Shadows over Collinsport 2:
Homecoming
Ryou Bakura's mother had always warned him to stay away from Collinsport, Maine. So, it came as a shock to discover, after her untimely death, that she had wanted to be buried there.
After all that happened in Domino City, Ryou had jumped at the excuse to get out of town. But circumstances (namely, having his soul trapped in the Shadow Realm), meant that he missed his mother's funeral and burial. That only further widened the rift between Ryou and his surviving family. Once things were back to as normal as they ever got these days in a Domino City where soul stealers and reincarnated pharaohs were the order of the day, Ryou packed his bags and got the hell out of Dodge. Now, he found himself in a rented car following coastal highways to an isolated little town overlooking the Atlantic.
Before he even looked for lodgings, he took the twisting, pothole-marked road leading up to Eagle Hill Cemetery. Leaving his car at the gate, Ryou stepped tentatively into the cemetery.
Further up on the hill, he could see the pale bulk of a family mausoleum looming over the lesser graves. For such a small town, there were certainly a lot of people buried in this little graveyard, he thought. Not so little, really, now that he got a good look at it. Row after straggling row of headstones meandered across the hillside, interspersed here and there by gnarled trees scraping at the sky with skeletal branches.
Dead leaves crunched beneath his sneakers as he made his way gingerly between the tilting gravestones. Here and there, tree roots had forced their way up beneath the soil, throwing the markers off-kilter and lurking in the tall grass for the opportunity to trip an unsuspecting pedestrian.
One such root caught Ryou unawares, snagging the toe of his shoe. His ankle twisted out from under him and he tumbled gracelessly into the dirt. He sat up, spitting leaves and bits of grass, hands and knees stinging from the impact. One palm was scraped raw where it had caught the edge of a marble angel's plinth. He looked up into the carved face of the angel, its sorrowful eyes weeping moss, then down at the name beneath the angel's feet: Christopher Jennings.
Jennings.
Could this man have been one of his relatives? He vaguely remembered that his mother had had a brother - or maybe two? - though she never talked about them. He had gotten the impression (more from what she didn't say than what little she did), that her memories of childhood were tangled up in trauma, so he had learned not to ask about her family.
Now that he had traumas of his own to avoid thinking about, Ryou thought he understood better.
Rising, Ryou looked around, looking for another stone nearby that held the Jennings name, though most of the visible graves seemed to hold an assortment of Collinses.
Finally, he found what he was looking for.
He knelt beside the simple gray stone, stretching out a hand to caress the deep carving of his mother's name: Amy Marie Jennings Bakura.
His father hadn't wanted to bury her in Collinsport, so far away from their home in Domino City, but it had been stipulated in her will. This was where she had wanted to be interred. She had said, somewhat obliquely, only that she had once had family here.
She hadn't ever asked much of Ryou Bakura Sr., never complaining even when his job took him all over the world and left her to raise their two children practically alone. She had conceded the children's names (Amane, Ryou Jr.) to her husband's choice, though she had insisted on picking Ryou's middle name herself. (He'd never found out why she'd chosen "Quentin.")
Tears pricking at his eyes, Ryou ran his fingers over the stone. He lingered a bit over his mother's maiden name. Jennings. He wondered... were there others of his family, still living here? Maybe he could ask around in the morning, find someone (someone who had known his mother, someone who shared her eye color or had his nose...) to talk to, to anchor himself. He no longer felt at home in Domino. Perhaps, he could find a place to belong, here.
He glanced around at the profusion of Collinses. He'd have to remember that his ancestors might have married into other families, sharing the other names displayed here. Heck, maybe he even had a Collins relative or two?
With a sigh, Ryou rose. He was tired from the long drive, and he needed to get into town and find a place to stay. As he picked his way through the graves, back toward the entrance, the moon cast grotesque shadows on the ground before him. His own shadow seemed to writhe as it stretched away from him, becoming warped and bestial.
Shivering, Ryou told himself to stop being foolish. He had faced real monsters, a soul-stealer, and the Shadow Realm. What was there to fear from empty trees and silent graves?
Nonetheless, he heaved a sigh of relief as he reached the car. As he unlocked the driver's side door, a chorus of eerie howls split the air. A chill shot down his spine and he fumbled the keys, finally managing to wrench the door open.
Shaking, Ryou locked himself inside the car and scrambled to get the key into the ignition. It took him two tries to get the engine to turn over, the howls getting louder and seeming to come closer with every passing moment.
He was nearly in tears by the time he stomped on the accelerator and aimed the car back toward town. He flicked on the radio and cranked up the volume to drown out the noise of the dogs.
Like a tick bloated with blood, the round moon lurked among the gathering clouds. It seemed to follow the car as he sped away.
Tomorrow, he would celebrate his twenty-first birthday.
(Tomorrow night, the moon would be full.)
-o0o-
Note: Inspired by (and rewritten from) one of "Five Lives Ryou Bakura Never Lived."
