Snapshots on Human Nature
By: ACE329
Disclaimer: I do NOT NOT NOT own Yu-gi-oh! ©
Summary: Seven sins, seven individuals who are particularly predisposed to a certain one. Who is a victim to wrath? To gluttony? To lust…? Find out. Ficlets.
A/N: Understand that with every sin I attempt to portray, I try to justify the character's actions…no matter how ridiculous they are. This one's pretty abstract!
Temptation 2: Gluttony- Ryou Bakura
It was a foreshadowing when, in the book of Genesis, Eve could not resist the forbidden fruit.
Humans desire what they cannot have.
And there are many things that I lack. I do not have any real friends. I have no family, and arguably no future.
Right now that doesn't matter.
What I want, what I lust after incessantly, is control.
What can I do next? When is the next time I will be able to act on my own free will?
I don't know.
There is an insatiable thirst burning within me, just to be able to have a say in my own life.
I am a prisoner in my own body, a slave to someone else's own will.
I bow down to the ancient Sennen ring that encircles my neck like the chains that confine a criminal.
The spirit, who uninvitingly resides in my body, is merciless.
I am nothing to him. Ryou Bakura is not a person- rather, a thing. A vessel, a tool.
He does not care whether or not he butchers my life into millions of little pieces.
I am the ground he walks on, the dust beneath his feet.
Today I woke up with the sound of wind howling in my face. It was bitingly cold, engulfing me in numbness.
As usual, I had no idea where I was. As far as I could tell, I was outside, on the roof of a tower.
Crawling on my raw hands and knees, I had to peer over the building to have an idea where I was at.
A stray pebble slid off the roof and into the unforeseeable abyss below, falling continually towards the ends of the earth.
I had to have been at least ten stories suspended in the air.
I stared blankly at the rock while it sped ever downward, vaguely remembering that my yami had lost a duel in one of Kaiba's insane tournaments.
It was too bad that duel was a Shadow game. My body was clearly the easily discarded sacrifice.
I'm assuming all the wrongs had finally been righted in the competition though, for there I was, back with the living.
But I didn't feel alive. No, I never did.
I woke up feeling empty.
For the time being, my yami's soul was absent- undoubtedly trying to find a way to worm his way back into my life again.
More than that though, I awakened feeling vacant- body, mind and soul.
And so, reasonably enough, I wanted to fill up…I didn't care how, I just wanted to feel something.
Anything.
I shakily rose from the crumbling roof, allowing my legs to adjust, for they hadn't been in use for quite a while. They ached as I wobbled to the descending staircase nearby.
I climbed down those steps and into the nearest hallway with a sense of purpose.
I roamed and scrounged the premises until I found what I had been seeking.
It was a small room, like a storage room or pantry. And inside were boxes of food. This must had been where the chefs kept their food supply.
There was everything I had hoped for and much more inside this room. It would be perfect.
I plopped down in the center of the room, sprawling my sore legs out in front of me.
I grasped the box nearest to me, drawing it in close. I peered inside. The contents consisted of mostly bread, just plain old white bread, but I didn't care.
With a lack of grace I ripped open a bag, letting access pieces of bread tumble to the floor.
Soon my greedy fingers clasped onto several slices as I unceremoniously started cramming them into my mouth.
I barely allowed myself a chance to breathe, for half-consumed morsels were being dumped down my throat.
Seeing a crate packed with fruit, I dropped my partially consumed bread and began grabbing away, taking what was not mine.
There were berries of all kinds, grapes, bananas, apples…I planned to devour every variety that was at my disposal.
I opted for the berries first, seduced by their fragrant summery scent.
Fragile berries exploded under my eager grasp, sluggishly oozing its sweet juices down my hands, my wrists.
My fingers were soon dyed from the syrupy substance, being marked with summer's blood on my hands.
My lips were stained a murky bluish-purple, like a bruise.
My eyes greedily discovered a fridge, likely containing more sustenance to stuff inside my already protesting body.
I turned a deaf ear to my stomach's rebellious cries for mercy. Louder than those protests was my heart, desperately screaming, 'Fill me up fill me up fill me up.'
I brought a jug of grape juice to my tainted lips.
Tilting my head back, I let the liquid sugar cascade down my throat, with excess juice trickling down the corners of my ravenous mouth.
I feasted on every scrap my hands could reach until I felt my stomach threatening to purge itself.
I suppressed this urge as a pleased smile spread over my lips, as slow and sure as dripping molasses.
This feeling, this sense of being full, was my high, my sweet release.
The rush I got, for being able to feel something, was my one and only connection to the world.
I am human.
My body can fill up with my sense of forbidden fruit, and it is still capable of hurt.
Finally my stomach won its revolt as I instinctively sat up, reached for the nearest box, and heaved into it. All the food I had deposited into myself was being forced back out, leaving me feeling exhausted and drained.
Done with my business, I collapsed back on the floor, depleted.
I closed my eyes, listening to my ragged breathing and groaning stomach.
A sickly smile was still plastered on my face.
Brushing away the bangs that clung to my sweat-soaked forehead, I forced myself to reach for a blood red apple.
Inexplicably, staring at the soon-to-be-devoured fruit in my pale hand, I began to laugh at myself.
It was a humorless laugh, a ghost of a laugh, but perhaps it reverberated with a touch of insanity as I realized how hauntingly similar it sounded to my yami's.
My frail body shook with frantic laughter, growing in volume until it resounded off the bare walls of the abandoned room.
Would anybody hear me?
Did I even care?
I could see my contorted reflection in the apple, the fruit of Eden.
My eyes looked cold. Within those muddy pools that I scarcely believed were my own eyes, secretly, they begged for help.
For salvation.
My sorry image dissolved when raindrops of guilty tears fell from my cloudy eyes, privately knowing that no, Ryou Bakura does not have control.
And so I continued to eat.
