I'm popping these things out like a rabbit pops out babies. Jeez.

It's procrastination. I really don't want to do my homework, and I've been craving to write. Since I gave up roleplaying (stupid, stupid Neopets…), this pretty much all that's left. xD

Anyway, I'm challenging myself to do something (well, many things). I wish to challenge myself to write 50 (number might go up, but it will be at least 50) one-shots of Bakura via various word prompts that hopefully the people commenting (hopefully YOU) will give me. =) Some will be humorous; some will be serious. This first one is one of those serious ones, I suppose.

I'm probably going to try and do this for Wheel of Time (if any of you know Wheel of Time xD) for Olver. Because Olver needs love.

I'm making up the first prompt, so it is, of course, "Start." Aren't I imaginative?

Ryou Bakura had always been fascinated with the occult.

His mother had always wondered why, and Amane had always told him he was a weirdo head for getting into that sort of thing (then she would tell him how he was going to turn all emo-goth on her), but he couldn't help it. The idea of ghosts, zombies, and other undead things was just so exciting to his young imagination that he was almost completely sure they existed.

Spirits were what he liked the most. Much more subtle than zombies and just as frightening. Ghosts could watch you when you don't even know they're there, and almost all ghost stories told of how spirits were stuck on the earth, bound by whatever unfinished business they had left. He wanted nothing more than to find an earth-bound spirit, to talk to it, console it as it tried to finish matters and leave the world of the living.

That's why Bakura loved the present his father sent him. He always liked it when his father sent him gifts from his expeditions in Egypt, but this one even more so. The Millennium Ring was beautiful, for one, with its gold tassels that made clinking sounds and the big Egyptian eye in the middle. Not to mention it could be worn around his neck, so he could keep it with him at all times.

But the best part about the Ring was not the gold, but the history (or legend) about it. His father told him supposedly an evil spirit was locked inside of the Ring, sealed away for unleashing something horrible, waiting to get out.

How it excited him! Though he could tell his father didn't believe in it, Bakura hoped he could help the spirit. He was sure if he could just talk to this "evil" spirit, he could make him see good. Maybe he could even help the spirit move on to whatever was next after death.

For years he wore the Ring. In those years Bakura would talk to the Ring, hoping to coax it out. He would tell the spirit about what was important in his life, his opinions, just how his family drove him crazy; things like that. Sometimes he would even bring up things about Egypt to see if that would get a response. The Ring never talked back, but that didn't stop him. He felt as if someone was listening, that someone was keeping him company.

For him, that was enough.

I must mention how I hate being forced to say "they're there" even if it is grammatically correct. Damn you, homonyms.

And yes, this was set pre-show/pre-manga. Probably should've mentioned that before.