Six years later…
Ryou sat at home in his room, books on his desk and pencil in his hand. He tapped the pencil against his desk, trying to concentrate on studying, but his mind was elsewhere.
He graduated and achieved his undergraduate degree with a decent GPA. Not quite as good as he would've liked, but decent enough. The stress of school had taken a toll on his mental health, so he was going to postpone applying to medical school for another year. For the time being he stayed at home and prepared for the MCATs, and also applied to part-time jobs. It wasn't necessary for him to get a job because his father provided all his housing and other basic needs, but it wouldn't hurt to get some work experience.
There were a lot of biases in the field of medicine in general. Biases on the bases of race and gender were the most commonly talked about, but no one talked much about the biases against vampires. The medical field was dominated by humans, thus most of the research on vampirism was heavily misconstrued, and most of the medicine that worked for humans didn't have the same effect on vampires. Once Ryou entered the field of medicine he wanted to see if he could fix some of the inaccuracies and misconceptions against vampires, and also find research for better medicine. It would probably be better if an actual vampire were to conduct that kind of research. Just because he had a brother who was vampire didn't mean Ryou was completely free of prejudice himself, but somebody had to do it, and he certainly would be better at it than most of his co-graduates.
Speaking of vampires, where was Bakura? Why hadn't he come home yet? This had been on Ryou's mind all day, distracting him from his ability to study. Bakura had supposedly graduated college too, and with stellar grades, but he never told Ryou the name of the school he went to, or what he majored in. Ryou tried to do his own research, but try as he might, he couldn't find any colleges in existence that only accepted vampires. Was there a secret society of vampires that humans didn't know about, or was Bakura lying about going to college at all?
There was something else that was suspicious too. When Ryou came home from college, he bought along several suitcases full of clothes, books, and other belongings that he had used while in college, and he also sent home several pieces of furniture that he had used in his dormitory. When Bakura came home from college, he brought nothing. Not even one suitcase. Bakura was definitely hiding something. Every time Ryou asked, what's the name of the college you attended? And where is it located? Bakura would reply with, "I'll tell you later," and change the subject. Why was Bakura being so secretive? What was he hiding? Ryou decided to let it go and stop asking questions. Whatever reasons Bakura had for lying must've been good reasons.
Ryou still worried, though. Bakura hardly ever came home these days, for he was supposedly out partying with his friends, or sleeping over at a friend's house. Did those friends live close by? Whenever Bakura came and left the house, there was never any car coming or leaving the driveway. How was he able to just appear and disappear with no explanation? And whenever he left, he kept taking things from the house with him, such as furniture, blankets, old childhood toys, and salt. Especially salt. For whatever reason Bakura kept taking salt from the kitchen cabinets without any explanation, and once he took them away he never brought them back. Something strange was going on, that's for sure. But Bakura was always in high spirits, seemingly happy about something. If he was happy, then whatever he was hiding couldn't be bad, right?
Their father was on a business trip as usual, which meant Ryou and Bakura had the house to themselves for the next couple of months. But since Bakura hardly ever came home, Ryou was mostly home alone. It was starting to get lonely, and a bit bored too. He had friends from college, but they all lived very far away. He used to talk to them on social media sometimes, but the frequency at which he talked to them got less and less until the conversations stopped altogether as they all became too busy with their private lives. What was Ryou to do but alternate between playing video games and studying all day. His life had gotten stagnant until he was ready to start applying to medical schools next year.
It was getting into the late afternoon. He might as well go get something to eat. He went downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed some vegetables out of the refrigerator, which he placed on the cutting board and began to cut into smaller pieces. He couldn't be sure if Bakura was coming home or not today, so he decided to prepare food only for himself. Bakura would have to settle for leftovers if he did come home.
When Ryou opened the kitchen cabinets, he noticed they were out of salt again. He scowled. Why did Bakura keep taking all the salt? With a sigh, Ryou shut the cabinets and went to get his car keys and wallet. It was time for another trip to the grocery store.
The car keys were easy to find; they were on the kitchen table as always. His wallet, however, must've been misplaced somewhere. He went back upstairs and went to search his room, but he couldn't find it anywhere. He left his room and was about to go back downstairs, but then he paused outside of Bakura's bedroom door.
Bakura wouldn't take Ryou's wallet, would he? He took salt and random items around the house, but he would never take something as important as a wallet. At least, Ryou hoped not. But it couldn't hurt to search Bakura's room just to be sure.
Ryou cautiously opened the door to Bakura bedroom and went inside. It was a very messy room, with lots of papers, books, and trash scattered all over the floor, making it difficult to walk. Ryou pushed the junk on the floor away using his feet, searching for his missing wallet. He searched the floors, the desk, and drawers, but he came up empty-handed. Then he decided to search the closet.
The walk-in closet was surprisingly neat and tidy considering how messy the rest of the room was. The carpet was clean and vacuumed, and clothes were hung neatly against three sides of the walls. Out of curiosity, Ryou examined the clothes. There was a large collection of expensive-looking shirts, coats, and capes, and they were black with gothic designs. The designs were very elaborate and ceremonial.
Where had Bakura gotten clothing like this? How peculiar. Ryou continued walking along the wall examining the individual articles of clothing until he reached the back of the room, where he noticed something interesting. There was a large red curtain hanging against the wall, and when Ryou pulled the curtain to the side he discovered a hidden stone staircase.
Had this staircase always been here? Ryou had lived in this house for his entire life and didn't know about it. It was a spiral staircase, dimly lit with small lights embedded into its stone walls. Something told him he probably shouldn't go inside, because it was hidden for a good reason. However his curiosity got the better of him.
Ryou started to descend down the staircase. The was no railing, so he held onto the walls for support. The stone stairs were cold and smooth against his bare feet. The more he descended, the cooler and damper it got. He wasn't entirely certain how deep the staircase went, but he must've reached the basement level of the house, possibly even lower. Eventually he did reach the bottom, where there was a small room brightly lit with a small chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and right in front of him was an ornate golden door.
He sensed danger ahead of him, but his curiosity was too tempting to resist. After standing in place for about a minute debating with himself, he opened the door.
There were a lot of voices speaking to each other when Ryou initially started to open the door, but once he got the door was completely open, all the voices became silent. Approximately thirty people in the room stopped everything they were doing to stare at Ryou standing in the doorway. No one spoke for brief moment.
"Uh…pardon me," Ryou said, meekly ducking his head and starting to close the door again.
Many voices started shouting all at once. Someone yelled, "Who is that!?" Someone else shouted, "Intruder!" Several people started marching towards the door. Ryou took a few steps backwards, but he didn't get far before several hands grabbed him by the arms and pulled him into the room. He heard the door slamming shut behind him after he was pulled inside.
Someone grabbed Ryou's chin and forced him to look up into the face of man with silver hair and a glass eye. "Who is this?" the man said.
"It's definitely a human, Mr. Pegasus," said someone on the left.
"It looks kind of familiar," said Mr. Pegasus.
"Back up, back up. Everyone move. Get out of the way," said a familiar voice that Ryou recognized immediately. He knew right away whose voice it was; it was definitely Bakura's.
Bakura appeared in view, waving his hands to direct people to get out of the way, and everyone parted to let him pass through. "It's alright, he's with me. Let him go," Bakura said, and the people holding Ryou by the arms let him go immediately. Bakura stretched out his hand.
Ryou grabbed the outstretched hand and stood up. He clung to Bakura and tried to hide behind him, which didn't really work since they were surrounded by people on all sides.
"You alright?" said Bakura.
After a few seconds of heavy breathing, Ryou calmed down enough to nod his head.
"Okay great." Bakura waved his hands at the people around him. "Everyone back up, give him space. He's not an intruder. He's our guest."
"You know this guy?" said Mr. Pegasus.
"Yes, let me introduce you to my brother Ryou. You know, the human twin I've been telling you about," said Bakura.
"I still can't believe it's possible to have a human as a twin," Pegasus scoffed.
"I told you already, we're fraternal, not identical," Bakura said.
Now that Ryou had calmed down, his curiosity was coming back. He looked around the room and noticed the decorations, furniture, and clothing that all the people were wearing. In the middle of the room there was a drawing of a magic circle on the ground with candles placed neatly around the edges. A large and ornate chandelier of black and white hung from the ceiling to provide light. The walls were made of stone. Placed against the walls were many of the people in the room were wearing large ceremonial black coats with a mixture of Victorian and Gothic fashion.
"Bakura, what is this place? Who are these people?" Ryou asked.
"Well…" Bakura paused to come up with a good answer. "This is my secret room, and these are my vampire friends. Everyone you see here is a vampire. This is our secret vampire meeting place."
"Oh, okay," Ryou paused. "What's with the weird clothes? Are you having a costume party?"
A roar of laughter erupted through the room. Bakura was laughing too.
"Yes, it is a costume party," Bakura confirmed humorously. "I have a costume for you too. Would you like to join us?"
Ryou shook his head. "No, absolutely not. Do you want to tell me what's going on? I know you've been hiding something. You've been lying to me for the past six years! I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I'm reaching my limits! You keep taking all the salt, and you keep randomly leaving the house with no explanation! Just what is it that you're doing?" Ryou's voice became more and more passionate the more he spoke, for he had been waiting to unleash his frustration for quite some time. "Where did these people come from? Why are they here? And why is there a secret underground room connected to our house, and why didn't I know about it?"
"Fine, alright, I guess I owe you an explanation. I'm actually really glad you're here, because now I can show you what I've accomplished while in college," Bakura said.
"Oh yeah, that's another thing! Did you actually go to college for real? I searched everywhere on the internet but I couldn't find records of any schools that only accept vampires! Did you make that up?" Ryou said with deep-seated anger.
"I didn't make it up. It does exist, just not in this dimension. I'll give you a brief summary of what happened. Six years ago, I was rearranging clothes in my closet when I accidentally found a hidden staircase, and when I went in I found this room which had a lot of books. After following the directions from one of the books, I got transported into an alternate dimension where vampires reign supreme as the dominant race. That's where I discovered the college I wanted to attend. So technically I didn't lie to you," said Bakura.
"Oh wow! I didn't know other dimensions existed," Ryou said.
"There are an infinite number of alternate dimensions. Traveling between dimensions is possible with the use of magic, and in order to use magic you need to use salt. That's why I kept taking all the salt; because it's what powers magic. See that magic circle in the middle of the room?" Bakura gestured to the ground. "That's the portal that we use to travel between dimensions, and it's drawn using salt."
"Okay, that explains a lot. But why are these people here?"
"They are from the Society of Vampires in the other dimension. It's very similar to a college fraternity. They're here because today is my turn to host a club meeting."
Ryou nodded as if this were any regular conversation about college fraternities. "Why did you wait so long to tell me about this?"
"Generally it's not a good idea to tell the people in this dimension about the existence of magic. I was planning to tell you eventually, but I wanted to wait another month. You came a little early, but that's alright."
"Okay. As long as you're not doing anything illegal or unethical, that's fine then." Ryou suddenly realized he was hungry. "How about we talk more about this later? I have to prepare dinner first. It's getting late."
Ryou turned around, but two vampires moved to stand directly in front of the door in order to block his path. He felt a hand rest on his shoulder.
"You think you're allowed to leave?" Bakura spoke in a half-whisper.
Ryou felt a chill run down his spine.
"When I asked you if you wanted to join us, that was a rhetorical question. You don't actually have a choice. Now that you found us, you're obligated to join whether you like it or not." Bakura snapped his fingers, and someone immediately ran over and handed him a stack of clothing. He offered the clothes to Ryou and said, "Change into this."
Ryou stared at the clothes without moving, a look of fear and betrayal in his eyes.
Bakura sighed and patted Ryou's shoulder reassuringly. "You're not in trouble, okay? Nothing bad is going to happen. But you have to do exactly what I say. Go get changed."
Reluctantly, Ryou took the clothes. The vampires parted to make a path towards a storage room on the opposite side of the room. He felt all eyes on him as he made the slow and delicate walk down the path. Someone opened the door into the storage room when he reached it, and once he went in the door was shut behind him.
Could he trust Bakura's word that nothing bad was going to happen? Ryou decided that yes, he could trust those words. It didn't mean that anything good was going to happen either; it was a neutral thing. But at least he didn't have to be afraid. He changed into the clothes.
There was one article of clothing he didn't understand. It was made of leather and looked like a belt, but when he tried to wear it around his waist, it was too small. It was too big to be a bracelet, so he put it around his head like a headband. In the room there was no mirror, so he did his best to examine his appearance on the reflection of a metal endtable. He had on a black gothic dress with ruffles. There was a also a pair of white stockings and black shoes. It wasn't Ryou's style of clothing, as he would never choose to wear this out of his own volition, but he had to admit it was tasteful. He liked it.
He folded his old clothes neatly into a pile and carried them with him as he left the storage room. As soon as he opened the door, a wave of laughter erupted through the room, and Bakura was laughing too.
Ryou scowled, because he thought he looked pretty cool. "What's so funny?" he demanded.
"That…that's not a headband. It goes on your neck. Here, let me fix it." Bakura went up and took the leather collar in order to secure it around Ryou's neck. Then Bakura reached into his pocket and took out a small padlock, which he fastened onto the collar, locking it into place.
Ryou grabbed at the collar, finally realizing this was a trap. "Wait, this is…"
"One thing I neglected to tell you earlier," Bakura said, reaching into this other pocket, "is that in the Vampire dimension, humans are a slave race. If you are to come with me, you have to be my slave." He pulled out a chain, which he fastened onto Ryou's collar. Giving the chain a tug, he motioned for Ryou to follow him.
All of the vampires began chanting, and the magic circle in the middle of the room began to glow. One by one the vampires began stepping into the circle, magically being teleported somewhere else. Bakura walked over to the circle, dragging Ryou along by the chain behind him. They both walked into the circle and teleported away.