Title: Shadows on Your Walls – Chapter One
Author: Demon Fritillary
Date posted: 20th of December 05
Summary: Ryou, disturbed by the foreboding yet possessed silence emanating from the Sennen Ring after Battle City, ventures into the soul room within, entering the domain of the usually less-than -hospitable Yami Bakura.
Warnings: Nothing major that I can think of. Rating is purely for safety's sake, and for blood, mild (implied) torture, OC death, and general stressing of the characters around-about chapter 3 and onwards. Some OOCness, depending on your POV of the characters, and me going overboard on description. ;p
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or any of the characters for the aforementioned programme.
Notes: 'blah' is thoughts,"blah" is spoken out loud, italics are memories and a change of scene.
Onward!
1. Room Beyond the Door
Feeling his feet touch solid ground, Ryou opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the sudden bright lights of his soul room, a sharp contrast to the peaceful darkness of his bedroom outside. He'd been in here before, usually against his will, forced into the small quiet room while the door was locked and barred from the outside by the spirit of the ring, allowing the thief to take complete control of their shared body.
As Ryou padded bare foot across the carpeted floor, the door sensed his approach and swept open to allow passage, closing behind him as silently as it had opened, leaving Ryou in the shadow-strewn corridor beyond.
Ryou occasionally wondered who the corridor belonged to. The respective soul rooms on either side changed at the owner's will and command, reflecting emotions and personalities like a living mirror, but the corridor that lay between them was a kind of no-man's-land; it's lighting and appearance changing apparently on a whim, obeying neither Ryou nor the thief, following some mystical pattern of its own. Currently it was reminiscent of a window-less school hallway; waist-high picture rail running its length, vanishing quickly into the shadows in both directions as the pale green walls were lit only by two dim lamps hanging from the ceiling, one above each door.
Standing in the small circle of light afforded by his lamp, Ryou gathered his thoughts, trying to reconcile his fears with the reason of why he had come. Without giving his pillar of belief time to falter, he strode across the darkened floor and, placing the palms of his hands flat against the cold stone of the opposing door, he pushed hard, hoping that (as the door had no visible handle) it opened inwards as his did.
The door jerked, swinging open with surprising ease, causing Ryou to be flung into the room. Glancing quickly up from his hands and knees, wide hazel eyes scanned the room, fearing a sharp rebuke for daring to enter. But the silence continued peacefully.
Climbing to his feet, Ryou quietly took in the dark stone-walled passage before him; one that almost immediately vanished into the shadows, the only light trickling through the open doorway at his back.
A sweep of air behind him caused the boy to turn just in time to see the stone door swing shut, slamming with a dull thud and blocking all light from the room. But at the moment it closed, instead of being swallowed by the dark, Ryou found himself surrounded by a blinding light that stung his eyes and scorched his fair skin. Crouching and shielding his face with his hands, he peered between his fingers to try and make out the source of the rays. However, in dropping a slim hand to the ground to support himself, Ryou was distracted to find fine-grained sand beneath his trainers, its dry warmth soaking through the soles while the brilliant white rays of a glowing sun above radiated off the sands and into his down-turned face.
The scorching sands swept about him, scratching at his skin, burning his face and hands. Squinting against the light and turning his back on the blinding sun high above, Ryou scanned the scenery.
'Not that there is much scenery' he thought mournfully as the desert stretched away in all directions as far as the eye could see, flat, hot and barren: a disconcerting barrier to any thinking of crossing it.
'Maybe that's what it is; a barrier.'
Yugi had once mentioned the pharaoh's soul room contained a labyrinth of stairs, corridors and trick doors (with his true soul room in its depths) to trap unwanted trespassers.
'Perhaps this is Bakura's version of a trap; an endless desert.'
Ryou sighed 'Alright, so he doesn't want me to find him. But this isn't exactly much of a deterrent, he's done worse to me than put me in the middle of nowhere.'
Picking a direction at random (one where he wouldn't have to look into the blinding light of the sun) the teen wanders calmly into the sands. As he walked the wind failed and drifted by half-heartedly as if unsure what to do in the face of the hikari's uncharacteristic determination.
Ryou continued at a slow but steady pace for an uncharted length of time, though he suspected that no real time passed here anyway, determined by the thief's will alone. The heat of the mental desert was beginning to get to him, causing his thoughts to crawl sluggishly in the warmth, while his feet itched as sand crept through tiny holes in his trainers to scratch at his feet.
Crouching down to tighten the laces in the hope that it would prevent the entry of any more grains, Ryou let his eyes focus lazily on the ground a few inches from his foot. He blinked. Where glittering yellow sand had been in sloping dunes only a moment before, dry pale brown dirt now packed tightly to form a hard dry surface under his white trainers. Puzzled and surprised by the sudden change Ryou lifted his gaze to be met with a wall seemingly made of the same dried mud as the ground. Pushing himself up and away from the wall, he stared around at the new scene.
The desert had apparently faded away to be replaced by a town, the houses no more than simple huts made from a combination of mud brick and plaited thatch. Stepping into a larger street than the alley he had found himself in, Ryou began to explore waking between the silent structures. Many had no windows, only blank single-storey face with an open doorway in the centre and no roof except a thin woven material that reminded the teen of the old beach mats rolled up in his loft, gathering dust. There was dust here too, sandy yellow sprinkles that wafted across the deserted streets collecting in worn ruts of the wide dirt track between the houses.
The gentle breeze became still as the sun sank below the horizon, a cold chill seeping into his bones as the temperature dropped rapidly. Time seemed to speed up as the stars quickly spread over the darkening sky, heralding the on-coming night.
The moon rose; cold, pale and cruel in the deep blue. Night had fallen and the ghostly beams of light seared down from a cloudless sky. The abandoned village lay silent, a breathless hush seeping through the town; waiting and watching as a lonely figure stepped from the shadows to stand alone in the light, swathed in pale robes. His shoulder-length hair, bleached by nature and the desert sun to the colour of bone, hid his face in darkness: two bright slivers of light that gleamed in the shadowed face were the only suggestion that the creature had eyes or features of any kind.
As silently as he had appeared, his slim bare feet making no sound on the dusty earth, the figure moved slowly down the long main street, swaying slightly as he walked, as if in a trance or dream. At the far end of the street, a large structure made completely of stone (unlike the smaller peasant's huts) marked the town centre, its imposing façade edged with darker granite that had been polished until it gleamed, reflecting the moon's light into the face of the approaching figure and leaving the interior invisible in the darkness beyond the wide open doorway beneath the arches.
As he reached the rows of steps leading into the temple, he dipped his brow as if in recognition of the ancient place of worship, and without further pause, strode purposefully up the steps and vanished into the shadows beyond.