Chapter 6 - Following the Crimson Light

The cold pierced his clothing, but he paid no mind to it, drawn into the calming darkness and the sense that nothing existed but him. He wanted to sleep, didn't want anyone to disturb his dream...

[Yugi! Wake up!]

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, frowning as he found himself staring at the shimmering surface of water, catching whatever dim light was penetrating the black night. Something blue was sitting beside him and he raised his head to see Yami's spirit looking down at him with concern.

"Whassup?"

Yami had to fight back a laugh. "You fell off the cliff, remember?"

A pause. Then Yugi sat up sharply. "Mio!"

As the water splashed around him, he realised he was sitting in a puddle and crawled out onto dry ground, struggling to get to his numb feet. Looking up, he saw nothing but trees, silent guardians of the clearing where he sat, and the red light that had shone in the sky had vanished, leaving only the darkness.

"Where's Mio? Did you see her?"

"No. We were alone when I woke up."

They looked around, trying to peer through the trees. "I hope she's okay..."

Yami frowned, staring through the trees, sensing a dark presence growing stronger on the other side.

Yugi sighed as he finally got to his feet and began to make his way across the clearing. "I don't know how long we were out for. Let's hope she hasn't gone far -" He stopped sharply as his foot sunk suddenly and he cried out in shock. "Dammit!" He pulled at his leg. "I'm stuck!"

Yami stepped in front of him and looked down at his trapped foot. "A sunken tree root," he commented. "This place is very old..."

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a hand!"

Stooping down to help him, Yami suddenly stopped. [Yugi, look.]

Turning as much as he could against his foot, Yugi looked behind him to the back of the clearing. Mio was standing there, watching him, her black fringe overshadowing her eyes.

"Mio! I'm glad you're alright!" He turned back to tug at his leg. "Could you give me a hand? I got... my foot caught on a tree root. Pretty lame, huh? Mio?"

He looked back to see that the girl hadn't moved. She was standing as still as a statue and Yugi thought she looked unusually pale, even for her. Her eyes stared down at the ground and didn't meet his worried gaze. "Mio? Are you okay?"

Turning away from her, she walked out of the clearing into the trees, limping heavily on her right leg.

"Mio! Wait! It's dangerous!" Yugi turned in frustration. Why did she still insist on running off alone? Pulling with renewed strength, he managed to release his foot and staggered backwards as he ran off to follow her.

The trees were so dense, but he could still see her through the trees, her arms stiff as she fought to keep her balance on her injured leg. Did she hurt it falling down the cliff? She must have done. Yugi felt a pang of guilt. How long had she been lying with a hurt leg while he was catching Zs? He was still thinking this when he tripped and fell face first onto the forest floor. Groaning in pain, he raised his head and almost jumped out of his skin. He was staring at a wide stone, no higher than his knee, decorated with the image of two people, tied together at the waist by a sweeping sash. The strange thing was, whilst one of them was happy and smiling, the other had no head at all...

Mio! He pulled himself back up and ran past the stone. As he did, the whole forest seemed to get darker, colder...

At last, he found a path through the trees and he followed it up a hill, stopping when he saw the gate. It was red, a Japanese entrance gate onto a set of steps and at the very top, a red light was gently glowing. Without hesitating, Yugi passed underneath the gate.

I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry...

He stopped, but as he turned back, the voice stopped and the path was still empty. So who had spoken?

"Mio? Are you there?" Nothing. Silence. He turned back and followed the steps to the very top and was surprised when he saw the great clearing before him. Five stone columns, shaped as though they were hewn straight out of the side of a mountain, shaped a pentagram around a stone table, joined to each other by ropes from which worn and dirty sacred sutras were dangling.

He froze. He had seen this before...

On the other side of the clearing, looking over the edge of the cliff, he saw her. He sighed with relief as he walked up to her, conscious suddenly of the pain in his left foot where it had been caught.

"Mio, there you are! Are you okay? Did you hurt your leg?" No answer. She continued to stare into the distance, her back to him. "Mio?"

She turned. A tumult of shimmering red butterflies flew up around her and as they fluttered off, disappearing into the trees, she stared at him sadly. Then, she turned her head slightly towards the cliff edge and Yugi, hesitating for a moment, stepped forward. Beneath him were a number of houses, a path in the clearing leading down to it. Some of them looked dilapidated, worn beyond repair, even though numerous lights were shining in the windows and on the pathways and far over in the distance was the dark shape of a great manor.

"Where is this?" he whispered.

"The Lost Village..."

He stared for several long moments before her words sunk in and he turned back to her. "What do you mean?"

But she had vanished.

Yugi gasped, stepping towards the place where she had stood not a moment before. That was when he heard it. Turning back towards the cliff, he strained to hear it more clearly, the low chanting that arose from somewhere in the village.

"What do you think?" he said, as the Pharaoh's spirit reappeared. "Go back to the cliff and try and raise the alarm... or go down there and check it out?"

"Mio may have gone there."

Yugi sighed. "I know. But do you think anyone else is down there?"

"Only one way to find out..."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Let's go then!"

Trudging down the path seemed to take a decade and the whole time, Yugi kept staring at the village, at the collapsing houses becoming closer. The chanting had stopped, and not even the sound of crickets or rustling branches broke the unnatural silence, where even his breathing sounded out of place and unwelcome. Despite the lit lanterns and occasional burning torch they saw on the way down the path, Yugi found it hard to believe that anyone lived here any more.

So when he stepped off the path and saw a woman's silhouette, his heart almost left his chest.

His mouth hung open for a moment and it took him everything to gather his courage and shout to her. "Hey! Wait!"

She had already gone. As Yugi ran around the corner, he saw where she had disappeared: into the doorway of the first house. Inside, a light was shifting eerily about.

"Hello? Is anyone in there?"

Reaching out to the wooden door, he wasn't surprised to find it unlocked, but it was surprising when it swung open easily, despite its age. Hesitating only for a moment, Yugi peered inside the house and then stepped fully over the threshold.

The room was even older than the outside betrayed to him, the partition walls along the side falling apart and peeling at the edges. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, brown and grey rags littered the floor around his feet, where wooden sandals had been long abandoned by whoever had lived here and a sunken fireplace dominated the centre of the room. Nothing had been touched for a long time. But Yugi refused to believe that. He had seen someone come in here!

He sighed as he looked around, his eyes taking in the glowing lamp that hung beside the door. "How old do you think this place is?"

The Pharaoh shook his head. "Older than you think. I can sense decades worth of life and history in this place, but... it's been a very long time since life was felt within these walls, except..."

"Except what?"

"Someone was in here recently."

"When?"

Again, he looked confused. "Long ago... yet, not so very long ago..."

"Well, which one is it?" He turned away from Yami and something caught his eye in the dim light. Ignoring the shoes in the dirt gulley, he stepped straight up to the wooden floor and his eyes widened as he saw the dirty white paper lying among a pile of ashes.

"Look!" he said, whispering excitedly, gently picking it up. "It's kind of dirty..." He brushed the ash off and ran his finger along the perforated edge, as though it had been torn out of a scrapbook. He turned it over and found the note written in a shaky hand.

"It's says about the lost village, like Mio said."

"What does it say?"

" 'I've heard rumours about the Lost Village before. Long ago, a massacre occurred on the day of a ceremony, and the village was wiped from the map. Twin deities statues in the forest lead lost people to the village entrance. Once you pass through the gate, however, you cannot go back. The village eternally relives that night of death. The insane laughter of a woman is said to echo throughout the village. The only survivor of the massacre was a lone woman.'" He held it up to Yami. "Is this to do with whoever was here before?"

"It certainly seems newer than the rest of the house, doesn't it," he answered, looking around. "Whoever wrote it must have become trapped here, like it says. But that paper is still old... What happened to them?"

Yugi looked up at him nervously. "Does this mean... Are we trapped here too?"

"Probably..."

"We should get back to the cliff and try and find a way back to Domino, once we find Mio."

Yami looked at him incredulously. "You think it's going to be easy in a village this size?"

"Well... if everyone in the village was killed in a massacre, that means no one is here, right?" Yami nodded. "Mio shouldn't be that hard to find, then, especially with everything being so quiet. Most of these houses are falling apart, where could she possibly go?"

Yami was about to open his mouth, when he looked over Yugi's shoulder in surprise. "There!"

Yugi turned his head in time to see a woman disappear beneath a short curtain dividing the room from the hallway.

"Where are you...?"

"Wait up!" Yugi leapt up from the ground, dropping the paper back into place. "Come on!"

He ran through the curtain into the corridor. All along the walls, candles were lit, burning peacefully in their sets and illuminating the rotting walls. The woman was gone again, so Yugi walked steadily along, his hand running cautiously over the cold, damp wood.

"Why...?"

Looking sharply to his left, he caught sight of the stairs and heard the creaking footsteps climbing them. At the top of the stairs was another corridor, broken only by a single door. This hallway had very little light and Yugi staggered along, trying no to trip, when his foot knocked something that rustled. He knelt down, his arms waving blindly around on the floor when they felt another piece of paper. Frowning at it, he turned and went back down the stairs and read in the light of the candle at the bottom.

"Masumi... It's me, Miyako. I came to look for you. Let's go home together. Together, we can make it. Call for me if you find this. I'll be nearby.

Miss you!"

In the light of the candle, he saw a shadow behind the note as he read and he turned it over to reveal a picture. It was pretty old, but the figures were clear enough. A young woman in a white blouse and long dark hair, standing next to a tall, lanky-looking man. They were both smiling and looked very happy.

"This must be them. Miyako and... Masumi. Were they trapped here?"

Holding onto the note, he climbed back up the stairs and his eyes rested on the door. Something stirred inside his heart as he stared at it, something that shimmered before his eyes and rang in his ears, growing louder and louder, until he was standing in front of it and it was all he could hear.

He reached for the ornate handle and everything went white.

"Masumi?"

The house was cold and dark. She didn't want to sit alone waiting anymore. She had seen him coming into the house, but why wasn't he answering her? Slowly, she made her way through the cloth corridor. Her dreams disturbed her, even in her waking. Cries and screams, small girls in black kimonos hanging by their necks in the middle of the hall, a woman's inane laughter...

"Masumi... where did you -"

The Lost Village...

There he was!

"Wait!"

Don't come here...

A room somewhere behind the house... an open door leading into the garden... he was standing there with his back to her... she reached out to him -

I don't want to kill anymore.

She screamed as she fell to the floor, trying to fight against the bloody hands clutching her neck, tighter and tighter until her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped beneath is black form, becoming limp and pale, still hearing the woman's laughter, even as everything began to fade.

Yugi gasped. Yami's incorporeal hand had pulled his own away from the handle, but he had seen everything. Had he dreamt it? No, of course not. Cautiously, he moved a trembling hand towards the handle again.

"Careful!"

This time, when he touched it, nothing happened. He couldn't ignore it, though. Yami's power made it impossible to ignore the presence within this house... lingering behind that door. Slowly, taking a deep breath, he pulled it open.

A small narrow corridor lay beyond, with an open closet on one side and a broken sliding door on the other. A dim light emanated from the orange lamp on the table beyond.

"That looks like..." Yugi stepped towards the table, staring at the rusted device sitting beside it. "Yeah. This is Mio's spirit stone radio! Is this where she got hers from?"

"I would think so. And that camera too, which is what concerns me."

"What do you mean?"

"She was no stranger to using the camera and she claimed to know all about it. If this is really where Mio got it, she would have had cause to use it here, don't you think?"

Yugi's eyes widened. "You think there are more spirits here? Like Mr. Anderson became?"

In the silence of their thoughts, a gentle sight broke through and they looked suddenly around. In the light of the lamp shone an old red scrapbook. Yugi was still holding the other note and as he picked up the book, another piece of paper fell out, matching the one he held. "They came from here." He flipped it open. Only a few pages remained and the lines written on them where more filled with panic than any of the others.

"Masumi found my note.

He WAS in the village!

I can see him soon.

I can't move...

I'll wait here.

He'll be back. He'll find the way out.

If he comes back "

The rest of the page was blank. Curious, Yugi flipped through the book, his finger holding down the red edge and his eyes suddenly caught a flash of black ink on the last page and he held it down, reading

he came

He shook his head. "I don't get it. Did they escape together? It says he came back for her, so they must have found the way out, right?"

"Somehow, I don't think that was the case."

"Why?"

"Why...?"

Yugi froze. He felt cold, some seeping darkness flowing through the air from in front of him. Slowly, he raised his head from the red book.

And stared right into her eyes.