"Rise, child..." a strange voice spoke to him. He gradually brought himself to consciousness, and quickly noticed a shadowy figure standing above him. He slowly stood up to face the shadowy man, that is, if he could see his face.
"Who are you?" the child asked, "What is your name?" This wasn't his other self that he had come to know and love.
"Now is not the time for you to know yet," the man replied. He spoke with a powerful and commanding, yet warm and compassionate voice, "but you'll learn soon enough."
"What's going on?" the boy responded.
"You've entered a new world. You're facing a new destiny," the man said, "You will gain several new friendships, and strengthen most of your current ones... but you will be betrayed by the friend that you value the most..."
"Wake up..." another voice spoke. This one appeared to belong to a young woman. Was that whole event just a dream? Was it trying to tell him something? He slowly but surely awoke to find himself in a hospital – not one that he could recognize, this sure wasn't Domino Hospital. He looked to his left and saw a woman who looked to be about 21 years old, hadlong dirty blonde hair, blue eyes, and was wearing blue jeans, a short-sleeved purple t-shirt, and a pair of square-framed, red-rimmed glasses. She had a kind face.
"Hello?" she said, "You awake?"
"Uhhhh..." he groaned, "Who are you? What am I doing here?"
"My name is Minerva Blake," she replied, "I found you at the base of rocky hill all banged up. You looked like you had taken quite a tumble."
He took a closer look at himself. He had so many bandages wrapped around his body that it wasn't even funny.
"Wait a sec! How did I get here?!" he said, obviously confused.
"I brought you here! What did you think?!"
"No, I mean, where am I, other than just the hospital?"
"Oh..." she trailed off, "I've been in this world for so long that I forgot how I got here. You must have been teleported here from your home world."
"Wait, what world is this?"
"Soriona."
"How in the hell... What kinda world is 'Soriona'?" he wondered to himself.
"So... tell me a little bit about yourself," she said, "Like your name."
"My name's Yugi. Yugi Mutou."
"What kinda name is that?"
"I'm Japanese."
"Oh, cool!" she smiled. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
At this point she burst out laughing. "Yeah, right! You look and sound far more like you're eleven!"
"I get that a lot..." Yugi said, trying to hide his embarrassment. "What about you? How old are you?"
"Nineteen"
"Really? You look older than that..."
"Yeah, I get that a lot too."
A thought suddenly jumped into his brain. "The Puzzle. Where is it?"
"Did you see... a pendant near me?" he asked, "It's gold and in the shape of an upside-down pyramid."
"Oh yeah... The healers have it right now," she said smiling, "Don't worry! It's completely safe."
"Healers? That must be what they call doctors in this world."
A healer walked into the room, "Okay, we're going to remove your bandages and then you can leave."
After the healers removed his bandages, gave him back his Puzzle, and Minerva had checked him out of the hospital, she turned to him and said, "If you need a place to stay, I have plenty of room at my house. I have a lot of friends who live with me."
"Okay," he replied. It's not like he had much of a choice.
"By the way," she asked, "Why is that pendant so important to you? Was it a gift from a loved one or something like that?"
"Oh, I forgot to explain it to you," he replied, "It's actually an enchanted puzzle," he didn't know why, but he felt like he could tell her about it, that she would understand, that he could trust her with this information. "I completed it a while ago, and I always have it with me. It protects me."
"Oh, I knew that there was something magical about it!" she said, "I guess that explains it!" But in the back of her mind, she just knew that something wasn't right about that object. She didn't know why, but she just felt a malevolent presence from it, an evil presence even. She tried to push it out of her mind, "He's been with that thing for a long time. He says it protects him. I guess that I shouldn't worry about it."
But her intuition was telling her that she should.
