Disclaimer: I do not own YGO. This is a work of fanfiction for entertainment, not profit.
Soundtrack: Chvrches/"Clearest Blue"
...
He awoke in a city that was not his.
For one thing, the smells were different, the sweet, sticky cinnamon of street corner vendors and the sour, festering ammonia of the subway. Air felt thicker here, blanketed with smog, exhaust, and crowds. Seemingly endless ones occupied the streets from dawn until dusk. Were they going somewhere? Staying still? Both? It was hard to tell; all of them appeared to mill about even in what should have been the middle of the night, too, when there appeared to be nowhere to go and nothing to see.
Except this city never looked like it was 3 a.m. Rows and rows of streetlights and billboards twinkled as people moved from restaurant to bar, apartment to work. Always on the go and, as best as he can tell, never, ever in repose.
How distinctly odd.
He had often awoken with this extraterrestrial sense of fatigue, as if he had been wrapped in a seemingly endless layer of linen and then unwrapped by careful, reverent hands. But those memories must have been the fragments of something, perhaps another life, because he remembered absolutely nothing about it except the occasional hint of a scent or color.
If he could move his limbs, he would say there was something that he couldn't quite put his finger on about how time awakening was different from all the others. An instinct, maybe? Or another recollection he could only partially call his own?
He knew he was searching, though. That was something he remembered. Each awakening pulsed with an urgency that there was something- someone- who needed him. Who was the only important question for now. Why would come later, after he had a chance to observe The Who. As for the Where and When, well, he was here in this strange city at this time, so he dismissed those questions as frivolous.
The How always puzzled him, though. It must have been par for course given whatever profession he currently occupied. There was a calling to his work, just as there had been a calling to whatever that dictated his passions previously. That blank space inside his mind needed answers, and he had a feeling whoever he was searching for had them.
All he had to do was keep looking for her- and he knew it was a her, damn it, because the only hint he had was blue.
Blue like the skies twinkling above, blue like the water sparkling in the harbor, blue like the shine of waxy lotus petals that resembled a pair of eyes.
Familiar eyes.
All the answers lie in this strange city he now called home.
...
Yes, I'm back, with this odd and cliched idea for a fic.
Bonus points if you can guess where Atem is.