Act II, Scene V

Against my will, I have fallen victim to stress and exhaustion. Ok, and any other time I wouldn't mind so much being murdered by that. Like, say, my room for instance. But not now. Not in the middle of class. My body won't even come to a compromise it's just so burnt out right now. I'm practically a creaky old floorboard whenever I cringingly move. My calves burn beneath the desk, throbbing from the previous night's rehearsal. Really, I just want to be able to sleep off this pain- the one that feels like glass shards in my shoulders, the one that feels like razors nipping my abs, the one that feels like someone just Texas chainsaw massacred my big toes. And when weighing the options of feeling every ache and sore muscle while learning about dividing polynomials, and sleeping the next thirty-or-so minutes away? No competition.

I give in to fatigue, cuddling up against my textbook and binder. I don't think it's that big a deal. I mean, Joey's a professional at sleeping in class, and practically the entire row next to me is bonked. Before I close my eyes entirely, I sneak a peak at Yugi through the space between my arms. Despite his boredom, he's wide-eyed and taking notes. I used to be able to do that too. I smile, not that he can see, and it's just so soothing. Like, green tea for a headache kind of soothing. I kind of want to 'psst' his attention my way and say something to him. Anything, really. "Hi", "Good morning", "I really wish I had the guts to tell you how much I like you". Stuff like that. Minus that last one. Yugi. I say his name over and over in my head like it'll ward off and evils and demons. That'd be a great help if it could right now. My eyes droop, and it seems like stage lights have dimmed. And I see Yugi, just turning to look at me as my eyes close. All I see is the Millennium Puzzle.

My body burns from the inside out.

Music twinkles beyond the fading voice of my teacher. Rustling of papers, tapping pens, and gossiping whispers are all replaced by hot winds rushing past my ears, footsteps thumping against stone, and breath, heavy and thick, struggling to tunnel a way out of my lungs. Jewels crash all around. I was the one that threw them. Somehow, I just know this. The gold and the diamonds hit the floor so loudly, the sounds win over all the others. Even the music that runs around in the background. Sekherta's hungry, cold music- the one that plays when she supposedly seduces the Pharaoh in front of everyone in the throne room. There are cries and sorrow trapped in my throat, but they won't come out as anything but roars of hate and pain. I howl as I toss everything to the ground. Glass shatters. Beads burst. Anything and everything in my path is at my disposal. And I use them to tear myself apart.

I am Sekherta, and my heart has been strewn about the floor. I live this dream through her eyes, through her body that surges with disdain and inclemency.

"Amunet?" I hear a voice call. The voice sounds gentle enough, but there are multiples of it that mask the validity of its innocence.

"Sitamun. Iiti." My mouth speaks dryly.

"Nebet Amunet, is… is everything alright?"

My eyes can hardly focus on the girl speaking to me- which I'm surprised that I can even understand some of what she's saying. My glance wanders onto everything but her. I see down a grand hallway plumed with darkness and pillars. Then, I stare out across a balcony. There is night sky like none I have ever seen. I don't think stars have ever shined so bright or so numerously in all my life. But there they are, mapping out a fate as unfamiliar to me as the symbols etched onto the walls. I step closer to the edge. At first I think I'll just swing over the wall and wait for the wind to guide me to my death. Oh, the temptation. Yes. Yes. End it all now. But then the small, multiple voices fiddle from the mouth of the girl.

"Amunet. Please… you do not look at all well."

"No." my voice croaks with a shady weight. "I am… fine. Everything is fine. Dua Neter en etj."

"Then why have you broken your fine things? Was that not you uncaging such guttural cries?"

"Yes, It was I. Does that frighten you?"

"In truth, nebet-i, yes. It does."

I did not say anything for the longest time. Everything began to swell inside me. This rather calm, quite pleasing aggression rose above all. There was much satisfaction in this, something almost sensual pulsing through me. I stretched my shoulders just ever so slightly and then my neck. Everything is done in some cat-like way. And then I was ready. I'm simply, hungrily, maliciously ready.

All the ensues next is a blur. Somehow she's on the bed, and somehow I am too. Only she's screaming. Only I'm muffling the sound with a cloth of a sort. I press my entire weight on her. My arms screech with muscle and power. Her writhing frantically beneath me chops away at my vision. And that's fine by me, 'cause I don't want to see any more of this. I want to wake up. Now! I close my eyes and open then. Close. Open. Close. Open. Every time it's the same. She still battles beneath me. Her lungs still plead under my weight. Her air is none. A tremendous crunch and snapping sound pierce through the muffling sheet. The feel of it echoes in my palms. I think she gives out one last hidden cry under the sheets. With that, her body stills. I hold the sheet, or pillow, or whatever it is, over her just a little longer.

Satisfied with the seconds- minutes? hours?- that have gone by, I throw the sheet off of her. Her eyes are wide open and still glued to the darkness they were last lost in. It's her jaw that had snapped, that had crunched and broke under the pressure of my strength. Her mouth hangs awry because of that. Her golden, youthful face is locked in her last horrified moments. And despite the fact that I have already claimed her life, I am not yet done. I've not yet won.

Carrying her body down the hallway that seemed to go on and on like the Nile was a lot easier than I thought. I made it down with hardly a noise, and more importantly, without any eyes peeping from beyond. I'm sure I was planning on avoiding them. The hard part is finding a way to get her to fit into this box in my room. No, not a box. A chest. It was a finely carved chest, decorated and painted with so many things I just don't understand. There's another girl too; sleeping on my bed. Sleeping, not dead. I don't want that girl dead. Just this girl in my arms- Sitamun, I think her name is. And I have to do my best not to wake the sleeping girl. I position her into the chest again and again. I repose her in all the ways I can think of, but nothing seems to work. Either the chest is too small or she's too big.

I feel a grin part my face. And I plead with myself to wake up. Now! Now! I want to wake up! I'd much rather listen to the teacher, feel every bit as sore and as tender to the touch as my awake self does than to be here dreaming- seeing- Sekherta's dealings! Because I'm running my hands down this dead Sitamun's legs. With one hand gripping the base of her cool foot and the other pressing down just above her knee-cap, I then thrust her leg upward. Her knee pops and crunches and bends in all the ways a knee shouldn't. I can now maneuver it the way I want without friction.

Wake up, Tea! Wake up!

I reach for a dagger that is conveniently awaiting my touch at a small table. The sleeping girl moves slightly and I pause.

"Em heset net Amun." she mumbles drearily. "Em… Em hotep, hem-ek."

She quiets again, falling back into her dream. Now I can return to my little project. I am determined to make Sitamun fit into this chest. I feel I can accomplish that even more now that I'm accompanied by this dagger. Blood is already dry on its edges. I must have used this once before. On a friend? On a foe? I am careful not to make much of a mess, so I cut across the torso, just below the breast. The blood plops out of her as if it had already pooled. Even in this dream, this nightmare, I can smell the odor at war with my nose. I can feel myself pulling away her skin like opening window curtains to a fresh, bright morning. I reach for the ribs. Break. Snap. Crack.

See how much better she bends?

God, wake up! Wake me the hell up now!

Finally she fits. I position her perfectly, contorted and deranged, into the chest that sits so near to my bed. I look at her one last time. My pulse has not spiked once. I am calm, pleasured. Sitamun looks back. Because now I can see through Sitamun's eyes. Now I am dead, looking absently back at my murderer. Now I can see the face of the monster. And the eyes that are there are the same one's I had seen in the rearview mirror of mom's car, the same one's Angeline must have seen in the mirror at rehearsal.

They are Sekherta's. She closes the chest, and I am in darkness.

"Tea!" Tristan shouting is the sound I wake to.

"Hello? Earth to Tea!" Joey shakes me.

"Huh?" my eyes open steadily. Joey, Tristan, and Yugi are congregated around me. They each look down onto me with peculiarity and wonder. The rest of the classroom is silent. All but my desk is empty.

Then I jump to my feet. "What? How long was I out? I've got to get to ballet rehearsals!"

"Whoa, whoa. Hold it there, missy." Joey snags my wrist. Still, the boys can't help but laugh when I flash them an angry face. At first I want to slug them, but then it occurs to me why they're laughing. My face is red and indented by the textbook and what I think is a pencil shape scarring across my cheek.

"Ugh!" is the best I come up with. Talented, right? I know. They call me the come-back queen. "I have to go. Why didn't you wake me up sooner?"

Joey defies me again by preventing me from putting my supplied in my book bag.

"We tried." says Yugi. "But… you were gone. We almost brought you down to the nurse."

"Part of being a professional sleeper-in-class like Joey and I is to doze off, but just enough so that you can still hear the bell ring. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it."

"I… I just put my head down for a second."

"Yeah, aint that the worst?" Joey shakes his head.

"I…" I what? I don't even know what I'm trying to say. Now I'm just pacing through my thoughts, wondering how I got here. There's something I'm not remembering, there's something…

"I saw her!" I shriek, stepping back into the teacher's desk. "Oh, God, I saw her! Yugi you have to believe me!"

"Whoa, calm down. Who did you see?"

"Sekherta. I saw her. Oh… she… she killed someone. Si-Sit-… Sitamun! Yes, that's her. She killed Sitamun! It was terrible, Yugi. And I was her. I held the pillow down over her face, and her jaw broke, and she was so scared, and I just wouldn't let go! And then she wouldn't fit in the chest so I had to break her!"

"What are you talking about?"

I cross to Yugi, grab his shoulders and probably startle him with intense look in my eyes. I want him to see my vision through my eyes. By the fear I'm feeling, I'm sure it's imprinted there. It has to be.

"I had a dream. No. A vision. I was Sekherta, but they called her by a different name in Ancient Egypt. I was in her body as she killed Sitamun. I don't know who she was, but… she killed her."

"Ballet Sekherta?" Tristan tilts his head.

"Yes."

"Tea, I'm sure it was just a bad dream."

"No!" I shove Yugi away. "I know what I saw. That was… it really happened. It's not the future, it's not now. It's the past." I swallow. "Yami's past."

The three of them step back a little.

"So… if what Angeline said was true… then this means that it's begun."

I'm not sure I know exactly what that means. Will Sekherta try to kill me now? Will she plague me with more and more visions of the past? I nod back to Yugi, although not sure why. I don't tell them about what happened to all the other dancers who had her part. I don't dare mention Fantasme in the asylum or the ways in which the other ballerinas were slain by the curse. By Sekherta. It would only sicken them. It would only worry them. I might die. I knew that much. I might not be the same ever again. That is also a possibility. But, perhaps, with Yami on my side… maybe I could finish the story. Maybe I could tell the world about Sekherta. Maybe I could be the second dancer ever to dance the finale of The Sands of Solipsism. And maybe she'd find some sort of hellish peace…

"There's more wives to kill." I finish. Yugi grimly nods. He knows the story of The Sands of Solipsism. Sekherta isn't done yet.

Tristan is kind enough to give me a ride to ballet rehearsal. Joey and Yugi refuse to leave me either, so they tag along until Madame Thibeault kicks them out.

"We're very busy. You must go!" she'd shoo them away. I figure they'd wait for me outside in the snow- two out of three of them are idiots.

I am lost at rehearsals. Sure, my body moves. I dance absently, and Madame doesn't seem to mind. She even applauds after a few variations. But I don't know where I am really. I know I know these faces around me, but none of them mean anything to me. I've seen this stage, I've danced this dance. Everything is so foreign. So far away. I think I'm getting the hang of the 'solipsism' part in this ballet. All I can think about is dying. Yes: dying. Angeline dying, the ballerinas dying, Sitamun dying, me dying. Perhaps that is why Madame dotes so dramatically at my dances today.

The day whizzes by and the next thing I know it's dark out. I step out of the theatre, and sure enough, the guys are still there waiting for me. They're all blue from the cold. In Tristan's car, we say nothing. Nothing at all. It's the strangest thing for all of us- Joey in particular- to be so silent. There's this tense tinge to the air, and I feel like I just can't get enough oxygen into my lungs. We all want to say something, and yet nothing comes out. So they end up dropping me off at my house in a dark, quiet, feel. I don't like it.

"Later, Tea." says Tristan. Joey echoes. But Yugi only looks back at me, waiting for me to say something in particular to him. And boy do I want to.

"Bye, guys. Thanks for coming with me. And the ride. I don't know what I'd do without you all."

"No problem."

"And don't let me catch you trying steal my trademark again, T! You hear? Sleeping in class is my thing!"

"Sure thing, Joey."

And they head off into the night. It only took those few sentences from my best pals to lighten my mood. If I didn't feel like splitting open my skull on the ice, I might as well have skipped into my house. I unlock the door to my house and push in. This time, though, Kuriboh doesn't come prancing down the stairs. Mom isn't making out with one of her gazillion boyfriends on the couch or on the kitchen countertop. Yes, I've seen it happen. It was awful, don't want to talk about it. Moving on!

I am alone- for the most part- in my freezing, black home. Even when I flip the light switch, the room seems dimmer than I remember. Now I don't feel so comfortable being alone. I used to be able to nook up some TV dinner, catch up with the Kardashians, and call it a day. I never had a problem being home alone. I guess when you grow up without a father and your mother is a work-a-holic stripper, you're used to it. But now I can't bear the thought of being left alone. Maybe I should have talked to the guys in the car, just to see if they could've given me any good paranormal-ass-kicking advice. Joey's a loon. He might've had some useful knowledge in that department.

But no. I decided to be silent. Not my worst decision, but it's definitely up there. I call out for a Kuriboh a few times, and when the bell on his collar doesn't jingle right away, I reach for my cell phone and call Yugi faster than I can say "duel".

Hey, guys. Sorry for the short chapters and late updates.

I'm really struggling right now with... just so much stuff that I don't feel comfortable listing on the internet.

I promise updates soon on my stories. I-can-do-this!

Thank you for your patience.