Second Encounter:
He expects the awareness to fade, but it doesn't. This excites him. He is free to explore the world.
Though it is not much of a world.
He is in a tomb. Or rather, what he imagines a tomb would be like, according to the wealth of knowledge now poured into his mind. Though the knowledge is not his, he has adopted it, has searched it tirelessly for meaning, only some of which he can grasp. While he explores his surroundings, he also explores his mind, begins to understand the barest of facts that have appeared.
Somewhere amidst all the exploring, he realizes the memories that are not his belong to someone. A boy. Sometimes that knowledge is clear and begins to point him to an identity, a name, and then it slips through his fingers and he is left once more in barely understanding haze. The awareness is not yet complete. But at least it is there.
A sudden flash of fear. It rushes through the walls like a frigid wind and squeezes his chest. He is gasping for breath. The fear is not his. It is the boy's.
The tomb's carvings stir with black shadows. They are reaching for him with spiderweb hands, clinging to him, wrapping him in cold. For a moment, he is certain he does not want to follow these shadows. He can see through their black shapes to red skeletons of pain.
Then he forgets. The shadows have a kind of smile, a beckoning. He can see inside them to hidden power. He reaches for it, embraces it.
He is in a different world. It is like before—new surroundings, and people he doesn't know. Behind him, four people are frozen, motionless and unblinking, distanced from him by dark fog. Ahead of him, one person is smiling. The shadows are in his smile. Half of his gaze is hidden. He waves his arms in wide, welcoming gestures, speaks in bright, friendly tones, but his heart is so dark it is visible through his chest.
To call this man dangerous is inaccurate. He is deadly. He is ruthless.
The game begins. The black-hearted man has started it. It is a black field, with black rules.
But this game still belongs to him. The power in the shadows bends to his will, the cards rush to his aid. A timer counts his breath, but he is unafraid. The boy has calmed as well. He can feel it—from the yellow pyramid around his neck emanates a quiet feeling. For some reason, he does not know what to call it.
The black-hearted man is cheating! No, he cannot be cheating—the shadows would swallow him alive. It is impossible to cheat in a dark game. And yet, he predicts the cards; he knows the strategies. He can see . . .
He looks at the hidden half of the black-hearted man's gaze. A white curtain conceals some dark power. But what it is, he does not know.
No time. The clock is alive, the game is waning. He cannot lose. The black-hearted man's abilities make no difference.
He attacks and attacks. A fierce fire rages in his nerves, lights his skin ablaze. The shadows around him are eager for a loss. It will not be his. His monsters are ready; the cards are eager. He has everything he needs to win.
Except time. The clock is out. He falls a mere fraction short.
Now the white curtain parts. An eye is revealed, but nothing of the natural world. He recoils from a hollow golden gaze. He has seen it before; it is on the pyramid around his neck.
Then a cry from the grandfather that is his and not his. A deep earthquake of loss fractures his skeleton, rends his senses.
Pain. It is the boy's.
How did I get here? All I ever wanted in life was friends—people I could laugh with, could love. That's all I wished for when I put together the puzzle. I didn't want power or money or adventure. I certainly didn't want danger, didn't want the people around me hurt.
And yet Grandpa was gone. And it was my fault. The man on the video, Pegasus, was after me. I'd been in and out of it again. That same feeling of two places at once. It all flashed by. Shadows. Cards. The clock ticking ticking ticking. All of it swallowed in a flare of light. By the time I had a grip on things, Grandpa's soul had been taken, and I was sobbing into a blank screen.