He looked down at the little girl, hardly more than a toddler, with laughter glinting in his eyes.

"Come on, Amy! Give it back, now." He smiled kindly. The child giggled and shrieked, running away, holding his new necklace above her head. He'd let her hold it when she'd told him she wanted to look, and now he'd been chasing her across the estate for nearly twenty minutes.

"Amane Bakura, you give that back, right now." He said, hands on hips, his voice sharp, but when she just looked at him oddly, unused to him being harsh with her. He held his arms out, instantly seeming more open and kinder.

"Come on, Amy, we should get back, it's starting to get dark." He said, and finally his sister started running along the opposite side of the street towards him - and as any six-year-old would, she didn't check the road before charging across towards her brother's open arms.

A strangled cry - his too-late attempt to stop her - echoed in the dim twilight, he was running towards her, but she was already on the floor, lying, like a broken puppet.


Ryou woke in a cold sweat, instantly alert after his nightmare. He shook his head, running his fingers through his hair, trying to remind himself that it was not. his. fault.

Glancing at his clock, he sighed. The red numbers told him that there was still two and a half more hours until school. Too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. His shoulders slumped, and he picked up his pillow, and hurled it at the door of his bathroom.

Worst timing ever... He flung the covers back, and went to get ready, anything to distract himself from the thoughts he knew were about to start stampeding through his mind.

Sure enough, it started the second the first splash of water hit his face - Amy smiling, laughing, Amy on her first day of school, Amy, crying after her favourite plastic dinosaur's leg fell off. Amy. It hurt. He felt a tear trying to break, and dashed it away angrily.

Mustn't cry, he tried to tell himself, over and over, and forced a smile, splashing his face again. When he was finished and ready, he wandered down to the kitchen, to make pancakes.

By the time he had to leave, his smile was genuine, and the day's bad start was all but forgotten. After all, it could only get better.


Night after night, I'd been here. Amy'd stopped haunting my dreams for the first time in what seemed like forever, and I was having my own. Or, well, building may be a more appropriate term - each night, the darkness shifted and coalesced into new shapes, new pictures, forming something solid and real. I couldn't tell what it was, only that it was dark, and predominantly shades of purple and grey and it scared me.

I'd never been scared by my dreams before. Sure, I'd been furious, I'd hated them, they'd killed me inside, but I'd never been scared. It was unlike me to be afraid of the dark, as well - what I figured was scaring me.

But I also knew I was dreaming.

Isn't that supposed to not be possible? Well, there's lucid dreaming, I suppose, but really... I wasn't at all close to being conscious, and I wouldn't have woken if I'd tried. Not that I had. I just spent night after night, watching, waiting to see what my mind would make for me, this strange, purple-grey misty landscape of indistinct, blurry walls.

On the sixth day, it was done.

Author's note: First chapter tomorrow, I promise. Unless I die :3 So yeah, if there's no chapter, assume the worst - or kill me when I get back ;)