The Lineage

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.


The Lineage
By 11


Chapter 03
Circus of Freaks: Given Up Everything

Slowly I regained consciousness. Much like a weightless body floating in viscous fluid slowly rising to the top where it breaks and you can feel your own breathing; and every muscle starts to regain control of its’ self.

The dank musty smell of dust and sediment is all around me, and I blink my eyes open squinting into the dimness of the room. It is a room, the old man stands nearby watching me with dark red eyes, they seem luminescent in the dark and oddly I am mesmerized by them.

"There's a bucket, a scrubber, and a cloth." The statement is flat and dry, he motions to the items, "I'll take you to the blood room, just clean up the phlegm."

Blood room? Shikamaru!

"Where is Shikamaru?" I ask immediately. The other question glaring in my mind 'what time is it?' was it even the same day/night I wonder?

"You're friend has been safely returned to the upside world." He answers levelly; he seems honest enough... but how can a murderer be sincere? Either way... I'm still alive somehow; and I don't feel any unnatural soreness in any peculiar areas.

He turns and starts walking, and stumble to my feet, and pick up the bucket with the other two items in it and start after him. I recognize the build of these hallways, the light brightens slightly as we head down them. Eventually the turns and weaves of the hall and corridor stops us at a door marred around the edges dried brownish in color and redder in some areas. A part of me shudders, but not with disgust; oddly enough that part of me feels completely thrilled by the sight; anticipating what is on the other side.

The old man opens the door and I steps through; I recognize it as the blood marked room that Shikamaru and I first fell into after the trek down below the surface of the ground. Apparently the old man had found a new victim. The flesh I cleared the ground of was not Shikamaru's, the tattoo on the wrist of one severed arm was a more blatant marker, but the shade and feel of the skin was also unlike his. Perhaps the murderer had not lied... perhaps. It's strange, my instinct in this place has become completely mucked.

Normally that same burning and coiling in my stomach that would warn me of danger, sometimes even tells me how to escape, or what the best course of action would be. But here with the smell of musk and blood it coils and twists almost happily within me. It loves the smell; it associates this environment, somehow, with comfort. The chill and the vague memory of last night's terror keeps my mind free of this strange inclination though. I don't think I'm insane yet.

The free blood comes up with the sponge, and I sweep the bits of flesh and torn musculature into the bucket. It may be diseased, and besides that it's truly disgusting despite what my gut tells me. I try to touch the parts as little as possible.
I finished tidying the blood room easily enough. Part of me relieved to get away from the stench of blood, the other disappointed; this part I ignore. I start to be able to find my way through the halls with relative ease within the first three hours of these chores.

The blood room is down one of three corridors and slopes upward. The second leads to the pit where I cleared the metal slicers of the remaining bits of the great insect Shikamaru and I faced last night. The third leads to the main computer area which monitors the blood room, the suspended platform, and the halls and parts of the manor.

This observation room, the same place I first met this psychotic megalomaniac, has the camera feeds from all over the mansion and the underground cellar. All cameras, I've now learned, are recorded. Apparently it gets dusty in here, and there is grime on the walls I'm supposed to rub away. I try to ignore the fact that my delusional 'employer' is also in the room right now. He's watching a separate screen, one of the earlier recordings.

At first I tried not to pay too much attention to it, but as I worked my way around the room, I slowly came into a better view of the video. It's really sick you know. Almost like when parents might have threatened to videotape their child when they're angry, just so the kid can see how awful they become. That's something like what I see now, it makes my stomach feel empty and ill, my guts cold and steely. I had no idea a person's face could contort like that when fear grips them, let alone my own visage.

It's sick.

I'm so pale as I look up, I'm looking at Shikamaru at that point after I pushed off the giant insect. We've just been told that we would fight and one of us would die to determine who would live. I remembered Shikamaru's face but seeing it again makes the fogged memory only that much more ghastly. I don't suppress a shudder when the old man chuckles at the scene playing out on the lighted screen.

"I wonder what you were thinking then. That you attacked each other so instantaneously..." he mutters, and the amusment in his voice causes every muscle in me to constrict with anger. "Interesting that humans will care so much about their own lives, that given the knowledge they will instantly turn on one another to maintain their own vitality."

He said those words. Then before I knew what I was doing I had brought the wood of the broom down hard on his head. A cracking sound resounding from the metal walls briefly before the old man's clothed body fell with a near soundless thud to the floor.

I'm not really sure what went on in my mind in those few nanoseconds between what he said and what I did. But I knew that he had no right to say that. What did he know about anything? Is it so wrong to want to live! And besides, one of us didn't die! Even if that happened then... oh gods and it did happen... it was only then, inspired by fear and doubt that he manipulated and put into us from the moment we were sealed deep within the earth.

Is it so wrong to want to live? Even if it is at the cost of other's lives? Is there a right answer?

I stumbled backward after a moment, still looking down at the old man's motionless body. It took me a moment to comprehend what was real or if my imagination had delivered to me an illusion chance to escape. No, this is real, though my mind feels fogged; it is real. I had to get out of here, call the police, anyone, or forget that; I had to get out of here.

I turned and bolted for the door and fled into the corridor heading towards the mansion on the other end, there was a door that led out there. More than anything else, before I thought of authorities or bringing this sadistic killer to justice, I had to escape.

I never made it to the end of the hall.

I remember screaming when my body was roughly yanked backward by a hand that latched to the back of my neck. It never loosened, only squeezed, until I was sure the skin had turned bright red. I will never understand why such an old man has such profound strength.

"You thought that would be enough to stop me?" a cold sinister voice snarls into the shell of my ear. Then he's moving backward back down the corridor, and pulling me behind him, still holding me by my neck and by body still curled backward in a terribly uncomfortable position. My muscles burn, they're being stretched too far and I can't walk like this. But what destroy me inside more than the hurt, it is the fear... he's going to kill me now isn't he?

The metal sound of the door being thrown open, and the light flickers dimly on. I feel my insides convulsing as I realize he's dragged me to the blood room. He's grabbed something with his other hand, the weapon of my demise; and he releases me only as he tosses me forward, my body falling forward onto one of the wooden tables. Then his hands have secured mine into chaffed rope on the other end, so I cannot stand back up, though my feet still rest on the ground.

I don't even want to imagine how he'll kill me like this. Is there something worse than death, I wonder?

I hear the tearing before I feel it and the stale air that touches my flesh because of it. I cry out at the first; and my mind goes blank in terror. He's tearing off my clothes.

Why? I don't want to wonder; I don't want to know. Even if that is his purpose, more than anything I wish it wasn't. Why is the word so sick?!

All I have left now is my shoes, I feel a part of my pants leg against my ankle, but that is all I have and the rest of me feels chilled against the cold and dank air.

I brace myself for what might come; and I am ashamed that I screamed in relief when I felt the steely bite of a whip lashing into my back. It could have been so much worse than to be beaten to death. The second blow follows in quick succession, crossing the first, and again a pained cry wrenches itself from my throat. The pain comes anew and my previous thoughts that this was kinder are lost. Such thoughts are probably also misplaced, I'm sure any form of drawn out death would be the same as far as pain.

A third strike and I try to hold my cries back, but they force themselves out anyway. A fourth, a fifth, and I'm sure my back is now torn up in a bloody mass of red and flesh. The smell in here is already so strong I barely notice the flavor of my own tainting the cold air.

My throat grows sore but I can't help the sounds that escape, though eventually they grow less loud. I wish I would just faint so I can die without my last moments spent in pain. But I am aware. My mind fuzzes and seems to fade in and out but I feel every cutting lash embedding itself into me and tears trace my cheeks. A human reaction; that's all it is.

I am sad to die.

Then the blows stop. I've lost count of how many there were, but apparently it's over now. Am I dead then? However it seems I can still think. No the smell of blood is even here?

"Open your eyes."

Oh no... please no. Why am I still alive? It hurts so bad. I can feel the blood sitting in a pool on my back, and the skin feels raw and burning. My throat is dry and sore as well.

“It would be wise of you, not to anger your master.”

I do not miss the warning in his voice. My eyes open. He moves and I know that he’s cut the ropes binding my hands, but the cords still bite into my wrists. It hurts, and my clothes are ruined… the wounds on my back will take weeks to heal.

“Get back to your chores.”

Perhaps there are worse things than death.

“I have no clothes.” It’s a statement. It probably doesn’t matter.

“Get back to your chores.” He’s not concerned about it. I didn’t really think he would be. Slowly I push myself off the wood; my legs still support me though I seem to stager a moment before I can balance myself again. I feel the warm blood running down my back and the pain stabs through every nerve anew. Another hour or so and perhaps the agony will begin to dull; I’m already panting and groaning with the effort it takes to do this much.

I can feel his crimson eyes on me, but I won’t look at him. If I do… this chill of uncertainty will again drown me in terror. I turn to the door and walk steadily towards it. I am entirely naked and the cool air helps to relieve some of the burning sensation from the wound at my back. Blood runs down my backside and legs, I still have my supplies and I finish quickly in the observation room before moving on. Eventually I do forget that I’m naked.

The hall that branches to the three corridors and the horrible deathtrap leads to a manor's basement. It's a fair walk, a few blocks under ground. The old man has probably carved out much of the area, and though I suspect the rest of the doors along the corridors are closets and storage it's also possible that the doors lead to other such rooms or halls that lead even deeper into some kind of network. But I'm not given the time to explore such areas and where they might lead. The old man watches me like a hawk though he seems absent from the room during most of my cleaning. Yet whenever I pause too long to ponder opening a new door I wasn't instructed to he's suddenly behind me asking if I've forgotten what to do, or if I've lost my way. I don't understand how he does that... I'd say it's impossible except that he can do it.

The manor itself though, I do recognize, though only by the yard and the houses across the way from it. It's the old Winfield manor, it was said that an elderly man lived here, but no one much looked into it or cared for him. No family ever came to visit and it seemed he rarely went out. Not a very social fellow, a lot of the kids said the house was haunted and the old man was a ghost.

I frown looking out the aged window; half of it was right... a murderer wouldn't be very social. For such an insane basket case, the place may as well be haunted.

But I'm not dead yet. The old man doesn't seem to want to kill me, at least not right away; seems he'll use me to just clean his mess. This is preferable to the ideas I had originally thought might apply to such a sick mind. That much I'm grateful for.

I’m so glad I’m still alive.

I'm about to move on to the end of the hall and start cleaning the hall from there when I see someone moving on the sidewalk outside the house. I glance back and note the person. It only takes me a moment before I recognize the person, no mistaking it; that's Shikamaru! He did let him go. I steps closer to the window peering out. Shikamaru slows and stops glancing up at the house, he stares only a second before he keeps walking. Turning his eyes away and keeps on padding down the side walk.

I suddenly feel anger towards him. He knows I'm here; he wouldn't have stopped and looked otherwise! But he didn't DO anything... he did absolutely nothing. He didn’t even come back for me with the police or anything. A part of me resents him for that. Does he hate me so much now? I mean I did try to kill him before but so did he!

What were we supposed to do in that death trap? A cold chill traces my spine in memory of that dark pit of irrationality and fear. The fear… enough that every move he made was made with tremors all through him… a fear that freezes form and blood and blanks the mind so you are barely yourself.

I don’t want to go back there…

But then, logically, it’s possible that the old man do something to him before he set him free. Something to make sure that he wouldn't cause any trouble. I know my anger might be unfair but I still feel terribly wronged in that...

Though part of this is my fault. Actually all of it may be my fault when I reflect. But Shikamaru didn't have to come with me, I even told him he could go on and I'd catch up. But he stayed, so isn't it his fault? Or...

"Did you forget what to do?" a cold shudder jolts me from my thoughts. And I turn to face the owner of the silver voice. Crimson eyes bore into me with a vague curiosity.

"No sir." I answer automatically. The sir... has been unbidden since the beginning; it is as he said last night - he owns me. I hate him for that, but I know he could kill me, and he doesn't, for that I don't hate him. It's an odd feeling, what's worse is that I can never tell when he approaches, my gut seems to feel completely at home here and around that maniac, so I can never tell where he is or if he's sneaking up behind me again.

I put thoughts of Shikamaru from my mind and head back to the end of the hallway and start with the broom and duster to relieve the area of dirt and dust over the floor and walls, the desks. The mop follows, and the smell of the soap is stale not fresh and clean like the kind you normally can get from the store; I'm curious what soap he does use. Or is this soap merely so old that it smells this way? It doesn't matter.

I sit down on the cold hard stone floor to look over the room and trying to see what real effect I had on the dark empty space. It still looks old and grimy, and the smell of age and musk was still clearly embedded here.

"That's enough for today." the cold voice returns with a simple order. I turn to face him, he stands with a stance of almost regality, and I can't quite suppress the urge to scowl. He does this to mock me I'm sure, every move in place for the sole purpose of vexing me.

He turns and motions for me to follow him. I obey, there is nothing else that I really can do. Refuse? Why? He might kill me if I go against his wishes, though he doesn't seem to want to do that right away, his eyes seem to say don't cause trouble and I won't have a reason to kill you.

I don't intend to give him a reason. I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to be beaten again. There may still be time for me to escape from this hellish pit, where my senses are snared and my judgments clouded by the scent of musk and blood that lingers around every corridor.

He leads me to the east wing of the house and opens a door to a plain room with a small bed, a small wood dresser with no furnish, a closet, a short stool, and a wide window with thin papery white curtains that flow slightly in the evening breeze. I hadn't even realized that the sun had already set, it casts red and orange lights onto the clouds near the horizon. The colors blue and dark navy fades to the brighter hues to the overhead expanse dotted with stars, the faint outline of a quarter moon just becoming visible to the naked eye.

The old man crossed the room and opens the closet and beckons me closer. Peering into the small cranny, I am shocked to find that all my belongings are currently stuffed into this tiny space. I suddenly remember that I’m naked and seize a shirt and pair of pants from the pile. I put them on quickly, ignoring the fact that that sick old guy is watching me the entire time.

I hiss slightly when I pull my shirt on, the cloth rubbing slightly against the wounds on my back, I quickly choose a looser shirt so that the skin will have a chance to scab over, though more likely there’ll still be a scar there for a long time.

Given that all this is here, the old guy must have gone to my house. But how did he know where I lived? He got everything… so he’s seriously going to keep me here, figures. There wasn’t much to begin with, a bunch of clothes, a few posters and miscellaneous small items… he even brought my box of bloody knives and other materials.

I doubt he’s stupid enough that he didn’t check what was in the box. He must be pretty confident in that insane strength of his if he’s willing to leave me my weapons. Then again I hit him with a broom and he didn’t stay down; maybe he has good reason to be confident. Maybe escape is impossible.

I barely notice as he leaves the door of the closet, but my attention returns to the old man when he sets a plate down on the dresser. I don’t know where he got it from, the food it bears is nothing ornate or fancy, though not really yucky stingy or meager. A slice of bread, it doesn't look stale, a few cut pieces of an apple, and a few strips of meat, looks like chicken possibly. "Your dinner." he says to me simply and he withdraws to a corner of the room near the door.

He's not leaving... I guess he's going to watch me eat. I don't really want to know why, psychos are weird and I don't want to understand them. He may do something to me, but if he is, I'm not going to escape it if I don't eat. I step towards the dresser and take the plate to sit down on the stool. It's all finger food so I can eat it just fine with my hands. I didn't get to wash them though, so this may be a bit unclean. Hopefully I won't contract a deadly disease and die.

I sit facing the old man in his corner. He just stands and watches me. I eat, and soon finish off the entire plate. Neither of us makes a move. I finish chewing the last of the chicken, it was chicken, - I think... - and I set the plate on top of the dresser again. Finally he moves, uncrossing his arms and stepping towards me, walking slowly forward. I stand instinctively, ready to run, or attack if necessary... however much good it may do. It is human nature I suppose to try to live.

"Now it's my turn to eat," he explains his eyes locking on mine, blood red eyes boring into my own seemingly freezing my body as this paralysis spreads from my eyes to my neck and back and arms and legs. Once more I am immobile as he comes close to me.

A cold hand touches at my neck, tilting the frozen muscles to better allow him access to the side of my neck. Idly I note that it's the same side he bit the first time as well. Then the cold teeth bite against my skin, a burst of heat and pain erupts at the wound with a rush of fear and agony before it is replaced with an odd relation. My body relaxes against him, but my consciousness does not fade. I can feel it clearly as the warmth of my blood seeps out through the wounds his teeth grind against my neck, keeping the marks open and bleeding, his tongue caressing the skin where the blood flows out to take up every drop that pours out.

Feeling returns to my body, I am no longer paralyzed, but I still won't move. It's fear that makes me stand silent and motionless as he drains my blood, the wet muscle pressing itself against my opened flesh aggravating the wound but somehow releasing an odd sensation of pleasure all through my body. My gut coils in a mixture of ecstasy and annoyance, as if it would prefer that I was biting...

It's for fear that I stay still. What else can I do but be still and let him do as he wishes? It will hurt less if I don't fight it. If I refuse he may go ahead and beat me and or kill me, as those crimson eyes threaten when they lock onto mine.

I barely feel it when he withdraws his teeth from my neck and gives the marred flesh a final brush with is tongue before withdrawing completely. He backs my body against the bed, and the springs creak when he pushes on my shoulder and I am seated on the mattress.

"Sleep now."

Darkness envelops the mind once again; and there is nothing more.

`

I can hardly remember the days and the nights as I wake in this place. It must have been at least three days, if not a week, by now. I've been missing from school this long. You'd think someone would wonder where I am.
I lay awake watching the sun spread it's light over the houses far from the manor, the tall bushes of the fence bordering the dead garden below, the view from this window. I rise slowly, I do not savor these mornings though strangely my demented senses make this existence strangely bearable. I've almost forgotten the thick smell of dust and age when I wake in the morning. The old wood has come to have to be familiar and almost comforting to me. But this is the effect of being uprooted, I'm slowly adapting to my new world and routine.

My back has almost completely scarred over, though there are darker places where the tissue is less thick; I haven’t been beaten again since I avoid his anger like the plague now. It’s disgusting the way I live in fear, but it’s what safe and it’s come to be a routine, I hardly even think about how submissive I’m being anymore. Another month or so and I may have a nice blotchy bunch of scars rather than this thick dark scabby red coating on my back now.

As I exit my room I see the old man standing not too far down the hallway. He looks up at me; his eyes show only vaguely that he's surprised; I'm up relatively early today.

"It's been at least a month since I've been missing, hasn't it." It's more a statement than a question. I'll let him correct me if I'm wrong. He only nods, the rest of him poised as if to say 'yes, so what about it?' in the mocking way he has when he's explaining something that seems to him very simple. "I've been missing school too. Someone will wonder where I am." Again I will let him correct me if I am wrong.

He is silent a moment as if contemplating, but he answers soon after, "Yes," he answers. As in he agrees with me, but perhaps he's not worried that I will be found. Or perhaps... he interrupts my thoughts and continued speaking. "You will return to your school tomorrow morning."

I'm sure my face shows my shock... I had no idea the maniac would actually let me go. Or is he lying? Does he honestly think I will tell no one of what he's done?!

"But, you will return here at the end of the day to do all your regular chores." he tells me, not a request, an order. A prophecy of what he seems certain I 'will' do.

"Alright," I agree, what else can I do? I refuse no deal, and I may die. But he said nothing about not turning him in to the police...

The day can't seem to finish fast enough, every hour an agonizing wait for the next and the next and the next. Finally the chores are finished, he gives me my dinner, takes my blood as is his habit every night before I am allowed to sleep. Then darkness welcomes me to sleep.

When I wake in the morning I am unsure what I should be prepared for. He said that I would go to school today, but I don't even know for sure what time it is. He appears to me after I have eaten the breakfast he leaves on the dresser at all designated times for meals. He takes me to the door and outside.

The door tears open and we stand outside. It seems forever since I felt earth beneath me and not stone or wood or concrete. The wind tastes so clean and free of pollutes, of musk or age... the smell of blood is not present. It's refreshing, and I breathe deeply, as if this moment will somehow disappear and have never occurred, at least I can hold this dream memory within my mind to forever immortalize the outside world I've been deprived of.

"You know the way to your school of course." the old man speaks as he turns to head back to the house as the sun hits the lawn and rises across the pale green and straw colored grass dotted lightly with dew. "Come straight back here when you get out. Or I'll come find you."

That last sentence is a warning. The meaning clear in the way he speaks the words before shutting the heavy wood doors behind him. I am left alone on the lawn in the first state of freedom I have had since I entered the trap door at the circus with Shikamaru behind me descending into the dark bowels of the earth.

I walk slowly from the yard, but find myself breaking into run as I dash, as much towards the school and everything I know. Just as much as I flee away from the maniacal old man and his world of twists and turns that confuses everything I once thought was concrete in my instinct that used to keep me forever safe. Bending it until it is a hindrance that makes that decaying paradise feel right when I know that everything there is dead, hollow, empty, and wrong.

I see the school and its bricks and concrete walk ways, but the grass in the yard in all green and there are plants growing freely where the gardeners are lazy and never tended to them. It's alive, and I know this is right. My senses seem to be back to normal, that straining feeling that was constantly coiling in my gut, like a second heart beating just a little lower with an awkward rhythm; it is calm now, sleeping deep inside me.

I walk leisurely towards the school, it’s a familiar road, the houses along the way, the shops the sidewalk, the buildings and even a few of the people; the woman at the bakery. The old skinny guy in the glasses who comes to open the book store every morning, scratching his nose just before he inserts the key. The woman with a cane who walks her Pekinese dog down the main road most mornings. I’ve been deprived of this world of mine for too long. I almost feel like crying…

Right now, I can even pretend that that ordeal never happened, except for the dull pain at my back’s flesh if I shift it too much. It’s like I’m free again; I am myself and I’m well. That horrible disease within that place can be cleared from my system… I hurry on towards the school, according to the shop’s clocks; Shikamaru should be heading to his first class around now. Funny, I still remember everything; I’m so glad I didn’t forget.

I hurry to beat him to the room; English, first period, it hasn’t been a year yet, so his schedule should still be the same. I peek inside, but he’s not quite arrived I guess. The teacher, fat old mr. Geezer peers up at me and scowls. I have him for fourth period. “You’ve been missing over a month, Uzumaki; I thought you dropped out.” He sneers, condescending, all the teachers like him are.

“Yeah… stuff happened. I’m back now.” I explain, offering a grin. Yeah, I’m back now… for a while. He only shakes his head, and mutters something about I won’t be passing this year since I already skipped so much this year. But I don’t care if I have to repeat a grade… it’s just my last year. I’m free.

I look back up and Shikamaru is there just turned the corner. He’s staring at me as if I’m a ghost. If I were in his place I’d probably do the same… I can hardly believe it myself, except, I’m here.

“Shikamaru!” I can’t hide the joy in my voice at seeing him again, and my face breaks easily into a wide grin. I move to greet him, but he backs away suddenly, as if I was some kind of horrible bug desecrating his sacred hallway. “Shika, what’s wrong? I’m back.”

Brown eyes watch me warily, and he frowns. “After what you put me through a month ago Naruto…” he starts. Oh please say… he’s not, is he? “I’m not sure I want to be your friend anymore.”

With that he quickly walks by me for his classroom, disappearing behind the door. Just a while ago I felt I had truly returned… but did the killer trick me? Somehow, I’m still alienated from the world I came from…

Why… how can this be?

Shikamaru…?

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