Ok, my first story! This originally started as something purely to satisfy
my muse. It was going to be just a little thing about what would happen if
Bakura tagged along on one of my normal days. Later, though, it evolved
into something else. The only reason I kept my name in there is that it was
already there and I'm too lazy to change it. This person is NOT me.
Remember that. The point of view will change, but I'll be sure to warn you.
And, no, this is NOT a name column story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh! If I did, you would probably be watching this in the form of a cartoon on your television. Neither do I own any other brand name I may inadvertently put in here.
Bakura: On with the story!
Hey, that's my job! On with the story!
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~Michelle's POV~
//Where are we going?// Bakura asked through our mind-link as my family and I got into the car.
/To the hospital to get a shot./ I answered.
//WHAT THE HELL?!? Why are we going to go get shot??//
Thoroughly exasperated, I replied, /No no no, we're not going to get shot! Were going to go get a shot./
Sounding a bit embarrassed, Bakura asked, //Oh, well what's a shot then?//
I was kind of surprised. /You honestly don't know?/ I asked him.
//Yes, I just enjoy hearing your boring lectures,// he replied sarcastically.
'Oh, so you want to be rude?' I thought to myself, 'Alright, I'll make this gruesome.' Nearly snickering (but not because my family would wonder about me) I began my explanation. /A shot is something you get at the hospital. First, the doctor, or um, healer I guess you would say, takes a long, round, plastic tube with a hollow needle attached to it and puts medicine in it. You do know what a needle is don't you?/ I asked.
//Of course I know what a needle is!// Bakura seemed almost interested, despite his indignance.
/Ok. Then they _stab_ you in the arm with the needle and force the medicine into your living flesh./ I finished, making sure place the emphasis on 'stab'.
//Ah.I see.// he replied. //What is the point of this?//
/It's to prevent illness/
//Why can't you just take the medicine by mouth like normal people??//
/Everyone gets shots Bakura. I guess they just work better than normal medicine. I can look up the reason on the internet later if you like./ I was brought even closer to laughter by Bakura's reaction.
//No thank you! I've had enough 'learning' for one day. I just think this is stupid.//
'I could swear he sounds nervous.' I thought, 'Well, only one way to find out.' And with that I asked, /You're not scared are you?/
//WHAT??// Bakura sounded like he was going to explode. //I'm NOT scared!//
The car having stopped, I smiled absently as I stepped out into the cool morning air while listening to Bakura's string of threats, curses, and general profanity. 'He's definitely scared.'
~Bakura's POV, earlier that morning~
'Ugh. Why the hell are we getting up so early?? I knew staying with this girl was a bad idea. I guess I'll have to ask her.' //Why are you getting up so early?//
/./ no answer.
//Hello? Can you hear me?// I tried again. 'Hmm, maybe the mind-link only works with Ryou?'
/What do you want?/
//Oh there you are, I thought you couldn't hear me. Why did you get up? The alarm didn't go off.//
/I always get up at 6:00, alarm or not. Seeing as I just woke up, though, I'm not exactly in the mood to talk, so SHUT UP!/
'Wow, she's not a morning person is she?' I grudgingly went silent, Michelle's shout still ringing in my head. 'Well, she never said I couldn't watch her.' With that thought I appeared next to Michelle in spirit form.
She seemed to take no notice so I decided to do some exploring. The kitchen was fairly ordinary. 'Not much to see here. I wonder what else is in this house?' After looking for a while and finding nothing interesting, I decided to go snoop around my substitute hikari's room.
Just as I reached to turn on the light I heard someone say something behind me. More specifically, I heard someone threaten me.
"If you turn on that light I swear you won't live long enough to see it light up," Michelle said, voice dripping with venom.
"um.?" was all I could think of saying.
"I like it to be dark in the morning. In fact, I like it to be dark all day, so don't turn on any lights if you can help it," she replied.
"Oh." 'Ryou left me with a nut! How could he do this to me?' It was then that I noticed she was carrying her breakfast. She walked past me (well, through me actually, since I was still in spirit form) and sat at her desk, beginning to eat.
"Um?" I asked again. I really need to work on my vocabulary.
"Like I said, I prefer it to be dark. If I eat in the kitchen someone will come in and turn on the lights."
"I see." I was getting bored so I decided to go back to looking around. Since no one else was awake yet I figured it was safe to become solid. Now I was able to pick stuff up.
Her room was small, the smallest I'd seen so far besides the bathroom. It was rather messy. There were some dirty clothes at the end of the unmade bed, and there were books and papers everywhere. There had even been a stack of papers on the chair before Michelle had relocated it to the floor so she could sit down.
Most of the papers seemed to be notes and pieces of stories she had written. Most of them really didn't make much sense, though some were rather interesting. One that I found appeared to be describing a satanic altar. It was very.graphic. Definitely not something I would have expected from her.
The books in her room were very diverse. I found everything from medical text books, to fairy tales, to yoga (whatever that is.). Then I noticed a leather-bound book without a title sitting on the table by her bed. Thinking Michelle was still ignoring me I moved to pick it up.
"Don't touch that," she said.
"And why not?" I asked, my curiosity ignited.
"Because that's my journal and what's in it is none of your business," she replied carefully.
"Hm," was my only response. She would have to leave the room sometime, then the journal would be all mine!
"I have to go take a shower. If you get bored please don't break anything. I'll try to be as quick as I can."
"What has Ryou been telling you? I'll be fine," I assured her.
".alright." She looked suspicious, but left anyway.
'Ha! Foolish mortal! I can't believe you would leave me alone right after telling me not to touch the journal!' I was thinking as my hand reached for the forbidden book.
/DON'T TOUCH THE JOURNAL!!/ she shouted through the mind-link, making me jump about a foot in the air.
Noticing she hadn't actually seen me I replied //Fine!// and grabbed it anyway. Realizing that I was still alive after about a minute I opened the little book greedily.
A couple of seconds of leafing rewarded me with what I was looking for. Yesterday's entry:
December 12, 2003
Ryou is going to visit his father for the holidays and has decided to leave poor Bakura behind. I guess I can see why, but I still don't fully understand his decision. He was going to leave his yami in the ring on a table the whole time, but I volunteered to let Bakura stay with me. I think he's mad at Bakura for some reason because this isn't like him at all. I made sure to get Ryou's new address before he left, in case he wanted me to send him the ring. Thankfully he gave it to me without asking what it was for.
I'm kind of nervous about letting Bakura stay with me. Ryou says he can be a little violent at times. I know I could handle him under normal circumstances, but recently I haven't been feeling very well. Yet another reason I shouldn't have offered to keep an eye on Bakura. Sigh. I just couldn't stand the thought of him being left alone for so long. Poor Bakura.
Michelle
'Poor Bakura? What the..?' I decided to look for my name in other places. After more leafing.
May 27, 2003
Well, what a surprise. Ryou has a yami. It's not fair! First Yugi gets a yami that ends up being the best friend a person could ever have and I can only watch because I am not welcome in their group. Then, when I finally become friends with Ryou he gets a yami.
He says the yami's name is Bakura. When I asked to meet him Ryou looks nervous but agrees. After school I find out why he was nervous. Bakura is a world-class jerk. I think he has the potential to be a better person though. I'll have to keep an eye on him.
Michelle
'A jerk?! And what does she mean by "keep an eye on him."?' I was about to read more when I heard the shower turn off. I would have to investigate further later.
~Michelle's POV, present time (back at the Hospital)~
As I walked through the hospital Bakura asked several questions. What's this? What's that? Where does that hallway go? What does that do? Etcetera etcetera.
When he stopped in front of the elevator he was silent for a moment, then //Why are you just standing there?//
/We're waiting for the elevator,/ I answered. This was going to be fun.
//What's an elevator? And why do we have to wait for it?//
/You'll see./ I could barely hold in my grin of anticipation as the doors opened.
//It's just a little room?// he sounded very confused.
I stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button without saying a word, afraid I'd burst out laughing and ruin the surprise.
The elevator began to move, and just as I had expected, //What in the name of Ra?!?//
/Don't worry, it's supposed to do that./ I stated calmly.
//What the hell just happened?//
/Well, we're in a kind of little box that moves between floors. It's faster than taking the stairs./
//.oh,// he said as he absorbed this new information. //You could have warned me you know.//
/Ah, but if I warned you your reaction wouldn't have been half as funny!/ I told him.
When it came time to get the shot I could feel Bakura watching through my eyes.
//You're actually going to let that guy stab you with a needle?// he asked, sounding incredulous.
/I promise it won't hurt that much. It's only a flu shot./
//I'm not worried about the pain,// he lied, //I just wouldn't trust him to do it right.//
/Don't worry, he went to a special school to learn how to do this right./
//You can go to school to learn how to stab people with needles?//
/Er, something like that./ I decided against telling him about surgeons. He sounded too excited about the needle thing already.
As promised, the shot barely hurt at all. I could tell Bakura felt like an idiot for being nervous so I made sure not to rub it in. Oh well, just a little wouldn't hurt!
/There now, that wasn't so bad!/ I said in a mockingly sweet voice.
//Shut up,// was his response.
/Oh you're just cranky because you didn't get a sticker!/
Bakura just remained in sulking silence.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, with Bakura mostly staying quiet. That is, until it came time to go to sleep.
"I am not going to sleep in the ring again!" Bakura shouted. He had become extremely upset when I told him I didn't have anywhere for him to sleep. At least, not anywhere where he wouldn't be seen.
"Shh! Shut up or someone will hear you!" I tried desperately to keep him quiet. "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."
"Why don't you sleep in the ring and I sleep out here?" he growled, at least remembering to keep his voice down this time.
"I've never been in my soul room! I don't think I could get in there if I wanted to. Besides, what if someone walks by my room and sees you? How am I supposed to explain that? I don't even want to think about that awkward silence!"
Finally, Bakura saw my point. "Fine, but I'm NOT going to sleep in the ring the whole time I'm here." With that last comment a very cranky Bakura retreated to the millennium ring.
He was right, I would have to come up with some sort of sleeping arrangement eventually. 'Maybe I should start sleeping with the door closed, then he could sleep on the floor. Oh well, I'll come up with something tomorrow.' I then changed into my usual sleeping outfit and got into bed. For some reason I was more tired than usual (probably Bakura's fault) and had no trouble falling asleep.
~Bakura's POV~
'I can't believe I have to sleep in the ring! Oh well, I guess it's better than being alone for months while Ryou is off visiting his father. Why did he leave me behind anyway?' suddenly a wave of emotion interrupted my thoughts. It seemed like.confusion? Yes, definitely confusion.
'Great, I got stuck with a dreamer.' Whenever had a dream I would experience the emotions whether the mind-link was closed or not. 'If Michelle dreams all the time I'll never get any sleep!'
Curious, I came out of the ring to see what was happening. She was curled in a ball up in the corner of her bed that was by the wall. A deep frown creased her forehead and she was mumbling something, though I couldn't quite hear what. Her skin glistened with sweat. All in all, she looked pretty upset about something.
Thinking I should calm her down, I tried putting a hand on her shoulder. Unfortunately her reaction was the opposite of what I had been hoping for. She hugged her knees tighter, her frown deepened, and she began to breath rapidly. I pulled my hand away quickly and simply stared at her. Just as I considered waking her up, her eyes shot opened and she sat bolt upright, hitting her head on the wall in the process. The blow didn't seem to phase her though, and she sat looking at me with an utterly terrified look on her face.
'What the hell is the matter with her?' I thought while, after a few minutes, she still hadn't so much as blinked. "Maybe the knock on the head stunned her?' I was just about to tap her on the shoulder when, just as suddenly as she had woken up, she passed out and fell back onto her pillows.
I considered this a good time to wake her up, so I reached out and gently shook her shoulder. The response was an unintelligible jumble of sounds. I tried again.
"Nnng," she said. Well, at least it was closer to a real word. I tried one more time.
"Hnn?" this time I took it as a question.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
No answer. I tried the mind-link. //Are you ok?//
/./ Still nothing.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to try to reach her in her soul room. Even though she had never consciously gone there, she was still there.
As I walked down the hall that connected our soul rooms, I noticed that the door at the other end was different. Instead of the usual wood, this door was made of some kind of stone. It was so black that it made the surrounding darkness look almost grey. The knob, which was also made of the weird stone, felt cold to the touch. In fact, it was freezing. It almost felt like ice, except it didn't melt.
When I pushed open the door, I was hit with a blast of even colder air. Ignoring the cold, I stepped through the doorway into . . . a forest? 'What's going on here? I know you can make your soul room look however you want, but this is a bit weird.'
I walked further into the room, gazing at my surroundings. Even though it was a forest, the trees were all dead. Also, I realized that the reason for the cold (or perhaps because of it) was that it was snowing. 'This is really really weird.' I thought once more.
Abruptly I was brought back to the real world by someone tapping my shoulder. Waking up, I saw Michelle standing there in a fluffy white bathrobe with a worried expression on her face. Well, actually it was more like a slight frown, but I chose to think of it as an expression of worry.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her frown lessening when she saw me move. "I woke up and saw that you were just sitting there with your eyes sort of glazed over."
"I'm ok. What about you?" I questioned quickly.
She seemed confused, but answered, "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
Explaining what had happened, I decided to leave out just exactly what her soul room looked like, only saying I had gone there to look for her.
Her frown had returned by the end of my story. "Well, sometimes I do weird stuff in my sleep. Once I actually got in an argument with someone. And sometimes I sleepwalk, but. I don't know what that was about," she finally concluded. Then, "Wait, why did you come out of the ring in the first place?"
"Like I said, you were having a nightmare. It was keeping me awake," I replied matter-of-factly.
She raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't pursue the subject further. "Well, I'm ok now, so you can go back to _sleep_."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Do you even care?" her expression seemed to darken as she asked this.
"Hey! No need to get hostile!" I snapped back, then disappeared into the ring before she could respond.
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Yay, I'm done! Review if you want me to continue! (I do accept anonymous reviews)
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh! If I did, you would probably be watching this in the form of a cartoon on your television. Neither do I own any other brand name I may inadvertently put in here.
Bakura: On with the story!
Hey, that's my job! On with the story!
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~Michelle's POV~
//Where are we going?// Bakura asked through our mind-link as my family and I got into the car.
/To the hospital to get a shot./ I answered.
//WHAT THE HELL?!? Why are we going to go get shot??//
Thoroughly exasperated, I replied, /No no no, we're not going to get shot! Were going to go get a shot./
Sounding a bit embarrassed, Bakura asked, //Oh, well what's a shot then?//
I was kind of surprised. /You honestly don't know?/ I asked him.
//Yes, I just enjoy hearing your boring lectures,// he replied sarcastically.
'Oh, so you want to be rude?' I thought to myself, 'Alright, I'll make this gruesome.' Nearly snickering (but not because my family would wonder about me) I began my explanation. /A shot is something you get at the hospital. First, the doctor, or um, healer I guess you would say, takes a long, round, plastic tube with a hollow needle attached to it and puts medicine in it. You do know what a needle is don't you?/ I asked.
//Of course I know what a needle is!// Bakura seemed almost interested, despite his indignance.
/Ok. Then they _stab_ you in the arm with the needle and force the medicine into your living flesh./ I finished, making sure place the emphasis on 'stab'.
//Ah.I see.// he replied. //What is the point of this?//
/It's to prevent illness/
//Why can't you just take the medicine by mouth like normal people??//
/Everyone gets shots Bakura. I guess they just work better than normal medicine. I can look up the reason on the internet later if you like./ I was brought even closer to laughter by Bakura's reaction.
//No thank you! I've had enough 'learning' for one day. I just think this is stupid.//
'I could swear he sounds nervous.' I thought, 'Well, only one way to find out.' And with that I asked, /You're not scared are you?/
//WHAT??// Bakura sounded like he was going to explode. //I'm NOT scared!//
The car having stopped, I smiled absently as I stepped out into the cool morning air while listening to Bakura's string of threats, curses, and general profanity. 'He's definitely scared.'
~Bakura's POV, earlier that morning~
'Ugh. Why the hell are we getting up so early?? I knew staying with this girl was a bad idea. I guess I'll have to ask her.' //Why are you getting up so early?//
/./ no answer.
//Hello? Can you hear me?// I tried again. 'Hmm, maybe the mind-link only works with Ryou?'
/What do you want?/
//Oh there you are, I thought you couldn't hear me. Why did you get up? The alarm didn't go off.//
/I always get up at 6:00, alarm or not. Seeing as I just woke up, though, I'm not exactly in the mood to talk, so SHUT UP!/
'Wow, she's not a morning person is she?' I grudgingly went silent, Michelle's shout still ringing in my head. 'Well, she never said I couldn't watch her.' With that thought I appeared next to Michelle in spirit form.
She seemed to take no notice so I decided to do some exploring. The kitchen was fairly ordinary. 'Not much to see here. I wonder what else is in this house?' After looking for a while and finding nothing interesting, I decided to go snoop around my substitute hikari's room.
Just as I reached to turn on the light I heard someone say something behind me. More specifically, I heard someone threaten me.
"If you turn on that light I swear you won't live long enough to see it light up," Michelle said, voice dripping with venom.
"um.?" was all I could think of saying.
"I like it to be dark in the morning. In fact, I like it to be dark all day, so don't turn on any lights if you can help it," she replied.
"Oh." 'Ryou left me with a nut! How could he do this to me?' It was then that I noticed she was carrying her breakfast. She walked past me (well, through me actually, since I was still in spirit form) and sat at her desk, beginning to eat.
"Um?" I asked again. I really need to work on my vocabulary.
"Like I said, I prefer it to be dark. If I eat in the kitchen someone will come in and turn on the lights."
"I see." I was getting bored so I decided to go back to looking around. Since no one else was awake yet I figured it was safe to become solid. Now I was able to pick stuff up.
Her room was small, the smallest I'd seen so far besides the bathroom. It was rather messy. There were some dirty clothes at the end of the unmade bed, and there were books and papers everywhere. There had even been a stack of papers on the chair before Michelle had relocated it to the floor so she could sit down.
Most of the papers seemed to be notes and pieces of stories she had written. Most of them really didn't make much sense, though some were rather interesting. One that I found appeared to be describing a satanic altar. It was very.graphic. Definitely not something I would have expected from her.
The books in her room were very diverse. I found everything from medical text books, to fairy tales, to yoga (whatever that is.). Then I noticed a leather-bound book without a title sitting on the table by her bed. Thinking Michelle was still ignoring me I moved to pick it up.
"Don't touch that," she said.
"And why not?" I asked, my curiosity ignited.
"Because that's my journal and what's in it is none of your business," she replied carefully.
"Hm," was my only response. She would have to leave the room sometime, then the journal would be all mine!
"I have to go take a shower. If you get bored please don't break anything. I'll try to be as quick as I can."
"What has Ryou been telling you? I'll be fine," I assured her.
".alright." She looked suspicious, but left anyway.
'Ha! Foolish mortal! I can't believe you would leave me alone right after telling me not to touch the journal!' I was thinking as my hand reached for the forbidden book.
/DON'T TOUCH THE JOURNAL!!/ she shouted through the mind-link, making me jump about a foot in the air.
Noticing she hadn't actually seen me I replied //Fine!// and grabbed it anyway. Realizing that I was still alive after about a minute I opened the little book greedily.
A couple of seconds of leafing rewarded me with what I was looking for. Yesterday's entry:
December 12, 2003
Ryou is going to visit his father for the holidays and has decided to leave poor Bakura behind. I guess I can see why, but I still don't fully understand his decision. He was going to leave his yami in the ring on a table the whole time, but I volunteered to let Bakura stay with me. I think he's mad at Bakura for some reason because this isn't like him at all. I made sure to get Ryou's new address before he left, in case he wanted me to send him the ring. Thankfully he gave it to me without asking what it was for.
I'm kind of nervous about letting Bakura stay with me. Ryou says he can be a little violent at times. I know I could handle him under normal circumstances, but recently I haven't been feeling very well. Yet another reason I shouldn't have offered to keep an eye on Bakura. Sigh. I just couldn't stand the thought of him being left alone for so long. Poor Bakura.
Michelle
'Poor Bakura? What the..?' I decided to look for my name in other places. After more leafing.
May 27, 2003
Well, what a surprise. Ryou has a yami. It's not fair! First Yugi gets a yami that ends up being the best friend a person could ever have and I can only watch because I am not welcome in their group. Then, when I finally become friends with Ryou he gets a yami.
He says the yami's name is Bakura. When I asked to meet him Ryou looks nervous but agrees. After school I find out why he was nervous. Bakura is a world-class jerk. I think he has the potential to be a better person though. I'll have to keep an eye on him.
Michelle
'A jerk?! And what does she mean by "keep an eye on him."?' I was about to read more when I heard the shower turn off. I would have to investigate further later.
~Michelle's POV, present time (back at the Hospital)~
As I walked through the hospital Bakura asked several questions. What's this? What's that? Where does that hallway go? What does that do? Etcetera etcetera.
When he stopped in front of the elevator he was silent for a moment, then //Why are you just standing there?//
/We're waiting for the elevator,/ I answered. This was going to be fun.
//What's an elevator? And why do we have to wait for it?//
/You'll see./ I could barely hold in my grin of anticipation as the doors opened.
//It's just a little room?// he sounded very confused.
I stepped onto the elevator and pushed the button without saying a word, afraid I'd burst out laughing and ruin the surprise.
The elevator began to move, and just as I had expected, //What in the name of Ra?!?//
/Don't worry, it's supposed to do that./ I stated calmly.
//What the hell just happened?//
/Well, we're in a kind of little box that moves between floors. It's faster than taking the stairs./
//.oh,// he said as he absorbed this new information. //You could have warned me you know.//
/Ah, but if I warned you your reaction wouldn't have been half as funny!/ I told him.
When it came time to get the shot I could feel Bakura watching through my eyes.
//You're actually going to let that guy stab you with a needle?// he asked, sounding incredulous.
/I promise it won't hurt that much. It's only a flu shot./
//I'm not worried about the pain,// he lied, //I just wouldn't trust him to do it right.//
/Don't worry, he went to a special school to learn how to do this right./
//You can go to school to learn how to stab people with needles?//
/Er, something like that./ I decided against telling him about surgeons. He sounded too excited about the needle thing already.
As promised, the shot barely hurt at all. I could tell Bakura felt like an idiot for being nervous so I made sure not to rub it in. Oh well, just a little wouldn't hurt!
/There now, that wasn't so bad!/ I said in a mockingly sweet voice.
//Shut up,// was his response.
/Oh you're just cranky because you didn't get a sticker!/
Bakura just remained in sulking silence.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, with Bakura mostly staying quiet. That is, until it came time to go to sleep.
"I am not going to sleep in the ring again!" Bakura shouted. He had become extremely upset when I told him I didn't have anywhere for him to sleep. At least, not anywhere where he wouldn't be seen.
"Shh! Shut up or someone will hear you!" I tried desperately to keep him quiet. "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."
"Why don't you sleep in the ring and I sleep out here?" he growled, at least remembering to keep his voice down this time.
"I've never been in my soul room! I don't think I could get in there if I wanted to. Besides, what if someone walks by my room and sees you? How am I supposed to explain that? I don't even want to think about that awkward silence!"
Finally, Bakura saw my point. "Fine, but I'm NOT going to sleep in the ring the whole time I'm here." With that last comment a very cranky Bakura retreated to the millennium ring.
He was right, I would have to come up with some sort of sleeping arrangement eventually. 'Maybe I should start sleeping with the door closed, then he could sleep on the floor. Oh well, I'll come up with something tomorrow.' I then changed into my usual sleeping outfit and got into bed. For some reason I was more tired than usual (probably Bakura's fault) and had no trouble falling asleep.
~Bakura's POV~
'I can't believe I have to sleep in the ring! Oh well, I guess it's better than being alone for months while Ryou is off visiting his father. Why did he leave me behind anyway?' suddenly a wave of emotion interrupted my thoughts. It seemed like.confusion? Yes, definitely confusion.
'Great, I got stuck with a dreamer.' Whenever had a dream I would experience the emotions whether the mind-link was closed or not. 'If Michelle dreams all the time I'll never get any sleep!'
Curious, I came out of the ring to see what was happening. She was curled in a ball up in the corner of her bed that was by the wall. A deep frown creased her forehead and she was mumbling something, though I couldn't quite hear what. Her skin glistened with sweat. All in all, she looked pretty upset about something.
Thinking I should calm her down, I tried putting a hand on her shoulder. Unfortunately her reaction was the opposite of what I had been hoping for. She hugged her knees tighter, her frown deepened, and she began to breath rapidly. I pulled my hand away quickly and simply stared at her. Just as I considered waking her up, her eyes shot opened and she sat bolt upright, hitting her head on the wall in the process. The blow didn't seem to phase her though, and she sat looking at me with an utterly terrified look on her face.
'What the hell is the matter with her?' I thought while, after a few minutes, she still hadn't so much as blinked. "Maybe the knock on the head stunned her?' I was just about to tap her on the shoulder when, just as suddenly as she had woken up, she passed out and fell back onto her pillows.
I considered this a good time to wake her up, so I reached out and gently shook her shoulder. The response was an unintelligible jumble of sounds. I tried again.
"Nnng," she said. Well, at least it was closer to a real word. I tried one more time.
"Hnn?" this time I took it as a question.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
No answer. I tried the mind-link. //Are you ok?//
/./ Still nothing.
After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided to try to reach her in her soul room. Even though she had never consciously gone there, she was still there.
As I walked down the hall that connected our soul rooms, I noticed that the door at the other end was different. Instead of the usual wood, this door was made of some kind of stone. It was so black that it made the surrounding darkness look almost grey. The knob, which was also made of the weird stone, felt cold to the touch. In fact, it was freezing. It almost felt like ice, except it didn't melt.
When I pushed open the door, I was hit with a blast of even colder air. Ignoring the cold, I stepped through the doorway into . . . a forest? 'What's going on here? I know you can make your soul room look however you want, but this is a bit weird.'
I walked further into the room, gazing at my surroundings. Even though it was a forest, the trees were all dead. Also, I realized that the reason for the cold (or perhaps because of it) was that it was snowing. 'This is really really weird.' I thought once more.
Abruptly I was brought back to the real world by someone tapping my shoulder. Waking up, I saw Michelle standing there in a fluffy white bathrobe with a worried expression on her face. Well, actually it was more like a slight frown, but I chose to think of it as an expression of worry.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her frown lessening when she saw me move. "I woke up and saw that you were just sitting there with your eyes sort of glazed over."
"I'm ok. What about you?" I questioned quickly.
She seemed confused, but answered, "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"
Explaining what had happened, I decided to leave out just exactly what her soul room looked like, only saying I had gone there to look for her.
Her frown had returned by the end of my story. "Well, sometimes I do weird stuff in my sleep. Once I actually got in an argument with someone. And sometimes I sleepwalk, but. I don't know what that was about," she finally concluded. Then, "Wait, why did you come out of the ring in the first place?"
"Like I said, you were having a nightmare. It was keeping me awake," I replied matter-of-factly.
She raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't pursue the subject further. "Well, I'm ok now, so you can go back to _sleep_."
"Are you sure?" I asked.
"Do you even care?" her expression seemed to darken as she asked this.
"Hey! No need to get hostile!" I snapped back, then disappeared into the ring before she could respond.
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Yay, I'm done! Review if you want me to continue! (I do accept anonymous reviews)