Please Read My Note At The Bottom
Things that I will mention in this chapter have been researched but they may not be true.. so please don't shoot me for the way I have used them…
Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! It belongs to Kazuki Takahashi
Enjoy!
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Chapter Thirteen – Diagnostic
A Guard sprinted out of the palace doors, weaving past some people who were still gathered round gates to the palace. He ignored all the calls from them, as he had one goal. The guard ran flat out into the town before darting down a side alley. This side alley was a lot narrower than the main street, so the guard was forced to slow down to a sort of fast jog. He gained curious looks as he rushed up the alley but he ignored them, completely focusing on what he had to do.
Finally the house he had been looking for came into view. Outside there were various shapes pots scattered about. The Guard didn't bother to knock as he drew level with the house. Inside the guard found the person he was looking for. An old man, with little hair, seemed to be playing with some coloured leaves. He turned to face the person who had just entered.
"I assume you came here from the Palace?" the Healer said, sounding unsurprised.
"Yes. You are the Pharaoh's personal physician and he needs you." The Guard replied, panting slightly.
"Well, you can tell the Pharaoh that I came here to discuss with the other healers the situation and that I will be back shortly."
"No, that's not the reason he needs you."
The Healer looked at the Guard, staring into his eyes for a short moment. Then a look of realisation spread across the Healer's face.
"No.. you're not saying.." The healer started.
The Guard nodded slowly. The Healer had to hold the edge of the surface for a moment, this could not be happening. Then the healer began gathering up items.
"Where are the other two Palace healers?" The Guard asked
"They are with families. They were going to report back to me, that's why I came down." The Healer replied, swinging a leather bag over his shoulder, "Escort me to my Pharaoh and then you must bring them to the Palace at once."
The Guard nodded, and led the wait back towards the place. They ran as fast as they could. Even more people noticed them on the way back. They all knew when a Guard was escorting the Pharaoh's healer to the Palace in an obvious rush then it could not be good news. So this meant that even more people began to gather around the palace gates. The Guard had to push through the crowd to allow the healer through. The people watched as the Pharaoh's healer sprinted inside the Palace. It was not long before the same Guard sprinted out of the Palace again and back into the town.
The people began to get more and more worried, what was going on? But that worry turned to panic as the Guard returned with the two other healers, whom were also based in the Palace. A few of the men in the crowd began to call "Pharaoh!" others joined in. They called desperately; they wanted to see their Pharaoh appear on the balcony, which he had stood on after he was crowned, if he appeared there then their fears would be silenced. But there was no movement of any kind on the balcony, nothing at all.
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The Healers had been in the Pharaoh's room for quite some time now, but the people outside had heard nothing. The Guardians, the four strangers plus Mana stood outside the room, waiting. The holder of the Millennium Rod, Priest Seto, had taken to pacing. Mahad was leaning against the wall with Mana beside him. The other Guardians were grouped in the middle of the corridor. The four strangers stood opposite them, feeling a little out of place but they refused to leave. Shimon was watching the strangers; they all seemed generally worried for their King. So, it was decided, these strangers were completely trust-worthy.
The wait seemed to go on for hours, but finally the Pharaoh's personal healer emerged from the room. He seemed surprised by the amount of people who were there. But he turned to Shimon who had immediately stepped towards the healer.
"How is he?" Shimon asked, nervously.
"Well, it is true my Pharaoh has fallen ill with the disease which many people in the town have." The Healer explained, "It seems as though the Pharaoh has got a quite severe case. In fact, we believe he is one of the worst affected."
"What are you saying?" Mana asked.
"I am saying… that maybe you should all be prepared.."
Mana gasped, fighting back tears. Her closest friend was seriously ill and she was powerless to help. The others were having similar thoughts. Isis then spoke up;
"Let me help you, we can find a cure together."
The Healer thought for a moment, then he nodded and swept away with Isis. One of the strangers then ran after the two. The other strangers looked on but they did not follow, they wanted to be here for the Pharaoh and they were hoping that Yugi was to.
"Well, there is nothing more we can do for the Pharaoh, "Shimon sighed, "Come we must tackle the issue in the town on the Pharaoh's behalf."
With that the Guardians walked in the direction of the Throne room. Mana wanted to stay but it was too upsetting so she followed her master, Mahad, to see if she could help. This left Joey, Tristan and Tea outside the Pharaoh's room.
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"Please let me help you!" Yugi pleaded.
The Healer and Isis glanced at each other. Isis knew that this boy could be trusted but they were still a little weary.
"Please! I just want to help the Pharaoh and the people in the town."
The Healer looked to Isis, it was her decision. She thought for a moment then nodded.
"OK, you can help but you must do everything that you are instructed to do."
"Yes, Yes! Of course!" Yugi said.
With that the Healer and Isis began to work on a cure. But as this illness was not well known it was difficult. Yugi's job mainly contained fetching and carrying, on the outside he seemed very much calm but his mind was a battle field. It was like he had the devil on one shoulder trying to tempt him into only thinking of himself.
Think about it Yugi, if you come up with the cure for this then you will be in the history books! You'll be famous in History!
No! That's not important. I am doing this because I owe it to the Pharaoh; I was too arrogant to notice that he needed me.
Who cares, Yugi!
I do! I am the Pharaoh's closest friend and should have spotted this!
This silent battle continued in Yugi's brain, while he continued to fetch things for Isis and the healer. In the moments when he was not doing anything, his silent battle continued. While he continued to battle with himself he did not notice Tea come into the room until Isis called to him for a second time, indicating towards Tea. Yugi hurried over to Tea, she looked slightly worried.
"The Pharaoh is asking for you." She whispered.
"What? He's awake?" Yugi whispered back
"Yes, he's very groggy but determined; he said he needs to talk to you."
Yugi thought for a moment, while a new mental battle started.
"No, I need to stay here and help." Yugi finally whispered.
"Please Yugi!" Tea pleaded, whist maintaining her whisper.
Yugi shook his head and walked away, part of him was yelling abuse to himself for not going. Tea looked at him, her eyes pleading at the back of his head, before sighing and hurrying away.
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Tea hurried back towards the Pharaoh's room. The Healers had allowed them in to keep the Pharaoh calm. As he was apparently very unsettled, this was due to his distress when the healers had told him about people in the town. Tea reached the Pharaoh's room and took a deep breath before she entered. The healers had gone, but a few of their things remained. Tristan and Joey were sitting on the floor by Atem's bed. Apparently they had been talking to him as when Tea had entered they had looked up. Tea sighed before coming over and sitting beside Joey. Atem's eyes found her, she smile sadly at him.
"He would not come?" Atem's voice was still barely more than a whisper.
Tea shook her head. Atem closed his eyes for a moment before they opened again.
"If.. he will not come then how am I meant to help him" Atem continued.
"There's nothing you can do, except get better. You need to stop thinking of Yugi and get some rest." Joey said.
Atem's eyes met Joey's before he shook his head slightly.
"Joey's right, Atem. You need to concentrate on getting well, leave Yugi to us." Tristan insisted.
It took a few minutes but Atem seemed to admit defeat as his eyes shut, and from his facial expression it seemed he was trying to fall asleep. Joey, Tristan and Tea stayed where they were for a few minutes until they were sure that Atem was sleeping before the stepped out onto the balcony. They took in the fresh air for a few moments. Then Tea turned and looked Atem, who seemed to be deeply asleep now.
"I feel so sorry for the Pharaoh, I mean this is such a bad thing to happen." She sighed.
"I know, I feel really bad for him too. This is properly the worst thing to happen to him." Tristan sighed.
"Yeah and the stress of dealing with Yugi properly isn't helping." Joey agreed.
They all fell silent as they thought, while gazing at the sleeping pharaoh. They all thought the same question but it took awhile until Tristan voiced it.
"What do you think he's got?"
Tea frowned.
"Well, let's think about the symptoms he has shown. There's the coughing…" Tea trailed off.
"Then he was rubbing his chest remember, my guess would be some sort of chest pain?" Tristan suggested.
The other two nodded.
"Oh and those red marks!" Tea chipped in.
They thought for a while, trying to piece together where they had heard things similar. They finally pinned it down, they had learnt about it in Biology. Although Joey was not convinced, Atem had not got some of the other symptoms.. or maybe he had just been hiding those from everyone.
"It might not be what we think!" Joey cried, "For one we don't know if his temperature is sky high!"
"Well let's check then!" Tea declared.
It was clear that Joey and Tristan were not going to check, so Tea did. She approached Atem slowly, he was still fast asleep. She knelt in front of him and placed the back of her hand on his forehead. Atem's eyelids flickered at her touch but did not open. Tea could feel the heat on her hand; it was not the ordinary heat that you would expect from the human body. It was not even the expected heat when dealing with a temperature.. it was higher. It fact Tea had to pull her hand away, rubbing it as the heat stung the back of her hand.
"So?" Tristan asked.
"He has got such a temperature; it feels much higher than a normal temperature would." Tea replied, still rubbing her hand.
From behind them, Joey folded his arms. He was not convinced but everything that Atem had been displaying, the apparent high temperature, headache and red marks, pointed to one thing. Typhus.
"Do we tell the healers what it is?" Joey asked.
"I don't think we should, they probably have no idea what it is. Typhus wasn't properly discovered for a long time." Tea said.
"We might be wrong anyway." Tristan pointed out.
Joey nodded, then another thought occurred to him.
"What about us?"
Tea walked back onto the balcony to join Joey.
"I think we should be alright.. I mean our immune systems are pretty strong right?"
"Let's hope so.." Joey replied, quietly.
They all looked back at Atem. The Pharaoh was still sleeping, but obviously very pale. They could just see a bright red mark on his arm which, they knew, was one of many. They all shared the same thought, they all prayed that Atem would fight this off. But who knew, maybe Atem would be unable to tackle this fight. But for Yugi's sake, they hoped that he would.
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I hope you enjoyed that!
Please review/comment/ask a question/ any constructive criticism?
I will point out here that Typhus might have been around in the time of Ancient Egypt but from the great amount of studies that I have looked at there is no certain conclusion that Typhus was in fact in Ancient Egypt or not, so I decided that it was.
Please read - I really hope that I will be able to update next week but my college work is really coming down and I have a mountain of work to get through. So it is becoming harder and harder for me to write the chapters. I really don't like making you guys wait longer than a week but I think that it's is going to have to happen now. Of course I will try my hardest to update as regularly as I have been but that is proving to be very hard at the moment. So I hope to update next Saturday if not then I will post it even ever I can.. I am so sorry : (
Thanks for reading : )
(On a happier note I have made a blog on Blogspot! Look at my profile for the name :D Come chat to me :D)