Chapter Thirty-Four: Chasm

Amari awoke to the sun shining in her eyes. The curtain covering her window was wide open, showing her neglect in closing it the night before. She dangled her feet off the bed, her head resting in her open palms as the memories of last night came rushing to the front of her mind. Rune was gone, Malik was lost, and she had almost killed her cousin, all because she thought she could face Marik by herself. And now she had managed to land herself back into mortal peril. She was a fool.

Biting back the sob tightening her throat she got up, going over to her temporary closet to dress for the day.

Come to think of it, why was everything so eerily quiet? The last duel to be played in the semi-finals had been her own, so she doubted they would be gathered on the platform. Was everyone still sleeping?

Amari glanced over at the clock, seeing it read one in the afternoon. No, definitely not still sleeping. Had she missed something? Curiously she looked outside of her room, staring down each end of the hallway. Nothing was moving. Strange.

Wait a second, she thought, a realization dawning on her. Closing the door, she strode back over to her window and glanced outside. She was met with, not the sky or a blanket of clouds, but land. Nothing was moving. Not even the blimp.

Amari dashed out of her room, sprinting down the hall until she reached the boy's wing. She pounded on Yugi's door. "Yugi! Can you hear me? Open up!" She stopped pounding when she didn't receive a reply. He must have left the blimp. She concluded, going back down the hall to see if anyone else was around. What is going on?

As she neared her own room she noticed Ishizu's door sliding shut. Amari made a beeline for it and knocked loudly on the door. Ishizu greeted her with surprise.

"Amari? I didn't expect you to still be here-"

"May I come in?" she interrupted breathlessly. Ishizu paused before nodding and inviting her in. "Where is everyone?" she asked, sitting down in the same place as her last visit. Ishizu sat opposite her, smoothing out her dress as she did so.

"We've made a forced landing." She answered. "There was a challenge made by a young boy to everyone on board, and so they left to accept that challenge."

"Then why didn't you leave?" Amari asked, but the look in her eyes already told Amari the answer: because Marik hadn't left either.

Amari stood up, her voice quavering. "Are you trying to tell me that the only people left on this blimp are you, me, and the evil spirit who plans to kill me?" Ishizu stared up at her, remarkably calm.

"I doubt he knows that you are still on board," Ishizu said in a calm voice. "Most probably he believes you're staying close to the Pharaoh in order to protect yourself from him. If you quietly return to your room and wait for the others to come back…" she trailed off, her eyes focusing on Amari's right wrist. "Amari," she asked in a tight voice, "where is the Sennen Bracelet?"

Amari instinctively looked down at her wrist where the gold band once hung. She rubbed the bare skin uncomfortably. Now that she thought about it, this was the first time in six years that she had taken it off. Suddenly, she felt vulnerable and exposed.

"I gave it to the Pharaoh," she said, "It's not like I can use it anymore. Besides, he needs it more than I do," Ishizu's face went slightly pale as she pressed her lips into a thin line.

"I wouldn't be too certain of that," she answered softly.

With one last, stern warning for her to be careful, Ishizu left to go check on Rashid, and Amari quickly snuck back into her own room. She leaned her forehead up against the cool metal, heaving a heavy sigh. She had no idea when the others would return, and in the meantime she couldn't leave her room for fear of running into-

Amari jerked back, and she hit the wall with alarming speed. She gasped, the impact forcing the air from her lungs as she slid to the floor. Out of the shadow of the bathroom door came Marik, the Sennen Rod raised in his right hand. Amari stared up at him in horror, still trying to breathe in. She attempted to scoot back, but there was nowhere else to go. Marik stared down at her with an unreadable expression, the darkness in his eyes swirling stronger than she had ever seen it before.

"Foolish girl," he said. "By giving your Item back to the Pharaoh, you've left yourself vulnerable to me," he kneeled down in front of her, his face close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheeks, "and now there is no one around to save you,"

"How?" she gasped. "How did you know I was here?" Marik grinned viciously, twirling a bit of her hair between his fingers.

"How could I not have known with all the noise you made?" he countered, and her heart skipped a beat. So, he'd been around when she had gone looking for Yugi. Yet again she had done something dangerously stupid.

Amari felt as her whole body began to shake. She was afraid, terrified even, of the man now kneeling before her. He was so close. She could still feel his breath on her cheeks, his fingers intertwined in her hair, and all around them was the darkness. It whispered to her, reminded her of her weakness, her foolishness. It told her he was planning to kill her. She closed her eyes.

"Please," she heard herself whisper. It was her last, feeble attempt to get him to show mercy. "Please,"

Marik's smile fell out of sight, the darkness behind his eyes swirling violently at her request. With a growl he grasped her by the neck, hauling her to her feet as she clawed against him, gasping for air. The wounds he'd received from her after their duel reopened as she added more scratch marks to his skin.

"You want mercy?" he hissed, his voice rising above her pitiful gasps as she struggled uselessly. "After all that you've done, you expect me to forgive you?" He released her, and she fell back onto the floor, but no sooner had she taken a breath she went flying through the air, landing face down on the bed. She attempted to sit up, but her body felt pinned. Her mind panicked as she realized she couldn't move.

"Feels, strange, doesn't it?" Marik asked as his knee pressed into the middle of her back, causing her to cry out in pain. "Being bound without any real restraints. That's what the Sennen Rod can do, you know. It can make you feel trapped, even if there is nothing on you," He bent down close to her ear, causing her neck hairs to stand on end. "I've said it before, haven't I, Khawan? You can't escape me,"

"Please," she heard herself cry again, her fear surfacing as a sob. "Please, Marik, don't do this! Please!" Above her she heard as he unsheathed the hidden dagger from the Sennen Rod.

"The more you say that word, the more I feel like harming you," he stated flatly as he sliced her shirt to expose her back. She began to sob as he lightly traced the sharp point along her skin. He stopped tracing when he reached the bone of her right shoulder. "Now then," he said as he pressed the point harder into her flesh, "Let the punishment begin,"

Auron rounded the corner to the living areas just as Marik exited Amari's room. He stopped his advance, watching as his master wiped the dagger clean before sheathing it within the Sennen Rod. Afterwards Marik finally decided to acknowledge his servant and wordlessly walked towards him. As he passed, Auron stiffened.

"There's a bit of a mess in there," he told him. "Clean it up." Without another word he continued down the hall, not giving Auron a second glance. Auron watched him go until he rounded the corner before staring curiously down the hall at the room Marik had just exited.

"A mess, huh?" he muttered, quickly striding over to the door. It opened easily, not to his surprise, and he stepped into the doorway. Instantly he had to cover his nose and mouth, the smell being too powerful for him. It was an odor he recognized but couldn't actually place. It wasn't until he noticed the motionless body on the bed did he remember. Blood. The room reeked of blood.

Auron fought with himself not to gag as he stepped further into the room. The blankets covering the bed were soaked with splotches of almost-black stains, as were the clothes of the person lying on the bed. The dark mass of hair covered the person's face, but it didn't take Auron long to recognize who it was.

"Jesus," he coughed, taking in the horrifying sight. Her shirt was completely shredded, revealing lacerations along her collar bone and shoulder blade. The marks were more clustered along her upper right side, but there were other stray slashes along her middle and lower back. "You idiot," he bit, bile rising to the back of his throat. "I warned you,"

Was she even still alive? He found that hard to believe, looking down on her bloodied body. The place looked like a massacre scene in a horror movie. There were even tiny drops of blood on the floor, little beads that had trickled down from the tiny pools collected on the covers under her. Auron ignored the gore and lifted the hair out of her face. He placed his fingers on her neck. Good, she still had a pulse. Auron straightened and strode quickly over to the bathroom, bringing with him a handful of towels, some wet. He would need to get bandages from the infirmary, and something to make sure the wounds wouldn't become infected. Could he risk it? What if Marik didn't want her to be treated?

Well, he said to clean up the mess, he thought to himself as he laid a few of the wet towels across her back. I guess that would include her, too.

After retrieving better supplies, Auron got busy with cleaning up the crime scene. He started with the covers, stuffing them and any other blood-stained item into a garbage bag and sealed it tight. When he was done there he would tie something heavy around it and toss the bundle into the sea. He knew there was extra bedding in the closet—all the rooms had them—so he didn't worry much about anyone noticing their absence.

Next he removed the stains on the floor with bleach he had found under the sink. The smell was almost worse than the blood, but Auron forced himself to get used to it. Damn it, Marik really had made a mess. What on earth had that stupid girl done to piss him off to this extent?

When the floor was clean he turned his sights on Amari. The bleeding hadn't stopped completely, but there was less of it than he had expected. The wounds, especially the ones concentrated on her shoulder, looked like they went pretty deep.

Lightly he began to wipe away the already dried blood. She was still unconscious, so he didn't worry much about hurting her further, but the more of it he wiped away, the more damage he uncovered. He was surprised to feel his eyes start to sting.

"Little fool," he mumbled, and he repeated the insult all through the rest of the process. As he began to clean her shoulder, he noticed there was a bit of a pattern to the slashes left there. He began to recognize a few as Arabic letters. He had no idea what it read, but by the jagged way it had been scratched into her skin, he doubted it was something pleasant.

With her back clean and disinfected, Auron got to work on wrapping up the wounds. He had to lift her slightly as he did so, and the rest of her shirt slid off in the process. In the back of his mind he hoped she wouldn't wake up and start freaking out that he had seen her chest. It wasn't like he was interested in it, anyway, but it would be a huge hassle for him if that occurred.

He was relieved when she stayed unconscious, but as he glimpsed her face he saw tear stains cutting through the blood smeared on her cheeks. His gut clenched. How much pain had she been able to endure before she'd passed out? The thought of it made him sick.

When he was done bandaging her he lifted her up and placed her gently on the couch. Retrieving the extra bedding from the closet he made up her bed. With more care than Auron ever thought he could have for this girl, he placed her on the bed and threw the covers on top of her. Now, she only looked asleep. It was as if the horror he'd walked in upon a few hours ago had only been a gruesome nightmare.

Auron rubbed his face warily, suddenly exhausted. Should he leave her? He'd done what he was told, after all. But still…

"Damn it all," he cussed, grabbing a chair and placing it by the edge of the bed. He turned it around and rested his arms along the back of it, his head propped up. Intently, he watched over her as she slept. For some reason, he felt like he shouldn't leave her side.

Author's Note;

LOL they made me change the story to a mature rating because of this chapter. Apparently, serious injury-even suggested-isn't allowed in the teen section because it includes 9-year-olds. Don't worry, though, I promise this is as graphic as this story shall get.

That's all. Just thought I'd explain myself for the rating change.

-Mq