Author's notes:

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-gi-oh, or the hugely overhead song "Sweet Dreams" by
Eurythmics.

For the brave souls who actually made it this far, enjoy ;)

**************************************

Golden Bridle
Part 2 of 2

He had forgotten how long he lay there.

Sunlight filtered into the single glass window to strike his pale face. It painted
rays of pure silver against his matted grey hair. His half-luminescent locks were
spread around his unmoving body; tangling around his soft neck; clinging to his shirt
fabric; knotting against each other in protest.

Perfect beauty and silence. This was the ethereal promise of oblivion, the pure
serenity after enduring so much pain.

Outside the solitary window lay the blue sky. The wind was soft and warm.
Specks of clouds dotted the azure backdrop.

~*~
Sweet Dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
~*~

Veils of silver hair once guarding his face parted just slightly as a breeze
swept through the room. Individual strands began to dance under the gentle whisper
and made his cheeks burn with a tingling sensation. Some of the hair brushed against
a chunk of his newly uncovered flesh. Their footsteps stabbed iron-hot daggers into
the tender tissue.

He denied it. He was beautiful, he was superior, he was enlightened.

Something warm dribbled down his cheek in an already-dried stain and fell
gracelessly into a collected puddle on the ground.

He frowned. Crying was for the weak and pitiful. Besides, the tear ducts
bestowed upon him during birth had been crudely removed from that eye.

Drip. Another droplet squeezed from the futile ruby-crackled opening and left
a silent ripple as it struck the puddle.

~*~
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
~*~

He ignored. They were not his tears. They did not belong to him. All that
remained precious was this state of pure bliss. He had been severed by the
enslavement of pain and had escaped material agony.

The door to his chamber opened slightly. It hesitated just enough to let a
trickle of artificial light escape into the bleak shadows of his chamber.

He was beautiful Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Seconds later, the wooden door flung wide open with a loud crack and gust of
stagnant air. Somebody stood at the opening blocking the artificial light. This person's
face was poised in a look of shock and absolute revulsion.

~*~
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
~*~

"Master Pegasus!"

There was some incoherent babbling at the other end following those words.
He ignored them. All that mattered was that he was beautiful and in heaven.

"Master Pegasus!" The person continued to cry out in a horribly piteous
manner. "Please hold on! I'm going to get help."

Blue sky. Green trees. Golden sun. He stared out the window with this single
eye as he heard the door slam hurriedly a distance away from him. The pool of blood
rippling under him was disturbed again.

There was a muffled sound coming from outside the door. It grew and
accumulated from the murmuring chorus into a symphony of euphoric syllables.

The door slammed open. People rushed in at all corners and barred the entire
room with their grossly contorted faces. One of them brushed a finger along his
(beautiful) unmoving body.

And then the pain started again.

**************************************

~*~
Sweet Dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
~*~

White-washed walls. Grey equipment. Red blood hung in a shiny plastic bag,
tailed by a long coiled wire that stuck into his skin.

There was an infinitely annoying beeping sound coming from an unregistered
corner.

His single eye fluttered open and closed. With all the consciousness he could
muster, he forced his unbound hand to squeeze shut before relaxing again. He could
feel the warmth of his blood collect into his palms and drain into the very recesses of
his fingers.

If just minimal pressure of hair follicles pressing against his exposed wound
had caused pure agony, then this feeling was beyond description. At first he believed
this was Hell. The thought then came that Hell was not nearly as lonely or deafeningly
silent. He was a fraction of the many who deserved to suffer.

His head was pounding so loud it seemed ready to burst like an overripe fruit.
At the same time, he felt a billion needles squeeze under his skin and bury deeply into
his skull. Perhaps they would blend, silver-hued among his hair like an artificial
forest. The pain they elicited was ingenious.

The pain pounded in every corner of his mind until it filled the smallest of
recesses with molten pools of frustration and sheer agony. His body was paralysed;
unable to budge the slightest without being constrained, but his mind was at liberty.

No. He would be lying to say his mind was free. The voracious serpents lay
right at his feet and clung to his shell-less soul in possessive adoration. Their
poisonous scales burned his every contour of memory and laughed at his naked husk.

Separated, severed from his soul-less shell he curled into a corner around the
serpents and cried. He wrapped his arms around his knees like a child and let the tears
dribble freely down from his already-fading appearance. What did he look like? Did
he remember?

One of the serpents glared at him with its ruby-red eyes. It clutched a relic of
purest gold, wrenched in the shape of an Egyptian-styled eye. He had been beautiful
then.

~*~
Have your head up
Moving on
Keep your head up
Moving on
Have your head up
Moving on
Keep your head up
Moving on
~*~

Someone entered the room adorning his physical body. He quickly fled from
the serpents and dared himself back into his former throne of consciousness. A
shadowed figure stared at him from the murky entrance.

His single eye lolled vainly to one side in further attempt to capture the
appearance. Though his efforts were in vain, the unmentioned visitor was steadfastly
approaching. Trepidation began beating in his heart. Who was this stranger? He had
nothing to offer or give: former glory and treasures abandoned to the serpents that
haunted his caskets of memory.

~*~
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
~*~

"So you are here."

His heart plummeted entirely. A set of pure red eyes gazed downwards at him.
The visitor's pale face was curved in a wicked grin; enforced by layers of serrated
iceberg-white hair crowning his cheekbones.

His single eye dilated rapidly. His breathing began to rise and fall too quickly,
chest burning like liquid fire.

"Ironic isn't it?" The visitor exclaimed, chuckling darkly. "One moment we
are masters of the world, and the next moment, we are in…Hell."

He parted his crackled, bloodied lips to deny, scream the buried, collected pain
out of his chest and thrash in rampant fury. He was restrained. A soft gurgle of pink
foam escaped from his mouth to dribble in a disgusting mess down his chin.

"The doctors were shocked by your condition. They wondered who could have
committed such heinous abuse." The voice commented, brushing back a lock of his
jagged white hair. The golden relic around the figure's neck jangled some. "A pity
that you gave up at the end. How easy it would have been if you had denied it all."

He shuddered. The visitor was now dangerously close to his face, whispering
the poisonous words to his ear.

"They said you were not only a painter but a poet."

His single eye rolled madly, flashing the whites like ocean foam. His mouth
continued to froth in silent despair.

"I have uncovered a suitable poem for your occasion. I believe it's quite a
modern one; if I am not mistaken." The voice chuckled, drawling every word to an
excruciating depth.

Even in his lost and chaotic state, he heard it. He heard it and he remembered
it. [1]

~*~
Sweet Dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
~*~

Even when the pain travelled like enraged mercury throughout his veins, he
could still hear the echo of words. His body spasmed uncontrollably, buckling against
their restraints and his single eye began to cloud and shut down.

A final jolt and it was over. He tiptoed past the sleeping serpent, careful not to
awake the one clasping the golden eye-shaped relic, and jumped into the pits of
infinity.

~*~
Sweet Dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
~*~

*************************************

[1] The poem was an excerpt from TS Elliot's "The Hollow Men". I didn't actually
include the passage, but it's one of my favourite stanzas, and I quote it quite often:

"This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper"

This fic was built on symbolism. My challenge question is whether or not you can
figure out what the "paintbrush", "window" and the "red-eyed serpent" represent.
Good luck (heheheh…)