Hey there! Just another short one-shot, drabble. It's Anzu's thoughts and feelings after Atem left. I own nothing.

Have you ever lost anything? Like…really lost something. Not you can't find your cell phone or your favorite shirt. But, lost a piece of yourself?

I have. I lost the other piece of my soul. My soul mate.

He tried to tell us all that it was better this way. I tried to stop him, but Jounouchi stopped me. He just didn't understand. None of them did.

They don't lie awake at night with tears silently pouring down their face. They didn't scream and carry on like a crazy person when he left. They just…went on with there lives.

They pretended like he had never existed. They went on with their lives. Closed that chapter of that story of their lives. They were ready to move on. Ready to be normal and not having to save the world every time they turned around.

Even Yuugi was able to pick up the pieces and move on. Rebecca slowly took Atem's place in his heart. Yes, I'm sure that Yuugi still misses him and thinks about him, because how could he not? After everything they had been through?

But that doesn't change the fact that he has Rebecca. Rebecca was able to help Yuugi through his depression. With someone with him always, the pain never had a chance to fully grow and quickly died away.

I, on the other hand, had no one. The depression grew inside me like fire after someone throws gasoline on it. The embers sparked when Yuugi defeated Atem. The fire burned when Atem said his farewells. And the fire grew when the doors closed, forever taking Atem from me. And when I was alone that night…the fire raged.

Did he just expect us to go on with our lives after he left? I know the others did, but did he expect me too? We were in love. We never actually said the words, but I knew and he knew. In the beginning, he was always quickest to take over when I was in danger. Later, when Yuugi set us up on that date, he stepped forward to defend my honor from Johnny Steps like the knight in shining armor he was. And then, when we had all that time alone together on our different adventures, we became closer.

And when it was decided that Atem had to leave now that his mission had been fulfilled, I had shut down. I had spent so much time worrying about getting from one mission to the next, that I had never stopped to think about what would happen when the world was finally saved. It had always seemed that some big trouble would always be set before us.

Now, I faced my hardest quest yet: Moving on.

How does one go about doing that? Having the other piece of your soul ripped away from you isn't something I would wish on anyone. No amount of physical or emotional or mental pain can ever be compared to it. Once the initial shock wears off, you go throw the phases of grief, only tenfold.

Denial and Isolation: Once we returned home, I locked myself away in my apartment for weeks. I refused to believe that he was really gone. It was just like before when he went to the past to learn his name. He would come back…After all…he still had my cartouche.

Anger: Once I realized he wasn't coming back, I began to hate him. Why would he come into my life if he was just going to leave? Why bother saving me countless times if he was just going to rip my heart out, crush it, and hand it back to me? He should have just stayed dead in his tomb, in his big fancy pyramid in Egypt. He should have never possessed Yuugi's puzzle. Just because he had to have his life end terribly, didn't mean he had to ruin life for the rest of humanity.

Bargaining: The anger slowly went away. I could never stay mad at him. In fact, I could never remember a time that I had been mad at him. I had always loved him. But…what if we had found another option to his leaving? Could he have stayed if we had tried harder to find another option? What if we had found him another body? One of his own. If he had had his own body, then surely he could have stayed. Surely the ancient Egyptian Gods could have allowed him that. They had taken so much from him. Why not allow him some temporary peace here, now?

Depression: I haven't moved from this stage. He's gone. What do I have to live for? My dancing? No. It reminds me of him. My friends? They've moved on. I'm stuck in my own personal hell. I have no where to run. I have no where to hide. He's everywhere I turn. Every time I see or hear about anything Duel Monsters, I shut down. How can they keep playing that damn game when the King of Games was gone? What was the point? What was the point to anything?

Acceptance: I will never accept that he is gone. Never. There has to be a way to bring him back. However, I do accept that my cartouche is gone. At least now he will always know his name…and maybe think of me…

Sometimes…I just want to shout to the world how much I love and miss him. How much I need him. It's true you never really realize how much you love a person until they are gone. I knew I loved him while he was here, but it's…different now, knowing that I will never see him smirk or hear his deep, sensual voice again hurts.

Or look deeply into his crimson eyes. Eyes that allowed you to see into his soul, into his very being. Eyes that rarely showed emotions other than determination or anger. However, when you were lucky enough to witness any other emotion from them, you went weak in the knees.

I sometimes wonder what our lives could have been like if he had been able to stay. I dream that he stayed in his own body and we all came back to Domino City and life went on normally –except without an end of the world crisis every other day. I would like to believe that we would have gotten married and started a family. Though, it was sometimes hard to image the Pharaoh being a father, I knew he could do it. If he was able to rule over Egypt at such a young age, then surely he could dote on a daughter or teach a son to play Duel Monsters.

I'll admit that something I think about a lot is what kissing him would have been like. I blush just thinking about it. But…it's something that I'll never know, and desperately want to know about. Would he kiss as passionately as he played card games or would he be gentle and slow, wanting the moment to last forever?

I touch my lips. They feel cold. Like the rest of me. It's like, when he left, he took my warmth with him. I could probably touch a flickering candle flame and not feel any warmth or pain. I feel nothing.

I am nothing without him.

Fin. Review!

~Azarath101