Ta -thump... Ta-thump... Ta-thump...
...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...
…...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...
…...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...
…...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...Ta-thump...
…...Ta-thump...
Silence.
"Life without a Heart will be different," they had told him. "Everything will seem to have changed, and it takes some getting used to, but it's better than dying." Well, obviously none of them were living heartless, because he would much rather have died than be forced to live like this.
The first thing Bakura saw when he opened his eyes was the ceiling. His first conscious moments since the operation he spent staring at it. He couldn't see anything but white. It was almost as if the whole world was white, just empty space, and he was sitting on the edge of the world, looking in.
He felt physically wrong, like they had taken off all his limbs and reattached them in the wrong places, instead of just taking out his Heart. There wasn't any physical pain. But this, he decided, was just as bad.
He hadn't moved his gaze once since he woke up, so he had no idea how much time had passed. He used the time to think. Some of his memories, he noticed, seemed obscured or glazed over, but other than that nothing seemed off. He recalled what he had been told would happen without any difficulty: the operation, the recovery (which he would be completely unconscious for), and the rehabilitation. He had already gone through the first two, so rehab was all that was left. Then he would be able to leave.
After a while, Bakura heard a door open, and his gaze involuntarily darted to the source. He thought his eyes were on fire. The sudden change from solid nothingness to distinct objects was almost sickening. The worst part, what should have been scary, was that he couldn't make out any distinct colors. Everything was either white, black, or something in-between, but it wasn't obvious that he was seeing in black and white, like a greyscale photograph. Was it just him, or did the room really look like that, he wondered.
His attention refocused as a woman walked in, a big smile on her face. She wore a white dress, was pale, and had black hair. Still no distinct color. She went straight over to some monitors next to his bed and started checking them all. He wondered if he should try to move his head to get a better view of what she was doing, but he didn't get the chance. She turned to him.
"Welcome back to the land of consciousness, Bakura!" she greeted cheerfully. "You've been asleep for exactly one month, and your body has healed completely. Normally it would have taken much longer, but without some of its' other functions to worry about, your body had time to concentrate on healing. Now you're as good as new!"
Bakura decided that she must have had this job for some time. She was able to answer most of his questions without him having to say a word.
"Now, the next few months are going to be spent in rehab," she continued. "The environment you'll be living in is designed for maximum comfort as you get used to living without emotions and learn to be around people again. For part of the day you'll have classes where you'll be taught everything you need to know about living a normal life around other people, and for the rest of the day you'll be allowed to participate in activities, socialize, or stay in your room, if that's what you want."
'Definitely rehearsed,' Bakura thought. For one, he doubted he would ever want to socialize again in his life, which he was fairly certain wouldn't be a normal one. He just wasn't sure what the purpose of the ruse was. Hope? That was an emotion.
There was a pause, then the woman spoke again. "Well, if you're ready, I can take you to your room."
Bakura's eyebrows rose, the first movement besides moving his eyes and blinking he had attempted since waking up. "...Now?" he asked, or, to be more precise, croaked. He almost thought there should be some sentimental value to his first word in a solid month, but there wasn't.
The lady smiled and nodded. "You should be able to move just fine now, besides being a little bit stiff. The wound from the operation won't hurt at all."
Bakura paused for a moment, decided she had no reason to be lying, and moved to sit up. She was right; he was extremely stiff, but there was no pain. Slowly, he shifted and got out of bed, and, wobbling a little bit before getting his balance, followed the woman out the door.
They walked for a long time. They were in the medical wing, she told him along the way, and the rehabilitation wing was on the other side of the building. They walked through a seemingly unending amount of long, nondescript hallways, each one as bleak as the one before it. Each one employing the same stark white color scheme, with darker places to contrast every once in a while. Even looking down at himself, he didn't see anything distinguishing. But, then again, he was almost deathly pale anyway, and had white hair. The whole walk, he thought about asking whether the lack of colors was all in his head or not, but he never did.
After a while [he had no idea what time it was] they came to the end of the hallway at a pair of big double doors and stopped. The woman turned around to face him.
"This is the entrance to the rehab wing," she said. "The room on the other side of this door is sort of like the living room of the place. Patients can sit and do whatever they want, like sit and talk or read or use the computer. The right hallway leads to the patients' rooms, and the left one leads to the classrooms and activity rooms. Got it?" Bakura merely nodded, and the woman opened the door and led him inside.
The very first object he saw in the rehab wing of the Domino Institution hit him like a ton of bricks. It was the first thing he had seen since waking up that had any color, and the image was instantly engraved into his mind: that one burst of color, surrounded by nothing but white and grey.
That first bit of color, he found out later, was named Marik Ishtar, the boy with no Soul.