The small form huddled between a couch and a coffee table in the abandoned house. Black hair spilled over skinned knees and ripped jeans. One scab-encrusted arm wrapped around bruised shins, and the other hand clung to a locket shaped like a Duel Monsters card. Heavy curtains sealed the room off from the rest of the world. Mokuba had no idea how long he'd been hiding in this house, much less how long he'd been in this town. There was no nighttime or daytime. All of the clocks he'd seen were stopped. The light outside remained a consistent, chilling gray, like right before a rain storm.

When Mokuba first arrived in the ghost town, he had roamed the foggy streets until his legs felt about to fall off. He'd screamed until his throat hurt. The panic of being so completely and utterly alone had driven him to his knees in a bundle of soft sobs. He'd only looked up when he heard that terrible sound. The sound that had taught him he wasn't so alone here as he'd thought. Metal clinking and dragging on cement.

They were faceless monsters with blades where their hands and feet should've been. They'd chased him—impossibly fast on their bladed limbs. He'd been running from them for… ever. He'd escaped momentarily, but another one always waited around the corner. The boy would've preferred loneliness to the company he found.

Hunger and exhaustion had set in, but fear kept him moving. When he could barely move another inch, he'd passed out in a parked car, only to wake with three of them banging on the outside. Mokuba had barely escaped that encounter by hitting a creature with the door and fleeing for his life. Not, however, before it grabbed for him and left a slice running from his shoulder to his elbow.

At first he'd been too frightened to attempt sleep again, but he'd learned he could avoid attack by resting inside. Those wicked claws couldn't handle doorknobs. They couldn't hear or see too well, either, so when he stayed quiet he could tiptoe past them. Not that he had anywhere to go. What was the point? There was no one here. Seto wasn't here. Mokuba's lip trembled and another tear joined the countless other drops that had paraded the span of his cheeks in the last… However long it had been.

His big brother could've kept the monsters at bay. His big brother would've found a way out of here by now. Cut off from him, their body guards, Tea, Yugi… Mokuba didn't know what to do with his self. At the same time, as his growling stomach reminded him, the alternative to facing the monsters wasn't much better. It boiled down to a choice between giving up and dying of starvation or searching for a way home and possibly getting ripped to shreds in the process. Starvation would be inevitable if he stayed here. The monsters were somewhat avoidable. And, Mokuba thought, what would Seto do? What would he want me to do? Giving up isn't option.

The boy uncurled and skimmed the room for a possible weapon. A floor lamp leaned in a corner. The length looked good and the weight on the end might help add some extra power to his swing, but he didn't want to haul it around with him. There were knives in the kitchen, but they paled in comparison to the blades on those monsters. The way the beasts lunged toward him reaching and slashing in blind desperation… They emitted guttural, strangled grunts when they attacked, despite their lack of mouths. They stank of mold and mildew, too. The thought of getting close enough to stab one caused a shudder.

Mokuba sucked in a sharp breath and let it out. Forcing himself to stop thinking and start moving, he stalked to the rear of the house and opened the door at the end of the hall. Previous exploration had revealed it to be a young boy's room, littered with old, dirty toys. The bed was flipped against the wall. The closet door hung from its hinges. One thing stood out among the debris and decay, however. A shining, aluminum bat. Mokuba clutched it with both hands and raised it in front of him like a sword. Then he took a few practice swings, trying to envision a foe standing in front of him. They were too tall to swing directly at their heads. Maybe he could knock them over first, with a shot to the legs or the stomach. If they even had the same weak spots as humans… They were humanoid… Resting the bat on his shoulder, he exited the room.

Before opening the front door, he checked the front lawn through a crack in the curtain. There were two monsters outside, one in the yard and the other in the street. The nearest one's head twitched toward the window and Mokuba retreated into the shadows of the living room. His heart battered his rib cage. Videogames always made this stuff seem so simple. Press a button, shoot an enemy. Pull a stick, dodge an attack. What if I drop the bat? He thought. What if I can't hit hard enough? The creatures appeared emaciated, but they ran with more speed and endurance than their appearance suggested.

In the end, no matter how many laps these thoughts ran through his head, he had to try. He had to accept the fact that he might be stuck here for a very long time and no one would be here to hold his hand. "I am a Kaiba," he whispered to himself. "Kaibas don't back down from a challenge. I can do this. I can do this."

Indigo eyes narrowed resolutely as he raised the bat in his right hand and inched the front door open with his left. Despite his fears earlier, the monster on the lawn hadn't spotted him in the window. Of course it hadn't, it was blind. Even now, shambling in lazy circles about five feet away, it didn't lift a single blade toward him. The boy's evident invisibility didn't comfort him much. Mokuba gripped the bat with both hands once more and edged closer to the porch railing. The raised platform left him a better shot at the creature's skull. It drifted closer. Its rot-colored skin shimmered wetly. With a grimace, Mokuba raised the bat and brought it down on the slimy, bald head as hard as he could.

CRACK!

The bat shivered in his hands on impact, but he maintained a white-knuckled grip. His quarry's knees buckled and it caught itself on a hand-spike. It flailed with the other blades, but the fence around the porch kept the strikes from finding a proper target. Mokuba raised his weapon for another blow.

CRACK!

Mokuba froze with the bat still raised and glanced at his feet.

CRUNCH!

The rotten wood gave way and the deck swallowed him from the waist down. For an instant his heart stopped. Not only was the creature thrashing along the front of the house in a direction that would soon allow it to find the stairs, but the commotion caught the attention of the one in the street. Mokuba struggled and pushed with his hands, but there was no time. As the monster's metallic claws took the first clunking step up the stairs, Mokuba dropped into the gap beneath the house instead. Trembling wildly, holding his breath, he aimed the bat up at the hole and waited. He listened to the steps grow closer… closer… When the beast appeared framed in the splintered edges of wood, Mokuba stabbed the bat upward. A garbled howl and a thud let him know his attack hit its mark.

Without waiting for it to recover, he scrambled toward a square of light, shimmying off of the dirt and onto the grass. The second creature spared him no time to stand. It didn't appear as though he'd been spotted yet, but the bladed feet were coming right for him. Mokuba struck this monster in the knees and rolled away as it fell. Using the bat as a cane to stand, he stared breathlessly as the thing convulsed and gurgled on the ground. Already he could hear the scritch of metal on wood as his first opponent rose for another try. High on adrenaline and without thinking, the boy crushed the skull of the fallen creature with the bat until it stopped moving. Then he took aim as the other hobbled into range. Before it could raise a blade, the bat punched it in the gut. Once it was on the ground, he finished it.

Thick, dark stuff oozed from the crushed, misshapen head. It had a pungent, metallic smell. Mokuba shivered and gulped. His weapon suddenly felt very heavy. He wanted to wake up. If he woke up screaming in his bed, Seto would come. Then Mokuba would grab his big brother in a death grip, bury his face in his neck, and tell him all about this nightmare. Seto would explain how dreams are nothing but 'random neural activity' and Mokuba would feel better, because he had the smartest brother in the world looking out for him.

He allowed himself to escape in that fantasy for a bit, but he also knew that if he stood still too long more monsters would come. Balancing the messy bat on his shoulder, he wandered dazedly into the fog. The fight hadn't been as bad as he thought it would be, but he wasn't looking forward to a repeat performance.

Time dragged on. As he kept his ears open for the telltale screech of the monster's footsteps, another sound reached his ears, so faint he barely heard it.

"Mokuba!"

The young boy's ears perked up at the sound of the blessedly familiar voice. "Seto?" In his excitement, he sped up to a run.

"Mokie, come on, we're gonna be late!"

His yellow and blue sneakers skidded to a stop as he rounded a corner. It was Seto's voice, no doubt about that, but it was also different. Younger. Mokuba turned to the house on his left. Through the fog, he spotted a car in the driveway. A dark-haired woman stood behind the open door on the driver's side. With her back to him, Mokuba couldn't see her face.

"Where is that boy?" The unknown woman huffed.

Confused and faintly wary, but conflictingly happy to see a normal person, Mokuba approached the house. "Hello?" He called.

The woman turned sideways to face the other side of the car, but didn't bat an eye at the boy on the sidewalk. "Would you go see what's keeping your brother?" She asked whoever she was looking at.

As Mokuba watched, a very young Seto Kaiba hurried around the front of the car and headed for the front door. After a stunned pause, Mokuba hurried to follow.

Seto stopped in the threshold and glanced between the stairs and the ground floor. "Where are you?"

"Here!" A small child called from upstairs.

Mokuba's confusion only grew. He could've sworn that sounded like… As he followed young Seto upstairs and into the master bedroom, he froze and dropped his bat. In the room, on the floor, groping for something under the bed, Mokuba saw himself. His self ten years ago, but the age difference didn't make it any less jarring.

"What are you doing?" Seto asked, moving to kneel next to the four-year-old.

"Wanna hug kitty bye," little Mokuba said. "Kitty, come here."

"I'm sure kitty will be here when we come back," Seto said. "Now let's go. Aunt Hakumi's getting impatient."

"But-" Mokuba's younger self was interrupted when his brother tugged him to his feet. As a last ditch effort to get his way, the small boy grabbed half-heartedly at the bedside table, knocking a magazine on the floor. A pamphlet slid out. The two boys didn't notice as the older urged the younger out of the room.

The present day Mokuba, however, bent to pick it up. The title read, "Sunnyside Orphanage." His hands trembled. He barely remembered the scene he'd just witnessed, but he remembered the basic gist of the day. Their aunt told them she was taking them some place special, but instead she left them at that horrible place. Seto later told Mokuba that when they'd stopped outside of the building, she'd explained why she couldn't take care of them, how they'd be better off with another family, and that she wished them luck. He said their uncle was a brute who drank their inheritance and that she sent them off to save them. Mokuba didn't know if that was true or if Seto lied to comfort him.

As he sat on the bed, staring distantly at the folded piece of paper, he wondered what might've happened if he'd turned around one more time. If he'd kicked and screamed until Seto stopped to help him get the cat. He concluded that it probably wouldn't have made much difference if they had noticed the pamphlet. Maybe pulling up in front of the orphanage wouldn't have been such a slap in the face, but it was unavoidable.

Anger rose. So what if Seto hadn't lied about their uncle? Would it really have been worse than that- that- hell? And- And Gozaburo? Mokuba tore the glossy paper in half, crushed it in both fists, and hurled the crinkled balls at the wall. If he hadn't spent so much time on it already, he might've cried at the memories of 'Sunnyside,' but his well of tears was dry for the time being. Instead, he flopped on the bed to rest for a while, glaring at the cracked ceiling.

A/N: I couldn't find the names of the orphanage or the relative(s) that dropped Mokuba and Seto off there, so I made some up. I figured that if they did have canon names and the change mattered, someone would get around to commenting on it. Until then, I'll just leave it as is…