The Dark of His Madness

By Dib07

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Warning: Teen due to dark themes, gore. Nightmarish themes. Madness. Yami.

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Oneshot

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He'd rather not look at those eyes.

Yugi lay awake, looking at the window above his bed as rain splattered down against its pane and left fat streak marks. He liked the sound of the rain. It comforted him: knowing that he was in the safe, warm cocoon of his bed where nothing could hurt him.

The strange millennium puzzle rested on his nightstand less than three feet from him. It captured the smallest glitter of light, and even seemed to shine in the darkness as if it absorbed all and any luminosity. It was an enigma, that puzzle. It had got him friends: it had got him out of many a bad situation and given him a perplexing and often unfathomable spirit whose sole duty seemed to be a duty of protecting him. Yugi was not afraid of this mystic ghost: for the spirit emanated no harm or thoughts of harm towards him. If anything, this bewildering 'other self' did everything he could to protect Yugi and his friends. It was strange that this spirit knew exactly who Yugi held dear and who were automatically foes worth being wary of. And why the spirit looked so much like him was insanely peculiar.

Yet Yugi daren't ask this 'other presence.' It gave him goosebumps just thinking about interacting with this spirit, even if this spirit was harmless to him. There was something psychotic: something indiscernible and abysmal in this spirit's eyes. And it frightened it. It reminded him of crypts, chasms into hell: other worlds damned by God.

He'd rather not look at those eyes.

He didn't hate this presence. And he wasn't afraid of it either. It had given him friends. But still, he was unfounded by this haunting – this possession. He felt out of balance with it – out of depth. He failed to understand this loathsome darkness it carried, like a man wrought with unseen leprosy. And he had rarely confronted this spirit – because of those eyes.

Yes. He supposed he was afraid of those eyes.

The blackness was bitter and loose as it stretched out to find his unguarded self. The uncharted screams dripped red, and a white knife with a white grim glittered palely under a twitching, wine-red moon.

Someone was cowering in the still of night as seething tendrils of monstrous origin clamoured towards him. White hands clawed from above, hundreds of white hands. They crowded together like sallow branches with fingers as keen as needles. The tendrils snatched up the person's brittle legs and waist to squeeze and wring tight until blood pooled around the owner's rear. The strange, disembodied hands shuddered downwards like a sea of ill to strike at the person's throat. A face tried to thrust forwards from the grim as the person struggled to wrench into the fore – and he screamed. It was blood-filled as the coils sunk deeper into flesh and butchered the internals within.

Yugi saw the face. It was the face of his millennium spirit as he screeched in agony.

Yugi shot upwards in bed, sweating badly. The room was suddenly dangerous around him and full of spiteful evil. "Grampa! Grampa!" He felt like a five year old again afraid of the dark, and he didn't care about his pride. He wanted light – comfort – a friend! The nightmare was as visceral as blood on the walls – and the blackness in his room suddenly felt as close and as lethal as hate.

Solomon came to his doorway almost immediately and flicked on Yugi's bedroom light. "Yugi? What's wrong?" He plodded forwards, and when he saw the fresh tears on his grandson's face, he rushed on over to take Yugi into his arms.

"I... I had a nightmare, Grampa!" Yugi sobbed. He tried looking over his shoulder for anything amiss in his room – anything that surely foretold of the evil he felt. But there was nothing unusual. His toys looked down at him from above – the shelves were still lined with books. His schoolbag hung at the end of his bed. The walls were a calm, passive blue. There was no blood splattered on them. And the puzzle rested as it had always done on his nightstand.

"Oh, you had me so worried! It's been years since you cried out like that!" Grampa rubbed his back until Yugi's shivers had died done. "The last time you were this upset was when you were being bullied." He reluctantly pulled back a little and set warm, kind eyes on his grandson. "It's not those bullies again, is it?"

Yugi shook his head. Ironically what he had dreamt had been far, far worse than bullies. It was so awful in fact, that there was no way he could tell his grampa about it. He could barely face it himself. How did he ever come across such an imagination? "N-No, Grampa."

"Well, it's over now. I suggest you try and go back to sleep."

Yugi breathed in relief when his grampa showed no interest in what the nightmare was about. "Okay. Can you leave the light on?"

"Of course, Yugi." He smiled wearily and gave his grandson one last hug before heading for the door. He gave him one last parting wave, then trudged back to his own bedroom across the landing.

Yugi stayed sitting up in bed, clutching the bed sheets to his chest as if they could serve as some shield before an ultimate darkness hiding beneath his bed. His clock ticked on impassively – reading quarter past three in the morning. He felt foolish being scared now, in the face of normality. Yet still, the spirit's screams echoed horrifically in Yugi's mindscape.

Shoring up his courage, he pushed back the bed sheets and checked under the bed. Nothing lurked there, just old storage chests, a few battered duel monster cards and a pile of school books.

Breathing out a sigh, he turned to the puzzle. The rope curled around it like snakes. Tentatively he placed his fingers around it: expecting to feel horror or some ominous potency emitting from its depts. All he felt was the feel of solid gold in his grip.

He hung it round his neck and instantly, for some strange reason or intuition, he felt better. Perhaps the presence inside had needed comfort too? "Spirit?" He asked. His voice still rattled with trepidation. He received no answer. It was often this way after duels. It was as if the spirit was at times afraid to emerge. But after that nightmare, Yugi felt ready to confront those strange eyes of his.

Yugi settled back down into bed with the light still on, holding the puzzle cupped in both hands.

"Did you have the same nightmare?" He asked the puzzle. Or rather, was it the spirit's nightmare, and Yugi had picked up on it? It seemed that way.

Yugi closed his eyes.

Yugi confronted the spirit's door that was engraved with a large Egyptian eye. It smelt old and dusty – like a door to a long-forgotten tomb. All that was missing was the cobwebs.

Something fetid lurked within, like a febrile disease. Yugi sensed it more than saw or felt it.

As he stood there, gathering courage, he asked himself why he was so afraid. It wasn't like the spirit wanted to harm him – harming him was perhaps impossible for the spirit. So why did he feel so terrified?

Clenching his resolve and calling himself a fool for stalling, Yugi tried the handle. Most of the time the door was locked – however this time it opened easily as if it could possess no locks of any kind. It opened out into a deep, musty stone room that led into tunnels of cold darkness and promises. Yugi's footsteps echoed as he walked carefully within. The stone ceiling was high above him, and the walls that could be seen were covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs. But most of the walls and floor were of blank stone.

"Spirit?" He asked tentatively into the void. He remembered the nightmare of blood and biting tendrils, and held himself back in fright. What if they were in here too, with the spirit?

Nothing happened. The void did not answer; it merely seemed to stare back.

Yugi sensed that this was a test: a game. And the spirit was all about games.

"Spirit?" He tried again, forcing some urgency into his voice that sounded small and pitiful in this place of death and loneliness.

"Leave." The voice was low and small, barely audible. It seemed to echo from everywhere, and Yugi could not pinpoint it.

"Spirit! Why should I leave? I have come to see you! Is something wrong?"

"LEAVE!" The timid voice suddenly became a boom worthy of wracking thunder. The walls seemed to shake, the floor shuddered madly. Yugi struggled to keep his footing as everything boomed and oscillated – but Yugi knew somehow that this was all an illusion: a gambit to make him leave. And this made Yugi all the more determined than he had ever been before. If the spirit was afraid, then that pressed matters that Yugi could pursue.

"No!" He shouted into the wracking of stone and the grumble of walls. "I will not! Why are you hiding from me? Have I done you wrong?"

The walls suddenly slunk back into slumber, and the floor stopped shifting. Everything was silent once more – regressing into a solitude that was deafening in its quietude. Yugi sweated. He preferred the spirit's anger. That he could face and deal with, but not this isolated silence. It filled him with the unknown.

He walked forwards and as he did the space around him became clearer until he could see convoluted stairs above and before him, rooms that made no sense and gaps that seemed to fall into chasms of the abyss. "Stop hiding!" Yugi said.

"I must." Returned the spirit's deep voice.

"Why?" He could not believe he was having a discussion with the walls.

"To protect you."

"Again, why?"

"Must I explain it?" That chagrin again. It echoed from the spirit's voice like a clap of troubled thunder.

Yugi didn't even need to think of an answer to that one. "Yes!"

No answer returned. Yugi went to a door and shoved it open almost irefully. Beyond was another room almost identical to the one behind him. Its stairs ran like zigzags in all manner of direction, defying all order and law.

"When I was younger, I was afraid of you." He said, knowing that somewhere, the spirit was listening. "But not anymore! I realize now that there was never anything to be afraid of! If anything, you are afraid, and it rubbed off on me!"

Long, feverish laughter exploded within the room like the retort of machinegun fire. The room only shook slightly, but the macabre laughter seemed to leave a stain on the walls and the malignant shadows seemed to creep closer. Was this another test, or was the spirit off-kilter?

Yugi ignored it and approached another door to his right. When he opened it he had to take a step back. The floor was carpeted in human skulls.

"You woke me up from my shallow grave, Little One. I'm still trying to cope. You see, this is all I am."

Yugi tried to swing the door shut again, but a skull fell out and landed at his feet with its jaw slowly opening. Red orbs began to form in its empty sockets. Yugi reacted on instinct and kicked it as hard as he could. It went scattering off into the darkness.

"I'm trying to help you, as you helped me! Let me in!" He was shaken terribly by the skulls. It had to be another test, right? Right?

Oh god, he hoped that it was.

"Why do you insist on stepping further into my hell?" The spirit cooed.

Yugi turned, expecting to see the spirit, but there was nothing to see but stone walls and spiralling stairs that made no sense.

"That nightmare I had," he cried out as if to plea to whatever humanity the spirit still retained, "it was yours, wasn't it? I know you still have a heart. That's why you help me without question! That's why you watch over me! But you still fear! If you were truly a ghoul, you would have despaired long ago! Show yourself, please!"

His words seemed to have cast some kind of response that didn't irk the creature within the puzzle. Something sat slumped in one corner of the room. It was dark, and made no sound. Yugi battled down his anxiety and made himself walk slowly towards it, but he was half ready to run at the merest suggestion that this thing was some kind of demon.

He was ironically half right, but he didn't run.

What sat before him was a demon.

It was the spirit of the millennium puzzle.

He cradled the skull Yugi had kicked in the palm of his right hand. His bangs drooped over blood red eyes: the eyes that sung of madness and bitter lunacy. Yugi did his best to look at them without dropping his gaze.

The spirit looked the same as he always did: he had adopted the school clothes Yugi wore in the formal blue uniform. But in here he wore no millennium puzzle.

"I am here." The dead pharaoh muttered as though annoyed at his summoning. "Speak."

Yugi stood before him, and swallowed down his fear. He would not be overcome. "Your name?"

The spirit chuckled. It was a rich, deep sound. "I have none. You think being trapped in here for thousands of years will classify me as one with a name? I am but a husk of what I once used to be, and I refuse to believe that you came all the way down here simply to ask for my name."

His eyes were bright and red, like freshly spilled blood. Yugi tried to keep from looking at the skull he held. "Then I shall name you. Since you are a thing of the darkness, I shall call you 'Yami.' All things are better with a name."

"Is that so?" The spirit grimaced as if the name had some potent effect on his malice. He crushed the skull in one hand and it turned to dust on his lap.

Yugi forced himself to take a step towards the spirit. He kept moving, placing one foot in front of the other until he was right beside the spirit. Finally he slid down to the floor with his back to the wall beside him. His newly named demon did not move or show any hostility. If anything he stiffened – as if Yugi was the one who could hurt him.

"You fear me." Yugi said at last. "Why?"

His Yami did not speak or move. His eyes looked away.

"You want to be my friend, but you don't know how." Yugi concluded. The more his Yami showed signs of fear, the closer he knew he was getting to the truth. "You didn't show yourself to me for a long time, almost as if you preferred not to be known. Yet you helped me so much even if your terms were wrong. You killed people, Yami. You drove them mad as you yourself was mad. I want you to stop. I want you to stop setting people on fire. Stop making them explode. Stop it all."

"I did as I had to, to protect you."

He's so far gone that he doesn't see anything wrong in hurting or even killing people to protect me. Yugi sat and thought this over. Then he said, "No more. You're better than this. Killing is a terrible evil, and that's why you're not getting better. Let me enter your life, and I promise that your madness will go away."

"I am sane." He resounded bitterly.

"And enough with the dark games. Let duel monsters be your one and only game."

"Who are you to tell me what to do?"

Yugi smiled. "You have light in your life for the first time and you don't know what to do. But I know you are good inside."

"How would you know anything?"

"We found each other, Yami, and we look similar. That's got to be more than coincidence. Besides," he reached out, and despite his anxiety, touched Yami's chest. He felt something there – a light so deep inside that Yami had simply forgotten it. But Yugi could feel it reside within. He knew then that Yami was no demon – not really. Just a spirit who been alone too long.

Yugi did it on impulse after feeling that light deep within the spirit's heart.

He embraced him.

He didn't care about those mad eyes anymore, or the dangers the spirit possessed.

Yugi's spirit held the other, and Yami clenched, as if expecting pain. After awhile he unclenched and he softened, his tight, dark composure loosening until his stature lost its dour mien.

Yugi did not let go. Letting go too soon would send the spirit into further loss, he was sure. No, it was best to let him taste a nectar he never knew existed for a while longer.

"I had that nightmare, yes." Yami confessed after some time in the glow of Yugi's compassion. "And many like it. There are things in here – with me. They watch me – and I hear them sometimes, talking in the walls, but I know naught of what they say."

Yugi bit his lip. There was no one else here, and no other presence. It was all in Yami's head.

I'll rearrange him until he's sane. He's been shouting for help all this time, and no one has heard him for three thousand years.

He clutched him more deeply. Fear, mistrust and anguish about Yami had fallen away long ago, replacing it with the first feelings of love.

They sat together for a long time, and Yugi had not realized he had reposed until he opened his eyes. The room before him looked different. The walls and floor were no longer seething with untold darkness. Everything was lit, as if the very partitions were glowing. He could now see the expanse of the room, and every door and stairway on the ceiling. When Yami looked down at him, those confusing swirls of red hate and insanity reflected back in his eyes were shimmering down. In place were the first touches of amethyst.

"Thank you, Aibou." Yami said, calling him by a new title as if he had earned respect from him. "I think I can see a little more clearly now. The darkness no longer terrifies me as much. See? Your warmth seems to be spreading into even the darkest corners of my existence. Are you some kind of God?"

Yugi smiled gently. "If you're ever afraid again, my door is always open to you, understand? I want you in my life. Don't hide from me."

Yami nodded slowly. "I think I will become addicted to such warmth."

Yugi nodded and stood up, leaving the spirit's side. He was almost sure he'd see the same madness return fully to Yami's eyes, and see the skull back in his hand. But as he helped Yami to his feet, nothing ill returned. If anything, he had humbled the beast to some extent and Yami tried to smile. It was a failed attempt; he had a lot of learning to do, with madness still at his back.

"No more nightmares, okay?" Yugi asked him.

"No more nightmares."

A stroke of lightning raced across the windowpane, followed by a low rumble of thunder. Yugi awoke. The rain was still falling, causing shadows to ripple across his room. The light was still on and the time on his clock read four o'clock. The puzzle was still round his neck. It rested against his chest, warmed by his body heat. For a horrible moment he was sure he had just dreamed the whole thing, and that the spirit of the millennium puzzle was still some crazy, homicidal entity. But then he saw him – Yami – standing by his computer desk. He was looking at the things in his room as if for the first time. He was see-through, and his movements, though careful, were silent.

His eyes were of the warmest amethyst.

Yugi smiled and rose up to greet him.

Yami paused in his scrutiny of the room and tried to smile back. The corners of his mouth struggled to work.

Yugi decided that he rather liked looking at those eyes.

The End