Prologue

"Fire! Help, fire!" The shout reached my dreams, plagued by fire and death, before filtering through my thoughts.

I knew that voice. My eyes shot open. "Father?!" I yelled, jumping out of bed. I had to half close my eyes as the smoke in my room was so thick. I had seen smoke before, obviously, but never this close. It was then that I figured that it must have been our house on fire.

Quickly, I moved across the floor to the ladder leading out of my room in the barn, above the animals. The ladder led outside, and soon I was racing across the yard to help my father carry water from our well to the spreading fire.

As I rushed back forth with the bucket, out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a crowd beginning to gather around our home. They had obviously been woken by the bright flames and the loud crackling of the fire devouring our home. If not that, surely my father's shouts would have caused their appearance.

Some of the people returned the way they had come. I hope they would return with buckets, to assist in putting out the fire, and not be running home, with their tails between their legs. The cowards I had come to know.

The majority of the crowd just stayed in place, watching as if we were an act from the few traveling carnivals that made it up to our harsh climate.

I had to take a break from putting out the fire as the smoke in my windpipe caused me to almost cough up a lung. "Well, what are you all waiting for?" I wheezed loudly. "Help us!" I yelled slightly louder, my voice cracking with effort.

As if my words had broken a spell, almost half of the crowd disintegrated and after several minutes, to my infinite relief, I saw their figures returning, turned into shadows by the low sun.

I was correct; they were coming back, all holding pails, buckets, whatever they could find.

Our climate was very dry, and we often had fires like the one that was currently affecting my house. For those who had been involved or close, they had much practice to putting out fires such as these. They formed a long line from the epidemics to our water source and passed the buckets down their line and back, keeping a steady flow of water coming.

And yet, even as the fire turned to smoke, there were still those who watched. Why did they just stand there and not help? Was there truly something wrong with helping people in need?

This was the second time in my life I had ever doubted the ideals my father had driven into me. The ones my mother believed in whole-heartedly. The ones that would supposedly keep me alive. Why, then, did so many people not follow the laws?

It was simple. Because it didn't affect them. The ideals that had been preached to me my entire life fell through in an instant.

They could never become reality because of human nature.

Humans were selfish.

My realization came with the end of the fire. All that was left of my home was a charred barn and a slowly moving trickle of selfish humans muttering their false condolences, while really thinking about how glad they were it hadn't been them.

But what about...? Our animals, in the bottom level, were they okay?

When I was younger, I often would sit in the bottom to read, pressed up against our cows' stomachs. Out of all the animals, I had two favourites, Isis and Rishid, since they were of the best temperament.

"Father!" I said walking up to him slowly, dreading the words I was certain I would hear. "Did Isis and Rishid…?"

He stared at me before very slightly shaking his head.

"I… I have to…" I turned to the barn and began walking towards it. They couldn't have conceivably survived, but I still needed to see myself. For better or for worse.

Slowly, I attempted to crack the door open, but all I managed to do was cause it to fall inwards, as it was so blackened by the fire. I took one step inside, and then another, before hearing an ominous creaking noise coming from right above my head. "Marik!" My father's voice?

I suddenly found myself switching places with him.

He had pushed me outside of the barn.

But he was trapped inside. I didn't even have enough time to say anything. The creaking turned into a roar and the roof caved in. I knew that even if anything had survived the fire, it was surely dead.

Even my father.

I knew there could not possibly be anyone who could respond, still, simply out of shock, I found myself saying, "Dad?"

As I predicted, there was no answer.

CZR: "This has been bugging me for practically a year. I despised the first draft of this story, and so I truly had to rewrite it. I hope this one is much better than the original."

Marik: "CZR doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh, no matter how much she wishes she did."

CZR: "And, oh... do I ever."