It's truly unsettling how loud sheer silence could be.

One moment you're full of life, the next moment... nothing. It staggers the mind as to how this can be.

Death of course, is what I am referring to. For eons the thinking mind had pondered this "next adventure" if you will. For eons more, it will continue to ponder. People much smarter than myself often hypothesized, theorized and simply dwelled upon this unanswerable question; "What is death truly like?"

Of course I was not one of those pondering minds.

I mean of course, why would I be? As far as I knew, I was simply a 23 year old guy, working an average job, living an average life, filled to the brim with average responsibilities. Nothing about my life was exceptional or exciting. Much like other people, I had people close to me that I could call friends, I had to work a typical job so that I could pay my bills.

It wasn't a bad life by any means. It was simply... average.

That's why in the moment I died, I didn't think about my life. I thought about what was next, what truly lay in front of me.

...Okay, so maybe I lied. Maybe I did ponder death every once in awhile. Surely that just meant I was human? Well regardless, in that moment, before my passing, I seriously wondered "what was next?"

What I found out was truly mind-boggling.

Let me return to my original point: it's surprising how unsettlingly loud sheer silence could be. I mean, it's an oxymoron, so how does that make any sense? How can silence be loud?

Well it's simple of course; you can't drown out the incessant thoughts that course through your mind. You see, those thoughts are the filler to the silence, and god can they get annoying.

Now, let me return to my second point: I lived an exceedingly average life. Nothing to complain about, but nothing to write a book about. Now imagine my surprise when I found myself coming to, to the noise of machines.

Wait. Noise of machines?

Something wasn't right here. I knew for a fact that I died. Trust me on this, the feeling of death is not something you can simply imagine.

Yet... I felt myself returning to consciousness.

Slowly yet surely, my hearing started returning to me. After what seemed like ages (when in reality it was probably just minutes) I heard a woman's voice.

"...kra system has been stabilized. Now, we'll have to move onto to ensure that he isn't bra..." was all I heard before I promptly blacked out again.

Okay, that was really inconsiderate there body. I'd like to be conscious so I can find out what the hell is happening.

Anyway, what felt like another eternity (probably just a few hours), my feeble mind was finally starting to pull itself back together.

The first thing I felt was soreness, everywhere.

However, it wasn't the kind of soreness that comes from an injury. That's more like an "owie" soreness.

This was more like a... "I slept for like 24 hours and my body is just aching" kind of sore.

Anyway, slowly but surely, like a person who was rudely awoken, several hours before they actually had to wake up, I started to open my eyes. It was a relatively dark room, with the curtains being drawn, preventing any light from shining through to the room.

Not that there would've been light to filter through, it seemed like there was only a little bit of light coming from the outside.

Then it hit me. The headache to top all headaches. The migraine to make me wish I had never been born.

As a reflex, my hand flew to my head to soothe the aching, and the first thing I felt?

A ton of hair.

What.

A ton of hair? I hadn't grown out my hair since my senior year of high school! That was 5 years ago! What the hell is going on here?

With a stiff neck, I slowly moved my head around to see where I was, to get an understanding of the situation. What I saw both surprised me and didn't surprise me, surprisingly at the same time.

I was in a hospital room. However I wasn't alone. There was a young child snoozing in the corner. I couldn't really make the child out as they were relatively covered by the darkness. I could only make out the general shape, and the fact that they were hunched over. Well, I also heard snores, so it wasn't too hard to figure out exactly what they were doing.

I could only think one thing.

"Damn it."

Figuring it wouldn't be worth it to hear the brat whine that I interrupted their sleep, I just lied back down and stared up at the ceiling. I had a strange feeling about all of this.

Then it hit me.

I wasn't in pain.

Despite my accident... I wasn't in pain.

I don't care what drugs they have me on, I should be feeling something. Whether it be pain, or the euphoria of the painkillers' effect. I decided to test if I was really in pain or not.

Well... might as well go all out and confirm my suspicions of not being on painkillers.

I flung myself onto the ground. Relatively pathetically mind you. I did it by sort of rocking my body from side to side, until I could gather enough momentum to fling myself onto the ground. Many things happened at once.

First and foremost, I felt pain. Yep, that just about confirms that I'm not on any sort of painkillers. I let out a small groan in response.

However that was the least of my worries.

You see... I hadn't realized that I was connected to a heart monitor. You know, that machine with the lines that track your heartbeat, and make a really loud screeching sound when the heart stops beating, or in my case, if the wires get unconnected from the body.

Yeah, I was dumb and didn't realize that I had one connected to my body.

Suffice it to say, quite a few things happened in response to that.

First and foremost, the kid dozing off on one of the chairs in my room awoke with a jerk. He leapt to his feet and yelled in shock.

Hmm, he sounds a little familiar.

Then, I started hearing what could only be described as a cacophony of activity outside the room. At least 4-5 people burst into the room, knocking the poor kid out of the way in the process. As they hit the lights as quickly as they could and ready to go into full on "save patient" mode, several things happened.

What was once 4 people yelling now became 4 people looking complete gobsmacked and at a complete loss for words.

I got a better look at the kid.

Then what was confusion and pain turned into pure astonishment to me. Not only astonishment, but complete and utter disbelief.

That kid.

That kid looked no older than 6 or 7.

That kid.

That kid had black hair and black eyes.

That kid.

That kid was wearing a black sleeved shirt with a raised collar.

THAT KID.

THAT KID WAS SASUKE UCHIHA.

So while what I assumed to be nurses and doctors gaped at me on the ground and the kid, who I now realized was Sasuke Uchiha also gaped at me, there was just one thought that was echoing in my head as I stared back at what was now a group of people.

It's truly unsettling how loud sheer silence could be.

A/n: Thanks to Vaengir, Lang Noi, Kettobase and Silver Queen for inspiring this. It is indeed a self-insert, and to damn myself even further, the SI will be of an Uchiha. Here's hoping I don't tread gary-stu territory. Leave me a review if you like, hopefully I didn't screw things up too quickly. Apologies if it seems scattered, but I really wanted to convey that sort of feeling in the first chapter. It should become more coherent as time goes on. Additionally, I'm still coming to grips with writing stuff that aren't essays, so apologies if it seems off. Hopefully I'll find my comfort zone.

Until next time, DZFlash out.