BlackRose:  *eye twitch* HE IS TOO KATANA-CHAN!  *chases after with a mallet*  HIEI RUN!  GO BACK TO KURAMA!  HE'LL PROTECT YOU!  *eye twitch*  Katana-chan, I'm gonna kill you!  *chases*

Bakura:  O.O  Erm…yeeeeeah.  Wait a minute….Neko-chan or BlackRose or whatever the hell your friends call you, what the hell is going to happen to me in the next chapter?  I wanna know, damnit!    Tell me!  Or I'll send you to the Shadow Realm!  *chases after BlackRose*   

"Now would be a really good time to have a flashlight," Duke muttered darkly as he walked down the hallway. 

The air was thick and dusty, not to mention uncomfortably humid.  Duke undid the black tie of his mourning suit and tugged it off, letting the article of clothing drop onto the ground behind him as he walked on. 

(A.N- All of them are still in their mourning suits…Yami just took off his dress shirt, tie, and jacket, which left only his wifebeater, if that's what its called.  ^.^  Forgot to mention that, didn't I?)  

"And central air," he added in an after thought as he wiped away the beads of sweat that had begun to trickle down his face.  The strands of black hair that were usually hanging in his eyes were clinging to his face from his perspiration.  It seemed to get hotter as he walked onward.  And the ground felt as if it was tilting forward.  Like he was slowly walking towards the center of the earth. 

Shit.  Maybe I should turn back.  He was about to turn around when he heard a horrible, ear-piercing shriek.  He slowly turned to face the noise, his emerald eyes widening as he saw something that seemed to jump out of a horror movie.  It was a ghostly woman who had made the sound; just quiet enough to get his attention, but not enough to scare the shit out of him…yet.  Blood trickled down her lips, staining them the same dark red, as she opened her mouth to let out an unearthly wail, revealing sharp, deadly fangs, so long they actually extended out of her mouth.  But Duke couldn't move for the life of him.  It was as if he was one of his Dungeon Dice Monsters, only there was no movement crest in the pool, so he was stuck there, unable to attack his enemy.  

And so the Banshee struck first, lunging forward like a hungry animal, fangs bared.  She met her target, her unnatural teeth sinking into the soft flesh of Duke's lean stomach.  He cried out as the bolt of pain shot up his entire body.  Blood flowed out of the wound like water, which the Banshee took great pleasure in.  Sense could only break through his fear to his mind enough to register that if he did not get her off he would die. His body responded quickly, shoving the Banshee off of him and getting up as fast as he possibly could.  He started running in the direction he had been walking before, some strange feeling in his wounded stomach telling him the way he had come in was somehow not a way he could escape.  If he had ignored his gut, he would have run back to the door, to discover it was locked, and where he would meet his slow and painful death.  But he always listened to what his gut told him, and he did now, ignoring the stitch that was beginning to form in his side as he ran harder.  He felt his heart pumping his own blood to the wound, and he felt it begin to trickle through his closed fingers.  He couldn't stop. Not until he lost that…thing…whatever the hell it was.  His body swayed once or twice as more of his life flowed out, down his hand, but refused to stop.  That is, until he came to a door.  It was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.   Panicked fingers slid around the knob and pulled, shutting it again as its owner ducked inside, gasping for breathe.  The Banshee did not follow, as she had other Participants to go after. 

Duke collapsed against the wall, holding his hand over his stomach, panting.  He gritted his teeth as another wave of pain came over him, sending fresh blood down his hand.  He didn't even notice his surroundings until the wave had somehow dulled.  He assumed it was from the blood loss.  The room he had entered was not a room at all, but yet another passageway in this maze of horrors.  And it was incredibly dark.  So dark that, as he began to walk down the corridor, he couldn't see the many corpses that hung from the ceiling, each body in a different pose, and, if you had enough light to check, a face to match that pose, whether it was contorted in a last, disrupted scream, or a look of pleasure, as if they had been killed during their climax during lovemaking.  Not until he bumped into one, anyway.  At first, he didn't know what it was, just some odd punching bag hanging in the hallway.  But as he went to move it, his free hand rushed against something rather strange for a punching bag.  Lips.  Cold, dead lips that had at one point, most likely been used to offer tender kisses to a lover. 

Then there were the choking sounds.  Gagging, like someone was trying to pull a rope or a hand off of his or her throat.  Or throats, as it sounded.  Duke moved closer, cautiously, in case it was to mean a threat.  But it wasn't a threat, could even be counted as a blessing, unless you knew enough to not use such a hopeful word in these circumstances.  Realization came.  The gagging was coming from people.  Real people.   And he had to help them, even if he didn't know them. 

He surged forward, all caution cast to the wind, using his free hand to help pry something that was most likely a hand, but he forced himself to think of as a cold, thick, rope, off of one of the person's throat.  There wasn't a word exchanged between the person Duke had saved and himself as they went to help the other person.  Moments passed as the two others gasped and choked on fresh oxygen, until their breathing had returned to normal. 

"Thank you," one person said.  Duke blinked, his bleeding stomach forgotten temporarily.

"Yami?" 

"Duke?" 

"What the hell was that?" 

"If we knew, we'd tell you," the other voice answered, which turned out to be a repetition of what he himself had been told not that long before. 

"Kaiba?" 

"Who else would it be?" Duke would have shot something clever back at him, if he hadn't almost collapsed onto the ground.  Thankfully, Yami caught him before that happened, and also just so happened to feel warm blood splash onto his hand, which was coming from Duke's stomach. 

"What the-" 

"Something strange is going on." 

"What happened to you?"

"Where are the others?" 

"We all split up…in groups…to…to help…Ryou wanted to help you guys with the lights…me and Malik went with him…but we got lost…fell down some kind of hole…found three doors…we split up…then…then…some…thing…screaming cannibal attacked me…bit me…" his eyes widened.  "Oh God, Ryou!  We have to find him!" 

Then he passed out. 

BlackRose:  *stops running long enough to talk*  Enjoying this so far, guys?  Hope that was descriptive enough.  Not so sure.  Think I should up it a notch, 'Kura? 

Bakura:  -.- Call me that again and I'll kill.  Only certain people are allowed to call me that. 

BlackRose:  Hmph.  Ah well.  Remember what the next chapter is about.

Bakura:  O.O  Oh fuck.  You're going to kill me next chapter, aren't you? 

BlackRose:  Once again…*in singsong voice*  I'll never tell.  Oh yeah and…REVIEW AND TELL ME WHATCHA THINK!  NEED MORE DESCRIPTION? WHAT?  TELL ME!