I'm back! I'm trying to write a lot more now that I have a majority of this story mapped out in more detail. Sorry for such a short chapter, guys. There will be a few more short ones in the future, but I promise more long ones eventually!
"MORE DEATHS IN WEST"
Bakura slowed his pace as he walked down the street as the morning's headline caught his eye. He stopped in front of the news kiosk alongside a few others, his curiosity getting the best of him. He rarely paid attention to the news outside of what was on his television, but what he did hear was starting to interest him. There certainly was a lot of dangerous activity coming from the west side, and he began to wonder what exactly was going on over there. He stood by one of the unoccupied machines at the kiosk, and with one hand still resting in the pocket of his jacket, he used the other arm to make the transaction and download the news file.
As Ryo sipped the coffee he picked up on his way home, he adjusted his screen and brought up the news file he had purchased. He read over the headline once again, and let his eyes slowly trail down through the text, taking in every word. A group of men had been brutally murdered by their competition on the west side, which was said to be under ultimate control of Pegasus J. Crawford. The story sounded vaguely familiar; in fact, it sounded eerily familiar to the news report he had on for background noise a few days before. Did stuff like this really happen all the time? It seemed as if the side of the country controlled by Industrial Illusions attracted nothing but violence. He cringed at some of the brutal descriptions in the text as he read on, unable to look away. It was beginning to seem very odd to him; he couldn't remember a single story in the news about crime on the East German side. However, he could remember hearing countless times about havoc in any other country, specifically the countries dominated by the other corporations.
His eye got a glimpse of an image of Siegfried von Schröder along the side. Underneath there was the video of a recent press conference regarding the violence occurring so close by. He could only half listen to the man going on about the importance of safety to SchröderCorp. Propaganda, Bakura thought. That's what it all had to be. He focused on the video, watching the man speak proudly into the microphones. Is it possible that he could be lying just to keep people in? Was he really lying to all of these people, or was the rest of the world really that violent in comparison? What could he be hiding? His words faded in and out as Bakura scanned the rest of the report, hoping that something could help him start to figure things out. Something didn't seem right, and he wanted to find out what. Suddenly, his thoughts were cut short when his eyes locked onto a row of pictures near the bottom. There were four individual photos of each victim next to one another, following some pictures of the crime scene itself. One photo in particular made his mouth go dry. Although he hadn't seen him in years, he had no trouble identifying the man in the picture as his father. His hands shakily set his drink on the table before it could spill into his lap.
He had to find his sister.