Authoress's Notes: Here is the conclusion to the story. Disclaimer applies. The italics are either what Bakura is saying or something from his journal. Everything else is basically the way it should be. At last! The final part!

EPILOGUE: SHADOW OF THE NIGHT

            Fate works in mysterious ways. For all that has happened, I should be dead. Instead, my skin has been slightly bronzed from the light. I can pass under electric lights with ease; the rest of my kind are having a hard time coping, or so I hear. I walked past Pegasus the other night and he didn't recognize me.

            He climbed over the wall and rested against the inside for a moment. There was only a little time before the dawn would burn him to a cinder.

            I remember the press of his lips against mine, and it brings tears to my eyes to think of how it could have been instead of how it has ended. I long for another kiss. I want to speak so much but I haven't the words to say. There is emptiness inside that I simply cannot ignore, no matter how much I try. There are ghosts from my past wherever I turn; there is no way I can escape from them.

            The basement was totally dark; he moved with the curtains of the bed; the one he sought was lying on the bed, already in the inescapable daytime sleep. He stared down at him again.

            Ashes. No matter how hard I try, I see nothing else. The world has been burnt to a cinder and I have no reason to live. I have no reason for anything anymore. I go on night after night. I feed on people I don't know. I am darkness; I cannot tell when I am in control anymore. Last week, I tried starving myself, but he took over my body and forced me to drink. The only thing that separates us is that I do not desire to live. He seeks life with a desperation I find fascinating.

            He smelled the aroma of roses in the room; black petals were spread across the burgundy sheets. Pegasus was propped against the pillows. Bakura bent down toward Pegasus and breathed in his scent.

            Yes, I live without the sunlight. I find that now I do not have it I know how much I didn't need it in the first place. The last sunset haunts my memories. I have nightmares about the sun setting. I see strange people, strange places. None of it makes any sense.

            It is futile to resist the dark passion that drives me.

            Their lips pressed together in a passionate kiss. The cloaked angel drew back, his chocolate eyes drinking in the last look at Pegasus.

            Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if it had never passed to me. I remember it vividly now. I was attacked after dark. I thought my darkness had rescued me. I thought he showed me some mercy for a change. Everything in my past day-walker life seems like a nightmare. I didn't think he was real until that night I started to draw away from the sun.

            The dark angel was drawn into the dust again. It coated his hair and his eyelashes. His cloak was wrapped around him as he walked through it to the room he slept in; he had boarded up the windows and stolen a coffin from the cemetery. There were two corpses lying in the cellar from when his darkness had been in charge. He flirted with his victims before killing them. He enjoyed the chase more than the kill.

            Fortune is as variable as the moon. It whips you when you fall and destroys you when you soar. I crave not immortality. I was drawn into this against my will. There is nothing I can do about what I am; why should I try to change what I have become?

            Now, he was perched upon a darkened building. He melded with the stone statues. Gracefully, he jumped down into the crowds. Pale faces, immortals walking among the humans like diamond-foam in the sea. He raised his head and slowly walked toward the boy in blue. The boy was staring at him with a look of disbelief.

            What would they think if they knew there were monsters in their midst?

            "What do you see?"

            Monsters are not creatures like the hydra.

            The boy's lips parted but he did not speak.

            We feel love and hate. We know pain.

            "You stare at my pale hair, the sheen to my skin that cannot possibly be natural."

            Monsters…

            He looked into the boy's eyes; it made the child swoon. "I can give you a beautiful story." Bakura took the dark blue diary from his jacket coat. It was filled to the brim with what had happened. His beautiful eyes stared at it for several seconds.

            Bakura pressed it into the college kid's hands. His hands traced the cover and he looked at the white-haired angel mutely.

            …are just like everybody else…

            The boy sat down in the near-empty lounge. He opened the cover of the book. It was written in English.

            "I am a vampire, but I was not always so. My name is Ryou Bakura…"

            The Reaper of the Cards saw the young vampire one night. He was trying his best to pose for a mortal, but she could see right through him. She walked up to him and looked into his eyes.

            "Are you happy?" she asked him.

            He looked at her, immediately trusting the strange woman. "I don't know. Happiness is not easily found, but I suppose I am better off than most." Ever since he had gotten rid of that diary, a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

            She smiled. "That's all I need to know." The woman turned to leave.

            "Wait…"

            "Yes?"

            "Thank you."

            His eyes flew over the words like lightning. He had never, ever read something that conveyed so much power in just the first paragraph. Every word was carefully chosen. The writer had obviously mastered the language. As a major in journalism, he was very impressed.

            "And maybe, just maybe, there is someone out there who will understand…"