The birds outside were chirping, and Yuugi groaned, irritated as their cries pierced right through his peaceful - albeit painful - sleep. How anyone found the sound of birds in the morning (or at anytime of the day, honestly) wonderful was beyond him; they were screeching feathered demons from hell.

He sighed, eyes instantly watering as he opened them against the sunlight streaming in through the curtains. He sat up stiffly, yawning and trying to ignore how his back protested his movements. He gazed around, dazed. He had fallen asleep right on the floor of his living room, head on the coffee table. No wonder his body hurt… He rubbed his chin, wincing as his fingers pressed against the sensitive bruise he'd gotten in the tomb. Running his hand higher to his cheek, he could also feel where the table had left ridge marks. Lovely.

Groaning, Yuugi got to his feet and stretched, listening as some more of his joints popped. He looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly two in the afternoon. He had been asleep for a long time - almost twelve straight hours. He ran a hand through his hair and stumbled to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

"EEEYAAAH!"

His cry shot through the stillness of the small house as his hands flew up to his reflection. Only, it wasn't him. Was it? Yuugi stared in disbelief, noting how similar the hair was, how small the nose seemed...but that was about where the similarities ended. The reflection was not Japanese; it had sharper features than Yuugi, angled eyes, hair blown wild like a desert storm. He trailed a trembling finger across the mirror's surface, tracing the eyebrow of the reflection.

Somewhere, beyond the bathroom door, beyond his home, there were noises. Loud cries, the metal clash of swords, and a dark, sinister laugh that made every blood cell in Yuugi's body solidify to ice. He rubbed his ears, and the sounds spiked, drilling into his head with a force that left him breathless, eyes shutting against it. But as soon as his world went dark, a new scene appeared.

A raging war, battled out in the dark of night; thousands of warriors around Yuugi were fighting, splattering blood on the sand beneath his feet. Innocents ran from madness and fire, families clutching each other to keep from being separated as they escaped. Yuugi's eyes were stuck wide open, and he turned to see a child squatting by a broken building, sobbing in a language only those who've ever been abandoned know. And Yuugi was helpless to save the child. Helpless to stop it when a warrior stabbed another right before the boy's eyes. Helpless to soothe the terror as the boy screamed and scrambled away from the body.

Yuugi felt the familiar burn of bile back in his throat, and he swayed. Blood was the one thing that never failed to paralyze him, and so much of it was filling the air. He didn't know why, it seemed a silly thing to be scared of, but the doctors had simply said that it was "something that happens sometimes" and his parents had sworn up and down that Yuugi had never had a bad indecent with blood. Yet here he was, shaking from head to toe, looking at hands that were suddenly covered in red. He rubbed his hands against his pants viciously, trying to get it off, but it stuck like glue. He knew, deep down, that he was overreacting. Of course he knew that blood wasn't going to kill him. But that didn't stop his mind from screaming at him - that's why it's called a phobia. It was just an irrational fear that he just could not get over.

So, instead, he ran. He stumbled. He sobbed breathlessly, climbing over rubble, feet slipping in the sand. Unable to stop it, he fell to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach, tears streaming over his cheeks.

"Stop…stop…" He moaned, weak.

Through the angry noise, there was something else. A lost, frightened wailing that Yuugi felt on an all-too personal level. And then a louder cry, deep and soulful, full of agony, calling out a name…and yet, at the same time, the sound of it filled him with hope, like a butterfly landing on his nose, wings caressing.

"HEBA!"

Yuugi crashed back into his living room with a jolt, wrenching up from the floor with a wild gasp. The quick movement left him lightheaded, and his erratic breathing wasn't helping ease it, either. With a sudden rush of clarity, a wave of relief, he realized that it had been a dream. No, a nightmare. He placed his fingers to the hollow of his throat, trying to calm himself. But the image of the battle was too fresh; he couldn't close his eyes.

'Are you alright?!'

Yuugi jumped at the voice, eyes flicking to the golden box. "I just…" the screams echoed in his ears, "It was a nightmare…I'm fine."

'You were screaming as you slept.'

Yuugi got to his feet, holding onto the couch for leverage. On wobbly legs, he drifted into the kitchen, grabbing a glass out of the rack to fill with water. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, trying to dispel the dream from his mind. He could see the surface of the water rippling as his hand shook. Get a grip.

'Yuugi.'

Yami's voice was firm; Yuugi should've known the spirit wouldn't let something like this go. He took a deep breath, setting the glass down so he could rub his temples. "I'm fine. Sort of. It's just—" he took in a shuddering breath "—there was so much blood. So much pain. And I couldn't do anything." He shook his head, draining the rest of his glass in a couple gulps. "Do you know anyone named Heba?"

'…I feel like I should. It's so familiar, and yet there's nothing. But it makes me feel…"

Yami may have been struggling for the right word, but it turned out he didn't need to say anything The heavy, empty feeling that suddenly settled in Yuugi's chest was a very clear indicator of how the name made Yami feel. Oh.

'Why do you ask?'

"Heba…" Yuugi mused as he walked back to the living room. "In my dream, a voice was calling that name. Right after someone gave this horrible wail."

'Forgive me, Yuugi. I would offer more assistance if I could; I try to look into my mind, and there is…nothing.'

"Forget it." Yuugi decided, grabbing the box. He needed to stop thinking about the nightmare before it sent him running back to the sink." "So what's in here? If I open it, will I see you?"

'Yes. I am a tiny person hiding in the box. It's so cramped in here.'

Yuugi scoffed at that, hesitating for a moment before removing the lid of the box. He wasn't sure what exactly he'd been expecting, but that didn't stop him from feeling a tiny sense of disappointment as he peered inside. More gold, in all kinds of different shapes and sizes. He pulled out the only completely flat piece, studying the eye embossed on it. It seemed to be a puzzle. He carefully poured the contents onto his coffee table, settling down on the floor. Good, he loved puzzles - and Lord knows he needed a distraction.

'Oh, goody. I wonder what is next? Finger painting?"

Yuugi flinched a little, Yami's tone hurting more than his word choice. Yuugi wanted to know if he had somehow annoyed the spirit, or offended him in some manner, but he let the question float to his mouth and die there. Empty questions would only get empty answers. He started shifting through the gold pieces instead, picking up one every so often to inspect its ridges. He wished he knew what the final shape of the puzzle was - at least then he would have some kind of idea of how to begin. Hoping, he settled to pieces together, twisting until he heard the small click of them interlocking.

'Yuugi?'

"Yeah?"

'I'm sorry. Hurting you was not what I inten—'

"You didn't hurt me."

'You are not good at hiding your emotions.'

"Okay, fine. You're remark wounded me a little." Yuugi relented with a shrug, snapping another piece into place. "But I'm fine."

'That doesn't make it okay.'

"No, it doesn't."

'I'm just so aggravated.'

"At me?" Yuugi asked, wondering what he had done.

'No! Gods, no. I am just so…envious. That you have friends to be with and loved ones to remember. I am upset that I don't hold a single thing of what I once was or who I was. I am frustrated, because everything is gone - taken from me as if I were never a human in the first place. And I want to know why I am like this - what I could have possibly done to deserve this purgatory. I want, more than anything, to be able to sit beside you - as a person - and not feel this emptiness in my head or this darkness pressing around me. To be able to feel the ground underneath me once more. Sitting here and doing nothing, being nothing, is torture, Yuugi.'

"Oh, Yami…Oh, no." Yuugi murmured, feeling the abyss in his chest opening up, gnawing on his ribs and swallowing up his lungs so he could barely breathe; the feeling was the only clue he had of how Yami truly felt. He could hear it in the bitter tone, the cracking voice…how much the situation broke Yami every single day, and Yuugi was completely unable to take the desolate feeling away. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could say to make it better.

So, instead, Yuugi let the feeling rot him from the inside as he fidgeted with the puzzle, sliding another piece home.

'You seem to be having an easy time with that.'

Yuugi knew Yami was forcing a change in the conversation; he didn't want to force the topic under the rug, but Yuugi was also too scared to continue. Because theorizing Yami's condition meant delving into feelings, and if there's anything Yuugi knew, it was that feelings got messy. That Yami already had enough frustrations, and they already had enough to worry about. So he allowed the change, taking it in stride and pinning a note in the back of his mind to revisit the hows and whys of Yami's situation later. When he could do it with more logic and less sensitivity.

"I wouldn't count chickens before they're hatched." He said, holding up the small gold lump he'd formed. "See this piece tucked away here? It looks like it fits, but it doesn't." He frowned, removing the piece and sliding it into place in a different corner. "It's a trick, and I'm sure there are other pieces like that, too." He shook his head, tossing the lump onto the table. "It could take me hundreds of tries to solve this thing."

'Why do you hate birds?'

The question was so off-hand, so straightforward, Yugi laughed. "What?"

'In your sleep, before you started yelling, you muttered something about hating birds. Why?'

"Well, they're just…really annoying."

'You are such a bad liar, Yuugi. Why do you even try?'

"Ugh." Yuugi dragged his hands down his face, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Alright, alright. When I was six, I was attacked by a vulture. I was at a park, and my Grandpa and I found a dead rabbit along the trail. I told him I wanted to bury it, and when I got close to the rabbit a vulture swooped down out of nowhere and attacked me." He pulled up his sleeve, trailing fingers over the faded scars of three long claws marking his forearm. "So I kind of just…stopped caring for birds after that. I'm not scared of them, like I am with blood, but I don't like them. Which is fine, because they're annoying, stupid, and poop all over your car."

There was a noise coming from the spirit, the sound of someone trying to mask their laughter. "I can't believe you actually think it's funny." Yuugi muttered. At that, Yami no longer tried to stop himself, and the sound of his laughter rang bright and clear into Yuugi's ears.

'You are beyond my expectations. I have never met a man so stubborn. Not that I remember, of course.'

But Yami didn't sound bitter, even after mentioning that. For the first time since Yuugi had found the box, the spirit sound so open and absolutely delighted, as if he were perfectly content to just waste his time trying to figure his new friend out rather than trying to remember who he was. It was so surprising, so uplifting, that Yuugi nearly forgot to breathe, though some confused thoughts swirled around his head. He found that he didn't really know how to respond to that, so, in his fit of uncertainty, Yuugi resorted back to his default language: sarcasm.

"So I have an admirable spirit?"

More peals of laughter, and Yuugi felt himself beginning to blush. Maybe having Yami around wouldn't be such a bad thing, after all.