Had the wonderful pleasure of being alone in the house with a copy of Yugioh: Dark Side of Dimensions, so I could scream and cackle and slap my face all I wanted without witnesses. 3 'Twas glorious.

Chapter 24

The man who met her when she walked out her home to get the mail had bone white hair, though what she could see of his face past the black sunglasses was ivory smooth and unwrinkled. Even before she caught the whiff of rust she knew what he was.

His hands reached out.

Then she opened her eyes to darkness, lost as to how she had come there, her wrist throbbing dully where Atem had bitten. Though she laid on something soft and there was a blanket over her, she shivered hard, and the air was rank with mothballs and rats. She sat up, heart in her throat, and felt around, but her hands hit walls, and finally, a door. A closet. Or a cell, of some sorts.

Even as the fear drained her mouth and spiked her gut painfully, a part of her had known something like this would have happened eventually. Even if her blood hadn't meant anything.

The door wouldn't move in or out, and she could find no door handle. The foam pad that made the floor of the closet and her new bed covered the crack beneath the door, and even when she pulled it away, no light shone through. Thus, she wrapped herself up tight in the musty blanket and ducked her head into her arms. Only then did she try to comprehend the chill that had settled within her.

Horrible things were about to happen. She'd most likely die. And, as far as she could tell, there was nothing she could do about it.

And yet, all she could register was that chill within her, that burned her insides with the cold thereof, and a distance, shrill horror in the back of her mind.

The door hinges creaked and a draft of new hair brushed through to her. She jerked up, but could see nothing still. It was as dark outside the door as it was inside.

A cold hand cupped her face.

"Pity you can't be changed. Such pretty eyes."

The unfamiliar baritone sent shivers down her back. The thought of running didn't even occur to her, not in such blinding darkness.

She smelled rust again.

"Hungry? Need a bathroom break?"

There was no kindness in that voice. In fact, there was hardly any emotion at all.

Yugi didn't trust herself to speak.

Whoever held her face sighed short and quick and his hand moved from her chin to grip the side of her throat.

The next thing she knew, a wet mouth mashed against the side of her neck and pain exploded. She cried out and jerked away, but his arms went around her like barrel bands, hard as stone and as cold as well. A great mass of scratch hair pooled about her back and face, getting into her mouth and eyes, and rank with the smell of rust and salt.

Her head spun, brightening the darkness with runs of gray stars and streams. Her muscles weakened and she fell. The vampire followed to become a hard, heavy, unyielding mass upon her.

Only a minute or so later, though, he pulled back, unhinging his teeth from her artery with a sharp smack of pain and cold. Something smooth and taut wrapped about her neck, only loose enough to allow her to breathe.

"No doubt about it, you're one of them," said the voice, ringing with satisfaction. "Now, I think it goes without saying that if you want to stay alive and in relative comfort, you'll be as meek as a lamb and do as I say. Get up."

His weight lifted, but he didn't give her the chance to even see if she could stand. A claw like hand clamped about her forearm and hoisted her to her feet. Her side slammed into the side of the closet-like cell as her ears rung and her consciousness warbled. Whatever he said next she didn't hear, but the arm yanked her forward, where an arm hooked about her stomach as her knees gave way. As her vision cleared, she found herself being painfully carried about her middle by an arm and held to a man's side. His black steel-toe shoes clomped some inches from her dangling fingertips. Light.

The black boots stepped onto dirty white tiles and the dim light became blinding. He dropped her onto the tiles.

"Take care of yourself," he said gruffly. A door closed, pushing her rump in the last few inches.

She only allowed herself a few seconds to feel the icy tiles before slowly sitting up, squinting. A stained toilet in one corner. A ceramic sink half peeled from the wall beside it. A lone, naked shower head hanging above it all. The room was no more bigger than the closet she had just left.

Shaking so hard she feared all her joints would simply snap, Yugi pulled herself to her feet with the help of the stained toilet and, telling herself not to think about the insides, 'took care of business,' then numbly washed her hands in the cold sink until the vampire opened the door and yanked her back outside into the dim lighting. Yugi could just make out a distant wall of cinderblock and riveted steel before he yanked open a door nearby and threw her inside. She saw what her hands had told her before. A door with a steel handle on the outside and steel door jam, but nothing inside.

"There will be food, so no whining," said the vampire.

She turned around just in time to see his bone white hair and face. Then the door slammed close with a thrum of metal and the door jam was pushed into place.

His eyes she thought, and even as she did the painful cold shuddered and something strangling and acidic clawed up her throat. They were black. No white, just black and red and black.

Then the pain of the bites fell away to the blinding reality of her situation and a sudden need for air.