Authoress's Note: *huge sigh* This has been a really trying time. I was on a short vacation last week and I just started to get organized. I think this story is actually coming rather well… most of the faults have been due to my identity crisis, Awakening, and the inconsistencies in my personality (I'm clumsy but I have good balance… try that one on for size…). I might post another chapter in a few days. I'm actually writing in Part 3 now; I like to stay ahead of the post as a sort of safety net.
As I have stated in previous chapters, I do not own "Yu-Gi-Oh!"
"Nothing you have will save you from my touch.
Does it matter very much?
I am White Shadow,
I am the laughing phantom,
I am the White Demon
Hiding in the sand,
Feeding on your dreams and love.
Listen to the voices in your head scream.
I am White Shadow."
– from "The White Shadow"
I was back with Cynthia, and it was almost time to wake up. I could feel her form against me and I also felt the roughness of the mattress. The light came in through the window: soft at first, then brighter as the sun rose in the sky.
She moved slightly, and I wondered what she was dreaming, but I didn't open my eyes. I wanted to fall asleep again and dream about the gold light again. I always had dreams about the gold light. Cynthia said it was nothing. She wanted me to draw gold light around her in the painting. I made a wreath for her and she would wear it in the painting; we would eat apples under a tree and drink slightly fermented white grape juice from the vineyard close to town. Never red grape juice, and certainly not wine; it reminded me of Midnight too much.
The light on my face faded, and I thought it was the passing of a cloud, but there was a cold feeling creeping over my skin. I rubbed my arms and opened my eyes. We were not in my bed, and there was a skeleton with long blonde hair and blue eyes hugging me. I screamed and threw it away. The skeleton's bones cracked and sanguine – blood – flowed across the dry, gray ground. Rose bushes with thorns grew where the sanguine soaked into the ground, roses with black petals blooming before my very eyes.
Her form fleshed out, and there was a small wound on her neck from which the liquid flowed, and the sight and smell filled me with hunger, and I knew again what I was, though I didn't know why I was here. Everything was happening so fast.
The rose bushes began to grow over her. "Help me!" she screamed. Her voice was shrill and harsh. "Pegasus!"
I rushed over to the bushes, but they cut my hands. I tried to pull them out, and my fingers brushed against one of the roses. It wound its way around my wrist and the dark, vampiric blood was drawn; droplets fell onto Cynthia's perfect skin.
"Help me!"
She was almost covered with the black rose bushes. Her hand reached out for me, and I grabbed it and tried to pull, but a choking yell stopped me. The roses had wound their way around her throat, and her face was turning blue. Blood was streaming down her neck.
I heard another cry behind me. There stood a young girl, no older than my son, and she looked exactly like me, only her hair went to her cheekbones in a straight bowl cut. I would have mistaken her for a boy if she hadn't screamed.
"You killed her!"
The girl ran at me and I saw the knife in her hands. I was powerless against her innocent radiance, the way she stabbed me. "Murderer! I hate you! You killed her even though you loved her! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"
I found her name with my mind. "Please, Jasmine…"
"NO!"
She ran from me…
"Jasmine!"
"You killed her! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" She threw something at me, a long spike, and it wound up impaling me. I staggered backward and the sharp end hit the ground. She had a mallet and she pounded it into the ground. "Take that, demon vampire!"
There was white light coming out of her, and it burnt me… there was fire everywhere…
Only I was thrashing around on a soft pallet, and half of me was on the stone. Midnight was holding me down while trying not to get hurt. His hand was around my throat.
Why won't he stop it? I heard his thoughts like a voice, and there were images with his thoughts. I didn't want to see some of those images. For one thing, he was getting a little… aroused… sitting on me.
"Pegasus, it is just me, Midnight…"
There was something hard and metallic in my left eye.
I was very hungry.
"Why?" I asked.
He was silent… well… almost… Gods, I wish he wouldn't ask me all of these questions. Why should I know these things? How can anyone know these things? If he asks me that again, I am going to…
"I don't know."
My thoughts: Please make him shut up, please make him shut up, please make him shut up, please make him shut up…
Well, I was in no danger from suffering from ennui… I guess that was a good thing… It was just so hard to think while being assaulted by all of those thoughts and feelings from everyone around me. I needed to block it somehow. The thoughts were enough to drive me insane, and the feelings were even worse than the thoughts. I could hardly tell what I was feeling and what Midnight was feeling.
In other words, his arousal was making me feel aroused. Yeah. Right. Let's just put it that way.
Metallic thing where my left eye is, PLEASE MAKE THEM SHUT UP!