My name is Ryou Bakura. I live in the big, overpopulated, brightly-lit city of New York, New York. I own an apartment in Manhattan, and I live alone. I have a lackluster job, the same job I've had for three years, as a waiter at Le Francais Renard, a cafe swarmed with occupants likely to either be reading Russian Lit in its original tongue or crafting a thrilling novel. I'm a major in Language, American Literature and Psychology, a little less than a year graduated.

And I used to be just like you.

~*~

Three Years Prior

I was walking home from work. Everyone swarmed around me, either toting coffee cups and briefcases or pushing strollers and carrying pastel-colored diaper bags on their hunched shoulders, kept their faces forward and didn't apologize as they collided with my shoulder while rushing past.

I'm so late! I moan internally, tightening my grip on my backpack. Marik was probably wondering where I was, I was already supposed to be home twenty minutes ago, and I was just leaving work! Ugh, I wholeheartedly blame Damien for my tardiness; it was my first week, and of course he made me stay overtime.

I sigh, debating whether waiting in line for the subway would take as much time as the twenty-minute walk, when it starts to rain.

Panicking, my thoughts immediately stray from my timely transportation to the homework tucked in the non-waterproof confines of my bag. I couldn't miss another assignment, Madame Bellrose would kill me!

With a rush of mad desperateness, I raise my hand, the blue sleeve of my hoodie already soaked, and do something I firmly detested, something only Marik had made me do twice:

I signaled a cab.

They were grimey, with rude drivers, and they always smelled like the last thing in them, but they were the quickest and easiest option at this point.

Thankfully, a saffron yellow Taxi swerves onto the curb, and I sigh. I lean forward, open the door, flipping my frost-white locks from my brown eyes-

But suddenly someone grabbed me around the waist, yanked me away from the cab. "What the hell are you doing?" I squeak, as the practically throw me sideways. I look up, opening my mouth to respond, but am cut short by the sight I see:

A giant cement truck, grey as the stormy sky above, slid sideways on the slick, gum-dotted road, colliding straight with the cab.

Wide-eyed, for a second, I stare, mouth agape. With a sickening crunch, the yellow side of the cab was crumbled like a tin can against the sidewalk, the poor driver inside going with it.

Looking over my shoulder, my eyes only flickering back to the wreck once, I see...

A mass of people. Staring. No evidence of my Guardian Angel, the one who had just miraculously saved my life.

So, I do what my nature demanded of me:

I fainted.