I hear tell that disclaimers are the norm in these parts, so I suppose I should have one too. This shall apply to all of my stories in this particular collection: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh or any of its characters. They belong to Kazuki Takahashi. Not me. I don't want them.

All right, this is my first attempt at fanfiction in many years, so don't expect too much. It has the rating it's been given because future stories may end up more…kid unfriendly, I guess

Crack

Stretching as far as the eye could see and beyond, was nothing. All that existed was what can only be described as a lack of something else: silence, the lack of sound; still, the lack of movement; cold, the lack of heat. Everything, which was all nothing, was as what is dead. There were only two things actually there. One was the absolute black. It was not a lack of color, but rather a consumption of all light by…well, darkness. This darkness was everywhere, expanding and contracting, creeping around and invading every space. It was one and the same as this nothing, and describing it as something seemed inaccurate, but…

Perhaps it was separate from the void. It was difficult to tell, because it was all that he could perceive in his current position.

No, he had been wrong. Now that he had been there for a substantial amount of time, his senses were functioning properly once again, and his thoughts were clearer and less muddled. Everything he saw, everything he heard, smelled, tasted, was negative. It was not nothing, it was less than nothing.

Of course to him this made absolutely no sense. All of his life he had been among what was present, what was there, but somehow he was now among what was not there, what was less than non-existent – what no human could possibly comprehend or experience. He was solid, he was matter, but all around him was his exact opposite, something he had never guessed or even considered possible. It was less, it was less, it was LESS—

For a moment he felt like his brain was going to crack.

But after a minute or two he was able to force these thoughts out of his mind. For the time being he would work under the assumption that this negativeness existed in the same sense that he did. All of his senses, except for one, told him the same thing, which was that he was completely surrounded by this negative and that it was all that was present. The exception was his nervous system. He felt a distinct difference between the air (it wasn't really air, but what else could he call it?) against his left shin and the corresponding thigh. On his upper leg he felt the previously described lack: stillness, coldness. His lower leg, on the other hand, felt absolutely nothing. There was no determinable—wait, no. It was not so much that he felt nothing, but more that he did not feel anything. For all he could tell without looking, his entire leg below the knee had been swallowed up and erased from existence. He reached out his hand and grabbed his ankle; the effect of this action was not what he expected. Since the same empty nothingness that had engulfed his lower leg had taken his hand as well, he thought that maybe it meant they were gone. But his palm landed on his ankle and his fingers closed around it as if he were doing it anywhere. His hand felt the normal warmth of his leg; his leg felt the warmth of his hand.

Did this mean…he didn't know what this meant.

Maybe…it meant that he was separate from the nothing after all?

It was impossible to understand. What he had been describing as the "nothing" and the "negative" were thin—that is, non-things that he had never encountered before, and he knew not what to think. His dismissed thoughts were returning more aggressively than when they had first appeared, and they spread through his mind like a searing oil, threatening to burn a hole in his brain. Not only was there less than nothing, but there was nothing in the same place. And he wasn't part of either of them; he was still more than nothing, like he had always been. He wanted to compare it to something, but he soon realized that he couldn't remember anything behind when he opened his eyes and saw the black he was still seeing.

He was absolutely sure he had been conscious before, that he had been somewhere else, but he saw no images of where he had been, or even anywhere he had not been. He didn't know, or at least couldn't recall, what anything looked like, so he couldn't imagine what anything could look like. All he remembered was having memories…but something was blocking his access to them, stopping him from seeing them. The black was the only thing there; it was all he could picture in his mind's eye, aside from one certain image that had escaped from captivity and was now dancing around in his head, distracting him from the overwhelming darkness.

The image was a very non-specific, very generic picture of a desert, sand shifting silently with the wind. There was nothing but sand except for the sky, sun included, and the invisible yet obvious wind. He had no idea what to make of this, but the instant he saw it he felt a strange fondness for it, and it calmed him down a little. It was recognizable to him. He held onto this image, for it was all he could see besides the black, which was not at all inviting. This was something reasonable, something normal, something normal, because it was more, just like he was, it was MORE—

Another wave pulsed through his brain, but this one was not from his mind, not his own thoughts, no…this time it was something completely separate from him. It crept through and filled every available space, seeping like a viscous fluid and chilling his entire body from head to toe, as if trying to get his attention. Instinctively he grabbed his arms with the opposite hands so as to cross his chest, protecting it from the cold. But it did absolutely nothing; the cold was inside of him. Whatever had entered his head had drained him of all internal body heat. It also scared the living crap out of him; he was paralyzed with fear, although even if he wasn't afraid he doubted he would be able to move anyway. Things became so quiet that he could hear the silence, ringing in a ghastly, piercing tone from inside of his ears.

As he knelt there locked in position amid the silence, the stillness, the coldness, the nameless force somehow began to communicate with him. Although it did not really use a spoken language, he could understand it. This force talked to him by entering his thoughts, sending messages in a sort of telepathic manner. He still felt its voice though, as if it were chewing on his insides, and he trembled as it spoke.

How did you get here?

…

Can you speak?

…I…Iaghc…

Have you forgotten how?

Or are you just petrified with fear?

Ah, well, it matters not. It just makes this easier.

Hceh…

Hush. I'm only here to help you…if you are willing to do the same for me.

H-heh heh, don't worry, please. What you want is much more important and will be given priority. You want revenge for what was done to your family. You will get it.

As the voice spoke, every last feeling of life, of existence, of solidity, of every feeling that he identified with being positive, being more than nothing, was completely depleted. The voice pulled everything out until he was nothing, and then continued pulling until he was less than nothing, like it was. He was still unable to move; as a result he was forced to ignore his urge to crumple into a ball and scream in pain. Pain caused by the biting cold. Pain from being torn apart. Pain from the confusion and anxiety that he had felt ever since he arrived in this…this place. Pain from being forcibly made part of the negative, being SWALLOWED…

H-heh heh heh…

Ahh…

I hope you're comfortable sitting like that, because you're going to be there for quite a long time.

What-

I'm sorry, is it hurting you? Try to just accept it, it won't be as bad that way.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?!

But the voice did not answer, it only cackled. It laughed a hollow, evil laugh that bounced around in his ears and in his HEAD and IN HIS—

Crack.