Author- *sniffle* THANK YOU MY READERS FOR CONTINUING! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW
MUCH THIS MEANS TO ME! ^^ *bows repeatedly*
WARNING- This fic has an unavoidable boring prologue thingy that I've tried to edit out but you just...can't. There is one role that I've given to a new character that I'm going to be introducing into this story. I've tried my best to give an already existing character this role...but it doesn't work. I've tried peoples! I really tried! And I couldn't edit this character out because you need one female role to play in this story and, that's my excuse. If you leave because of it, I will be sad, but it's your loss for not reading because I had to put in a new character at the beginning. *huff* Really peoples, leave when you have a good reason! *deep breath* Now on to the fic!
~*~
I unpacked my things with great care out of the suitcase I had sprawled on the bed. It wasn't much, but the little things are what made me happy. The rubber band, for instance, was stretched out to more then it was supposed to and tucked away in a side pocket safely like it was a delicate glass flower. Not that a flower would fit in there anyway...
I sighed, and watched the shadows play across the walls, curtsey of the vanilla candle lit on the night table. So this was what having a home, and a family again would be like. Not quite what I had hoped for. My room was a bright pink, wallpaper frilled with white lace and everything in the room fluffed up in some way. It wasn't that I despised that color, it was that I despised the color when there was SO MUCH of it! On the walls hung a single item, the one thing that cheered me up when I felt like things were hopeless, which was sadly, very often. It was a picture of my friends, pinned into an old looking letter with the name, 'Caitlin' written across it in blue letters.
I smiled. It was a pretty bad picture of us all, and it was taken about three or four years ago, but I kept it anyway. How often do you come across friends for life that help you find a home? In the picture, there were four boys, and two girls. I knew the boys as Tristen Taylor, Joey Wheeler, Yugi Motou, and Ryou Bakura. The two girls in the front were one of my best friends Tea Gardener and myself. It was a long story how I met them all, and I'm not willing to tell re-play the whole thing right now, but it was a fun time.
I have been homeless almost all my life. After my parents died, there wasn't anyone really to look after me but my grandfather, who didn't give a care weather I was dead or not. I don't even know if he knows I'm still alive anymore...not that it matters. My family and I got in a terrible car accident on my ninth birthday, right after I was presented with the best birthday gift a girl could ever ask for. My parents had given me a fairly small, golden amulet in the shape of a Scarab Beetle. On it's shell, there was an Egyptian looking eye.
I can't remember much what happened after the accident. I remember wondering around with a bruise on my face, crying like mad, and my memories after that take place in an old abandoned antique shop that me, and a few other kids like me, lived in. I was able to figure out how to work the item out pretty quickly, and when I met my Yami we got along pretty well.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depends on how you look at it) my amulet was picked up by a man I would grow to hate named Seto Kaiba. He wanted to put it on display in the museum until he could figure out how to work it and use it against Yugi in the duels. I was able to steal it back from him, and while on the run, I ran into Tea, Yugi, Ryou, Joey, and Tristen. Tea let me stay over at her place, and all in all, we got along pretty well. Like I said, it's a long story, but in the end I was able to keep the item without being sent to prison by that Kaiba for stealing what was rightfully mine.
Because I didn't think I fit in right, I tried moving to America with the money I took from Kaiba before hand. That didn't work out to well, and three years later, here I am. I've gotten into so much trouble in the past few years, I should get a medal for it.
"What are you doing?" A voice asked from the direction of my bed.
I jumped a little, and turned around, face to face with a male looking version of myself. He had the same red hair and blue eyes as I did, but he did look more then a little ghostly in the light. If I didn't know who he was, I would have screamed.
"Reflecting." I said, returning to my unpacking duties.
His face brightened, "On what?"
I paused, looking at the Rubix cube in my hand and then at the Scarab Beetle Necklace looking item around my neck. "Lots of things."
"Oh that really narrows it down." He said sarcastically, "Has anyone told you that you're very specific?"
"Has anyone told you that you're a nuisance?" I shot back.
"Yes." He answered, almost proudly, "You have. About four times today in fact."
I grinned. That was, as you might be able to tell, my Yami. We all call him 'Cami' because he liked it like that. Yugi and Ryou both get Yami's that are the same sex as they are, but I had to get a boy Yami. He put up such a fit when people called him Caitlin, and he didn't like being called Yami to just anyone, so we took the best of both worlds and made Cami.
Cami resided in my Millenium Amulet, the scarab beetle that had been turned into a necklace over the years so I didn't loose it. Cami was a scribe in his past life, and he always called the item an 'un-official'' millenium item, whatever that it. I don't know why, but that's how it has just always been. Being bored with what I was doing, he had already searched through my bag and found the sliding puzzle I had been working on. He snorted, and started randomly sliding pieces.
"I can't believe you still carry this around." He said, "You couldn't do a puzzle if your life depended on it. Why keep it? The thing's just frustrating."
I snatched it back from him and pushed it underneath my Harry Potter book. "I'm never going to get any better at it if I don't work on it."
Another snort, "I don't think you'd get any better at it if you worked on that puzzle for years and years."
"It took Yugi however many years to figure his puzzle out." I pointed out, "But he finally got it didn't he?"
"This isn't the Millenium Puzzle we're talking about, Caitlin, it's a sliding puzzle of a duck you bought at the dollar store one day. And it isn't Yugi we're talking about either, it's YOU. Let me tell you that's a big difference my aibou."
I threw a pillow at him, not that it did anything but go through his head since he was in his spirit form, "Shut up."
Cami smirked. He was more a brother to me then a Yami, and for some reason, he wasn't dark at all. Heck, compared to me sometimes it seemed HE was the hikari! He was more carefree then I was, which is pretty amazing, and he did what he was told very often. I guess that's why he made such a good scribe way back when...or so he says...
Destiny, fate, and future. They are an award winning tag team tag team that is entertained with torturing me. This time they've outdone themselves. I thought they finally gave me a little slack when I found a family, and played a sick game with giving me the most annoying family on the planet. They aren't the worst family in the world, just the most annoying and they always want a reason to get me in trouble for...being me. It started with the first step I took into their house, the beginning of the end I guess you'd say.
I knocked gently on the door and waited for them to answer. The house was a pale pink color and had white frilly looking trim along the edges. Although I felt like I was going to puke, I disregarded it and knocked again on the door. It creaked with it opened and I saw a women who appeared to be in her early forties answer. She had soft brown hair, but accusing eyes that gave you a strange guilty feeling every time she looked at you.
"Can I... help you with something?" She said, looking me over for some sort of package to deliver or something along those lines.
"I- are you- you don't happen to-- Hi, I'm Caitlin, the child...erm...TEEN you adopted?" I managed to stutter. Though I wasn't proud of how I stuttered, I thought it sounded very professional. Well, mostly professional.
She nodded and opened the door wider, "Come on in Caitlin. Remember to wipe your shoes, we don't want dirt in here. Caitlin... is there a last name attached to that?"
"No, not really." I said, taking an awkward step into the house that was as pink and frilly as the outside.
"Really? Why? Don't you remember it? I hope I didn't just agree to have an adopted child with amnesia..."
"No, no, no listen Miss....mom...person I don't have amnesia! I just, don't have a last name attached to that."
She looked skeptical, but let it slide with a small, 'Mm hm.' I followed her into the living room and she sat me down on the couch.
"Listen Caitlin, I need to quick do some errands. It should only take a half hour or so, my biological daughter will show you to your room and you can unpack. But please, don't go outside, don't use the internet, and don't listen to music off the radio that isn't on our 'To listen' list. You'll see the list on the wall in front of the radio, can't miss it."
I was kind of hoping to get to know my new mom without her leaving as soon as I came, but beggars couldn't be choosers. The garage door closed, and the head of a younger girl popped out from the hallway. She looked a great deal younger then me, maybe five or ten years, (which makes me sound old.) she had cream colored hair, and the same accusing eyes as her mother.
"Is she gone?" She asked, looking around a little before relaxing.
I nodded and put out my hand, "Hi, I'm your new sister, Caitlin."
"Good for you." She said, immediately turning back into the hallway and leaving me alone in the room. Feeling very insulted, I followed her.
"Where are you going?"
The girl didn't look at me and instead turned on the computer, "Computer. I've got to see something on the Internet."
I thought for a moment, "Didn't your mom say no Internet?"
Ok, I had to admit. I was one of those people who said 'rules are meant to be broken' and all, and I'd probably end up sneaking on the internet sometime or another but I was kind of focused to create the illusion I was a responsible adult. Man, what was I setting myself up for? Responsible adult? Yea, right.
"Maybe to you, but did she mention anything about me?" She answered coldly over the beeping and other strange noises that came whenever you went on the Internet.
"No, I guess not."
"Good. Then it's settled."
Wait, settled? I wanted to give her a peace of my mind and found myself repeating 'responsible adult, responsible adult...' over and over again in my head. There was silence for a moment as the girl clicked at a few pages and read them. Responsible adult! BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT! Gee, what exactly would a responsible adult do in this situation? Send her to her room and ground her for a few days? Yes, that sounded like a good idea...but then again, I don't really think I have the power to do that yet. Plan B. I tried to talk with her again.
"So, how old are you?"
"What do you care."
"I care."
"No you don't."
"Uh...ok? Have any pets?"
"No."
"Favorite color?"
"Don't mind."
I sighed and leaned against the computer table, "Could you at LEAST grace me with your name? I mean we're going to be sisters for god goshness sake!"
"Fine, if it will shut you up, my name's Jena."
I grimaced, "Jena?"
"Yea you got a problem with that?"
Man, she sounded like she was the one older then me.
"Well, kinda, you see..."
"What?" She said, glaring at me from her short perch on the computer chair.
"Jena sounds a lot like Jennet..."
"So?"
Another grimace, "I don't like the name Jennet."
"Well that's not my problem is it?"
I wanted to smack her, but a stupid responsible adult wouldn't do that. I feel for all those poor older sisters out there in the world, who have to deal with younger sisters that are smart butts.
I finally gave up and decided to look around by myself. I was smart, I could figure out which room was mine and such. Unfortunately, when I DID find my room, I wished I hadn't. It was pinker and frillier then any room in the house, and the whole house was pink and frilly. There were obviously no men in the household. I dropped my bags and rubbed my eyes, hoping that the pinkness would wash out or something and the whole house would be in blue.
"You can't escape the frilliness!" I exclaimed, landing on my laced pink bed.
That was the beginning, and things only went downhill from there. I was grounded that day on our way to eat out. Apparently, they wanted to 'celebrate' my moving into the family, even though I knew that Jena didn't want to celebrate at all. It was a long car ride to the restaurant and I had secretly brought my cell-phone to play games on. I had gotten a high score on the little snake eating apples game when the phone started to ring. I knew something was wrong immediately because 'mom' shrieked and pulled over. I muffled the sound of the ring with my shirt but it didn't do much good. She turned on me and said loudly,
"What are you doing with THAT song on your phone!?"
I tried to act natural, in truth, it was a very sick, perverted song done by someone who doesn't have a life, and who thought up other sick perverted songs and put them on a CD for other sick perverted people with no life to listen to. Not saying I'm sick and perverted, the song had a catchy beat. I didn't know all the lyrics or anything, heck, I didn't even know the title of the song! I just thought it was a cool beat to have for my ring on the phone. In my defense, if you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was a happy song and not a...very bad song.
"Oh, so you know that tune?" I said sweetly.
Her face turned beet red, "I will NOT have a song like that being played on my daughter's phone! And did I SAY you could even have a phone, let alone BRING IT?"
I was trapped, no where to run in a car, "I bought it with my money a while ago, I should be able to keep it."
"YOU- CAN'T- KEEP- IT!" She almost screamed, turning back to the wheel and turning around, determining that I didn't deserve a welcome dinner. I thought that was the end, but it wasn't. It got worse, WAY worse.
"Why were we connected to the Internet when I got home." My 'mom' said in a calmer but suspicious voice, "Jena? Do you know about that?"
"Mother," She said in a light voice, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news but- Caitlin was on the internet today."
"What!" I exclaimed, sitting up. I didn't even know how to work the stupid thing! How come every time I tried to act like a responsible adult it blows up in my face!
"WHAT!?"
This time the car wasn't pulled over, but it was a screaming match.
I lost.
Could things get any worse? Oh yeah, next Jena told her that I had been listening to a station on the radio that wasn't on their 'stations to listen to' list. I tried to tell them that I was bored out of my mind and it was a classical music station that I had grown to love, but my new mom wouldn't hear of it. She grounded me in my pink frilly prison for a week without anything electrical. What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that!?
Now, back to the present time. In essence, I was already done being a responsible adult and was back to being an unresponsible teenager. I lit another candle on my desk because my first one was going out. Cami looked shocked.
"What are you doing with that?"
"Get this." I told him, "She's making me use CANDLES to keep my room lit."
He smirked and looked though my luggage for something else entertaining to do, " I wouldn't use those if I were you, which I kinda am if you get right down to it, with your luck and grace you'll set the house on fire."
I looked at my electrical clock on my night table. It was only 6:54. Too early to go to sleep, and I didn't have anything else to do. I felt like a lion in a cage at the circus as I paced stiffly around my room, "I HATE THIS!"
Cami almost laughed and picked up a magazine from my pile, "You shouldn't have broken the rules, great first impression Cait."
"I didn't mean to! And I especially didn't want to get stuck in HERE! I don't do well in closed places for long periods of time! I'm like a gypsy from Hunchback of Notre Dame!"
He shrugged and started to read one of my Cosmo Girl magazines, "At least you've got school to look forward to tomorrow." He laughed, "I don't even want to know what it would be like if you lived here BEFORE school started."
I glanced at him, "What are you reading?"
Cami flinched and hid the magazine behind his back, "Nothing!"
I groaned and sat in the pink chair they had provided, "I was supposed to call Tea tonight and give her the play-by-play! She was supposed to give me moral support! And no offence but you aren't exactly the king of moral support. Last time you tried to help me you ended up getting me into more trouble then I was in before."
"Hey that wasn't my fault I thought that he liked polka dots on his ties!" He exclaimed defensively.
I had been going to school for a few months and staying in a hotel while this family got ready for me and Tea had told me yesterday to call her, only I couldn't.
Phones are electrical.
I looked around at the room, "I have GOT to get out of here or I'll loose my mind!"
Before Cami could object, I had activated my millennium item's power. My Millinium Item has one of THE COOLEST powers, if I do say so myself. It took me forever to figure out how to use it right, and through trial and error, I finally found out that the item can open a portal into any person, of your choosing's, dream.
The cool thing about it, is that I become ghost-like and no one can see me for a period of time. At least until my power runs out, I have to be careful because if I'm in this state for too long or go into too many dreams at one time I could run out and be visible again. It gets complicated if you're in a dream when it happens. You could be stranded there forever, existing in the dream itself and complete chaos would ensue! I found that you could get stuck the hard way, in Ryou's dream no less. It wasn't fun, but I got out in the end.
I walked to the doorway and attempted to float through the door like other Yami's can do, and sadly forgot I couldn't do that with this item. I ran straight into the door with a loud bang of my skull hitting the wood. Cami laughed and teased me by putting his hand through my desk.
"Oooh Caitlin, look what I can do and you can't!" He kept putting his hand though various objects and laughing as I opened the door the old fashioned way and snuck out of the house.
-*-*-*-*-
Once I was outside of the pink house, I felt free again. I walked around the city, looking at various people and watching them do things, but one person was especially interesting. No, more like intriguing. He was running quickly down an empty ally and almost slipped on a piece of a cardboard box before getting up again and continuing. What confused me, was that there was no one coming after him, he was alone.
Of coarse, I followed. I was all too curious in this person to just let him run away, maybe I could help him somehow. When he reached a house I assumed was his, I came in immediately after him. He locked the door and all the windows rapidly and nailed some openings shut with anything he could find. What was he so afraid of? Why was he doing this? I was too interested to be nervous about how I would get out of the house myself and watched him pace and take extra measures to not allow anyone in, from a safe distance. He finally chugged down a bunch of sleeping pills, and after about a ten minutes, sleep found him.
Normally, I would let the poor man be and go about my business, but he had put this upon himself and I was determined to find out what was wrong. I slowly walked up to his bed side and the beetle shaped amulet's wings opened to reveal the Egyptian eye underneath. A portal appeared over the man and I was able to walk right into it and enter his dream.
%%%%%%%%
I looked around at the dark gloom and fog. It was so thick that I could barely see where I was going and almost ran straight into the man who was too wandering. He looked very shaken and disturbed by something. He looked around nervously and was very pale.
"Hi!" I said smiling, "My name is Caitlin and how are we doing today?"
"Uh....uh...."
I cleared my throat, "I asked you a polite question, could you please do me the honor of answering it."
"I- am in kind of a rush now."
"Oh well I'm not. Why are you in a rush we're kinda in a dream here. It's not like you'd go anywhere."
"I'm in big trouble."
"Your not making any sense. WHY are you in trouble? What happened?"
"I- I stole money from a gang I used to belong to."
I raised my eyebrows, "A gang? Well that gets nominated for the stupidest thing done by a guy. Dude, you'd have better luck stealing from a bank! Gang's will kill you if you steal, bank's will just put you in jail for life or something."
"That's the point, I did it for revenge. And I needed money so, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
"Wow you're stupid."
"You don't understand! I was in that gang, and we stole from a bank together. Only they turned me in so they wouldn't get caught and I was the one that went to jail. When I got back they wouldn't let me back in and I had to live on my own in a dumpy house. I couldn't pay the rent because I didn't get my share of the money and- and now they want to kill me!"
"Well you- WHAT!? When! Tonight!? NOW? WHILE I'M IN HERE!?"
He nodded sadly, "I did everything I could, and I'm asleep because then I won't feel pain when they shoot me to death."
I was in a state of shock. This was defiantly not one of my better ideas, "Uh, I- I think I'd better be going before you...you know...die and all..."
"Excuse me?"
I've seen what happens when someone just started a different dream in the night and she was stuck, she didn't want to see what happened when someone died in their dreams. "Yeah see, I'm kind of busy...and...stuff...buh- bye now!"
He put his hand on my shoulder and his body started to fade, "They're here."
He couldn't die, not now, not while I was still in here! I turned around and looked for some kind of portal to get out of this dream as fast as I could. It wasn't there. I felt around in the air for it. I started to panic and waved my arms around wildly. "This can't be happening." I told myself, "I haven't been a ghost thing for that long, why is it gone!"
I looked around for a while longer before calming myself down, "Not to worry, I just have to convince the dude that it's all a dream and the portal will come back."
I thought for a moment, he already knew it was a dream. Why did it go away? This can't be a very good sign. I turned around and looked from the stupid man that stole from the gang, only there was one problem.
He wasn't there.
"Dude?" I said, "Dude? DUDE!? DUDE WHERE ARE YOU!"
I was trapped. There was no way out. No Cami, no idea what to do, no way out whatsoever. Before I could comprehend my first problem, another arose. The whole dream suddenly changed. The fog turned into blue smoke, and the gray around me into a dark purple that looked almost black. It didn't take long for the smoke to turn colors, from a light pink to a blood red. Then goldenrod yellow and dark green. It was very pretty, despite the freakiness of it.
The smoke was continuously moving around me and it was impossible now to see more then a few inches in front of my feet. I took a deep breath and started to journey into the colored, ever thickening smoke. I had heard that animals attacked things that weren't moving more often, and I definitely wasn't moving. Even though I felt blind, worse things could happen when you didn't go anywhere and lingered.
The biting cold stung my face like a strong gust of icy wind had suddenly kicked up. I shivered and rubbed my arms to keep warm with not very visible results. Every step I took got harder and harder to bear, and I was strangely running out of energy with every second.
"That's it Caitlin." I told myself, "Just keep walking, one foot in front of the other. Don't scream, cry, think you're going insane, just keep walking."
It scared me how the smoke would move away just as I was going to step on it, like it had a mind of it's own. I knew I was moving, but it looked like I was getting nowhere fast.
"Just keep walking, just keep walking, just keep walking..." I said quietly, hearing something like a baby crying coming from behind me.
'Congratulations, it's a girl!' A new voice said. It didn't sound real, like something in my head, and it echoed on for what seemed like many minutes. And suffice to say, I didn't like it.
"Just keep walking." I repeated, "There really isn't anything there, there isn't. Just keep walking."
'Happy birthday to you!' A group of voices sang, 'Happy birthday to you!'
This voice sounded more real then the one from before. I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around, looking nervously behind me. The echo's died, and I was left with the sound of my of deep breathing and the beads of sweat slowly forming on my forehead from the voices. Not including my Yami, I didn't hear voices in my head very often.
"Who's there?" I shouted, hearing no response to my cry.
"Go." Was all I could say, my heart flying, "Just keep walking...no matter who that was..."
'So where do you want to go tonight?' Some voice said, more real then anything my Yami would have been able to say to me. It sounded like it was coming from right behind me and speaking into my ear.
'I don't mind, anywhere I can get an ice cream!' A younger voice spoke.
'Well you're going to have to give me more then that, how about somewhere with music playing? I know how much you love music. Maybe somewhere Mexican?'
'Somewhere with food!'
'But what kind of food sweetie?'
'Yummy food!'
I was running now, I had closed my eyes and ran head on, covering my ears the best I could to stop the sounds from coming. They were so familiar, like a memory I couldn't quite put my finger on.
'Jingle bells,' The voices sang, 'Jingle all the way!'
'Oh what fun it is to ride in a no horse open car!' Someone finished.
Then she heard one scream, 'Honey watch the road, WATCH THE ROAD!'
I was at full speed, running with my eyes shut tight for the fear of seeing things in my head as well. "Go away!" I yelled, not that it would matter.
"Please!" A young child's voice screamed, crying loud enough to send tingles up my spine easily.
"Go back to the streets where you came from!" Another voice shouted in reply, followed by the sound of both a slamming door, and more sobs from the young child.
I couldn't go any faster then I was going now, and barely felt my feet flying below me until I felt them tangle with each other. I tripped over my own feet and landed on the hard ground. It was like a harder version of dirt and it stung when I landed on it. The voices had died down, but I got up quickly all the same. I was used to falling down, and tripping over my own feet, but now seemed to be the wrong time. I barley dusted the black dirt from my skinned arm when I was starting to run again. Of all things, I didn't want those voices to start again. However, someone stopped me. A hand fell onto my shoulder and gripped hard enough to make me wince.
"Well, well, well." He said, "Who do we have here?"
-*_.-*_.-*_.-*_.-*_.-*
Author- Ok, now you know who Caitlin is and what the problem is, and you have an idea what her character role is. That, my friends, was the role I couldn't edit out or change. *shrug* Not THAT bad right? Can you live with it? I tried to make it as short as humanly possible with the same effect of knowing what's going on. Good? Can I get you anything? *lol*
Author- Now, we're going to start getting to the good parts. ^^ Next chapter is going to feature the YGO gang, really. I'm going to switch POV's every chapter so...yea. Oh, and I don't think I'm going to be doing any pairings during the story, but if you want to suggest one I'm always open! ^^
WARNING- This fic has an unavoidable boring prologue thingy that I've tried to edit out but you just...can't. There is one role that I've given to a new character that I'm going to be introducing into this story. I've tried my best to give an already existing character this role...but it doesn't work. I've tried peoples! I really tried! And I couldn't edit this character out because you need one female role to play in this story and, that's my excuse. If you leave because of it, I will be sad, but it's your loss for not reading because I had to put in a new character at the beginning. *huff* Really peoples, leave when you have a good reason! *deep breath* Now on to the fic!
~*~
I unpacked my things with great care out of the suitcase I had sprawled on the bed. It wasn't much, but the little things are what made me happy. The rubber band, for instance, was stretched out to more then it was supposed to and tucked away in a side pocket safely like it was a delicate glass flower. Not that a flower would fit in there anyway...
I sighed, and watched the shadows play across the walls, curtsey of the vanilla candle lit on the night table. So this was what having a home, and a family again would be like. Not quite what I had hoped for. My room was a bright pink, wallpaper frilled with white lace and everything in the room fluffed up in some way. It wasn't that I despised that color, it was that I despised the color when there was SO MUCH of it! On the walls hung a single item, the one thing that cheered me up when I felt like things were hopeless, which was sadly, very often. It was a picture of my friends, pinned into an old looking letter with the name, 'Caitlin' written across it in blue letters.
I smiled. It was a pretty bad picture of us all, and it was taken about three or four years ago, but I kept it anyway. How often do you come across friends for life that help you find a home? In the picture, there were four boys, and two girls. I knew the boys as Tristen Taylor, Joey Wheeler, Yugi Motou, and Ryou Bakura. The two girls in the front were one of my best friends Tea Gardener and myself. It was a long story how I met them all, and I'm not willing to tell re-play the whole thing right now, but it was a fun time.
I have been homeless almost all my life. After my parents died, there wasn't anyone really to look after me but my grandfather, who didn't give a care weather I was dead or not. I don't even know if he knows I'm still alive anymore...not that it matters. My family and I got in a terrible car accident on my ninth birthday, right after I was presented with the best birthday gift a girl could ever ask for. My parents had given me a fairly small, golden amulet in the shape of a Scarab Beetle. On it's shell, there was an Egyptian looking eye.
I can't remember much what happened after the accident. I remember wondering around with a bruise on my face, crying like mad, and my memories after that take place in an old abandoned antique shop that me, and a few other kids like me, lived in. I was able to figure out how to work the item out pretty quickly, and when I met my Yami we got along pretty well.
Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depends on how you look at it) my amulet was picked up by a man I would grow to hate named Seto Kaiba. He wanted to put it on display in the museum until he could figure out how to work it and use it against Yugi in the duels. I was able to steal it back from him, and while on the run, I ran into Tea, Yugi, Ryou, Joey, and Tristen. Tea let me stay over at her place, and all in all, we got along pretty well. Like I said, it's a long story, but in the end I was able to keep the item without being sent to prison by that Kaiba for stealing what was rightfully mine.
Because I didn't think I fit in right, I tried moving to America with the money I took from Kaiba before hand. That didn't work out to well, and three years later, here I am. I've gotten into so much trouble in the past few years, I should get a medal for it.
"What are you doing?" A voice asked from the direction of my bed.
I jumped a little, and turned around, face to face with a male looking version of myself. He had the same red hair and blue eyes as I did, but he did look more then a little ghostly in the light. If I didn't know who he was, I would have screamed.
"Reflecting." I said, returning to my unpacking duties.
His face brightened, "On what?"
I paused, looking at the Rubix cube in my hand and then at the Scarab Beetle Necklace looking item around my neck. "Lots of things."
"Oh that really narrows it down." He said sarcastically, "Has anyone told you that you're very specific?"
"Has anyone told you that you're a nuisance?" I shot back.
"Yes." He answered, almost proudly, "You have. About four times today in fact."
I grinned. That was, as you might be able to tell, my Yami. We all call him 'Cami' because he liked it like that. Yugi and Ryou both get Yami's that are the same sex as they are, but I had to get a boy Yami. He put up such a fit when people called him Caitlin, and he didn't like being called Yami to just anyone, so we took the best of both worlds and made Cami.
Cami resided in my Millenium Amulet, the scarab beetle that had been turned into a necklace over the years so I didn't loose it. Cami was a scribe in his past life, and he always called the item an 'un-official'' millenium item, whatever that it. I don't know why, but that's how it has just always been. Being bored with what I was doing, he had already searched through my bag and found the sliding puzzle I had been working on. He snorted, and started randomly sliding pieces.
"I can't believe you still carry this around." He said, "You couldn't do a puzzle if your life depended on it. Why keep it? The thing's just frustrating."
I snatched it back from him and pushed it underneath my Harry Potter book. "I'm never going to get any better at it if I don't work on it."
Another snort, "I don't think you'd get any better at it if you worked on that puzzle for years and years."
"It took Yugi however many years to figure his puzzle out." I pointed out, "But he finally got it didn't he?"
"This isn't the Millenium Puzzle we're talking about, Caitlin, it's a sliding puzzle of a duck you bought at the dollar store one day. And it isn't Yugi we're talking about either, it's YOU. Let me tell you that's a big difference my aibou."
I threw a pillow at him, not that it did anything but go through his head since he was in his spirit form, "Shut up."
Cami smirked. He was more a brother to me then a Yami, and for some reason, he wasn't dark at all. Heck, compared to me sometimes it seemed HE was the hikari! He was more carefree then I was, which is pretty amazing, and he did what he was told very often. I guess that's why he made such a good scribe way back when...or so he says...
Destiny, fate, and future. They are an award winning tag team tag team that is entertained with torturing me. This time they've outdone themselves. I thought they finally gave me a little slack when I found a family, and played a sick game with giving me the most annoying family on the planet. They aren't the worst family in the world, just the most annoying and they always want a reason to get me in trouble for...being me. It started with the first step I took into their house, the beginning of the end I guess you'd say.
I knocked gently on the door and waited for them to answer. The house was a pale pink color and had white frilly looking trim along the edges. Although I felt like I was going to puke, I disregarded it and knocked again on the door. It creaked with it opened and I saw a women who appeared to be in her early forties answer. She had soft brown hair, but accusing eyes that gave you a strange guilty feeling every time she looked at you.
"Can I... help you with something?" She said, looking me over for some sort of package to deliver or something along those lines.
"I- are you- you don't happen to-- Hi, I'm Caitlin, the child...erm...TEEN you adopted?" I managed to stutter. Though I wasn't proud of how I stuttered, I thought it sounded very professional. Well, mostly professional.
She nodded and opened the door wider, "Come on in Caitlin. Remember to wipe your shoes, we don't want dirt in here. Caitlin... is there a last name attached to that?"
"No, not really." I said, taking an awkward step into the house that was as pink and frilly as the outside.
"Really? Why? Don't you remember it? I hope I didn't just agree to have an adopted child with amnesia..."
"No, no, no listen Miss....mom...person I don't have amnesia! I just, don't have a last name attached to that."
She looked skeptical, but let it slide with a small, 'Mm hm.' I followed her into the living room and she sat me down on the couch.
"Listen Caitlin, I need to quick do some errands. It should only take a half hour or so, my biological daughter will show you to your room and you can unpack. But please, don't go outside, don't use the internet, and don't listen to music off the radio that isn't on our 'To listen' list. You'll see the list on the wall in front of the radio, can't miss it."
I was kind of hoping to get to know my new mom without her leaving as soon as I came, but beggars couldn't be choosers. The garage door closed, and the head of a younger girl popped out from the hallway. She looked a great deal younger then me, maybe five or ten years, (which makes me sound old.) she had cream colored hair, and the same accusing eyes as her mother.
"Is she gone?" She asked, looking around a little before relaxing.
I nodded and put out my hand, "Hi, I'm your new sister, Caitlin."
"Good for you." She said, immediately turning back into the hallway and leaving me alone in the room. Feeling very insulted, I followed her.
"Where are you going?"
The girl didn't look at me and instead turned on the computer, "Computer. I've got to see something on the Internet."
I thought for a moment, "Didn't your mom say no Internet?"
Ok, I had to admit. I was one of those people who said 'rules are meant to be broken' and all, and I'd probably end up sneaking on the internet sometime or another but I was kind of focused to create the illusion I was a responsible adult. Man, what was I setting myself up for? Responsible adult? Yea, right.
"Maybe to you, but did she mention anything about me?" She answered coldly over the beeping and other strange noises that came whenever you went on the Internet.
"No, I guess not."
"Good. Then it's settled."
Wait, settled? I wanted to give her a peace of my mind and found myself repeating 'responsible adult, responsible adult...' over and over again in my head. There was silence for a moment as the girl clicked at a few pages and read them. Responsible adult! BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT! Gee, what exactly would a responsible adult do in this situation? Send her to her room and ground her for a few days? Yes, that sounded like a good idea...but then again, I don't really think I have the power to do that yet. Plan B. I tried to talk with her again.
"So, how old are you?"
"What do you care."
"I care."
"No you don't."
"Uh...ok? Have any pets?"
"No."
"Favorite color?"
"Don't mind."
I sighed and leaned against the computer table, "Could you at LEAST grace me with your name? I mean we're going to be sisters for god goshness sake!"
"Fine, if it will shut you up, my name's Jena."
I grimaced, "Jena?"
"Yea you got a problem with that?"
Man, she sounded like she was the one older then me.
"Well, kinda, you see..."
"What?" She said, glaring at me from her short perch on the computer chair.
"Jena sounds a lot like Jennet..."
"So?"
Another grimace, "I don't like the name Jennet."
"Well that's not my problem is it?"
I wanted to smack her, but a stupid responsible adult wouldn't do that. I feel for all those poor older sisters out there in the world, who have to deal with younger sisters that are smart butts.
I finally gave up and decided to look around by myself. I was smart, I could figure out which room was mine and such. Unfortunately, when I DID find my room, I wished I hadn't. It was pinker and frillier then any room in the house, and the whole house was pink and frilly. There were obviously no men in the household. I dropped my bags and rubbed my eyes, hoping that the pinkness would wash out or something and the whole house would be in blue.
"You can't escape the frilliness!" I exclaimed, landing on my laced pink bed.
That was the beginning, and things only went downhill from there. I was grounded that day on our way to eat out. Apparently, they wanted to 'celebrate' my moving into the family, even though I knew that Jena didn't want to celebrate at all. It was a long car ride to the restaurant and I had secretly brought my cell-phone to play games on. I had gotten a high score on the little snake eating apples game when the phone started to ring. I knew something was wrong immediately because 'mom' shrieked and pulled over. I muffled the sound of the ring with my shirt but it didn't do much good. She turned on me and said loudly,
"What are you doing with THAT song on your phone!?"
I tried to act natural, in truth, it was a very sick, perverted song done by someone who doesn't have a life, and who thought up other sick perverted songs and put them on a CD for other sick perverted people with no life to listen to. Not saying I'm sick and perverted, the song had a catchy beat. I didn't know all the lyrics or anything, heck, I didn't even know the title of the song! I just thought it was a cool beat to have for my ring on the phone. In my defense, if you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was a happy song and not a...very bad song.
"Oh, so you know that tune?" I said sweetly.
Her face turned beet red, "I will NOT have a song like that being played on my daughter's phone! And did I SAY you could even have a phone, let alone BRING IT?"
I was trapped, no where to run in a car, "I bought it with my money a while ago, I should be able to keep it."
"YOU- CAN'T- KEEP- IT!" She almost screamed, turning back to the wheel and turning around, determining that I didn't deserve a welcome dinner. I thought that was the end, but it wasn't. It got worse, WAY worse.
"Why were we connected to the Internet when I got home." My 'mom' said in a calmer but suspicious voice, "Jena? Do you know about that?"
"Mother," She said in a light voice, "I hate to be the bearer of bad news but- Caitlin was on the internet today."
"What!" I exclaimed, sitting up. I didn't even know how to work the stupid thing! How come every time I tried to act like a responsible adult it blows up in my face!
"WHAT!?"
This time the car wasn't pulled over, but it was a screaming match.
I lost.
Could things get any worse? Oh yeah, next Jena told her that I had been listening to a station on the radio that wasn't on their 'stations to listen to' list. I tried to tell them that I was bored out of my mind and it was a classical music station that I had grown to love, but my new mom wouldn't hear of it. She grounded me in my pink frilly prison for a week without anything electrical. What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that!?
Now, back to the present time. In essence, I was already done being a responsible adult and was back to being an unresponsible teenager. I lit another candle on my desk because my first one was going out. Cami looked shocked.
"What are you doing with that?"
"Get this." I told him, "She's making me use CANDLES to keep my room lit."
He smirked and looked though my luggage for something else entertaining to do, " I wouldn't use those if I were you, which I kinda am if you get right down to it, with your luck and grace you'll set the house on fire."
I looked at my electrical clock on my night table. It was only 6:54. Too early to go to sleep, and I didn't have anything else to do. I felt like a lion in a cage at the circus as I paced stiffly around my room, "I HATE THIS!"
Cami almost laughed and picked up a magazine from my pile, "You shouldn't have broken the rules, great first impression Cait."
"I didn't mean to! And I especially didn't want to get stuck in HERE! I don't do well in closed places for long periods of time! I'm like a gypsy from Hunchback of Notre Dame!"
He shrugged and started to read one of my Cosmo Girl magazines, "At least you've got school to look forward to tomorrow." He laughed, "I don't even want to know what it would be like if you lived here BEFORE school started."
I glanced at him, "What are you reading?"
Cami flinched and hid the magazine behind his back, "Nothing!"
I groaned and sat in the pink chair they had provided, "I was supposed to call Tea tonight and give her the play-by-play! She was supposed to give me moral support! And no offence but you aren't exactly the king of moral support. Last time you tried to help me you ended up getting me into more trouble then I was in before."
"Hey that wasn't my fault I thought that he liked polka dots on his ties!" He exclaimed defensively.
I had been going to school for a few months and staying in a hotel while this family got ready for me and Tea had told me yesterday to call her, only I couldn't.
Phones are electrical.
I looked around at the room, "I have GOT to get out of here or I'll loose my mind!"
Before Cami could object, I had activated my millennium item's power. My Millinium Item has one of THE COOLEST powers, if I do say so myself. It took me forever to figure out how to use it right, and through trial and error, I finally found out that the item can open a portal into any person, of your choosing's, dream.
The cool thing about it, is that I become ghost-like and no one can see me for a period of time. At least until my power runs out, I have to be careful because if I'm in this state for too long or go into too many dreams at one time I could run out and be visible again. It gets complicated if you're in a dream when it happens. You could be stranded there forever, existing in the dream itself and complete chaos would ensue! I found that you could get stuck the hard way, in Ryou's dream no less. It wasn't fun, but I got out in the end.
I walked to the doorway and attempted to float through the door like other Yami's can do, and sadly forgot I couldn't do that with this item. I ran straight into the door with a loud bang of my skull hitting the wood. Cami laughed and teased me by putting his hand through my desk.
"Oooh Caitlin, look what I can do and you can't!" He kept putting his hand though various objects and laughing as I opened the door the old fashioned way and snuck out of the house.
-*-*-*-*-
Once I was outside of the pink house, I felt free again. I walked around the city, looking at various people and watching them do things, but one person was especially interesting. No, more like intriguing. He was running quickly down an empty ally and almost slipped on a piece of a cardboard box before getting up again and continuing. What confused me, was that there was no one coming after him, he was alone.
Of coarse, I followed. I was all too curious in this person to just let him run away, maybe I could help him somehow. When he reached a house I assumed was his, I came in immediately after him. He locked the door and all the windows rapidly and nailed some openings shut with anything he could find. What was he so afraid of? Why was he doing this? I was too interested to be nervous about how I would get out of the house myself and watched him pace and take extra measures to not allow anyone in, from a safe distance. He finally chugged down a bunch of sleeping pills, and after about a ten minutes, sleep found him.
Normally, I would let the poor man be and go about my business, but he had put this upon himself and I was determined to find out what was wrong. I slowly walked up to his bed side and the beetle shaped amulet's wings opened to reveal the Egyptian eye underneath. A portal appeared over the man and I was able to walk right into it and enter his dream.
%%%%%%%%
I looked around at the dark gloom and fog. It was so thick that I could barely see where I was going and almost ran straight into the man who was too wandering. He looked very shaken and disturbed by something. He looked around nervously and was very pale.
"Hi!" I said smiling, "My name is Caitlin and how are we doing today?"
"Uh....uh...."
I cleared my throat, "I asked you a polite question, could you please do me the honor of answering it."
"I- am in kind of a rush now."
"Oh well I'm not. Why are you in a rush we're kinda in a dream here. It's not like you'd go anywhere."
"I'm in big trouble."
"Your not making any sense. WHY are you in trouble? What happened?"
"I- I stole money from a gang I used to belong to."
I raised my eyebrows, "A gang? Well that gets nominated for the stupidest thing done by a guy. Dude, you'd have better luck stealing from a bank! Gang's will kill you if you steal, bank's will just put you in jail for life or something."
"That's the point, I did it for revenge. And I needed money so, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
"Wow you're stupid."
"You don't understand! I was in that gang, and we stole from a bank together. Only they turned me in so they wouldn't get caught and I was the one that went to jail. When I got back they wouldn't let me back in and I had to live on my own in a dumpy house. I couldn't pay the rent because I didn't get my share of the money and- and now they want to kill me!"
"Well you- WHAT!? When! Tonight!? NOW? WHILE I'M IN HERE!?"
He nodded sadly, "I did everything I could, and I'm asleep because then I won't feel pain when they shoot me to death."
I was in a state of shock. This was defiantly not one of my better ideas, "Uh, I- I think I'd better be going before you...you know...die and all..."
"Excuse me?"
I've seen what happens when someone just started a different dream in the night and she was stuck, she didn't want to see what happened when someone died in their dreams. "Yeah see, I'm kind of busy...and...stuff...buh- bye now!"
He put his hand on my shoulder and his body started to fade, "They're here."
He couldn't die, not now, not while I was still in here! I turned around and looked for some kind of portal to get out of this dream as fast as I could. It wasn't there. I felt around in the air for it. I started to panic and waved my arms around wildly. "This can't be happening." I told myself, "I haven't been a ghost thing for that long, why is it gone!"
I looked around for a while longer before calming myself down, "Not to worry, I just have to convince the dude that it's all a dream and the portal will come back."
I thought for a moment, he already knew it was a dream. Why did it go away? This can't be a very good sign. I turned around and looked from the stupid man that stole from the gang, only there was one problem.
He wasn't there.
"Dude?" I said, "Dude? DUDE!? DUDE WHERE ARE YOU!"
I was trapped. There was no way out. No Cami, no idea what to do, no way out whatsoever. Before I could comprehend my first problem, another arose. The whole dream suddenly changed. The fog turned into blue smoke, and the gray around me into a dark purple that looked almost black. It didn't take long for the smoke to turn colors, from a light pink to a blood red. Then goldenrod yellow and dark green. It was very pretty, despite the freakiness of it.
The smoke was continuously moving around me and it was impossible now to see more then a few inches in front of my feet. I took a deep breath and started to journey into the colored, ever thickening smoke. I had heard that animals attacked things that weren't moving more often, and I definitely wasn't moving. Even though I felt blind, worse things could happen when you didn't go anywhere and lingered.
The biting cold stung my face like a strong gust of icy wind had suddenly kicked up. I shivered and rubbed my arms to keep warm with not very visible results. Every step I took got harder and harder to bear, and I was strangely running out of energy with every second.
"That's it Caitlin." I told myself, "Just keep walking, one foot in front of the other. Don't scream, cry, think you're going insane, just keep walking."
It scared me how the smoke would move away just as I was going to step on it, like it had a mind of it's own. I knew I was moving, but it looked like I was getting nowhere fast.
"Just keep walking, just keep walking, just keep walking..." I said quietly, hearing something like a baby crying coming from behind me.
'Congratulations, it's a girl!' A new voice said. It didn't sound real, like something in my head, and it echoed on for what seemed like many minutes. And suffice to say, I didn't like it.
"Just keep walking." I repeated, "There really isn't anything there, there isn't. Just keep walking."
'Happy birthday to you!' A group of voices sang, 'Happy birthday to you!'
This voice sounded more real then the one from before. I stopped dead in my tracks and spun around, looking nervously behind me. The echo's died, and I was left with the sound of my of deep breathing and the beads of sweat slowly forming on my forehead from the voices. Not including my Yami, I didn't hear voices in my head very often.
"Who's there?" I shouted, hearing no response to my cry.
"Go." Was all I could say, my heart flying, "Just keep walking...no matter who that was..."
'So where do you want to go tonight?' Some voice said, more real then anything my Yami would have been able to say to me. It sounded like it was coming from right behind me and speaking into my ear.
'I don't mind, anywhere I can get an ice cream!' A younger voice spoke.
'Well you're going to have to give me more then that, how about somewhere with music playing? I know how much you love music. Maybe somewhere Mexican?'
'Somewhere with food!'
'But what kind of food sweetie?'
'Yummy food!'
I was running now, I had closed my eyes and ran head on, covering my ears the best I could to stop the sounds from coming. They were so familiar, like a memory I couldn't quite put my finger on.
'Jingle bells,' The voices sang, 'Jingle all the way!'
'Oh what fun it is to ride in a no horse open car!' Someone finished.
Then she heard one scream, 'Honey watch the road, WATCH THE ROAD!'
I was at full speed, running with my eyes shut tight for the fear of seeing things in my head as well. "Go away!" I yelled, not that it would matter.
"Please!" A young child's voice screamed, crying loud enough to send tingles up my spine easily.
"Go back to the streets where you came from!" Another voice shouted in reply, followed by the sound of both a slamming door, and more sobs from the young child.
I couldn't go any faster then I was going now, and barely felt my feet flying below me until I felt them tangle with each other. I tripped over my own feet and landed on the hard ground. It was like a harder version of dirt and it stung when I landed on it. The voices had died down, but I got up quickly all the same. I was used to falling down, and tripping over my own feet, but now seemed to be the wrong time. I barley dusted the black dirt from my skinned arm when I was starting to run again. Of all things, I didn't want those voices to start again. However, someone stopped me. A hand fell onto my shoulder and gripped hard enough to make me wince.
"Well, well, well." He said, "Who do we have here?"
-*_.-*_.-*_.-*_.-*_.-*
Author- Ok, now you know who Caitlin is and what the problem is, and you have an idea what her character role is. That, my friends, was the role I couldn't edit out or change. *shrug* Not THAT bad right? Can you live with it? I tried to make it as short as humanly possible with the same effect of knowing what's going on. Good? Can I get you anything? *lol*
Author- Now, we're going to start getting to the good parts. ^^ Next chapter is going to feature the YGO gang, really. I'm going to switch POV's every chapter so...yea. Oh, and I don't think I'm going to be doing any pairings during the story, but if you want to suggest one I'm always open! ^^