A/N: Multi-part song fic inspired by Dead Man's Hill by the Indigo Girls
Chapter 1: I'll Leave a Message When Everything Comes Apart
The journey would've been hard enough on foot without juggling a crutch and a parasol. By the time he crested the dune, Marik was sweating profusely. Arid breeze ruffled his hair as he stared into the sand pit below. Though the desert had swallowed most of it already, larger bits of rock columns and brick walls still jutted toward the sky like the limbs of a drowning person.
Once he'd caught his breath Marik turned sideways and edged down the slope, leading with his crutch. He winced as the sand shifted and jabbed the crutch up under his arm pit. He leaned on his good leg and looked up the way he'd come. Then he started moving again.
Brace his crutch in the sand. Slide down on his good leg. Brace. Slide. Brace... Slide...
The crutch hit a loose pocket and sank deeper than he expected. Losing his balance, his good leg slipped past it and he fell into a roll. Pain seared his ribs as a broken pillar halted his fall about ten feet later. Wincing, he pushed himself up and looked around. His crutch and his parasol had stopped a little farther up the slope. His palms were scraped to hell and his side ached with the promise of a nasty bruise, but he'd reached the bottom of the dune.
Stretching his bad leg out behind him, he half crawled, half dragged himself to a broken piece of wall and hoisted himself up onto it. Baked by the sun, he stretched out and crossed his arms on his chest. The sky was an infinite blue void out here. No clouds. No air traffic. No birds. Empty. Desolate above and below. He was completely alone.
"Gods curse you, Bakura," Marik mumbled as the tears welled up. "Why wasn't I enough?" He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side. Tears mingled with the sweat running into his hair. "Why couldn't I save you?" He hugged himself and squeezed his eyes shut. "Please, Ra... It hurts so much... I just..." He sobbed. "I can't... please help me..."
Exhausted from his hike, exhausted from the heat, exhausted by his loneliness, he sobbed himself to sleep. He remained that way for a long time. Long enough that he found himself in the shade of a dune when his eyes fluttered open. He rubbed his sticky tongue against the roof of his mouth as he sat up. When he took in his surroundings, he stopped and did a double take.
'Go home, idiot' was scrawled in large letters across the dune he'd stumbled down. His parasol was staked in the ground at the end of the word 'idiot' like a period.
Marik looked around more frantically. There wasn't anywhere for anyone to hide out here. He didn't see any footsteps besides his own, distinctive, dragging ones. The wind and sand could have covered them over given enough time, but then the message wouldn't have survived.
"Bakura?" Marik whispered. If any place could be haunted, it would be the ruins of the Millenium Shrine. A gate to the afterlife where many souls had been trapped for many years, stagnating in a pool of powerful magic. "Bakura!" He tried to stand up and slipped in the sand. He made sure his leg brace was tight, and then tried again more carefully. "Please, if that's you... Do something! Move something! Anything!"
A wind rushed by, kicking up swirls of sand. Marik hugged himself. As hot as it got during the day, the desert could be downright frigid at night.
Go home, idiot.
"Dammit, Bakura," he muttered. Gritting his teeth, he limped the couple of feet to his parasol, and then used it as a cane to reach his crutch. "Fine, but this isn't over. I will see you again. One way or another."
