Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters and my chapter names are lines from works of Edgar Allan Poe

Whew! Okay, so… I retyped this chapter completely because I didn't like where it was going, but I think it's better now so I hope you all like it. :] I would give you guys songs that inspired me with this story, but the lyrics might give the plot away lol so, I'll just give you a lyric-less song: The Mind of Izuka (from Fire Emblem). Enjoy chapter 3!

CHAPTER III

It all happened so fast. I didn't know what had happened, nor did I know what had gotten into me. The word—the name just slipped from my lips so naturally. "S—Sas—uke," was my plea for help, but I wasn't supposed to trust him. Why was I trusting a man who was very well as psychotic as the one suffocating me? My eyes dulled over, and I felt that I was losing consciousness: my life's consciousness. The sound of Restless's word "kill" slowly became dead on my ears. I was falling asleep—or, rather, I was dying.

Before I could completely succumb to the death that was hanging over me, Restless's large hand was removed from my throat and I dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. Dizzily, I looked up to my rescuer, only to see the pale hand of Sasuke outstretched to help me to my feet. My emerald orbs travelled up his tall form, eventually meeting up with his eyes, sharp with his attentive behavior. Weakly, I took his hand and he pulled me up off the ground, my frail form in turn leaning on his built torso.

He saved me. The words didn't quite register into my mind until I repeated them over and over and then some. My throat still felt clenched from the insanely powerful grip of Restless, but I slowly began to feel my flesh adjusting to how my neck was supposed to be formed.

I would be a fool to not be grateful to Sasuke, but I couldn't help but complain to myself about how the collar was still choking me terrible. It seemed as if Restless had crushed it closer to my neck, making it choke me almost as badly as he had been. My breaths were raspy as I tugged at the collar. One thought passed through my mind—a single thought. I still don't know why I thought it, but I thought that the hinge should snap so I could breath. My tugging wasn't nearly hard enough to snap the collar off my throat, but it snapped.

I could breathe…

For a second. Until I saw all the eyes on me as if I had done something forbidden—or… was it impossible? To this day, I can't put my finger on what exactly it was by the look that they were giving me, but Sasuke's look was one that I could determine: interest. Far too much interest.

His onyx orbs seemed to peer through her very soul, looking into all the intricate details of her life past. Sakura swallowed hard, stepping away from the man she was previously thankful for. He had saved her life, but that look that he was giving her was unsettling. It made her worry. It made her flinch. It made her forehead drop with sweat and her lips dry in fear. As the other experiments began to close in on her, Sakura pressed against the wall, Sasuke looming over her ominously.

Sasuke's ebony bangs fell off his forehead as he leaned further over her lacking stature. Sakura could feel her body shaking from center to circumference. Her eyes switched from Sasuke to Suigetsu to Naruto and the other people getting closer and closer to her, but Sasuke was closest of all, and he wasn't moving. "Back off…" he mumbled to the others around him, his voice dripping with hostility. Chills skittered across Sakura's skin upon hearing her cellmate speak in such a menacing way.

She tried to catch sight of his eyes to see what kind of expression he held, but he had snapped his head back to cover his eyes once again with his bangs, as if he knew what she was trying to do. Sakura swallowed, pressing against the wall, fearing the man in front of her. "What do you want from me…?" The words wisped from between her lips. The fear clung to her voice, making it raspy and near inaudible.

"How… the heck… did you do that?" He spat, sounding clearly irritated. Something in his voice was switched—it wasn't the same tone he had used with her previously when they would speak to each other. It wasn't the gentleness nor was it the comforting. It was sinister, promising nothing but a creative, unique, grotesque murder. Sakura breathed in sharply, holding in her what she thought would be her last exhale as she snapped her eyes shut. All she saw was the shadow surrounding her fading. What…?

Hesitantly, she peeked her emerald eyes open, only to see Sasuke holding his head in pain, holding back groans and merely grunting. His breath came out harshly as he eased himself to his knees. "Urgh…" he mumbled, tugging at his charcoal mane as if more pain would ease his current pain. As Sakura was about to ask him if he was all right, a tortured scream ripped out of his throat and he completely subdued himself to the ground, curling up in an uncomely ball.

"Sasuke?!" Sakura asked in confusion, kneeling beside him. She was afraid to see him foam at the mouth, or hear his own set of shrill shrieks, but the last thing she wanted to do was leave her debt unpaid. He had saved her life; it was only right if she stood by his side.

"This is all your fault—ya hear?! All your fault!" Suigetsu chided angrily, kneeling beside Sasuke himself.

"I—I'm sorry—" She cut herself off. What was her fault? What had she done: take the collar off? How would that cause Sasuke to writhe in pain? Sasuke screamed in pain, tightening the ball in which he was twisted in. He tossed himself to the side, stretching out in agony, another scream tearing out of his throat: the scream being more shrill and crazed. Sakura shivered subconsciously, her emerald orbs widening. He's… he's crazy too… her heart pounded as she now for the first time saw how her cellmate could get. Only, he wasn't hostile, it just pained him…

Why…?

The words kept coming into my mind: dark, dreary, blood… Bleak. Bleak was always different—as if it was a revelation of its own. My mind was acting as if it was trying to convey a message to me that I didn't know, except it was my mind. I know everything my mind knows, because my mind is me… So what was this sensation?

Bleak. It rolls off my tongue so easily—so naturally, but every time I say it I feel a new sense of fear run up and down my spine in chills of horror. Was it because it expressed my situation so clearly? Or was it because I had heard it somewhere before? Or was it not my mind that was conveying these thoughts to me? Bleak.

Something so dangerous… so indescribable would fall over me, begging me to never utter that adjective in this place. It was to remain in my mind, but I had sudden desires to hear in on my lips.

Sakura's eyes stood focused on the sleeping male resting on her lap. They had been taken—or, more correctly dragged—by Kabuto back to their cell. The time for eating was over and it was back to their cold, dank cells. The pinkette shivered, feeling a chilling draft wash in through the crack of the door. As the time elapsed, her emerald orbs began to more readily adjust to the darkness, but the strangest phenomenon about it all was that no matter how hard she tried—even with him on her lap—she couldn't ever see Sasuke.

It was as if the man fused with darkness—as if he were one with it. He was dressed darkly, he was adorned darkly. Everything about him was dark save his pale, ghastly skin that would allow him to be mistaken for the near undead, but even that shade of skin could not be seen in the darkness. Sakura stroked her fingers through his mane of ebony hair to ease the peaceable raven as he twitched while dreaming. What would someone like him dream about? She wondered, left with no clues as he never seemed to utter a murmur in slumber.

The world seemed to press against her as his hair was far softer than she could have ever imagined. She could feel the grime that had set into it due to a lack of washing, but a softness resided in the texture—something akin to both silk and maybe cotton. A short groan escaped his lips and Sakura knew he was awake with he shifted, following after by suddenly jerking up by the unfamiliar spot in which his head rested. "Who are you?" He asked so quickly it sounded like one word.

"It's just me, Sakura… they took us back to our cell," she explained, earning a content sigh from the raven almost immediately after. She felt him shift once again as he positioned himself to sit beside her.

"What happened to me?" She felt him look over at her when he spoke, so she looked back, hoping their faces weren't too close for her own moral comfort.

"I don't know… you walked up on me and it was frightening… like you were going to kill me where I stood, but then you just backed off and started holding your head in pain," Sakura recalled all that she could remember, minus the breaking off of her collar. There was no one to help her if he lost control again. Sasuke grunted a thoughtful "hn", sounding disturbed by her account. "I'm sorry…"

"No, I'm sorry," he apologized genuinely. "I wish you were rooming with someone else. It's… dangerous here," he warned. Sakura knew what he was speaking about: the Sleeper. Where was the Sleeper? Was he in the cafeteria with them? Sakura's heart throbbed and a lump grew in her throat at the very thought of eating in the same room as the Sleeper. Then again, she was living in the same cell as that lunatic. At least he's always sleeping… she mused in her mind, a sigh of relief easing from her lips.

"How… how did you get away from Jugo?" Sasuke asked hesitantly. Sakura looked over at him dubiously. It seemed that he never remembered accounts he was the most heroic.

"You tore him off me, remember?"

"Oh, right…" he mumbled back, his comment not ensuring at all. He sounded more as if he was trying to convince himself, but fear resided in his voice clearly. Sakura looked over to where she knew his form was and placed her hand over his cold skin, feeling how tense he was.

"Are you all right?" She received no answer, but she heard his feet shuffling against the stone floor as he stood. Her heart rate quickened at his uneven pace of walking—or running—or… whatever it was, the pace was fluctuating in disturbing steps. It wasn't silent due to his walking, but it was eerie. Just the simple scratchy sounds on the stone from the shuffling of feet broke the silence in a tone of sinister promises.

And that's when I felt it more powerful than ever: Bleak. The word was a name, being screamed into my mind—my mind wasn't screaming it at me. It repeated over and over, terror chilling every last sense to which I could lay claim. I could feel my lips parting in my subconscious, for some reason knowing that I should fight saying the name that was so desperately playing at my lips: Bleak, Bleak, Bleak…

A fear arose in my heart as I thought of how truly helpless and hopeless I was in my current situation. Maybe that work was mine to say. Nothing made sense to me, but I felt something awakening in my body—something full of power and maybe even promise. My head spun around the word: Bleak. My lips pinched to avoid the name: Bleak. I couldn't say it…

I knew I shouldn't say it…

And I now know why.

Sasuke's pacing calmed down, and the strange peace that once hung over the room returned and engulfed the cellmates warmly. Sakura breathed out an eased sigh, relieved to have the raven sitting back on the stone floor instead of brooding. "You're not safe…" Sasuke broke the silence, causing the pinkette to look up from the floor to where she had heard his voice.

"I know…" she nodded, being completely aware of her situation. No one was safe here. It was an experimentation lab—and they used humans. There was nothing safe about it.

"You're not healthy…" Sakura pinched her lips together, resisting the sudden desire to call his statement hypocritical. After his reaction—or whatever that was—in the cafeteria, the pinkette knew for sure that this man was, indeed, crazed with something. She just wasn't quite sure what yet. How could he tell her that she wasn't healthy? "I see it in your eyes… I hear it in your mind. Don't say that name."

Sakura's heart jumped out of her chest and she almost choked on her saliva. How had he known what she was thinking about? How had he known Bleak was a name rather than an adjective if he was reading her thoughts? The woman shifted uncomfortably where she sat. "The Sleeper is the one tempting you to say that, but if you do… you'll end up like Jugo and Naruto…" Sasuke warned, his tone wary as he knew all the details.

"The Sleeper is sleeping," Sakura said matter-of-a-factly, placing her hands neatly on her lap. She breathed in a sharp breath, looking over to the dark corner as if to check if the Sleeper was awakening. "How could he send me messages?"

"That's just what he does," the raven responded vaguely, seeming to avoid further detail, although Sakura could tell he knew why by his tone. Sasuke had told her that he had his first encounter with the Sleeper after his first experiment, meaning that he knew the man better than he was letting on. No one sleeps that long—he had to have woken up some time or another.

The weight of his words pressed on her hard, but something about hearing a command not to say it from someone other than herself eased the pain and panic from her mind. She breathed out slow breaths, trying to figure out why she was being so stubborn about saying that adjective aloud. I would become like Jugo and Naruto… She repeated his example in her mind. How would Bleak pertain to Jugo and Naruto?

Unless… They were bipolar, their other sides being named Restless and Kitsune. Did that mean she was becoming bipolar, and her other side was called Bleak? What a depressing second name… She took a second to joke to herself, trying to make light of the situation to ease her anxiety. The more she thought about becoming bipolar from the experimentation, the more real it seemed to her. It seemed as if it could really happen—as if it really was happening.

She hadn't done anything out of the ordinary, which meant that she was still overruling this Bleak that wished to enter her life. Sakura shivered, not wanting to share her body with a second personality—especially one that would resemble Restless or Kitsune. She felt a strong hand on her shoulder and was knocked out of her state of frightening thoughts. "Wha—" she breathed suddenly, her heart rate quickening as she jerked away from the contact.

"It's okay…" Sasuke comforted her, sitting across from her and squeezing her shoulder. Sakura raised her hand and placed it over Sasuke's stronger one. A content sigh eased from her lips. He saved her life, but he couldn't remember. He acted as if he was going to kill her, but he didn't remember. However, he could read her mind and outstretch his hand to comfort her. It made no sense. Sakura's eyes veered over to the dark corner: the Sleeper's corner.

"Will he kill me if he wakes up…?" Sakura whispered to Sasuke, knowing he would be able to figure out who she was talking about. A long silence hung over the room heavily. The pinkette swallowed hard, the suspense of awaiting the raven's response weighing her down, making breathing seem more like a task than a natural occurrence. Something about his long pauses did nothing to set her at ease; they, rather, took away any previous trust she had for him. They set her back. What if he's just making up lies in his head? She mused, chewing on her bottom lip nervously. "Will he…?" She repeated in a lower whisper.

"I don't know…" Sasuke finally answered, his tone wary as if this time, he really didn't have the answer. Sakura's confidence left, but something about the thrilling experience of speaking with such a bloodthirsty creature made her heart pound with not only intense fear, but a shred of excitement. I don't know why the thought of him is getting me more and more interested… Sakura was beginning to worry for herself. Had that serum done more than "give her regeneration properties" or "make her lean towards becoming bipolar"?

She didn't know, but it felt as if it was. Was she becoming bloodthirsty herself? She hadn't thought about killing anyone. Was Bleak now trying to fuse with her normal consciousness so that they could coexist in the same form? Sakura swallowed hard, placing her hand to her chest to search for her abnormally fast heartbeat.

It was almost as if this place was designed for all levels of complete humiliation. Sakura thought she was done with the embarrassing, demeaning circumstances of this place. She was told by Kabuto that she and Sasuke would be able to bathe. It was cell 23's turn for bathing—which, Sakura figured by the way the silver haired man had worded it, they went through all the cells individually for who got to bathe day by day. This would be her only chance in a long time to get clean. Unknowingly, she agreed to the problem she now found herself in:

One tub. One small, cramped, one-person tub… to share with Uchiha Sasuke, her male cell mate. Sakura breathed in a sharp breath, exhaling shakily. Her eyes veered over to Sasuke, who seemed to be completely fine with the current conditions, already beginning to strip off his clothing. "Gah!" Sakura turned away, turning beet red. "You could at least warn me!" She rebuked him.

"It's going to happen anyways," he shrugged, kicking off his pants along with his smallclothes and stepped into the tub. "Yikes, that's cold…" he mumbled disapprovingly, making it sound more like a joke than really disliking it. Sakura rolled her eyes, hugging her arms closer to herself. She was screaming at herself for actually considering joining him. After all, they only had a certain amount of time before Kabuto came back to get them: then bathing would be over.

Though with great hesitation, Sakura complied, embarrassedly stripping herself of her clothing and stepping into the tub, being sure to stay as far away as possible from Sasuke as she could—which wasn't very far. A sigh of relief huffed out of her lungs when she found the water to be somewhat warmer than Sasuke had said. He was teasing me… she frowned harshly, tempted to send him a snarling glare. "It's not bad, right?" She heard him speak up.

"Sasuke, can we please not talk while we're naked?" She begged, trying to keep the last bit of dignity she had left. She heard him chuckle. The more she was with him the more he was feeling like… family: a big brother, per se. And big brothers did tend to tease their little sisters….

"Why not? It's not like our words portray erotic visions in our minds," the playfulness in his voice was over the top; he had obviously found something in Sakura that was worth spending time teasing.

"Don't word it like that!" Sakura felt an embarrassed heat rushing up her neck. She frowned harshly, not daring to look back at him. She was almost sure he was looking at her back just so that she would turn around in a tantrum and she would show more than she ought to. It was amazing what people would do for sheer laughter. But then again, who wouldn't want a good laugh in this place? I guess they just take what they can get… Sakura mused, still trying to exclude herself from the group of experimentations, though she very well knew that she was also one of "them" now.

Sakura and Sasuke continued to pass the soap from one to the other as they bathed, occasionally cracking a joke to break the stiffness and monotony of their situation. "Don't drop the soap," Sasuke teased as he passed it to the pinkette loosely.

"Keep that to yourself!" Sakura couldn't help but laugh. Yes, she was definitely getting a big brother vibe from him. Even so, she accepted the soap and scrubbed her body, passing it back to him when she finished a good portion of her skin.

She couldn't help but allow her mind to wander back to the phenomenon of their cell: cell 23. Sasuke would mention the Sleeper—Pain and Kabuto seemed to fear the Sleeper—and yet, whenever things like this would happen—eating at the cafeteria, bathing—the Sleeper would be nowhere in sight. It could be that they just don't want to wake him up… Sakura mused, the idea sounding dubious to her. The entire circumstance was strange, and she knew that Sasuke knew something that he wasn't telling her, but it was starting to not bother her as much as she wished it would.

"You know… If the Sleeper really wanted me to say that name: do you think it's because it would be someone that he could relate to?" Sakura asked the raven thoughtfully, tapping her index finger on her lips.

"That's what you should be afraid of," he warned carefully. His words were true: she should be afraid of the Sleeper getting along with a separate side of her, because then that separate side would want to come out more often to associate with the Sleeper until it completely took her over. But why wasn't she scared? The name was threatening in her mind once again, her head beginning to throb painfully. A light groan eased out of her throat and she pressed her palms to her temples. "Sakura?" Sasuke's voice cracked in concern.

"I—it hurts—" she cut herself off with a whimper in pain. She could almost feel her brain getting larger—or smaller? It felt as if it was twisting in circles, spinning in directions she thought weren't possible. "Bleak! Say Bleak! Bleak!" The voice in her mind was practically begging her. It didn't sound crazy—it didn't sound female. It sounded interested and inviting—tempting to give into if only once. The pain went down into her neck, causing her to curl into a ball. "Sasuke it hurts!" She called to the only she knew could and would help.

Neglecting their current state, Sasuke took the pinkette into his arms, his eyes wide as he watched her eyes haze over with a glaze. She saw him swallow hard as if what was going on was worse than it felt. Sakura felt a shrill shriek skittering up her throat, and the very thought that she would sound like the man Gaara made her shiver in fright as she clung to Sasuke. "Make it stop!" She begged in whimpers, the shrill, banshee screech tearing out of her throat dangerously as she felt her writhes transforming into near convulsions.

Her mind went blank. Only one word repeated in her mind:

Bleak… Bleak… Bleak…

She fought the urge to utter it, knowing that it would not end her pain, but intensify it. Something told her that—maybe it was Sasuke whispering in her ear, but she couldn't tell. Her eyelids sunk shut and she was gone, now nothing remaining in her mind.

XxxX

Something about this chapter was oddly… I don't know… maybe I could call it a prelude. I'm not sure how to word this, so… I'll just quit while I'm ahead and we'll call it a prelude lol Well! I hope you all liked this chapter! It was pretty fun to type. Chapters might start coming out slower because I have to get serious with school work… bleagh… my science project is almost over though—and then I have to finish up my author project. So, can't wait till then! (Hopefully no more big projects after then!) Arigatogozaimasu for your support. Don't forget to R&R!

InaGaTa