Again, read please:

-Midnight is a color in my mind. It means black, ok?

-if you read this dryly, w/o any emotion, then of course it's going to sound stupid. So try to get into the character if you don't want to be disappointed in the story, even though the character isn't exactly Yuugi Mutou from the manga. Plz?


Yuugi rubbed his cheek into the soft fabric beneath him and moaned gently, disappointed that his mind had chosen to bid his tingling body wake. He was overcome with exhaustion and fatigue was humming in every joint contained inside his pleasantly warm skin. He refused to disclose his irises, drinking in each moment of sacred freedom he was permitted before school. Soon the alarm would ring and then and only then would he leave the precious haven of his bed.

Yuugi snuggled in closer to the mattress and inhaled deeply, relaxing his aching muscles even farther, if possible, into the fluff. What an intoxicating aroma. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before, with neither a flavor of scent or an object physiologically attached to it. Instead the fragrance reminded him of…assuredness. Like he was untouchable; nothing in this world could reach out and strike him whilst he remain here in this cradle- not people, nature, nor disease. No, not even death had the power to harm him here.

What?

Yuugi's eyes flew open instantly, flinging their burden of drowsiness off from the force of his surprise. Death?

He was forgetting something. He dipped his throbbing head into his hands, squeezing the pulse of his thoughts beneath his palms. Death. What was it about that word that had shocked him so? He crawled aimlessly through the fog inside of his mind, scraping at the ground for a solid grip to bounce his thoughts from. Something was wrong. Why couldn't he remember? Even in the mornings he had had a tendency toward a clearer mind. So why couldn't he think now? Was it the new scent?

The boy glared at the placid blue material hugging his cheek. It had to be the sheets. Someone probably soaked some sweet-smelling liquid into it while he was sleeping, probably another person who was out to get the Millennium Puzzle. Unaware of the obvious stupidity to this idea due to his current state, Yuugi scrambled to free himself of the previously tranquil bed. But even distanced from the mattress, his memories remained on strike. It wasn't until he whacked his foot on it metal bed frame in the urgency to right himself that the recollection shot into his brain, triggered by the slight brush on the remembrance of agony.

Death. He had died. He couldn't be in his room; he was dead. He had ignored Jounouchi's and Honda's warning and drank the stupid blood and killed both Anzu and himself. He remembered now. He was dead; there was no doubt.

Then why does my body hurt? Yuugi speculated to himself, a bit of the mist lifting now that his body was adjusting itself with its surroundings. He could think clearly enough now to recognize that he no longer had a being with which to feel pain. So, I can't be dead, right? he contradicted logically, a bit rifled that he felt no shock over the whole concept. That meant that he wasn't dead right? That meant that inside the depths of his mind, he knew he was alive.

But could he really have survived through all that pain? After all, it wasn't normal for your heart and liver to scream as if they were being yanked out of you. What had happened to him? Was he dead? Was he alive?

Yuugi shook his head at such profound inquiries. He willed himself to forget the debate for now and concerned himself with more immediate problems, such as the matter of his location.

From his upright position on the mattress, Yuugi could see the entire rectangular room. It wasn't an extremely complicated place; it reminded him of a parentally neglected child's bedroom rather than the fiery pits of Hell. (alive- 1, dead- 0) Toys were scattered over the light green carpeted floor—a few robots, a box worth of Legos, some action figures, a striped, stuffed snake, two or three colorful balls, a model store with tiny figures surrounding it, a plastic rake, and numerous other playthings. Across the room from his pedestal lingered a small white table, weighted down with a few adult books and stacks of coloring and activity pamphlets. Glancing to the right, Yuugi discovered a small stool placed by the bedside and the old-fashioned lamp lit atop it, whose luminescence played around the bright room. The wallpaper itself was yellow as well, which added to the glow, and a white boarder protected the wall from the sea of emerald.

When Yuugi swept his gaze to his left, however, he saw a door, slightly ajar, that lead to an all-engulfing blackness. It seemed to set the whole mood of the room into a state of fraud and deception, as if he were on a stage instead of…wherever this was.

Slowly, uncertainly, Yuugi rose from the bed and tiptoed around the toys, afraid that if the foreign objects were to touch him in this strange place, they might relieve his body of his soul or something to that effect. As he approached the midnight abyss, a cold feeling swept over him and he began to long for the warmth of the baby blue cloth lying limp on the beckoning bed behind him.

He hesitated, shivering, and glanced around. There was no chilling breeze emerging from the small crevice, yet it seemed to radiate cruelty and drive him back. But that wasn't all. Something was there; he could sense it. Some abhorred, grotesque shape lingered directly behind that looming door. It was waiting for him; waiting for his body. When the tip of his foot barely cleared the threshold, when he was out of his element, then the nameless monster would stretch a malformed limb out and snatch him from the light to drown him in darkness. It would shred the tissue hooking his muscles and bone and vacuum his heart clean, dissecting the kin to each eye and stomach and kidney so that it might playfully categorize them in the idiotic terms of location or color or shape before mincing them into an indistinguishable pulp through its razor canines and then finally settling the choppy liquid in its twisted belly. Oh yes, it was surely waiting for him. No move was safe from that abomination; it was watching him. Watching for him to exit his safe haven.

Yuugi backpedaled until his legs were gracefully swept from under him by the warm bed, comforting in its softness which, when he had sunk into it, held him as a concerned mother would. In grief, he swept an arm over his panicked pupils. Imagination could be a terrible gift sometimes— abhorred monster? Such boogiemen only existed for grade schoolers, he chastised. ( no comment on his appearance) Such panicked, misshapen, irrational, immature thoughts did not belong to him. What is wrong with me? he pondered, sighing in relaxation as the terror seeped away from his body.

Well, to start, he was cornered into this foreign, forbidden room—and a childish room at that. His mind was slower than normal due to this strange place and then there was his rampaging "creativity". He didn't know his way out, nevermind the method of entry, he had no clue as to how long he would be confined to this room, he had his doubts about the toys' composure being edible or drinkable and could see no other way to sustain his body, he had no hint as to his friends' wellbeing, and oh yeah, he just might be dead.

There was only one way to deal with all this—sleep it through. Normally Yuugi was the class of person to struggle through difficult situations awake, but that was with tangible problems, not possible hallucinations or witchcraft or spin-offs of Hell. But… perhaps his mind merely couldn't handle the agony spawn from that red poison and he had passed out, meaning this was all a fabrication tucked beneath his skull and he would awake to discover himself in the real world, just as the storeowner had in his tale.

Yes, he thought excitedly, maybe this is my soul! Maybe I'm still alive and the pain was supposed to happen. I didn't die. And neither did Anzu! I can see my friends again! Happiness crashed into Yuugi's frenzied mind in a wave and his amethyst eyes were gradually overshadowed by pale curtains of skin as a mountain worth of previously unknown guilt and apprehension dissipated. I can go home! Anzu is ok! Jou and Honda will—!

Yuugi's thoughts wandered off and he grimaced a bit at the two rough boys' predictable reactions. Well, at least they would be excited to see he was alive.

Yuugi forced his now exhausted body to right itself, for with the new absence of adrenaline he had lost his previous energy, and glanced about the room, memorizing each detail so that he might relay them to the storeowner and have his own life laid out before him. Hey, if he had to go through so much trouble to get here, he might as well get something out of it.

Sighing as he allowed his weak, quaking body to collapse onto the smooth blue sheets, when he was satisfied with his memory session of course, Yuugi permitted his mind to relax and soon he was wavering on the brink of a much needed, endless sleep. After all, he had no reason to deny his crying body that right (It is amazing how fear is like coffee—it uses up all your energy in a matter of seconds then leaves you to put up with the consequences); he wasn't dead and so had no worry about it (although this was not yet proven, he accepted it wholeheartedly), he didn't feel the urge to stay up playing with the colorful objects scattered across the ground, he would eventually go home so he had no need to attempt an escape, and he was alone. As long as he stayed in this room until he was rescued by whatever mechanism was designated to return his mind from his soul to his body, he was alone. And as long as he was dreaming, there was no obligation in his thoughts to experiment with the shapeless monstrosity watching him behind that door. So he allowed himself to sleep. He drowned himself in the striped pillow and sky blue blankets and slept, inhaling the pleasant scent and slipping into the stupor that it caused. And as he began to drift off, Yuugi giggled a bit at the randomness of a thought that had charged to the front of all the others, made possible by the mysterious aroma of course.

Hey, he thought, demanding concentration from his loopy attention span which paid no heed to its master's command. Isn't it funny how the same black is the color of sleep and the darkness that hides the monster? …then I hate it and love it at the same time.

This childish thought formed his farewell to the outcast room as his mind dropped straight through his bones, through the mattress and the carpeted floor and out of the room into the starry sky where it lit up like a comet and slammed into Yuugi, securing itself inside its rightful place in the physical flesh—the body which was now wrapped in blankets and lying face up on a hard, warm, wooden floor.


(wooow, that's a long sentence. Srry.)

And sorry all these end so weird. I'm trying to stop, but the essay format is ground into my brain. The endings have to be …different from the rest of the story and wrap it all up, but it's just getting confusing now. Sorry.

Review plz!