notes from the author: 1) thank you to Arien Elensar for providing the correct shipping name, 2) I don't like this shot because I don't like this pairing...

SHIPPING: YAMI MARIK X MAI (ILLUSIONSHIPPING)

TITLE: NIGHTMARES

THEME/MUSIC: HANDS ON THE CLOCK/ POINTS OF AUTHORITY- LINKIN PARK

TAGLINE: I'VE DIED, SHE REMEMBERS THINKING.

WORDS: 477

First, when she resurfaced, there was nothing at all. No sound, no light, no feeling; only an endless, colorless void that engulfed her whole. There was no end and no beginning, no memory but no lapse in recollection, and no voice in her throat. She felt light like air, as though her limbs had freed themselves from petty restraints like gravity so that she could float about.

I've died, she remembers thinking. I've died and now there's no one else…

And then she sank into unconsciousness.

**

The second time (moments, or hours later? she didn't know…), there was warm sand and glass walls. This time she didn't feel any numbing sensation of nothingness. This time she felt fear, clawing savagely at her and pulling the sloped walls in closer to slowly suffocate her. She remembers screaming and thrashing around helplessly, spitting and choking on the grains of sand that wormed into her open eyes and ears and mouth.

She remembers him laughing.

**

The third time, he's sitting next to her, watching her from the outside. She could barely focus on his blurred image, lifting a leaden hand with splayed, trembling fingers out toward him in some gesture of a plea. He had stared, some semblance of fascination mixed with satisfaction contorting his face into a frightening mask so that her eyes clenched shut and her voice died away.

She felt absolutely alone and wept, absolutely alone (for hours and hours and hours).

**

The fourth time, she's hung on the wall like a limp doll, arms and legs stretched like hands on a clock, ticking quietly away the time to count the seconds stretching to days and years. How long had she been here? How long would she stay? Who did all these voices, hushed and invisible and whispered to resonate around her, belong to? All she knew was that each time she opened her eyes, she was here and there were more gaps in her memory than the last time she was awake.

**

"Are we broken so easily?"

It takes her a moment to recognize him, but when she does, she scowls. "Never."

"Hm. We'll have to fix that."

**

She doesn't like thinking about the fifth time. Or the sixth. Or the seventh. Or however many afterwards there were. As he emptied her mind further and further, she'd be pulled deeper and deeper under his ever-growing pile of sand, or grow weaker and weaker in the iron grip pinning her against the wall. And he'd trace searing patterns over her skin and murmur things in her ears so that she'd wish she could let all the churning disgust and want spill out over her lips and away, away, away…

**

Each time she wakes up, alone in her room, she cries heaving, shuddering sobs because she knows that she'll never be able to get rid of the nightmares.

if the Shadow Realm is supposed to be this place of horrors, I'm sure Marik did more than just keep Mai in an hourglass (not that that isn't terrifying...).

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