A/N: Sorry for the absence, I didn't like it either...I mean, besides the constant shopping and running up my Daddy's credit card.
Reviewers: -glare at Ms. Chant-
Yami no Cassandra: Heehee, I encourage the shopping sprees.
Ms. Chant: Are YOU the one who insisted I buy the Goth jewelry?
Yami no Cassandra: None other. You were doing stupid stuff like buying lamps at the Christmas Tree Shop. -eyerolls- Am I right, reviewers?
Reviewers: GET ON WITH THE RA-DAMN FIC ALREADY!!!!
Ms. Chant and Yami no Cassandra: FINE!
Tea's skin burned with a fierce cold like blue flame, and every particle of her itched – hundreds of tiny fish were eating at her flesh, at her hair, her eyes, her face...The darkness roared with silent malice, distorting her screams, drowning out her sobs, as she closed her eyes to not see the images flickering through the dark. All of her worst nightmares, come to life, larger than life, a dark cauldron spinning with fear and hatred and depression, covering her, smothering her, choking her...When she wished Bakura would just kill her and end it all, do anything to make it stop...
There was a hard thud as her body collided with solid cement, cold and rough but the best feeling in the world. Even the hot blood, trickling under her hairline, felt like the kiss of the gods.
Anything was better than the cold, burning numbness of the Shadow Realm.
She breathed heavily, gasping and wheezing for air, her lungs sore from the constriction of the shadows. Pushing herself up onto her scraped hands and knees, she blinked and tried to see the room she was in. The floor spun like a top beneath her, and eventually she could make out her surroundings – dark concrete walls without windows, scattered shapes draped in dust- ridden sheets. And a heavy cloud of white hair, masking malevolent brown eyes that twinkled with hard amusement.
He pulled her to her feet, hard, and the room whirled as she vaguely heard his voice, saying:
"That was your first taste of the Shadow Realm."
More of a question than a statement.
She nodded thickly, and felt her stomach suddenly heave as she vomited onto the floor.
Her whole body was shaking, shivering from cold and heat and sweat, dry heaves racking her fragile frame. She closed her eyes, wishing she could close her ears too. Wishing she could close everything. She briefly wondered why she was still standing – she felt as weak as though she had just been born. She felt too weak to think.
Bakura watched her without emotion, looming over her. He smirked at her sickly figure, remembering exactly why mortals were so irritating...and so amusing. How weak mortals were. How simple. The powers of the Shadow Realm – that he himself found almost paltry – had nearly destroyed her in the few seconds she had been in their depths. To him, the Shadows felt like the slightly angry and rude hug of a stepmother who refused to admit that she loved him. A dark, cold hug, like the touch of late November frosts in the air on the day of Thanksgiving. Sweet and bitter, like real cocoa.
He cast an eye around the cement cell that would serve as a refuge for the next few days. A stack of foam mats caught his eye – tumbling mats, for gymnasts. Lying on top in neat, slightly dusty piles were spare sheets for the furniture. He gathered one up in his arms and threw it on top of the sniveling heap that breathed heavily with exhaustion and pain.
"Wrap yourself in these," he said shortly, before pointing at the stack of mats, "And lay on those. I'm going out to prepare a few things..."
"W-what for?" asked Tea, her stiff fingers closing around the hard, thick sheets, the dust wafting in light clouds like marijuana smoke. "W-what are you planning to do?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," he purred as he accessed the powers of the Ring to open another portal to the Shadow Realm. Tea shivered as she watched the split appear in the air, watched the black and bruised colors spinning like the very essence of a sick, twisted disease...She didn't even hear his voice fading through the Shadows, permeating the room like a ill-fated fog, laughing to himself... "Teanea."
She drew the thick sheets around her, tightly as swaddling clothes, and crawled towards the stack of mats. Her head throbbed as she let herself go limp, her skull hitting the hard surface of the gymnast mats. Closing her eyes, she willed sleep to come and close the pain off. But sleep refused to come, and she felt her cold fingers suddenly relax from the hot, fiery, living burn of a single tear.
A/N: Yes, I know, even shorter than usual, but it was a hard sort of transitioning chapter, and I wrote it, so yay me! Better, juicier chappies coming up...Keep R&Ring!