Chapter 5:
It was a little before midnight when Marik, Bakura, and Yami were sleepy enough to go to bed. Of course, Marik and Yami had to work together to fix the tent. Seeing as how it was a complete mess. Bakura took this rather personally and pouted a little bit, before it was all fixed and looked like it was supposed to.
While Yami was down at the river, brushing his teeth (because that's what Yugi trained him to do), Marik and Bakura were in the tent thinking of something they could do to Yami.
"That spoilsport was the only reason my story wasn't scary." Marik complained, "And why does he get to be the 'responsible one'? I'm twice as responsible as he'll ever be!"
"Yeah, sure, Marik." Bakura rolled his eyes, "You're responsible and I'm a cute little caterpillar. There, now we're both liars."
Marik looked down at Yami's sleeping bag, "Hmm. I think I've got an idea."
"What? Marik, it's late. Aren't you tired?"
"…No. I'll be right back."
He opened the flap to the tent and went outside. Yami was still down at the river, gargling, so Marik was able to slip by him. He went over to the foot of a tree and looked around on the ground. A pretty big grasshopper made itself known and Marik grabbed it, then rushed back into the tent.
"What'd you do, Marik?" Bakura asked.
"Watch and learn." Marik slipped the bug inside Yami's sleeping bag and laid back on top of his own. "This is gonna be good."
Just then, Yami came into the tent. He looked at Marik then to Bakura, "What'd you two do? I know something's amiss."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Yami." Marik said nonchalantly.
Bakura shrugged, "Some people. Their so suspicious."
Yami eyed them, and they started to yawn and snuggled into their sleeping bags. He figured, 'Hmm… they probably didn't do anything. Maybe I am being too suspicious.'
He slipped into his own sleeping bag and looked back at Marik and Bakura who were peeking at him through the holes in their sleeping bags. Yami turned back around and counted pyramids in order to drift off. It would've worked too, if Yami didn't notice that a part of his bag was jumping up and down.
"Huh?" Yami watched as something next to his leg kept moving, "What the…"
He slipped his head under and it was quiet for a second or two, then… "GAAHH!" Yami scrambled out of the sleeping bag, tripped over the flashlight, and fell on top of Bakura.
"Ugh! G-Get off of me!" Bakura pushed him off and the grasshopper bounced out of the tent and back into the wild. Once Yami was shoved back onto his sleeping bag he notice Marik giggling and laughing.
"Tee hee hee hee hee hee! I knew you'd freak out, Yami. And over such a little bug, too."
"Marik! That wasn't funny!" Yami stood up and pointed at him, "You're such a jerk, that bug was about as big as Yugi! And it could've been poisonous! I might've died!"
"If we should all be so lucky." Marik rolled his eyes.
"Oh! You've done it this time, Marik Ishtar! You've crossed the line, just wait! I'll find something absolutely awful to do to you!"
"Hmm? Oh, okay." Marik sat back down on his sleeping bag, snuggling with his special blanket. Or his 'world domination blankie' as he calls it, Malik knitted it for him.
Yami grinned and snatched the blanket away from Marik and ran outside the tent. "Ha ha ha!" He yelled, childishly.
"What! Yami, you get back here!" He ran out after him.
When Marik caught up to Yami, he was standing next to the river, with the blanket in his right hand, outstretched and ready to fall into the water. He was grinning from ear to ear when he saw Marik fuming mad.
"See, Marik?" Yami smiled, "I can be mean too. And I'll drop your blanket into the river and let it wash downstream if you don't stop playing tricks on me!"
"Me? What about Bakura!"
"Bakura doesn't do anything really bad to me… he just watches you." Yami said thoughtfully, "I actually think he'd be relatively good if you weren't around to turn him on to evil! You're a bad influence!"
"Yami!" Marik growled and lunged at the spiky-headed boy. Yami jumped back in surprise and accidentally dropped part of the blanket into the water. Coincidently, it fell on top of a furry, floating animal carcass and it stuck to the cover.
"Eww." Yami lifted it out of the water and the quiet large furry animal stuck to it.
"Oh Ra! Yami, give me my damn blanket before I make you eat it!" Marik made a jump for it but Yami ducked and chucked the furry blanket in the opposite direction. Way over the river and into a patch of woods.
"Gah…" Marik gasped and fell to his knees in the grass. "M-My… you… My world domination blankie! Oh! Oh, come back!"
Yami smirked and clapped his hands together, "Well, that's that. Um… Marik?" He looked down and saw Marik's eyes were dilated. "Marik, what's wrong?"
"…NNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
In the depths of the forest, the old man whistled to himself, sometimes looking down at his map, sometimes tripping over his own feet. He stopped for a moment and looked around.
"It must be terribly late. I should really get some rest… but this is the wild. I can't just take a nap, something might come along and-"
Just as he was finishing his sentence, he was hit pretty hard with an unidentified object. It came speeding at him at 20mph and smacked him in the face. Whatever it was had hit him pretty hard and managed to draw a little blood.
"Goodness gracious!" He exclaimed and ran his stubby hands along his face. He felt lots of hair and a few teeth. "Gah! Ah! No!"
He ran as fast as his slightly chubby legs could carry him. "Animal!" came his frantic cry as he went blindly, deeper into the woods, "Animal! Animal!"
Back at the campsite, Marik was wallowing in self-pity on the floor. Bakura helped him get over the worst part of his grief. Now, he just lay on the ground, eyes dilated and not moving. Basically he looked like he was in a coma.
"Are ya happy, Pharaoh? You killed Marik." Bakura stood over Marik and kicked him in the side. He didn't move.
Yami was on his knees next to Marik, "Oh Ra! I'm so sorry! First Grandpa, now Marik! This is awful! Yugi's… he's gonna… Oh, Marik, forgive me!"
"…" Marik twitched, but didn't say anything.
Bakura shook his head, "Eh. Don't worry about it, Yami. That stupid blanket goes missing about three times a year. It always turns up eventually. But when Marik snaps out of his depression, he's not gonna be happy."
"I can't believe this… I sunk to Marik's childish level of taunting and the moment I do, Marik slips into some kind of depression! I'm supposed to be the responsible one! Yugi's never gonna cell phone me again, if he finds out!" Yami turned to Bakura, "Bakura, please don't tell Yugi!"
He raised his hand to his heart solemnly, "Oh… I'm telling."
"Ah! B-Bakura-" Yami stood up and Bakura grabbed his cell phone from around his neck. He ran off towards the woods, yelling, "I'm gonna tell!"
"Please don't tell! I can fix Marik!" Yami ran after him.
Yami reached Bakura at the edge of the clearing they were in, "Bakura, please, give me back the cell phone! I can fix Marik… I… Bakura?"
Bakura squinted into the thick woods ahead of them. "Um…"
"Bakura…?"
"Animal! Animal!" A loud scream came from the darkness and began to get louder and louder. "Animal!"
"Gah!" Bakura and Yami backed up simultaneously. The source of the screaming getting closer and finally jumping through the bushes and out into the clearing, right in front of the two yamis.
Whatever it was, it was about Yami's height only with something that Yami didn't have… lot's of fur. Saggy and unnatural looking brown hair all over it's body. An awful smell exuding from the creature, as well, a rotting dead animal smell.
Well, when the hideous animal was standing right in front of Yami and Bakura they doubled back and ran for their lives.
"Oh my Ra! Monster! Wild Monster!" Yami screamed and panted, "Bakura, what do we do?"
"Duh! Grab Marik and haul butt outta here!" As he ran, he bent down and grabbed a fistful of Marik's blonde hair. He was only able to drag him for three feet before he called out, "Oh, responsible one! A little help here!"
"Uh, right! Coming…" He hurried over and helped Bakura try and lift Marik.
Meanwhile, the creature scratched his head and mumbled to himself, "Hmm? Oh, Bakura! Yami, Marik! Over here!" It waved his hands above his head frantically and came running towards them, yelling their names.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" Yami repeated as he and Bakura shuffled along the ground and dragged Marik. Bakura, with Marik's limp hands in his and Yami was pushing his feet, "That thing's coming after us! Bakura, hurry!"
"Ra, Marik, you really need to lose weight!"
"Yami! Bakura! Marik! Come here!" Was the excited and yet terrifying yell from the monster that stayed in pursuit of them.
Yami was now whimpering and sobbing, "He's gonna eat us! He's gonna eat us!"
It was very dark and as they were exiting the clearing, and escaping into the woods, Yami complained, "We can't see where we're going!"
"We're going away from that thing, now come on!"
Just as it seemed that the creature would catch up to them, he tripped over his own foot and fell onto the grass, moaning, "Oh, my plastic hip…!"
They managed to run deep into the woods, away from that awful, scary monster with the plastic hip. Yikes. So, anyway, they dumped Marik down and sat at the foot of a tree to rest. Marik may seem slim, but when you're in a hurry, people can weigh more than they normally do.
"Huh…" Bakura let out a sigh of relief and looked up at the black sky, "That was the weirdest thing I've ever seen… I mean… it looked like some kind of shadow creature. Do you think it could be a duel monster?"
"Since when do duel monster's look like that? That was definitely of the human world. It was probably some prehistoric… thing. A monkey-man of some sort, I'm sure." He looked around carefully, "Their might be more around here…"
"Ah, well, I can handle monkey-men." Bakura tossed Yami's cell phone to him, "Here. I'm tired of holding it."
Yami caught it, "Thank you." He looked back down at Marik and sighed, "I can't believe it… I'm not being very responsible, Bakura. Just look at what I did to Marik. He's gonna hate me when he wakes up."
"Marik's always hated you, Yami. It's not because you chucked his stupid blanket into the wild. But, of course, that could be a big part of it later. Let's face it, you're not the most likeable guy, anyway."
"… Well, thanks for trying to cheer me up…"
"I didn't." He slid down the trunk of the large tree, next to Marik, "You'd better get some sleep, Pharaoh. Tomorrow, we're going back home. I don't care what Ryou says. We're finding a way out of this mess, if it's the last thing we do."
