Imprisoned in the Dark, Part 1
A Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfiction
It was Saturday night and Yami Yugi was hanging out at Joey's house. Joey wasn't there at the moment; he had gone down the street to the convenience store to buy some popcorn and soda for their little movie-watching evening, and had left Yami in the living room. He claimed that his dad wouldn't be home until really late, so they could have the house to themselves and not have to worry about him causing problems.
At the moment, Yami was lying on the couch. He was wearing his usual "casual" clothes of leather pants, sleeveless leather shirt, multiple belts, and, of course, his Millennium Puzzle. He had been wearing leather boots as well, but he had left those with the other shoes in the house next to the doorway.
He was dozing off when the door opened. He looked up, expecting to see Joey returning, but instead saw his father. Mr. Wheeler walked in and said, "What you doing lazing around on my couch, Joey? The game is gonna be on in a minute, move!" He was obviously drunk, and had mistaken Yami for his son.
Yami didn't want to have to deal with the angry man, so he did as he was asked and vacated the couch. He put his shoes on at the door and stepped outside. He could make out a blonde head coming up the stairs. "Hey, Joey, your Dad's back." Yami looked a bit irritated that Joey had been wrong. Only sometimes did they get the time to watch movies together, and they had picked Joey's house because it was supposed to be empty. They would have gone to Yugi's, but Yugi's grandpa liked to go to bed early and they didn't want to wake him up.
"Really? I could have sworn that he wasn't gonna come back yet. He didn't do anything to you, did he?" His dad was known to be abusive. "No, he didn't do anything. Just thought that I was you and kicked me off the couch."
"Aww, what are we gonna doos now? I have the food and everything. And that new superhero movie I borrowed from Tristan." He dejectedly set the bag he had bought down on the floor. "We could still go over to my place," Yami suggested. "If we keep it down Grandpa shouldn't mind." Yami couldn't stand to see Joey get all sad faced, plus, it was true, they probably could just watch it over at his house. He just wished sometimes that Joey didn't always pick the movie, maybe then he could watch something more intelligent than action movies and superhero movies. At least he had convinced him to stop watching porn.
"Ya sure it's okay? We could just cancel it if you don't wanna." He said that, but the look on his face said that he definitely still wanted to. "Nah, I'd still like to do it. Just go get the movie and we can head over there." Yami picked up the bag Joey had set down and swung it over his shoulder.
"Okay. Oh! I have an idea, why don't we call Téa and Tristan and ask if they wanna join us?" He didn't wait for an answer and dashed inside. Yami waited several minutes before he returned. When Joey came back out he had the video cassette in his hand. "I called them, Tristan yelled at me for interrupting his beauty sleep, but Téa says she'll come." Yami started down the steps of the apartment. "Alright, then we'd better get over there, the shop is closed, and I have the only key, besides Grandpa's, that opens it. We don't want to leave a girl out alone in the dark."
The two boys walked to Yugi's grandpa's game shop and found Téa just getting there. Yami opened the door and the three of them went inside. They set up the movie in the den and Joey made popcorn. While the movie was playing Yugi came out of the puzzle and hogged all the popcorn. Joey and he had a little play fight over it which was settled by Téa grabbing the bowl and keeping it to herself.
Téa's mother had said that she could only go over to Yugi's house if she got back by a certain time, so she left and went home. Joey decided to stay the night instead of having to go all the way home and deal with his father. Yugi changed into his pajamas and said to Joey, "You can have the bed, there's a futon in the closet down the hall that I can pull out and set up on the floor."
"Why do we need to do that? The bed's big enough for both of us." Joey pulled off all his clothes expect his briefs and climbed onto Yugi's bed. Yugi blushed pink and looked away. "Oh come on, girls do it at sleep overs all the time."
"And how do you know what girls do at sleep overs?" Yugi sat down on the bed next to him. He didn't really mind sleeping in the same bed as Joey, but he still thought that is was a bit weird. "I saw it on TV. And Téa said that she did that kind of thing at sleep overs."
Yugi crawled under the covers. "I didn't think Téa had any female friends, just us guys." Joey joined Yugi under the covers, bumping into him as he did so. "I didn't either, but apparently she did back in elementary school."
"So we're doing stuff that elementary school girls do?" Yugi was a little confused, but he was getting sleepy enough he stopped caring. He yawned and rolled over. "Night." Joey propped himself up on an elbow. "You know, Yugi, I've wondered this for a long time; why are you so short?"
Yugi glanced over his shoulder in the dark at him and said, "How am I supposed to know? I just am." Joey lay back down. "Oh, I was just thinking that maybe it was something like you didn't get fed right as a little kid or you have a growth defect or something."
"Joey," Yugi said, rolling over to face his friend. "What?" Replied Joey. "Shut up and go to sleep." It wasn't that Yugi was all that sensitive about his height, but he was tired and just wanted to sleep. "Oh fine. Still would like to know." Yugi waggled his pillow at him and closed his eyes.
After a while both of them fell asleep. At about two in the morning Yami took possession of Yugi's body and sat up. He looked down at Joey. He just sat, looking at the blonde boy's face, and then he reached out a hand and ran it gently along his jaw line. Then he lay back down and went back inside the puzzle.
Joey woke up first. At first he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, and then he blinked and got a better look around. He wasn't in Yugi's bedroom anymore. He wasn't really sure where he was. He seemed to be in some sort of back alley, but that didn't make any sense. He looked around for Yugi, and kinda found him. Who he actually found was Atem, son of Aknamkanon, Pharaoh of Egypt.
The Egyptian began to stir and then opened his eyes. He stood up and asked the question both of them were asking, "Where are we?" Joey looked Atem up and down. He was wearing his usual Pharaoh clothes, with the short tan tunic, purple cape, and gold on his legs, arms, headdress, waist, shoulders, ears, and neck. The Millennium Puzzle was not among them.
Joey couldn't stop staring at it all. "I thinks the real question should be, why are you wearing a dress? And why do you have a tan?" Atem looked down at himself. "I believe it's called a tunic, not a dress. They were all the fashion in 3000 b.c." He was quite confused by his new body, and by the knowledge of ancient Egypt that he suddenly possessed. Could this be what he used to look like?
"So they didn't have pants back then? Weird. Wait, are you actually not Yugi, but that spirit thingy he says lives in the puzzle manifested?" Joey reached down and took a handful of the skirt of the "tunic." "I do hope you're wearing underwear under that." Atem wacked his hand away, "Hands off, and I'm not sure that I am. I have this sudden knowledge of ancient Egypt that I didn't have before. But I still can't remember my name."
"Then what do I call you, strange tan person I haven't met that looks a lot like my best friend yet isn't." Joey was just getting more and more confused. "I still think that I'm the spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, so I guess you can call me "Yami" still. Am I'm tan because I'm from Egypt, which is in Africa, where most people have darker colored skin. And I thought that I still am your friend, Joey." He looked hurt that Joey didn't consider him his friend just because his appearance changed.
"Sorry, if what you say is true, then I guess that you still are Yami, and my friend. But that still doesn't explain where we are." He stepped a ways out of the alley and saw rows of market stalls filled with wares, foods, and other things. The sight of the food made his stomach growl. "I need me some breakfast."
"Wait, Joey, we don't know where we are, or when we are, for that matter." His first thought was that maybe they were in Egypt, but he dismissed the thought when he saw that they were near the ocean. In fact, the street that the market stalls were set up on was right beside the docks. The people looked to be from the Middle East, judging by their clothes. But there were also a lot of European whites mixed in as well. This must be a trading port or something.
"I know what this must be," Joey exclaimed, "A movie set! It's a really good one too, I don't see any cameras or lights or anything." It was a possible answer to their questions, but it didn't explain everything. "I bet your, erm, Yugi's grandpa is playing some kind of lame prank on us and sent us here as a joke." He seemed convinced that he was right. Yami wasn't so sure.
"I don't know. This seems quite real to me." The two boys came out of the alley and wondered among the stalls. Yami had to stop Joey from drooling over the food and trying to swipe some of it. At first they were ignored, but the people started to notice their strange clothes, and all of the gold the Pharaoh had.
Yami began to become nervous and tugged on Joey's arm. "I think we should go someplace else. These people are staring at us, and they don't look friendly." He was proven painfully correct when a shout rang out and three men on horses came from down the dock. At first they looked just to be going to shop at the market, but it soon became clear that they were headed for the newcomers.
"I think we's better run for it," Joey said, looking around for an escape route. Yami nodded. He sprinted straight past the three horsemen while Joey ran back down the alley they had started in. Yami ran for all he was worth. He managed to get a good distance away. But, inevitably, no human can outrun a horse. He was doing pretty well with his head start when he stumbled into an elderly woman carrying a basket. He paused for a second to see if she was alright, and they had him surrounded. Only two horsemen were here now, the third had gone after Joey.
One of the men dismounted and pulled a long deadly looking sword from its scabbard. He said something in a language Yami didn't know, it sounded a little like English. Or maybe it was French, or German. Yami only spoke Japanese (and now ancient Egyptian because of his unexplained knowledge) and didn't really know. It was obviously an order for him to surrender.
"What did I do wrong? Is walking down the street minding one's own business not allowed in this place?" Yami was pretty sure that they couldn't understand him, but he felt like saying it anyway. The other man dismounted and started to remove all of the Pharaoh's gold trappings. He made to protest, but the man with the sword pointed it menacingly at his throat.
They soon had all of his gold, and his cape to boot, off. They tied his hands tightly behind his back and swung him over the back of one of the horses. For one hopeful moment Yami thought that he could take control of the horse and ride away to safety, but his hopes were dashed as quickly as they had formed when the man reseated his mount and, for good measure, tied the lead rope hanging from Yami's binds to the saddle.
The third rider reappeared from the alley with Joey tied in the same way Yami was on the back of the man's horse. "I see they got you too, I just couldn't outrun him. Stupid horses, being all fast and stuff." Joey had a cut on his shoulder that he likely gotten from the sword of the man chasing him when he tried to escape.
They were silent as the men rode down to the dock yard. Joey was pretty disturbed by some of the things he saw on the way. Small children were rummaging through old fishing nets only to turn up half rotten fish bones that they ate. Old mangy looking dogs were kicked by passersby's for no reason. Depressed, sick looking people lay around dejectedly. "Whoa, where are we, the dark ages?" Joey asked. Yami was beginning to think more and more that was really was where they were.
