BookDragon: "Hey, thanks for waiting…the weekly chapter is up and-"
Bill: "AAAHHHHHH!!!! RUNNN AAAWWWAAAYYY!!!" *Zooms by*
BookDragon:*raises eyebrow* "wwhhhhaaaaa???" 0_0
BookDragon: "RUN AWAY!" *Runs off just in time to be chased by a washing machine that is waddling at deadly speed with bubbles spewing from the door*
Bill: READ THE STORY PLEASE!!!AAAHHHH!!!
Chapter 14: My _aibou_?
"Okay, I spy with my little eye something…blue."
"Kaiba's coat?"
"No."
"The carpet?"
"No."
"Try eyes, Bakura." Ann finally said bored to death. Bill turned a startled look at her.
"How did you know?"
"It's the last thing that's blue." Bill looked around a bit at his surroundings, finding that it was almost completely dark, but knowing from the last time he was here that the escalators were behind them to the elevators surrounded with very plan cream-colored walls. Bill and Bakura where sitting crossed legged on the floor near the dead step, Ann sat on the end of the railing of the escalators, and Kaiba just stood on the third step stiffly watching them. Most certainly as boring as all get out.
"How can you know that the carpet, Kaiba's coat, and his eyes, are the only things that are blue in here if it's so dark?"
"I'm not visually impaired, Bill." She could see him give her a look through the almost pitch black. She grinned.
"Don't at me like that." Was her response to that little test of her night vision. Bill frowned a little but perked up again when Bakura started the game again. Kaiba was already sick of them though, so Bakura only had time to challenge blue, black, and white until Kaiba finally protested.
"WILL YOU TWO MORONS KNOCK IT OFF!?" Bakura recoiled at such a mind numbing shout and started clearing his ears with his index finger as Bill looked at Kaiba distastefully.
"Why?"
"Because it's extremely _irritating_."
"It's better than just sitting in silence to listen to the banging of doom thank you very much."
"Not much." Kaiba replied icily, that tone he loves to use when someone should leave him alone. Bill picked up his horrible mood and dropped the subject, it was better not to provoke him in such a state. He was probably very sick of them, or Bill at least. Bill 'could' get a bit annoying when it came to it, but he never really meant it. Ann sighed as another loud BANG hit the darkened door directly after what seemed like the hundredth time. Personally, it was getting very tiring. She couldn't believe they had such a lack of imagination. But then again she wasn't in the best of moods. Being locked in Kaiba Corp with no apparent time of leaving with three very angry old spirits wanting to come in to kill you wasn't the only thing going on. Bakura had said Marie and Joey were finally talking, those three guys could ruin both worlds besides many others, she was stuck dealing with yet another one of herself running around in her own mind, and the fact that the back of her head felt like a screen door flapping wide open in the wind didn't help either.
"Hey Bill, how long as it been?" Bill casually looked at his watch.
"About…twenty minutes give or take… Jeez is your personal _this_ bad?!" Kaiba glared at him and opened his mouth to snarl at him, but he was cut off.
"Something's wrong…" Bakura thought aloud. That sent a chill down Ann's spine, giving him a quick unsettled glance and flinched at another loud thump.
"…Yeah…this doesn't smell right." Bill agreed.
"How _does_ this smell?" Ann asked a bit nervously.
"Horrible."
"…What do we do?"
"Well, we might want to get to a safer place…"
"And how do we do that, Bill, when we don't even know where safe is right now." Bill shrugged. There was a pause.
"Shadow Realm?" Bakura suggested. Ann shook her head vigorously.
"No. Remember _last time_?"
"Oh yeah…" Bill sheepishly grinned. What happened three days ago was enough of a reminder.
"Where in the building can we go?" Ann was looking at Kaiba with increasing worry, the thud on the door was beginning to sound eerily hallow. Panic was starting to settle comfortably in her head, which was in its own a scary thought. Kaiba wasn't look at any of them though, he was off somewhere else in his own skull, but what he was thinking about you couldn't even get a hint of by looking at him. His eyes had glazed over to just a plain creepy blue with no pupils at all and he was just standing there staring at that rich navy blue rug hypnotized. He was somewhere very deep. They wouldn't be getting any help from him for a couple of minutes. Getting frustrated with him, she stalked off up the off escalator and to the elevator door with another annoying bang, but not from the door but from her own fists against the sliding down of the escalator when it so bluntly refused to work.
"We should try the stairs." Bill muttered, making her jump because he was standing right behind her now, and pointed his finger to the doorframe with a pair of stairs shyly sitting there to the left of them. Without another word Ann pushed off the door and started running to the stairs immediately, not caring if Kaiba was going to follow or not. No, she had just about enough waiting and the stairs were looking particularly nice. Kaiba and Bakura finally came up by the time they were on the twentieth step and still climbing but looking over the railing at them.
"Hurry up guys!" They briefly look at each other and started up the stairs, almost falling for the lack of light. That was a bit tiring since it had the best way of tricking you, something about the distance and the dimness was affecting their sight enough to trick the mind into thinking a step was father than were it was located, so they had to take it slow and feel for the right step instead of taking a long painful roll down. That was not on their list to do.
"Where are we going?" Bill asked Ann, carefully placing a foot quickly to catch up to where Ann was about ten steps ahead of them. Ann didn't feel much like answering him. She wanted to get to Kaiba's office. It had to have a lock on it at least and the keys to any of the rooms. If they had a key for all the doors they could find a way up or down to a back door or something, she didn't care at this point, as long as it was a way out.
"Damn it! Slow down!" Ann realized she was running up now and decided to slow a bit.
"We…NEED…to get the… hell out of here…" She said, realizing she was starving herself of breath she was still running.
"…is she telling you?"
"No, I just have a bad feeling."
"No arguing with that…" was Bill's response. She was glad he wasn't getting all curious on her for once and decided when she got to that office she'd try to find Calendae and chat a bit more. But for now she would have to get up these forsaken stairs and-
/RUN! /
"Calendae?"
/RUN! RUN! RUN! /
"ANN?!"
"RUN! GOD DAMN IT RUN!" She screamed at the top of lungs using whatever breath she had left. A bang exploded from down stairs and that sudden fueled her legs to start sprinting. There was a small quiet period until a whole roar of footsteps slammed into her eardrums. She knew there would only be one of them coming from the direction, call it intuition or just plain logic if you wish, but she _knew_. Ann knew this, if it was her, she wouldn't wait around until the door came down. So were did that place the others? Another way in of course. A back door? Maybe. Depended from where… On the roof? Could they even do tha-
She didn't even have time to scream as she was brought down to the stairs with a slam. An unknown weight came upon her and sent her sliding down the stairs painfully on her back with it pressing on her chest and sending her down. Keeping her back straight somehow under the huge amount of weight she had her eyes screwed shut and her jaw clenched with pain exploding into her spine from the constant bang bang bang of each step. Then all at once it stopped as someone grabbed her shoe and stopped her descent into the dim blackness below and in the moment her eyes flew open to a pair of raging brown eyes that made her own turn wide. It was only a moment until a cloud of whiteness flung into her view as his head turned and did something to stop the grip on her sneaker because she was suddenly sailing down again, but the pressure of his weight was gone and know a frightening laughing was banging in her ears. Or was that her head slamming against each stair? No, it was neither. It was in her mind, that damn screen door was flapping again, it was wide open, and the pain suddenly evaporated. A moments peace greeted her ears until she fluttered her eyes open to watch herself fall down a couple of more steps when her foot finally collided with the railing post and stopped her dead. Then she finally opened her eyes, bright brown and full of…what? Was that gold specks? They weren't her eyes. They were Calendae's.
Calendae cracked a smile and laughed an eerie cheerful laugh as she pulled Ann's body to its feet and dusted herself off. Ann watched from about ten stairs up, gawking because she was not in control of her _own_ body now, but now Calendae was using it. She should have known, she _had_ seen it a lot from Yugi and Yami. Why not Calendae and her? Finally looking down at herself she found that she was transparent, almost freaking ghost like. Some kind of screwed up phantom. But she had no time to worry of this. He had to worry about what was going on in real life. Calendae was beaming; a wide grin spread across her cheeks as she stared up at Bakura's other half, who was returning a 'what the hell?' look.
"_Why_ have you attacked my aibou? Tell me." It was a bit weird to hear that word spoken out loud. Even weirder to hear it said in a funny tone of voice that didn't even belong to her. It was light and lullibyish, sort of a songbird type of voice, which Ann hadn't realized Calendae spoke like until now. Kaiba stopped dead on the stairs behind
Calendae/ Ann's body with complete surprise covering every corner of his face, making him look so messed up it was more frightening than when he was mad. Bakura's counterpart was definitely surprised, but unshaken.
"Who are you?" Calendae smirked.
"Who am I? Do you even know who you are? Do we even know who _we_ are? There is more to life than just knowing who we are, you know…" Ann felt a bit embarrassed now.
"But enough of this questioning…I know what you want."
"What would that be?"
"My…her life. I'm not going to give it to you, that is a…given? Yes, given. But anyway…you'll have to take it from me first. Bring it…on?" She directed her attention to Ann's phantom presence.
"It _is_ on right?" Ann slapped her forehead in so much embarrassment. This was awful.
/Yes it is thank you every much. / Oh great. Now _she_ was talking like that. Sighing she wanted to turn around to shield herself from such an embarrassment, but she couldn't, she needed to watch.
"Bring it on." Calendae waved Ann's fingers to her palm and back out, calling for an attack from him. Bakura's double, T.R, smirked at her widely.
"I have a better idea…let us play a shadow game." Calendae's mood swung to that curiousness second.
"Ahh…sounds like fun. Which game shall we play?" T.R grin widened, showing some pointed teeth that made Ann's skin, even though it was transparent, crawl with fright. Calendae didn't scare as easy though, she was actually grinning as full pleasure of playing a game.
"A mind game. Are you up to the challenge?" Ann felt Calendae considering it, actually _felt_ it against her skin with a bit of nervousness about it. Calendae just kept up that happy daring grin.
"Sure. Why not?"
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