To Die Alone

by Bakura's Guardian Angel

"No one should have to die alone." Ryou always felt that Bakura deserved to die alone, and he'd imagined that when Bakura was defeated, it would be painless. He was wrong. Bakura was an integral part of him, and Bakura's pain was his. So as Bakura lay dying, Ryou stayed by his side, because even the Spirit of the Ring didn't deserve to die alone. 1st Person Ryou. 50th Story!

A/N: Just one of my many trains of thought.

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"I just don't want to die alone, that's all. That's not too much to ask for, is it?"

~Richard Pryor

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No one should have to die alone.

No one.

Not even a creature as black-hearted and cruel as the demonic spirit that dominated my life.

Even he, in all of his evil and his insanity and his twisted darkness,
Deserved to have someone,

Someone to distract him from death,
Someone to hold him,
Someone to be there,

To share the pain.

I didn't always think that though.
I used to believe that he did deserve that.
That he deserved to be alone.
That he deserved to die alone.

I was wrong though.
And it took watching him die for me to realize it.

You see, the death of my dark spirit should have been painless for me.

No, it should have been pleasant.

That is what I thought.
That is what I believed.

And I had imagined it a thousand times before.

Pharaoh would defeat my darkness in a final battle.
A swift transition and He would be pulled from me,
Like a splinter.

A sting.

Then relief.

Finished.

He would be gone.
I would be free.

I had imagined it that way,

Over,
and over,
and over again.

It shouldn't have hurt.

…Except this was reality.

And in reality, it did hurt.

It wasn't the simple transition I'd imagined.
It wasn't me waking up one day,
Only to realize that He was nowhere to be found.

No.

In reality, I found myself deep, deep, deep in the caverns of a twisted soul.
A soul corrupted by darkness and anger and time.
The soul of my demon.

I stood there.

Awake.

After weeks of unending nothingness.

No senses.
No emotion.
No thoughts.

Now revived.

And at first I didn't realize what that meant…

It was too much.
I couldn't comprehend.
I could only see.

And what I saw would change my life.

I saw,
At my feet,
The broken, bloody form
Of the parasite I'd come to loathe
More than anything else in my world.

And…I was confused.

Because I had never seen him this way before.
I had never thought it possible.
He had always been an untouchable, invincible force,
Somehow always managing to keep the upper hand,

Forever escaping death's cold slumber.

He had always been strong.
He had always been clever.
He had always been confident and fearless and unbeatable.

He had always won.

Despite how I'd always yearned for his defeat,
I hadn't actually thought it to be possible.

And yet...

Here I stood.
There he lay.

Defeated.

And I watched him.

I watched his broken body shiver.
I watched his face twist in anguish.
I watched his skin bleed.

I heard him scream.

And…my heart screamed with him…

I put a hand to my chest.
Inside of me was a deep aching.
It was as though a part of me was dying.

Of course.

Because he wasn't just defeated, was he?

He was dying.

Dying.

The urge to laugh—
Laugh at the absurdity of such a concept—
was almost overwhelming.

Dying.

The very idea was ludicrous.
This demon, this parasite,
My demon, my captor,
My darkness,
Die?

Such a thing was not possible.
It was unfathomable, inconceivable.

And yet here I saw it unfolding before my eyes.

And, yes, it hurt.

It wasn't the victorious defeat I'd imagined.
It wasn't joyous and triumphant,
It wasn't my happily ever after.

It was cold. It was dark. It was pain.

Because no matter how I hated it,
No matter how much I denied it…
He was a part of me;

The darkest part of me;

An integral, inseparable part of me.

And he was being ripped,
Mind and soul,
From within my own psyche.

Yes. It hurt.

So I did the only thing I could do,
The only thing I knew how to do.

I knelt beside him.
I cradled his head in my lap.
I stroked his hair.

I held him the way I had held another, so many years ago, her body a broken doll in my arms.

And for every moment I held him, I longed for his suffering to end…

Because I could actually feel his life slipping away from him.

I could feel him fighting,
Hanging on to life by his fingertips,
Trying so hard to not fall
Into the dark unknown abyss
That was staring him in the face.

But I knew
(and He knew)
that it was hopeless.

Because deep inside, the flame of his life was dimming,

Flickering,

Going out.

And I knew that whatever pain I might be in,
It was only a taste of the agony that I could feel beneath the surface of his scorched skin.

And so I held him
In unbroken silence,
And I waited for the end.

"I…don't need…your…pity…" he once rasped in a voice that tore from his burned throat, the words falling like ashes.

His violet eyes,
mostly closed,
covered by heavy lids,
rolled up to me.

Fire burned in them,
Even now.

Embers of flickering light that whispered of his defiance, his strength, now nothing more than shadows.

Our gazes held for an immeasurable moment,
Broken only when his body convulsed,
A retching cough, tearing at his lungs,
Causing him to choke and gasp.

One of his hands suddenly gripped mine,
Holding on as if I were the only thing,
Keeping him from drifting away,
In an ocean of darkness.

His anchor.

A wave of emotion crossed the bridge of our minds.
An emotion I had never sensed from him before.

Fear.

It was raw, unrestricted,
And no matter how he tried,
He was too weak to hide it.

So I held him tighter.

Slowly, the shaking and convulsing stopped.
His breath came in shallow gasps.
His eyes were closed.

"…I don't pity you." I said quietly when he lay still.

I pushed the hair from his forehead, and hesitantly traced the scar on his cheek.

His eyes opened again, slowly.
He watched me.

I looked at our hands,
Mine pale and slender, but strong;
His dark-skinned, burned and cut,
Clinging to mine as though clinging to life itself.

That was when it really hit me,
The fact that, in that moment,

He needed me.

Maybe he didn't want me there.
Maybe he hated me for seeing him like this.
Weak and vulnerable.
For once, the lesser half.

Maybe he thought he could do this alone…

But he couldn't.
He shouldn't have to.

My chest constricted painfully,
And tears burned my eyes.

Tears for the life he should've had.
Tears for the life he stole from me.

I met his dull, shadowy gaze.
I watched the life slipping away.

And as his breath slowed,
And his hands relaxed, releasing me,
And his eyes closed for the last time,
I leaned into him, and I said softly,

"No one should have to die alone."

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A/N: Well, that makes 50! Stories that is. Anyways, Please leave a little review to let me know you made it to the end, and whether or not you enjoyed it! :)