STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET

AN: I normally like to put these at the end but I'm switching things up! This story has now been completed. It will be 21 chapters in total and will be updated bi-weekly (Monday and Thursday). I am SUPER happy with it and spent a lot of time on it. I worked really hard to keep this as canon as possible. Reviews are SUPER appreciated and LOVED!

PROLOGUE: ABYSS

The air had stank of rotten flesh as the last embers of what was once a city,

…a life,

…a home,

had risen into the air, only to be swallowed by the darkness.

Seto's legs throbbed as his feet dragged through the hot desert sand. He would never get that image out of his head. Of seeing his entire life and being eaten by flames.

And that blinding white light that had incinerated those responsible.

His mind and body were in a daze, he couldn't go much further—each step seeming to take all his will power. The darkness was eating away at him like a leech. He was sure to die out here. Left only with the images of his life vanishing in an instant.

For that had been the cost for the girl's freedom. He didn't even know her name, the girl with white hair and blue eyes. And the beast that had appeared—it was like a God shining in the darkness. Seto didn't understand any of it. He had watched that beast until it had disappeared back into the night. He had closed his eyes, holding onto its image until he no longer could remember its every detail. It had saved him.

And afterwards he had searched through the rubble of this broken city for his mother. Crying over her remains for forgotten hours. He didn't know what to do or where to go, surrounded by the desert—no one in sight for miles.

He may have escaped those men but it should be here that he would die. The desert was dangerous—morning and night. The sand quickly cooling as the cold air swept through. Seto shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. He wiped at his red, swollen eyes. He tried to be a man but he was still just a child. A child alone, wandering an endless abyss of sand until it should swallow him up like so many before him.

With one last pained step he collapsed into the sand, his vision slowly fading as he let the darkness take him. It should come as no surprise that it would end like this.