I do not own Yugioh. I just intensely love Yami Bakura's character.

White Rabbit Blanketed in Shadows

by Luiniliel

Summary: Not all things remain perfectly intact over time. Sometimes those things need to be repaired before history can start up properly again.

AU plotline BEFORE the "Magic and Monsters" cards are "created" by Pegasus. Deals with theme of reincarnation, makes mention of pop culture, drug use, intercourse.

The authoress does not condone or suggest that anyone should attempt what has been listed in this story. Actions were written to mimic the feelings of the 60's counter-culture. Stealing, drug use, underage drinking, and rape, of any sort, is illegal in most localities, the authoress asks that you follow your local laws and regulations.

The rating for this story is MATURE for a reason. It is marginally graphic, but if you wish not to be met with such scenes then I ask that you NOT READ it, or that you follow the warning I will give in the story to skip reading certain paragraphs.

Perhaps it was my family history that made me so reluctant to accept that there is something beyond this singular realm of existence that I saw every morning I woke up. I grew up with stories about things moving on their own and predictions that sounded strange only to become true later on. My mother refused that allow that into her home, and I follow the same route. Instead we order it away, "Leave me alone, you do not belong here. Do not touch me, do not show yourself to me, do not allow me to smell you, etc."

It took me a while to realize that there was a strong reason for that.

The first time I realized that there was something other than myself in an empty room.

I must have been about thirteen or twelve years old. I don't remember why but, it was either a punishment or out of the goodness of my own heart, I was vacuuming the floor of my parents bedroom. In either case, I felt uncomfortable, like something was staring hard at me. I turned on all the lights in the bedroom, eliminating as many shadows as possible.

I suppose I will now decide to inject that there was something in the basement. I couldn't see it so much as I knew it was there. My mom has told me since then that she would see in between the twilight of light and dark, when the single light bulb down there slowly flickered into existence. It was out of habit that I never looked anywhere but at the ceiling when I turned the light on by myself. In either case it scared me and I would only tolerate it with an adult in the room with me when dealing with laundry.

Back to the main story, I had turned all the lights on in the bedroom. It was very bright, and there was few shadows, yet I still felt like there was something staring at me. Stalking me, like a giant cat, I felt it slinking around. It was dumb of me, but I had to bend down in order to get the cord that slipped out of my grasp. I couldn't chance the vacuum sucking it up. In either case, I think something, whatever it was, I'm blaming that poltergeist downstairs, tackled me, in the "meta-spiritual" sense. It was like being pushed out into space, there was no up or down, I was standing and sitting and laying on my back and standing on my head all at once. In either case, I couldn't move. I have to thank my grandfather, who maybe I blamed (just ever-so-sightly) for all the paranormal stuff, for he pulled me by the front of my shirt and placed me back in my body.

That thing, whatever it was, is gone now, my dad having chased it out with a saw and hammer by remodeling the basement into a more "dust-free" environment for the new washer and dryer my parents had bought at the time. I am very glad to have it gone, and I have no intention of ever allowing something to "get me" like that ever again.

It makes little sense to me, knowing my history, that I would have bought a strange artifact that "spoke" to me. It needed repairs, and then I knew little, next to nothing, about jewelry making, but I was walking happily with my best-friend in the parking lot of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena looking at all the old knickknacks and keeping an eye out for food. It was the brief gleam of light that bounced off it that caught my attention, further inspection made me only more desirous. An eye of Horus, without the tail, inside of a triangle, loose pieces of stuff that I assumed used to jangle, and an empty hoop with a loop at the top for a cord.

Admittedly, I was distracted by this total Californian babe in charge of the booth. He was hot, looked about twenty-five, and the way his hair hung down his back and across his shoulders made me lust. Either way, apparently his grandparents died and left behind all this stuff, the good stuff all went in an auction, blah blah, lots of Egyptian artifacts from his great-great grandfather who was in Napoleon's army or something or another. In either case he was a total child of mother earth and, in hindsight, all the story he told me should have been taken with a grain of salt, if it wasn't true.

In any case, I got the gold-like items for a decent price. Another crafting both sold me leather cord so I could make the necklace out of it, and this other junk pile had a book on soldering precious metal attached to a soldering iron. It completely eliminated my cake-buying budget, but this was what I wanted at the time.

My best-friend just gave me this insufferable look saying, 'You'll regret it later on,' while selfishly munching on brownie.

I figure it probably took me months after that to get to working on repairing the damn thing anyway. I shoved it all in the back of my closet, to hide it from my mom, and forgot about it during finals and college applications. Senior year of high school dragged. It was when 'senior-itis' hit me hard with apathy that I dug it out and set to repairing it by first organizing how all of the pieces must have fit together. It was when I got it correct that I received my first vision from it.

Or sleeping with my head hanging off of the bed caused the blood to pool in my brain and caused these trippy dreams.

Those dreams I sometimes jokingly, sometimes not, refer to as my past lives. Most of the time I'm a general in Alexander of Macedonia's army who dies on horseback with a spear through the heart. Occasionally I'm a lady in Marie Antoinette's private court. This time however, I was this bad-ass thief king in Egypt who arose from the bloodied sands of this small village to challenge the "almighty" pharaoh. It went against my gentle nature, but it spoke through me, like to the center of my soul man.

Of all the "dream-visions" I've had this one was the worst. I've felt the pain of a spear through my chest, I've felt the fear of anarchy and revolution, but I've never felt the pain of watching one's own loved ones die, and the anger, hurt, loneliness that comes from living such a dangerous life. I've never had a reason to disrespect the gods, or God, but I suddenly loathed those 'self-righteous' beings more than anything. The world and the universe was unjust, and it was like I was seeing it for the very first time. I felt heady with hatred for the world.

The only thing that mattered was me.

It started little but soon after I was stealing small things. Unattended things that I felt I either deserved or simply desired. I almost never felt guilty. I was also never caught. Those strange thefts plagued the school until summer let out and my class graduated, to this day I don't believe that anyone ever suspected me. This flower child had secret thorns.

It was that following summer, between swimming every day and looking for my first job that I finally set to repairing that metal trinket I had picked up. Repairing it was a cinch. It was like instinctively I knew what it was supposed to look like. The triangle and the eye set in the center of the hoop, loop on top, and the five dangles arranged perfectly spaced on the bottom. It was also then that I discovered it was pure gold and I had no need to buy solder for it. A gentle touch with the soldering tip and the gold softened enough to attach all the pieces back to each other. I threaded the leather thread I had bought along with it and after chewing on it for a while to soften it up like my Native American brethren, I wore it for the first time.

It was like waking up fresh in the morning and eating a well-balanced breakfast after a rejuvenating jog in the park. It felt like jumping into an ice-cold pool on a hot summer's day. It was ice-cream, soft and cool down your throat.

I quite swimming once the swim instructor ordered me to take it off. I took to wearing slightly baggier blouses in order to hide my golden trinket, and I stopped wearing bras so that more skin could feel it.

I still felt a need to be athletic so I took to running in the mornings, soon I was going faster and doing more miles that ever before. I could have trained to run a marathon if I felt that my college schedule would have allowed it.

I got a job in a small office answering phones and routing calls. I dressed semi-professionally out of courtesy to the company, and not because I ever needed to meet any customers. In any case no one ever asked me about the lump I had hidden underneath my shirt and vest.

I saved my money for school supplies, college would be expensive and I didn't know how much I would need. Financial aid would cover a lot but, would it be enough?

In either case I dormed freshman year. Co-ed, which was exciting since the guys across the hallway were fine! The hallway was very relaxed and filled with sexual tensions. It was the first time I've drank alcohol and let things get away, but I must have blanked out because everyone told me how Joey hit on me and I punched him straight in the nose giving him two black eyes. Those blackouts came more and more frequent and soon I stopped the fun experimentation that was going on around everywhere. It was around dead week, I don't remember if it was fall or winter quarter, that it was the first time I tried 'shrooms. I was getting really stressed and my roommate, who was a total black-woman-female-power-feminist, decided that I needed a break. I suppose I should then explain the craziest trip of my life.

Apparently, when I'm high I get really calm. My friends said they tripped out on how calm I was, just staring at a spot on the wall. It must have been some vicious cycle for them that night. They made me trip out, staring at a wall, then they tripped out, staring at me who was staring at a wall, and then when I started calming down and taking in my surroundings I tripped out some more on them tripping out on me who was now tripping out on them. It was a good trip overall though, for all of us.

In either case, despite my calm outward expression, inside I was flying. I ate the 'shroom with a little bit of ketchup and I felt like Alice through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole, or Frodo and his ring. Man, I was on this crazy quest to figure out where the hell I was, though I felt I knew that I was inside the golden trinket, my little precious. It was this amazing maze that appeared all around me. I was outside this little maze I was too large to fit into, but when I was looking for a small glass bottle to drink or a biscuit to eat, I realized that I was standing inside of a maze that surrounded the smaller maze. I felt myself starting to trip badly. Was I out of the maze? Or was I inside the maze? In either case colors started to whirl and the maze started to move. I was going to be crushed by stone columns and walls.

I panicked and grasped at the air all around me, somehow I grabbed a doorknob and twisted. With no white rabbit to lead me I was lost, but the room I found myself in was stark white and completely empty. I calmed down considerably with the lack of threatening colors. I wanted to explore more, I felt that if I looked I might find my totem animal guide. I opened the one door in the room and found myself not in the maze again but in this hallway with two other doors. I opened the first one I reached it and it was like walking into my happy place. Photos of my family and friends lined the walls and shelves, books lay everywhere, pages overfilled with stories and knowledge, some object glistened like diamonds when the soft sunlight filtered through the top of a large tree in the middle. A swinging bed hung from a sturdy branch and when I crawled into it it rocked slowly, but it was as soft as kitten's fur and goose down. I rubbed my face against the blankets and pillows. I settled to take a nap when a voice interrupted my quite time. I had spoken. It seemed as though this new voice of mine was not used to speaking because it croaked awkwardly while I cleared my through before trying the same words again. "Where am I?" I voiced this question more to myself than to anyone.

A deep sultry voice answered me. "You are in your spirit room, my host." I turned to look at a dark figure in the doorway. It stepped into my room, but the light did not illuminate his face and instead it was like the shadows followed him, crawled all over him. He stopped short of my bed.

I found my voice, "And you are?"

"I am you, my host." I tripped out on that statement even if I was already falling down from my high. The colors in my room changed and became violent, stabbing my pupils in outrageous swirls and combinations. I was drowning in the bad trip and I felt strong arms pulls my off of my bed and out into the hallway I had entered from.

When I came to I was in the empty room again. Blank and calming, I stared up at the ceiling from my spot on the floor. I got up and looked for that mysterious character again. I though to look in my 'spirit room' but the thought of all that chaos again made me dizzy. I walked towards that second door and I knocked. It opened wide and I could see that figure again, sitting on something large, and like my room there was no evidence of a mze. I stood staring before I asked if I could come in, I received no answer so I walked in.

Torches flared to life with my steps into what was an Ancient Egyptian tomb. The figure, who had a coat covering his head and everything was sitting on a sarcophagus, a knife stuck downward in the face of some pharaoh or high priest. I was silent as all noise left me. I only approached that figure slowly and was met with the fiercest blue-gray eyes I have ever seen. Eyes that stood fiercely against the tanned background of his skin.

My heart fluttered and I whispered a delicate, "Hello." He smirked back at me and his cheek distorted the doubly crossed line over his right eye. Looking at him was like looking into a deep well of water. I could have drowned. His eyes were just so amazing, I got lost in them. I shook my head and blinked a little to clear my mind. "Who are you, really?"

"I am a thief and a stealer of souls." He slipped the hood off his head and I saw this snowy mane of irregularly cut hair with jagged edges. I was enchanted with his whole appearance entirely. I collapsed under the weight of my own body on unsteady legs. It took me a while to move past the brilliant eyes and hair, past the dark tan to the strong broad shoulders and the sculpted torso. My eyes thirstily drunk his appearance in, I found my eyes trailing his "treasure trail" of hair that ended underneath his wrap. From my position on the floor I could easily see up his wrap and I felt my entire body blush and heat up. It must have been the blush that spread across my cheeks and over my exposed skin that prompted him to move. He walked to a corner of the room that had a bed made up of fine linens and the furs of animals.

MATURE CONTENT

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"Girl, come here." He patted the spot next to him in his nest and I obediently trotted over despite the weakness in my knees. I sat down and just continued to stare at him. I shivered as his hands gently slid up my thighs and underneath my mini skirt to relieve me of my panties. I was memorized by his beauty and put no complaint at allowing him to touch unworthy me. He lay me down gently and undid his wrap. My denim skirt pushed up to my waist and he began the age old dance of man and woman while I lay calmly underneath him, my hands softly playing with the strands that fell around his face when he leaned forward to kiss me. I shuddered at the sheer bliss and felt him do the same. His head rested in the crook of my neck while I still softly played with his hair and rubbed my hands over his back and shoulder blades.

He rested entirely on top of me, his face buried in my long white-blonde hair, panting. Slowly I felt him stir again, I had thought he'd fallen asleep. He kissed my neck softly and trailed kisses all over. He undid my top and lifted me up to sit on his lap. He rocked our bodies together while staring of my mostly unclothed body. I obediently hung my arms around his neck while he made all the movement. I felt him shudder and collapse against me again, burying his face in the same shoulder. This time he had awoken a fire inside of me that pushed him onto his back while I made all the action. I shuddered, clenched and heard him moan loudly with his last shudder as I nearly collapsed from the joining of soul.

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END MATURE CONTENT

I then came to, staring at a brown spot at the wall where Carlos had threw the coffee grinds yesterday. The mysterious figure was no where in sight.

I mentioned it to my friends and they teased me mercilessly. They called him my white rabbit. They might have been on to something as every night I found myself following him.

It was like he met me solely for sex at the beginning, but as time went on he grew comfortable around me, cracking jokes and telling me pieces of his history. It still took me months to find out his name though. He was born with the name Akefia, but 'worked' underneath the name of Bakurah. I learned the tragic history of his past, of the evil Egyptian pharaoh, of the other items, similar and different from the one I had gotten a hold of. He told me that he was the only one awake at the time, that while he could sense the other items faintly, they were not in use and finding them would only get as close as what country they were in.

That went on for years and we established a decent relationship. We saw fads and fashion change, and when disco came along I no longer had to hide the Millennium Ring underneath my shirt. I grew older and worked as a professor in a university teaching creative writing classes. I've written and published several stories and all of them were thanks to him who allowed me to bounce story ideas off of him. He was very analytical and an excellent planner with a keen eye for details. I would like to think that I kept him sane between all those years, restraining his more wilder impulses, even if I did wake up some mornings wearing only a new fancy trinket I know he didn't pay for.

It was January of 1979 when I woke up in the middle of night with my necklace floating in mid-air, glowing and one of its dangles pointing. I ran to grab the globe in my home office and spun it around. The necklace finally stopping it by impaling a dangle in a country. "Bakurah, there's something awake in Egypt."

Bakurah didn't answer me. I figured he was thinking and so I left him alone, but it was my mistake. With the awakening of another Millennium item something else awoke as well. Bakurah became more hostile, less talkative. He wouldn't cuddle after coitus like before, and the act itself became painful for me when he threw himself at me like he intended to break my pelvic bone. I soon stopped willingly showing up in my mind, but he would sometimes grab me and force me. I became scared. Bruises that appeared in my mind also appeared visible on my body. It was like something had possessed him.

When it became too much for me to bear I threw the Millennium Ring away. It came back, and with a vengeance. I actually had to take myself to the emergency room because my nose was broken and my jaw dislocated. I claimed that I was mugged in an alley, because who would believe that this ancient spirit in a golden item was possessing my body sometimes and causing me physical harm.

It was almost a relief when Shadi showed up a few weeks after that. I was recuperating in my house and was at my wits end. The ring hung off a shelf and I would sometimes just stare at it for hours, like back when I was this crazy college student who liked to do drugs. I just didn't know what to do. My Bakurah was being possessed by something evil and I couldn't even ask anyone for help. I felt weak and shattered.

Shadi won the spirit game. I was then, at that point in time, not the proper ring bearer. My mind broke, and in my loneliness and sadness I died running out into the street, clutching my head to keep the fragments from falling out my ears and nose.

Ryou shot up, gasping for breath. He could not explain that dream to himself. He had told his mother often about the pain of getting hit by a large bus and of being abandoned by a loved one. She told her it was traumatic for a young boy and that he shouldn't watch television, despite her watching everything he was allowed access to. It was after the accident, when there was no one left to comfort him except for his father, who slapped him after hearing that story, that Ryou made sure to forget it. It does not explain why it decided now to come back. Perhaps it was that package his father sent him in the mail, that young Ryou was too afraid to open.

Soft padded footsteps sounded their way into the little kitchenette where the table sat with just one plain brown package tied with twine. Small, dull bunny-eared scissors slowly ate at the twine before Ryou was able to slide it off the package and tear open the present. A brilliant golden ring shown up at him, the eye of Horus catching the soft light from his bedroom lamp. Lifting it out of the box there were little dangles as well as a soft leather cord to use it as a necklace. His father had written a note. "Happy Birthday Ryou."

Ryou carried it like a sacred object to the bathroom mirror, where he climbed up on the counter to try it on. It was like trying on an old glove that had already been molded perfectly to your hand.

For the first time, in a long time, Ryou didn't feel quite so alone anymore. Thoughts that were not quite his seemed to drift through his sleepy thoughts about having the ring back, and he thought, when he woke up in his own bed and not on top of the bathroom counter, that he heard someone whisper to him.

In either case, for some strange reason, he felt a bit like Alice on the verge of entering Wonderland. Now, he just needed to find a white rabbit to follow.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the story. For those of you who didn't, I hope that it wasn't because you ignored my warnings. I understand that there are underaged children on this website but I hope that their judgement, and especially the judgement of their guardians who monitor their online activities, had prevented any accidental viewings.

I do not own Yugioh, nor its affiliated characters and trademarks.

I do not own Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass, nor its affiliated characters and trademarks.

I do not own Lord of the Rings, nor its affiliated characters and trademarks.