Ah, a new story. Let's see how this one goes!
I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!
"Yami, I'm HOME!" Yugi yelled as he trotted through the doors of the Kame Game Shop. "Joey and the gang asked us to meet them in the arcade in fifteen minutes, since it's officially Summer Vacation! Come on, or we'll be late!"
There was, strangely enough, no response to his bubbly voice, as there should be.
"Yami?" Yugi called again, frowning a little. The spirit had never failed to answer him before. "Yami? You here?"
His only answer was an eerily unnatural silence. His excitement was quickly forgotten. Creeping up in its place was the feeling that something was dreadfully wrong.
"Ya-Yami?" His voice trembled. "Come on, this isn't funny. Where are you?" Perhaps his dark had just decided to mess with him a little. "Come out, Yami!"
He looked around uneasily, frantically wrecking his mind for some reason his yami was not home. Maybe…he had gone out? Yes, yes, that must be it. He'd just gone out to meet with…with…Bakura. He and Bakura had been getting along rather nicely lately. At least, there had been no more random eruptions of Shadow Games. Maybe they decided to patch up their millennia-long feud? Or perhaps Yami just decided to go get some fresh air. Surely nothing was wrong.
Mentally reassuring himself, Yugi turned to go back out. Maybe he'd run into Yami on the way to meet their friends. If not, he could always call later to tell the spirit where they were.
As he started to step forward, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Pausing, he looked back in that direction, wondering if perhaps he'd imagined it.
He hadn't. It was still there.
"It" was a smear rusty red on the wall. A smear that he was sure had not been there that morning.
Curious, he went to take a closer look.
After a moment of intense close-up observation, Yugi suddenly drew back sharply.
Why? Because the stain on the wall bared a horrible resemblance to blood. Dried blood.
A thousand questions came rushing into his head all at once, overwhelming him. And in the end, they all wanted to know one thing:
Where was Yami?!
Breathing hard, Yugi sled to the floor, holding his head. He wanted to go upstairs. To check if his friend was still somewhere in the house. What if he's hurt? But he couldn't. His knees refused point-blank to support his weight.
It was there, sitting partially curled-up on the floor, that he saw what he had been hoping subconsciously he would not see.
There, on the ground, was a trail, long dried, of the same red substance that had left its mark on the wall. He followed it with eyes. It led from the stairs, all the way out the door.
His heart was pounding so hard he thought it would fly out of his chest.
Forcing himself to stand, he turned abruptly and bolted up the staircase, praying that all his worries were for naught.
Luck wasn't with him.
The moment he caught sight of the room he and Yami shared, his heart froze. He stumbled backwards, pressing himself against the wall. His breaths now came in short, ragged pants. For a second there, he was afraid he'd pass out on the spot.
His room had been trashed. It had literally been ripped apart, as though by a tornado, or some equally violent force of nature. The covers of his bed were across the room from where they had been in the morning. The closet doors had been flung open, and all its contents were spewed over the entire surface of the room. The drawers had been emptied, and his book shelves were in disarray. His windows were broken, the shattered glass scattered about on the floor.
But what scared him most of all was the blood that was everywhere: on the walls, the floor, and even on the ceiling.
That fact that Yami was nowhere in sight did not help, either.
How long he stayed there, staring through dazed eyes at the sight before him, he did not know. Later, all he would recall was being jerked out of his stupor by the sharp ringing of his cell phone.
He reached into his pocket with trembling hands, and fumbled around until his numb fingers had grasped the shrilling device. Pressing the "talk" button, he raised it to his ears.
"Hello?" he whispered. He did not recognize the shaky voice that issued from his mouth.
"Yugi?" the familiar voice of his friend Joey sounded through. "Are you all right? Where are you?"
"I…I…" he shook his head, trying to clear his mind as he struggled for the right words. "Joey, I…"
"What is it Yuge? Something the matter?" Joey asked worriedly.
"Joey…something's wrong…" he chocked, the overdue tears finally starting to well up in his eyes.
"What's going on?!" the blonde was starting to sound frantic. "Yugi?! What's wrong?!"
"It's Yami." The younger teen whimpered. "He…he…" he didn't want to say it. He didn't! Maybe he's OK. Maybe I'm just getting worked up over nothing. His brain raced for any explanations as to why Yami was not there, comforting him, as the spirit should be.
Something gold lying abandoned on the floor caught his eye. Yugi swallowed as he realized what it was: the Millennium Puzzle. And it was almost completely coated in blood. Going over to it, he bend down slightly and picked it up with trembling fingers.
"YUGI!" Joey roared. "Tell me what the HELL'S GOING ON!"
"It's Yami" Yugi heard himself say, in a voice that was not his. "I think…he's been kidnapped."
The moment the sentence was finished, reality hit him like a speeding boulder. Yugi crumbled, and broke down sobbing on the floor, cradling Yami's puzzle in his hands.
Hm. Depressing.
Um...in this story, let's just say that Yami can exist without the puzzle with him. And that, when the yamis and hikaris split apart, a duplicate of the item is formed.
Please, review!