Anzu stared at the revealed entrance with her mouth wide open in surprise. Falling down into the sand, she sat there for a long moment in awe of what had happened. She looked down at the Millennium Tome, now a seemingly normal ancient text. No longer did the power seep from the pages to engulf her in their glow; she was surrounded by the darkness of night once again. Her fingertips on her wounded hand played over the golden hieroglyphs, and that was when she noticed how much it pain was coming from the cut.

"Oh god, it hurts," she whimpered.

She was not prepared for wounds and tried to figure out what to do next. Her blood flow had slowed, but it was still trickling from the cut. Grabbing the knife with her unmarred hand, she cut a strip of fabric from her veil and used that to tie the other hand up. It proved difficult to tie it one-handed, and she gave up to use her hand and teeth to get it tight enough.

Rummaging through the pack, she pulled out the flashlight and matches and put them in one of the outer pockets. Into the main compartment with her canteen, she replaced the Millennium Tome. Her knife was strapped to the back of it and attached with a couple of stray cords. She stood up again and grimaced as she put the pack on again. Her foot was really bothering her, but she had no transportation or anywhere else she could go for the night. In the morning, she would have it looked it. Now, she needed to face the darkness ahead of her.

Anzu carefully made her way through the remaining bits of rubble strewn across the ground outside the dark chasm that marked her way into the tomb. Everything seemed so silent now. The wind had stopped, the sound of rolling rocks and their echoing had dispersed, and there was no other living creatures of around her. It was creepy, and her skin felt like it was crawling. She could turn back. She could always turn back if she wanted, it would not be hard. It would probably be easier than going into this tomb.

She stroked the rough-hewn entryway. Thousands of years had altered the formally smooth lines of the entrance. Anzu remembered the first time she entered this place. She was also aware that Yugi's grandfather also had similar experiences in the present time-line. This was a tomb known for being a trap.

Anzu wrapped her bandaged hand around her cartouch, twin to Atemu's, and whispered into the darkness, "Atemu, please help me. Do not let your traps harm me."

She closed her eyes, and behind her lids she could see a warm glow. In her mind's eye, she saw him holding his tanned hand out to her. It was daylight and the shadows were cool in here. Anzu reached forward with her other hand and clasped his. She followed where he led, stepping deeper into the darkness of the tomb. She could hear small pebbles being shifted with her shuffling feet as she walked. Afraid of falling, she opened her eyes.

Her mirage of Atemu vanished. She was surrounded in pitch black darkness. Anzu could hear her own heartbeat in her eardrums, each beat sounding louder than the one previous. Her rapid breathing seemed to be sucked into the emptiness around her. She closed her eyes again, but he did not reappear. Fumbling into her pack's outer pocket, she pulled out the flashlight and turned it on.

She was standing in a long corridor decorated with carvings and hieroglyphs that went from floor to ceiling. Even above her, sacred images adorned the stone overhead. Her small beam of light accented the smallness of the space, and she could feel panic rising from the sudden feeling of claustrophobia invading her senses. Bile began to rise up in the back of her throat, and she forced herself to try to stay calm, but when she started to hear whispers in the darkness, her idea of being calm vanished.

"Who-who-who's there?" She whispered into the darkness.

Her own voice echoed along the walls and back to her, sounding like she was saying to herself "Air."

She chuckled. She was just being silly, letting the dark get to her. There was only air around her. No one had been in this tomb for years. Anzu leaned against the wall and laughed harder. She felt funny, her body almost felt like it did at the dentist once when they gave her a numbing agent.

Anzu finally accepted that she was safe and commented aloud, "There's no one here, but myself."

Her voice echoed back, "Self... self...self..."

She shined the light along the wall in front of her and noticed an old tar torch set into a iron ring. There seemed to be a fair few of them along the walls and one was to her right. Distracted momentarily by the rough wooden beacons of light, it was then that she realized that her echo wasn't fading. Her voice was coming back to her louder and louder. She started spinning the flashlight down one way and that, mounting fear was causing her limbs to tremble. Why was it not becoming quieter like it did when she first spoke?

"Self... self... Shadow... self-serving... self-keeping... selfish girl." Her own voice was calling to her in falsetto sarcastic tones.

"No, no... I'm not selfish!" She argued back, her fright causing her voice to sound strained.

Her own laughter came back from the shadows. She could see faces forming in the darkness, swirling like ink where her light did not shine. Anzu could also see how the beam of light was shaking in her hand.

Her eyes were wild with dread as she tried to figure out what to do. "Light, I need more light."

Using her cut hand, she dug out the pack of matches and tried to light one while holding the flashlight. However, her fingertips felt numb and her cut was bleeding anew. She pulled it along the side of the box, but it didn't spark. Anzu could not get enough of a thrust behind her movement to light it. She was going to have to put the flashlight down to do this, but she did not want to put the light down. The dark was scaring her.

"Please... please..." Tears were falling from her eyes as she tried again while still holding the flashlight.

Laugher echoed back at her, her own voice spoke again, "Please... please..." The echo returned to mock her.

She kept trying to strike it, but she ruefully realized that it wasn't going to happen this way, and she had to light the torches to keep whatever was in the dark away from her. A primal sense told her this. Her strange thought went to why fire was discovered, it must have been created to ward away the creatures in the dark.

Giving up, she used the feeble artificial beam to look around and noticed that the pointed bases of the torches were metal and pressed tight against the wall. If she could shove the flashlight between the stone and metal, that could keep the light on and free her hands long enough to light the match. Deciding to try this with the one she was next to, Anzu shined the light onto the heavily decorated torch. She noticed that the eyes decorated the brim where the wood was placed into its bowl.

Anzu shoved her flashlight in and checked to make sure it was in there well before turning her attention back to the matches. Her own voice was all around her now, saying please over and over again as it continued manically laugh. The match was not lighting, she threw it down and pulled another one out, trying again.

"Come on, please light."

"Lies... lies... lies... You tell such pretty lies..." Amazingly, they sounded even closer than before, and this match was also proving to be useless.

She pulled another one light and then the flashlight flickered. For one brief second she was in complete darkness, and then the light was back. Anzu was leaning against the wall, her pack pressed against her back with the light shining upward to create a maximum halo around her. She had bit through her lip to keep from screaming, and a small trickle of blood escaped her lips. Her nostrils flared with her rapid breathing, her breasts heaving up and down. During that moment of darkness, she had become completely still. Shaking her head out of it, she tried to light the match again.

They wouldn't light. It wasn't working. The flashlight flickered again.

"Atemu, you promised I would be safe... you promised," she was whimpering like a small child, she could hear it herself, "Atemu..."

"Atemu... Atemu... Pharaoh... Pharaoh... Far away..." Her echo did not whimper at her. It growled from the darkness, "Pharaoh cannot protect you..."

Anzu felt a memory from her youth come back to her. As a little girl, they had moved so much because of her father's job and found themselves in another new home. This one was in America and somewhere cold. She wanted to say Seattle but couldn't remember correctly. Father and Mother had rented a large house that was drafty and cold. Her first night there, they had put her in a nearly bare bedroom, and she begged for a night-light. It was creepy in that old house, and most of its furniture was draped with heavy white sheets like corpses in a morgue. They obliged her, but sometime during her sleep, the light's bulb had expired. She remembered waking up in complete darkness and hearing nothing but wind and squeaking boards. Her child-self had screamed and screamed in her bed, hidden under the blankets, until her parents rushed into the room. After that night, she slept with her parents until they moved to a nice, modern apartment in the next location.

"Light... please..." She begged the coated stick of wood grasped between her fingertips. Horrible laughter without words simply responded this time.

Whatever it was that was talking in the dark felt like it was just beyond the small circle of light around her. Anzu noticed that the light's brightness was becoming smaller and more faint. How was that possible? Her flashlight had new batteries; there was no way it could be dying. She turned to take a look at it, and her elbow bumped the into the torch holder and her flashlight. Her breath caught in her throat as she watched in horror as the flashlight wiggled in the space she had shoved it. Her scream came as she watched it fall. Her echo shrieked in triumph back at her.

Within seconds, she was plunged into a darkness so thick she could taste it in her throat and feel it on her skin. Her hands were striking the match as quickly as she could against its matchbox. Anzu felt a cold in her body that she had never felt before. Something was running toward her. She could hear footsteps, or was that footsteps, slapping against the stone ground. She kept attempting to strike her match.

She heard it strike before the match flared to life. Her elation was short-lived when at the same time she saw a harpy-like creature hissing at her and running from her light. This was no harpy like the ones that Mai dueled with. Rotted green skin hung off its face, and it's milky white eyes rolled in its skull with red irises. Claws replaced its fingernails which were pressed against its chest. There was no beauty in this creature that had rushed at her. Before the match burnt out, Anzu placed the flame against the tar of the torch and it came to life. Screaming in anger, the creature ran further away into the darkness and away from the lifesaving glow.

Anzu nearly slid down the wall in relief. She bent over and picked up the flashlight, shaking it a few times. Its light flickered but never stayed steady again. Frowning, she shoved it back into the pocket of her pack. Looking again at her savior of the moment, she wondered if it was very heavy. She was going to need to carry something with her, and this could light the other torches around. She wasn't sure if the creature she saw had went deeper into the tomb or toward where Anzu had come from. Regardless, she was going to walk the other way. Pushing up on the torch, she heard the metal cone scrape against the iron ring in protest, but it came out.

Stepping to the other side of the narrow corridor, she lit its twin. Warm firelight crackled around her, and she felt much better to have it. Trudging in the opposite direction of the thing, Anzu continued onward. She realized it must have gone toward the entrance because the ground was sloping downward. She continued to light any other torches she found and imagined this is what it must have looked like thousands of years ago when people carved the symbols and images into the stone around her.

As she walked, the pain from so many steps eventually accentuated the soreness of her lame foot. She wondered if this was a corridor without end, but then knew it wasn't so when she reached what appeared to be a large, box-shaped room. This wasn't in the stories from Yugi's grandpa and others. She wondered if Atemu's tomb transformed itself as it saw fit to keep outsiders away. It was a possibility, they did create the Millennium Items. It would be easy to design traps that changed after performing magic like that.

On the far side of the room, there was a set of double-doors. They were decorated with life-sized images of Atemu, Mahado, and Priest Seto. Mahado was on the left and Seto was on the right, and each figure was in the class three-quarter pose commonly found in Ancient Egyptian carvings. Columns rose on either side of the door, and there seemed to be floating steps in the background. Anzu approached these doors and pushed them open. Text on the archway offered her no clue as to what she would walk into next.

Her eyes set on a room that seemed to be a void. Anzu's torch seemed to offer minuscule light in this space. Looking down, she yelped. She was standing on the razor edge of a cliff, and below her, more of the inky blackness. She stepped back and frowned. How was she supposed to get across? Glancing side to side didn't show much in the way to alternatives, so she went back into the main chamber and looked at the doors again.

Stairs in the air? It was stygian darkness in there and emptiness. She walked back into the doorway, running her free hand along the wall. Maybe there was a switch or something. Finally, she felt a small spherical shape that was poking out the wall, but it was over the chasm. Anzu hoped she didn't drop the torch, but she figured light had been helpful so far, why not see if this was a sconce or something similar. Reaching, she manged to touch the flame to to the lip of the wall decoration.

Lighting the sconce caused a chain reaction to occur in the chamber. One after another, other light fixtures were lit as a single beam of flame raced along hidden channels in the walls. However, the numerous lights did nothing to illuminate the wide gap of darkness in the center. They did light up the various platforms set into the walls that went all around the room. If one was nimble enough, they might be able to use them to get across. It was these that Anzu was staring at in despair.

"You have got to be kidding me!" This time there was no echo back, and her voice sounded flat in her ears.

There was no way she was going to be able to handle jumping ledge from to ledge in this room. If her foot hadn't been hurting her, there was a possibility she could have done this. She leaned over the edge to look, but of course, she couldn't see anything down there but blackness. She sat down on the ledge and grabbed a nearby pebble. Throwing it into the yawning gap, she waited for any sort of sound that it had landed. She waited five minutes before giving up on it landing anywhere near her.

Eying the ledges, Anzu removed the shoe from her left foot. She then proceeded to rip another strip of linen from her veil and then wrapped it tightly around her ankle. She figured it might have a sprain or something. Right now, there wasn't much time to think and if she did, she might lose her nerve. She stood back up and then used the remainder of the scarflike veil to tie the pack more securely to her body. Anzu didn't want her center of gravity to suddenly shift.

If she jumped by pushing up with her good foot, it should give her enough leverage. It appeared either way would get her to the other side, and they both were the same distance. She supposed it was all relative at this point. Leaving the torch at the doorway, she took a running start and leaped to the first ledge on her right.

The distance wasn't far, but the landing jarred her lame leg. Biting back her cry of pain, she steeled herself for another jump. This one was angled up and a bit further off. Anzu backed as far as she could on the ledge she was at and then ran and jumped for the other one. Her body slammed into the side of the outcropping, and her breath was knocked for her. She scrambled as quickly as she could to keep a handhold and pull herself up. Two down and only a countless number remained she thought ruefully to herself.

Speaking out loud to herself again, Anzu said, "I can do this... I can... I just can't... think about it." She ran and leaped for the next one.

Each ledge blended into itself as she made slow progress around the walls of the room. Only the light from the burning channels around her offered any illumination to her next one. Above, below, and in the center of the room was the dark emptiness she did not want to fall into. Hours passed, maybe it was minutes, it was harder and harder to tell in this place where time held no meaning for her anymore. All she had to do was keep going forward. Finally, she landed on the ledge to the exit.

Rolling over to stare at the images above her, Anzu panted from her exertions. She felt exhausted and tired, but she couldn't rest yet. Sitting up, she removed the ties from the pack and pulled out the last canteen of water. She tried not to drink greedily, but she was so thirsty. Her mouth was salivating profusely. Mentally deciding she had enough, although her body protested, Anzu capped the water and stood back up. Her left foot and leg were killing her with a throbbing pain that radiated up to her knee.

She took a look down the next hall and saw a curious sight. A wavering glow was just in front of her now. Anzu could make out some of the details, but the image was fuzzy. It was almost like that of a television with poor reception. As it came in clearer, she saw it was Atemu. He was gesturing wildly at her, and his mouth was moving but it was difficult to hear what he was trying to tell her.

"Anzu... go... third... return..." His words were as distorted as his manifestation and didn't come through clearly, except a few.

"Atemu! I don't understand, what is wrong?" She cried out to the image, trying to reach for him.

Her hand passed through him, and he vanished. Anzu was left alone in the dark again.