Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh or any characters therein.
A/N: Hey, hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! Here's another weird YGO drabble for you. Pretty sure the awesome Always a Bookworm gave me the idea for this one, so thanks AAB!
vessels
.
I could help you, you know.
Amane, curled up on the floor in a corner, shudders and attempts to back even further into the wall. The voice is not discouraged.
You miss your brother, don't you? it asks slyly. She whimpers, tears springing to her eyes unbidden.
"It doesn't matter," she says in a voice thick with tears. "He's dead and he's not coming back."
Ryo. Her big brother. Her best friend, her protector. Hit by a car on his way home from school; the driver hadn't even slowed down.
He's been dead nearly a month now and she still can't begin to imagine life without him.
I can take your pain away, the voice tells her silkily. I can make you forget. Hours, days, months—I can make the time so much easier for you if you'll just let me.
She shakes her head so hard it feels like her brain is rattling. "Go away. Leave."
I would if I could, believe me.
It—he, really—sounds so amused. So nonchalant. As if this is all just a game for him, a cruel game. And, she reminds herself forcefully, it probably is. These whispers she's been hearing for the better part of the last year might well belong to a demon in disguise and she can't be making any deals.
Amane has always been a pragmatic child. Still, there is a part of her mind that can't help weighing the eventual loss of her soul against the resurrection of her beloved brother.
I would never lie to you. I would put you to sleep. You would never need to hurt like this again. The voice pauses. The pain is unbearable. I understand that better than you know. You don't need to suffer like I did.
She squeezes her eyes shut, covers her ears; a last-ditch defense against a very tempting offer. It doesn't matter. The voice gets through to her anyway. It may very well have been in her head this entire time, and wouldn't losing her mind just be the icing on the cake?
Let me in, Amane. Let me help.
He sounds so sympathetic, so comforting, so willing to put her out of her misery. And that's something she wants too badly to keep refusing.
"Never tell me what goes on while I'm asleep," she hears herself say, as if from a great distance.
There's a mostly-hidden measure of glee when the voice responds, You have my word. Now put me on.
She stands slowly, like someone in a trance, and drifts over to where the gaudy gold ring rests in a dresser drawer. Her father had brought it back some time ago, a souvenir from one of his digs in Egypt, for Ryo. Ryo had loved archeology. The reminder makes her heart ache, and she picks the thing up gingerly.
Balanced on the edge of a precipice from which there is no return, she hesitates, needing to make one thing crystal clear.
"I don't trust you."
The reply, when it comes, is emotionless.
I didn't ask you to.
With that she shudders, pulls the ring over her head.
Jumps.
.
The thief king Bakura laughs, long and loud, as he takes control of his new body. It's not perfect—in all honesty he would have preferred her brother—but beggars cannot be choosers.
Thieves can, he reminds himself, but the girl will do for now.
A feral grin stretches his lips, reveals the pearly white teeth of a thirteen-year-old.
Oh, this is going to be so much fun.
end