Resurfaced

Chapter 4

Mokuba was sitting on his legs, with his hands in the sand. He was pushing the sand up into sloppy shapes, building a crude sandcastle. Seto wasn't there, but he didn't seem to notice...he was only aware of being alone, and wishing someone would be there to play with. In the distance, a sound of waves crashing on the beach could be heard, ever falling back and rushing forward, dampening the sand where it frothed.

He stared sadly at the castle for a few moments.

Just then, a figure burst out of it, throwing sand all about. The same figure that had wanted to play chess, only now, it looked much different..much more human. Mokuba jumped backwards in surprise as this person now stood over his ruined sandcastle. It became taller than he by about half a foot, with hands and fingers, feet and toes, a neck, and short hair on its head. It was still faceless, and naked, but anatomically incorrect. There was no indication of a gender on its body.

"Mokuba." it said.

"Wh..who are you?" he nervously asked..it was much more intimidating than it had been when it was small.

"..I stepped on your sandcastle. I'm sorry about that."

"Uh..oh." he looked down to notice that his castle had indeed been ruined.

The gray figure knelt down, starting to move the sand around, "I'll help you rebuild it."

"Um..okay." Mokuba didn't really know what to make of the situation, so all he did was walk forward on his knees until he was sitting back where he'd been. He went ahead and contributed to the gray one's efforts.

After a short time, the sand resembled a castle again. The gray person pulled a tiny flag out of thin air, and lightly stabbed it into the top of the castle.

"How's this?" it asked.

"It's much better now." the boy said with a nod. Though he was feeling more comfortable with this humanoid, he couldn't shake the weariness.

"Mokuba." it said, sounding more serious now.

"Uh?" he blinked, as if startled by the change it its voice.

"I've remembered more. The more I remember, the closer I'll be back to who I am. And I've remembered being very lonely and isolated from the rest of the world. My father did it that way so I could continue to exist after what happened to me.."

This sounds familiar.. Mokuba thought.

"You get to live like a normal person. I would like to do the same soon. You're now the one keeping me safe.." the person seemed to stare. "At the time being, that can only come at your expense..so I wanted to ask permission first. Do you suppose that sometime.."

The figure paused before continuing. Mokuba blinked yet again.

"..That sometime, I could come out and enjoy the world like you do?"

"Um..I'm not sure I understand what you're saying."

"..I want to live."

"Of course you do." someone else suddenly said.

Mokuba woke up immediately. He noticed the doctor had returned, standing next to his bed.

"Huh?"

"You said you wanted to live." the doctor said, clearly amused. "You either heard me come in, or you were talking in your sleep."

"Talking in my sleep..? Did I really say that?"

The man nodded, "It was more of a whisper, but I heard you. Allow me to assure you, you're in no danger of dying." The doctor assumed his patient must have had a bad dream about his injury.

Sitting up in his bed, Mokuba was feeling somewhat dazed. "Just a dream.."

"That's right. There's nothing for you to be concerned about. And since you're awake now, I'll take that needle out of your arm and patch it up. You'll be free to go as soon as I'm done, but remember to take it easy for a few days. Rest as much as you want."

"Y..yes. Thank you."

The doctor proceeded to remove the IV, seal the wound, and help Mokuba out of the bed. He had the young Kaiba walk around to make sure he was balanced, and then check to see that his damaged hand was bandaged properly. After he gave it all the OK, the man exited the room, leaving Mokuba to do as he would. And the first thing he did was get dressed in his regular clothes, then rush out of his room on sock-padded feet to find his big brother.

In one of the many rooms of his estate, Seto was working away in his main office. A large, impressive polished desk lorded over everything else in the room, which had his laptop upon it that his fingers were busily tapping away at. It wasn't long before a small fist was knocking on the door.

"Come in." said Seto. He already knew who it had to be.

And just like that, the door opened up, and there Mokuba stood, quite happy to see his brother. "Hey, Seto!"

"Hey. Finally out of bed?" he looked up briefly with a smile to see his brother, before looking back down at his screen.

"Mmhm!" he approached the front of the desk with a leisurely pace. "I wanted to see what you were doing."

"Just work. I'm not doing anything interesting."

"Are you busy?"

"Yes, but it's nothing I can't set aside if there's a problem. Unfortunately, I can't play games with you right now if that's what you wanted. I need to get this finished by tonight."

Mokuba put his elbows on the desk, leaning himself against them with crossed arms. "I just wanted to ask a question."

"I'm listening." he said, with his eyes still focused on his endeavors.

The younger brother's toes rocked from side to side against the floor as he leaned his weight on the opposite leg, taking a moment to consider how to put what he wanted to ask.

"..Do you think what happened to me would give me bad dreams?"

"That sounds normal. Did you have bad dreams?"

"Well..not really bad dreams, but weird ones."

"I'm no expert on this subject, but having an experience like that makes me think you'd probably have some bad dreams about it. I wouldn't worry about it, Mokuba."

He nodded to that, "Okay. Thanks, Seto." And with that, he pulled himself off the desk and started heading out of the room.

"By the way."

"Huh?" Mokuba looked back.

"I picked up some homework from your school for the days you missed. I'd hate to put pressure on you this soon, but you should probably take plenty of time out to do it. You don't want to go back to school with missing work."

"Oh, okay. No problem!" he nodded again, jogging out of the office and into his room, intent to do just that.

But with all the medical equipment still in his room, Mokuba decided to take his homework elsewhere. He wanted to get it all done as soon as possible so it would out of the way, as he had a lot piled up for the days he'd missed. He went into one of the study rooms with his papers, pencil, and books. Once there, he let everything drop into a pile on the floor, and proceeded to flop down himself. Laying down on his chest with his head up and feet in the air, the preteen got to work right away, opening up his textbook with a sheet of paper ready, feeling glad that it was his left hand instead of his right one that had been hurt.

He spent the next few hours doing his assignments. They weren't difficult, but they were tedious. Mokuba got up every half-hour or so to take a break by either walking around the estate, or going back to his room and playing with his games. After each little break, he went back into the study and resumed working on the floor. However, as time crawled along, he found himself getting bored more quickly, and thus getting sleepy. A nap started sounding like a better idea before long.

"The sooner I get this done, the better.." he kept saying to himself. But eventually, his head was drooping lazily, almost landing his face into his book as he was nodding off.

Mokuba. A voice seemed to say. I'll finish your homework for you, if you let me. You can sleep, and I'll do it. Doesn't that sound like a good idea?

"Sounds like a great idea.." said the sleepy-head. His eyes shut, and he was suddenly sleeping dreamlessly.

When Mokuba woke up, he was sitting upright in a chair in his room. He looked around, puzzled and blinking, since he knew he fell asleep in the study. Immediately thereafter, he gripped his stomach in pain. He felt bloated like he'd eaten far past his fill, even though he knew he hadn't had anything to eat yet.

"Uhg..!"

"Are you alright in there, Mokuba?" Seto's voice suddenly spoke through the shut door.

"Seto..?" he cringed a little as he looked back. "How long have you been there?"

"Since you closed the door."

Mokuba was feeling utterly confused by this point, and his expression showed it.

"You know.." started Seto, "..just because you're supposed to be taking things easy doesn't mean you can pig out like you did. You're only going to make yourself sick if you eat like that."

"..I already feel sick.."

"Try laying down for a while, then. Give yourself some time to digest it all."

Mokuba groaned. He looked over at the digital clock on his desk..and realized that about five hours had passed. The sun was probably setting by now. He looked again towards the door.

"Seto?.."

"Yes?"

"..Can we pretend for a moment that I have no idea what happened in the last five hours?"

"..What?"

"Um..humor me. What have I been doing in the last five hours?"

"..You were doing your homework. And then we had dinner together. You ate more than I've ever seen you eat, and you kept talking about how delicious it was. Why are you asking this?"

"Um..I was just seeing what you thought of it. I wanted to hear your point of view. I guess I got carried away, huh?" he spoke nervously.

"Putting it lightly, yes."

"Alright..I'm gonna lay down for a while, then."

"Okay. You can call me on your cellphone if you need anything. I'll have all that medical equipment removed from your room tomorrow."

"Okay, Seto.. Thanks."

"Sure thing."

And with that, Mokuba heard Seto's footsteps walk away. He turned to look at his desk again..noticing the pile of homework he had earlier was also here now. His fingers flipped through the pages, and his eyes widened.

"It's all..finished.." he said aloud to himself. Then he remembered the voice he heard just before he took that nap. The young Kaiba became lost in thought as he recalled what it had said to him, about doing his schoolwork for him.

"That voice..was it real? Did it do this for me..?" he asked no one as his elbows landed on the desk, and he gripped the sides of his head in wide-eyed bewilderment.

It took a while for Mokuba to get his bearings back, but once he did, he went to work to make sure he had the answers correct. If it was indeed someone else that did his homework for him, then it was dishonest for not having been his own efforts. He spent the rest of the evening going over each answer.

By the time he finished, it was his bedtime. He went into his bed, rather nervous about sleeping, with a hope that what happened earlier wouldn't happen again. Maybe I'll wake up, and find out it was all just a dream.. Or maybe the medicine I'm taking causes sleepwalking, or blackouts.. he thought as he stared at the ceiling. He ran a number of different theories though his head, but after a while, his eyes shut.

It took Mokuba some time to fall asleep.