- Chapter 4 -

Searching for the Lost

The loud thumping of her heart was the only thing which kept her awake for the rest of the night. Silence was engulfing everything. No birds chirping, no wind blowing through the old pipes on the side of the road, no shoes scratching against the rough asphalt. Silence was reigning this world.

Sakura played with an elastic band which was laying besides her on the car's back seats. The girl had spent the early morning hours inside a -fortunately- abandoned car on the side of the road after seemingly countless hours she had dedicated on running.

Running. Why had she kept on running? 

Getting up from her laying position was the hardest thing she had done in the past few days. The weight of leaving her saviors fight off these monsters without helping was pressing down her abdomen, giving her the urge to vomit right here and there. Despite that, Sakura swallowed the lump in her throat and repeated some breathing exercises to control her breathing rhythm. 

Everything will be okay.

Her device was dropped besides her and she managed to repeat a few broken-sounding "Hello"'s and "Sasuke"'s before giving up. No one answered except from the static and she depicted that no one would any time soon.

"Have faith," the girl mumbled to herself before tucking the device in the pouch which was miraculously still wrapped around her waist. A pang of guilt ran through her body but she didn't let her eyes linger on it any longer.

Sakura peeked through the holes of the cloth that was placed on the window to hide the inside of the car, noticing a little of these creatures standing motionless on the streets. The sun hadn't started appearing yet on the sky and she presumed that it was safe for her to take off.

Wait.

She stared at the steering wheel for a moment before jumping onto the driver's sear. The keys were already in the hole and she turned them. The satisfying shaking of the machine being turned on was a relief and the indication of the gasoline being high made her waste no time in stepping on the pedal.

The car took off.

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Sakura spent hours inside the car, sitting in silence and staring only at the road in front of her. Luck was with her this time, seeing she had managed to get out of the city from side-roads and passages which held little to no population. Thus, no dangers inflicted her way. Her destination was Sasuke's location. Her eyes flickered on the device placed behind the steering wheel and she let a sigh escape her lips.

With the car still driving, she brought the item close to her mouth, "Sasuke, are you there?"

No reply.

"Sasuke."

Nothing.

"Please . . ."

Still nothing.

The pink-haired female squeezed the device in her hand to the point it became numb and let it bounce on the passenger's seat besides her. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes but she managed to swallow her sadness and refocus back on the road. 

A black blur in the horizon suddenly entered her range of vision which made her freeze in her spot out of fear and curiosity. However, she kept driving with the hopes that it wasn't something that would put her ride in jeopardy.

She was a couple of miles away from the black blur before being able to distinguish that it was a huge amount of parked cars and a mass of what she presumed was a truck toppled over and blocking the exit. Her car soon came to a stop and she pressed her palms against the steering wheel, examining her options. Sakura looked around the area and noticed a small resting area for travelers by car.   A mini market besides a gas station and a couple of cars stationed in the tiny parking lot could be distinguished.

The two-way exits . . . of course, thought the girl, letting out a sigh of relief. The resting area had an entrance two miles away from her current location and the exit was a bridge going over the toppled truck, leading to the main road. 

The car slowed down as it approached the entrance, her watchful eyes always on the look for any surprises. Thankfully, she saw no immediate danger approaching her location. She kept her eyes fixated on the mini market, the thought of picking up some supplies for the road not seeming bad.

Once the car was parked, Sakura strode across the parking lot and stood in front of the sealed entrance of the shop. It looked as if it was locked from the inside and the front was blocked with a car. It was clear that this place was for no livers.

However, the abandoned cars piqued the girl's interest and she soon found herself going to each car to check if anything was left inside them that could be useful to her. The first car had a message scribbled on the dust covering one of its windows, seeming that it was there long before everything happened.

take my life, take my soul

She frowned and ignored the tightening of her stomach, tearing her eyes off it and focusing on her task at hand. 

She was able to find a torch, canned bread and two unopened bottles of water, much to her own luck. The girl was through half the cars until a not-so-distant growling caught her off guard. Raising her eyes from the car she was about to rummage through, she froze in her spot.

A horde of walking pieces of rotten flesh had started coming out from behind the toppled truck, their steady way having her location as a part of it. Cursing inwardly after managing to regain her composure, she fiddled with the car's handle. Luckily, the door opened with a creaky sound and she entered, closing it as quietly as she could. Sakura, breathless, lied on the driver's seat and let her head touch the edge of the passenger's seat as she tried not to let panic overtake her once again.

She started thinking of a way to make herself seem invisible, yet she didn't manage to after noticing a pair of widened eyes staring at her from the back seats.

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The audible cracking resounded in the closed space, soon to be followed by metal hitting the floor. The previous movements of the object stopped and the body fell on the ground, making a thumping sound. Blood was splattered on the walls, as if someone had decided to try out extreme painting techniques and the light entering from the merely open windows was illuminating little of the macabre scene.

The male who was standing alone in the room crouched down on one knee to inspect the corpse. It stank for real, making his face scrunch up at the remembrance of brain fluids splattering on his face together with melted brain pieces and making him stink like shit for the rest of the week. He gave a light squeeze on his newfound weapon -a metal baseball bat which, mind you, was heavy as it came- and started scratching the dried blood off his shoes.

A distant sound made his head snap to the side, making him stand up to resume back to his task at hand. He didn't have much time left.

The male turned and ran down the dark corridor, careful as to not fall in any traps set up from the dead. His empty bag hopped on his back and he stopped his step in front of a shelf filled with canned bread besides a stack of canned mushrooms. He dropped a few cans inside before stopping his movements to listen to any incoming sounds. Indeed, it seemed as if someone was coming towards his current position.

With a swift movement, he tucked the bag back on his back and dashed down the rest of the corridor until he was in front of a slightly opened door. Barging in with the knowledge that the room was safe, he hopped on the desk and lifted himself off it and out of the broken window above. As if he had done this hundreds of times before, he locked his hand on the outer metallic staircase of the building and hang on the air before leaping his foot on the right side. After a few moments of no movements, he swung himself and he clanged against the stairs.

He breathed out from exasperation and wiped the sweat which had formed on his forehead, shutting his eyes peacefully for a moment. For Sasuke Uchiha was alive for this day.

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Time seemed to be frozen and the snarls of the undead were no bother then. The two pairs of eyes were steeled upon each other, silently gazing in between, yet both hearts were beating erratically against their strained chests.

Sakura was the first one to jerk her head up after a long period of silence and that earned an instant reaction from the other. A cane of a gun was pointed towards her and she froze any movements that were about to be made. Another long, surging silence engulfed the space between them before the girl decided to speak up.

"Who are you?"

No reply from the other person, cane not bulging but shaking slightly.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I just got inside to avoid the horde of these . . . zombified creatures. I promise I'll get outside once they pass by."

"Give me your weapons," the neutral voice of the person resounded, eyes steeled upon her. "Do anything tricky and you'll end up with a bullet in your skull."

Sakura did as she was told to, sliding over the only weapon she had on her; Sai's gun. The person grabbed the gun and lowered theirs.

"It will be long until the whole horde will pass by," the person said as they shuffled on their position. A slit from the clothes covering the back windows illuminated light on their face, Sakura examining their soft characteristics. "Get comfortable."

The girl couldn't help but chuckle, "Can't exactly do that in this position now, can I?"

The person shuffled a bit again, "You can crawl back here. I'll shoot you if you try anything though."

The girl grabbed the edge of the back seats and slowly pulled herself towards it. It took her a while but she managed to settle herself on one of the seats, luckily not seen from any of the undead from the front seats. In that way, she could have a better view of the other person.

They seemed to be a male in his mid-teens with spiky brown hair and a tired-looking attire. From what she could make out, he was around at the same height as her.

"What are ya looking at?" he questioned, sleepless eyes glaring at her.

"My name is Sakura Haruno, yours?"

He clicked his tongue when she avoided his question but softened his gaze on her, "Konohamaru Sarutobi."

"Nice to meet you- I mean, eh, not nice, but I'm glad I met you, Sarutobi-kun," Sakura answered, bringing her knees against her chest.

"Just Konohamaru."

"Mhm."

Sakura retracted her attention on the front and watched as the flesh-eating monsters stumbled forward, the horde seeming to never end. It was a weird moment to feel calm, yet she could sense the odd tranquility occupying her body for a bit. A long period of time passed before her emotions overran her body. As if both were secured in a room where no harm could be done as long as they kept up with this muting silence.

And before she knew it, tears were rolling down her cheeks and she started rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands frantically.

Konohamaru noticed the sudden movements and furrowed his eyebrows in concern, "Is something the matter?"

"It's just that I haven't . . . I can see a human . . . It's so calm and . . . I . . . " the girl stammered out, all the sorrow built in and calmness she desperately tried to find bursting out from her clouded eyes.

The teenager couldn't help but reach out and touch her shoulder as a form of comfort. Sakura nodded her head intensively, wiping her tears from her face. This small outburst had helped her realize she was human, she had living emotions inside her. And that's what mattered to her the most at the moment.

"I should stop crying so much," she declared, letting a half-dead chuckle escape her mouth. "It's gotten annoying."

Konohamaru sighed and retracted his hand, "It is annoying but to a point . . . understandable, I think."

The pink head sighed on cue, squeezing her knees against her chest, "Yeah."

"How did you end up here anyways?"

"I was searching for supplies until I saw this horde coming towards me so I jumped into the nearest car," she explained, motioning with her hand. "I had to make a stop for supplies seeing that Tokyo is a danger zone and it's hazardous to search for anything there."

He hummed, "And what are your plans?"

"I'm . . . heading to Akita to search for a friend. It's a long way from here but I think I can manage." She turned to look at him, "How about you?"

"I've been here ever since all of this started. I was travelling with my grandpa and we had to make a stop for gas. He left me in the car." Konohamaru's eyes darkened all of sudden and Sakura didn't need to ask to know what had happened afterwards.

"And what are you planning on doing now?"

"I . . . I guess I'll . . ." Konohamaru twitched in his position uncomfortably. "I don't know."

"You can come with me if you want."

Sakura blurted out this sentence before thinking twice and it came to a surprise even to her, yet she didn't regret proposing it. She was expecting an immediate refusal but instead, she was greeted by two glorified eyes.

"You . . . You really mean that?"

Sakura nodded, "Even if we don't exactly know each other, you're welcome to join me. The road gets boring easily, you know."

Konohamaru chuckled softly and reached out for her hand, giving it a soft squeeze, "I'd be happy to join you, Haruno-san."

"Sakura will do, Konohamaru," she replied, responding to the squeeze with a tight smile.

The journey had just begun.

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Darkness was engulfing the whole car and only the distant flickering light of the mini marker was distinguishable there. The moaning of the undead had become so distant it could barely be heard in the absolute silence. The two persons inside the car had propped themselves in the back seats, hiding under a blanket and two coats. 

Sakura couldn't get a wink of sleep. She had these continuous thoughts about how things had turned out to be. She was hours away from Akita Prefecture and she was lucky enough to have moved around without any barriers up to now. Konohamaru was with her now, a guy she barely knew but couldn't leave behind because what could he do all alone out there? He would certainly be eaten or worse, turned into one of these things, and she couldn't even bear the thought of that. However, the thing troubling her the most was Sasuke not answering her calls from the other line. 

He can't be dead, he shouldn't be dead . . .

Her thoughts were interrupted by Konohamaru moving around in his position, mumbling things in his sleep. His hands had tightened around the covers above him and his face had scrunched up to a scowl, as if he was in pain. The girl shuffled close to him and wrapped one arm around him along with her blankets. She started rubbing his shoulders soothingly and tried to calm him down.

Thus she was lulled to sleep by his silent whimpering and the unbearable weight of her thoughts.

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Yay, an update came ~ I hope you guys liked this /short/ chapter; fret not, action is coming soon in sight. Along with some new faces, of course //mischievous laughing

Drop your opinions down in the comments below; see you in the next chapter!