(Alea's POV)
I was in a deep sleep, as I always was when I had a long day, resting on my backpack, when all of the sudden I heard someone speaking loudly.
"Wake up, guys!" they said. It sounded like Joey. I stirred awake, though I didn't want to wake up. Everyone else was wide awake before I was.
"What's wrong, Joey?" I heard Yugi ask.
"Nothing," Joey replied loudly. "It's a brand new day, and I'm eager to duel!"
"Well, you don't need to bloody yell about it," Bakura said, irritated. He was about as much of a morning person as I was…which is to say not one at all.
"…just five more minutes," I groaned, still half-asleep.
After a minute of silence I heard Joey yell, "Lea! There's a huge tarantula crawling up your leg!" This was followed by what felt like tiny legs on the bare part of my legs. My eyes shot open and I screamed, jumping up and attempting to brush the thing off of me.
"W-Where'd it go?!" I questioned, terrified.
Joey snickered, "Where'd what go?" I saw him holding a bare branch.
"Ugh! You jerk!" I exclaimed. "You know I have a fear of spiders!"
"Hey, how else was I gonna wake you up?" he said, still snickering. Bakura wacked him upside the head.
"Okay, okay! Never again," Joey responded.
That's when I noticed Tea coming back, Tsukiko's backpack in tow. "Hey, where's Tsukiko?" Joey asked.
"She had to go, but she left this note for Yugi," she said handing the folded piece of paper to Yugi. We gathered around it to see what it said. It read: "I owe you eight Star Chips—Tsukiko."
"I guess you can kiss those Star Chips goodbye," Tristan joked.
"Hey, come on. You know Tsukiko's not like that," Yugi said. "If anything, she does whatever it takes to fulfill a promise."
"And even so, we're still team supreme," Joey said. I think it was something we could all agree on. It was time to start back up again.
"I wonder how many duelists are left," I wondered.
"Not many I would think," Joey said. "They shipped at least a couple dozen home yesterday."
"Yeah, and I guess even more will have been eliminated by now," I said.
"Some of them were really good duelists with powerful cards," Yugi noted. "We could be next."
"But those other guys just wanted to win the prize money," Tristan pointed out. "You two have a lot more at stake."
"I know, but the duelist we face today will be even stronger because they survived the first round," Yugi mentioned.
Joey stopped. "Even stronger?" he repeated.
"Careful what you say, Yugi. Joey's shaking in his sneakers," Tristan teased. Joey put up his fists.
"I'm not a scared little puppy dog!" he shouted. I could tell that they were about to get into it.
"Alright, break it up you two," Tea said. I rolled my eyes. Boys.
"Just bring on any duelist, I'll beat 'em," Joey said. At least he always had confidence in himself. We continued walking. After a while, Joey stopped.
"What's wrong Joey?" I asked.
"I think I hear someone following us," he said.
"I think you're just being paranoid," Bakura remarked.
"You've been hyper ever since you woke up this morning," Tristan said. "What's eating you?"
"I swear we're being stalked," Joey insisted.
"I'm going to find what it is." He ran off.
"Joey, wait!" I called. "You don't know what could actually be out there." But he was already gone. Sometimes I wished he wasn't so headstrong. We waited for him to back. We waited a long time. Finally, too long had passed for all of us.
"Joey's been gone a long time now," Yugi said worriedly.
"If anything I bet he got himself lost," Bakura deduced.
"Or worse, he could've been challenged to a duel," Yugi said.
"Either way, we should try to find him," I said. "Let's split up." So, we went our separate ways in pairs: Yugi and Tea, Tristan and Ryou, and Bakura and me. After about an hour or so of looking, Bakura and I couldn't find him at all.
"God, where could he have gone off to?" I questioned. "He could be anywhere on this island." I sneezed and let out a cough.
"You're not getting sick again, are you?" Bakura said. "We don't have anything left to help it if you are." He was right. It was allergy season and I was already down to my last bottle of nose spray. And I highly doubted there was a pharmacy on this island.
"I'll be fine," I said. "It's just the cool weather on this island." As I started walking onward, Bakura came up slowly behind me and wrapped his arms around me. He rubbed my arms in an attempt to warm me up. I smiled. He always stayed especially close to me when I was sick…or seemingly becoming sick. After a while, we rejoined the others at a waterfall.
"Look," Tea said, picking up a small leather article that looked like a wallet.
"It's Joey's," Tristan said, instantly recognizing it. Tea opened it to reveal a picture of a young girl in a school uniform. It must've been his sister, Serenity.
"This is so weird," Tristan said. "Joey would never be careless enough to lose this."
"Yeah…there must be some foul play involved here," I said. That's when we all noticed a cave entrance nearby.
"…I don't like the looks of this," I said.
"We have to find Joey," Yugi said. "Let's go." I honestly admired Yugi's bravery. But would it lead us into danger this time? When we entered just inside the entrance to the cave, we were met by a morbid sight: two coffins leaning on opposite sides of the cave walls. "Oh..great.." I said. "Just great."
"But…who would just leave two coffins standing here?" Ryou questioned, approaching one.
"Either someone who has one seriously dark secret, or a twisted sense of humor," I answered, approaching the other.
"Uh..I wouldn't touch those," Yugi warned. "It could be a trap."
"Oh, don't be silly," I said. "What could possibly happen?" As soon as I said that, chains started rattling and the coffins began to open. I wanted to run, but I was frozen with fear. The next thing I know, a skeleton is chasing after me! (ok, I thought it was, but it was really just on my back). Apparently Ryou suffered the same attack.
"Get it off! Get it off!" I screamed, completely freaking out. Luckily, Bakura was able to get it off me, while Tristan got the other off Ryou. I breathed heavy and my heart made it feel like there was a steam hammer in my chest.
"Shit…that was horrible!" I said.
"Pegasus sure has a dark and sick sense of humor," Bakura said.
"Gee, I'll say," I said.
"Come on, guys…let's keep going," Yugi said. "We have to find Joey."
"Right," we all agreed. We proceeded to continue down into the cave. We seemed to be going on for miles through seemingly endless tunnels. In all honesty, I was very afraid. What if we never made it out? Would we just wander around until we met our end here? That's when I noticed something odd.
"Hey…where's Ryou?" I questioned. Everyone got worried.
"We didn't take any turns," Tea pointed out. "So where could he have gone?" That's when we heard a scream that sounded just like Ryou's.
"Ryou!" We called out. That's when he came running into sight. But he wasn't alone. A skeleton hung onto his back. Not thinking straight, we all freaked out and bolted down the tunnel. "G-Get this thing off me!" Ryou screamed, running after us in complete fear.
Eventually, Tristan knocked it off, crushing the skull. "Ok, that's it, no more hitchhikers, guys," Tristan said.
"Is it safe to open my eyes now?" Tea inquired.
"S-Sorry, guys…" Ryou apologized.
"Well, we've got a bigger problem now," Bakura said. I looked up and saw exactly what the problem was. We had reached a fork in the road, a row of skulls as a candle holder in the middle. "But…which way do we go?" Yugi wondered.
"Gee, both ways look so inviting," I said in sarcasm.
"I'm in no mood for sarcasm," Tristan said in annoyance. "We have to figure out which way Joey went." Well, excuse me, but my sarcasm can't be helped in this undesirable situation, Tristan. As we moved a bit forward, Ryou stumbled a bit.
"Aah! My foot!" he exclaimed. "I stepped on a switch or something."
"Ssh!" Yugi said. "Do you guys here that?" It took a moment, but I soon began to here a rumbling coming from one of the tunnels.
"It's getting louder," Tristan said.
"I think it's coming this way," Tea said.
"But what is it?" I questioned. That's when we all saw a giant boulder rolling right towards us. We all freaked out and ran like hell. I was so not in the mood to be in an Indiana Jones situation. Suddenly, Ryou tripped behind us. My heart stopped for a moment. He fell, and just disappeared under the boulder. Oh no…no no NO! I was horrified beyond belief, but could only keep running to avoid the same fate. Bakura held tightly to my wrist and pulled me along as we ran. But we soon reached a dead end. Oh, fuck!
"That's it! Since we can't run, I'm fighting back!" Tristan shouted, turning to face the boulder. Was he out of his mind? He'd be pulverized before he had a chance!
"Tristan you can't punch out a boulder!" Yugi protested.
"I'm gonna try!" Tristan said. I couldn't watch. He threw his fist at the boulder….and it popped? We all stood there dumbfounded. A…balloon? Seriously?!
"Hey, look…there was a speaker inside," Yugi pointed out. "I bet Pegasus set this up just to scare us." I then remembered Ryou and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't crushed. I walked over to where he was. Poor guy. He looked completely traumatized. I helped him up. "Come on, Ryou. It was just a fake. You're ok," I told him in a comforting tone.
"Pegasus spared no expense to scare us all half to death," Yugi said.
After a few more minutes of walking, we finally saw a familiar blonde head. "Joey!" we called, running to where he was.
"What the hell are you doing dueling in a graveyard?" Bakura questioned.
"Hey, it's not like I'm here by choice," Joey replied. "Those three creeps ganged up on me and forced me into it!" I looked. Those three "creeps" were the same people that cheated that poor girl out of all her Star Chips in the first duel we saw on this island!
"That's it, this duel is over!" Tristan said. He went to get Joey down, but was blocked by two of the creeps. Tristan went to attack them, but the red-head hit him in the head with a stone, while the black-haired one punched him in the stomach.
"Hey! Hands off my friend!" Joey shouted. He started to get down, when the blonde guy with the bandana said snidely, "Hey, don't forget if you leave this arena, you forfeit the game and all your Star Chips."
"That's not fair! This duel is illegal, anyway!" Tea protested.
"He accepted the duel when he threw down his Star Chips," the guy said. This was so wrong!
"Then, you're just going to have to beat these punks, Joey," Tristan said, getting up from the ground. "And for a little added motivation…" He tossed Joey his wallet, with its photo of his sister Serenity. Joey expression soon became one of determination.
"So what's it gonna be?" the guy questioned. "Are you gonna cut and run, or part with your Star Chips the hard way?"
"That's it! I'm tired of your smart ass attitude!" Joey growled. "Just who the hell are ya, anyway?!"
"The name's Bandit Keith," the guy replied. I recognized the name. Seto Kaiba told us about him the previous night. He was the Intercontinental Champion that lost to Pegasus. No wonder he was trying to cheat Joey out of his Star Chips. The duel resumed.
Things were looking pretty bad for Joey. Bonz had wiped out a huge chunk of his Life Points and he was down to only 150 and with only one monster on the field. That's when Joey pulled a move I didn't expect. He played the magic card Shield in Sword, switching the attack and defense points of all the monsters on the field. This gave his monster enough attack to wipe out all of Bonz's zombies. So, Joey made it out with all his Star Chips intact.
"Now…can we get out of here, please?" I said, after all the congratulations were done. "I can't take any more of this creepy place."
But things in here were far from over…