So I had an unrevised version of this up on my page a while ago under the name of "Through the Hourglass", where it was supposed to become a story. Since that idea kinda died, I decided to go back through it for practice and post this as a one-shot. Yugioh is property of Kazuki Takahashi.

Unreachable

I gained control of my senses only to believe that I had lost them permanently. I could think no differently in my state of mind as my hands tried to reach out in front of me. They hit glass.

Was it glass? I opened my eyes. I hadn't moved, I didn't think, and my eyes blurrily captured the outline of my hand pressing against the air. Was it air? Was it… neither?

I was sitting on it, too. Squatting. I looked down, and saw that I was tens of feet in the air, floating, but trapped and unable to move, breaking physical laws as if I were not in the same universe in which I had been born. A beach spread below me, Phuket in its prime, perhaps, stretching far to my left and far to my right. Straight ahead, I saw the open sea. A baby-blue sky shone past the drifting smoke-white clouds.

Where am I? Where did everybody go? My voice sounded strained, filtered through some cheap technology of Kaiba's.

My answer is right there – Yugi. Téa. Duke. Having fun on the beach, in the water, enjoying themselves, and they don't know I'm right here, suspended in fear, forced to beg for their help.

Look out, here come the Wheelers! I hear a familiar voice bellow. It's Joey and his sister, running in their bathing suits to join their friends. It's no use – my fists, banging on whatever substance is keeping me here, are getting sore, and they still don't notice me. They seemed unreachable. Stop wasting energy, you're losing what you need most -

"Scream all you want, my dear, they can't hear you," He says, appearing next to me on the other side of the translucent veil, His eyes glittering in glee. "But they seem to be having fun. They don't miss you at all, my dear."

The impact of His words almost seemed to validate them. But back then, I didn't want to believe it; He was a crackpot, a psychopath, just like I am now, I suppose. I just wanted to know where I was – knowing my fears were real was not in my interest at the time.

"Now are you beginning to understand where you are?" He mocks, reading my mind like an open book. I can remember now – am I still cold? It can't still be January, can it? It's too warm. This must be where he put me. Where the Sennen Rod told me to go – no, where it sent me.

"It's sort of a living nightmare," Marik cackled, daring to say the words. What would he do, exactly, though?

I started. Hell, but he can read my mind. I did not just ask that question –

"You'll be completely alone for the rest of eternity. And here you'll sit, day after day in isolation, as your friends disappear." He was standing, leaning on the casing, now. I looked up at him and for the first time saw the shape of my container – it was like an hourglass, and sand filled the top portion. Luckily, the stopper was still there.

Why did you think that

"I hope you enjoy your stay in the Shadow Realm," he said, causing me to remember, for the last time, where I was, what he was doing, what would happen to me. "Oh, and one last thing."

He pulled out the stopper, and showed it to me. His damn god card. Sand began drifting, as if it were falling through water and not oxygen, down, down, slowly, slowly.

"I'm taking back my card."

I hear myself cry in panic, but those aren't my thoughts at all. Your name is Mai Valentine. Marik Ishtar beat you in a duel during Seto Kaiba's Battle City tournament and sent you to the Shadow Realm. My temples pulse as I attempt to rush through everything I've ever known. Remember. Remember. Remember! Don't go insane!

And then I heard him.

"Hey, Mai." It's his voice. Joey's voice. Everything goes black in my mind, and as I shriek in vain for him not to leave, it's as if his profile, one last remnant, appears before me, through the hourglass, unreachable.

"Later."

His eyes, warm and kind, turn to stone, then to sand, and the pieces of the apparition drift down onto the beach below, where they seem to vanish before raining down upon the apparitions of my friends.

"No! Please! Come back!" I don't want to look at these illusions scampering around, torturing me. I want you…

"Marik, you evil son - "

But I caught myself, as there was only silence now; his evil laugh had died out earlier. All I could do was raise cupped hands toward the roof of my prison-cell in the sky, vainly trying to capture memories I could do nothing but lose.