stopped him from moving more than two steps away. The energy from him drained away from the lack of nourishing food there was and the disturbing nightmares he had of the things he'd seen. Fingers stretched out but there was no use, there was no way he would reach her again, there was no way of comfort he could provide granted that he had never been the one to comfort.

"I miss mom and Naruto-kun and everyone else." She started choking on her own words and her tears splattered softly on wood.

She chuckled suddenly, "remember that time in pre-school when you said how annoying I was?"

He just stared at her and wondered where the topic had come from. "Hm..." he replied simply.

She turned weakly towards him and he saw the veins underneath her eyes, blue and purple, dead. "I still remember that one time when I asked you to prom and you wouldn't even look at me of how awkward it was. I remembered how much I really liked you and how Naruto was like, in love with me or something...I feel bad, now that I think about it. I wish I could say sorry, whenever I see him...if I see him."

Sasuke sighed, chest felt heavy and his eyes blood-shot, laden with fatigue. "Sakura, why are you saying all this?"

Her eyes felt a burn and the tears pooled around the rim of her eyes.

"Because, Sasuke-kun. I never had the chance to tell you I love you. I'm afraid it just might be too late for anything to be done now. We're never getting out of here, and I'm never going to be an inch closer to you, that thing won't let us even touch."

"Maybe this might all be over soon."

"Of course it won't be, don't be silly."

"It will be, I'll make sure of that—"

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Hm?"

There was a pause, a momentary silence as she recollected her strength to talk. "If you ever get out of this—I mean I hope you will—please tell Naruto I'm sorry. And please tell mom that I love her, and dad too, and Ino, Hinata, Kakashi-sempai, everyone you see. Tell them I've been thinking about them every day. And I'm sorry for everything."

His eyes shot open in alarm. "Sakura, what are you talking about? We're both going to make it out of here alive." He watched as her arm reached for a gleaming metal, out of her fingers' reach. The panic rose in his chest.

Her voice started rising up in an irregular rhythm, the sound of lost hope and broken heart. "I just want to say goodbye—"

"No, Sakura! Don't, don't even go there—Just, no! As long as I'm here, I'm going to keep you alive. Listen to me, Sakura, look at me—Sakura, what are you doing? Put that thing down. God damn it! Sakura don't you dare glide that thing across your wrist—DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!"

She gave him a weak smile. "I'm sorry."

A puddle of red spreads across the floor and edges towards him, he had to shut his eyes from the view to keep from throwing up. The whites of her eyes rolling to the back of her head, and her head thumped against the wooden floor with a muted thud, sinking into the sea of her own blood. He was alone now, she's gone…he didn't even have the chance to say goodbye or that he appreciated her existence as his friend; he hadn't had the chance to express his gratitude, to tell her he loved her, because he never thought he needed to. His last source of hope in this room, in this prison, gone like the sanity in her had been beaten out too.

His eyes were wide open and stared at the lifeless body across the room, her deadened stare and the gap in her mouth haunting him.

A knock sounded on the door. He was next.