Dreaming in Gray

Chapter 4: A Rose on the Gray

Standard disclaimers apply. YuGiOh and "Kiss From A Rose" are property of their own creators.

He gazes down at his hands, at the creases that form as he cups his palms around a fist full of sand. Immaterial fingers slip through silver dust, touching nothing, feeling nothing. This thought is somewhat comforting to the dark spirit. Feeling nothing means it is impossible to experience the scorching heat of the sun.

Squinting his eyes, he scans the horizon. There had to be more than just the never ending sand in this place. Where is he? He knows only the absolutes. He is in his soul room. But the light that shone as he stepped through had surrounded him, enveloped him, carried him. He could feel the motion. This was not his soul room. Where common sense fails, the beating of his heart was ever clearer. This is Egypt. This is his past. This is a part of him.

With this answer came more questions. Why wasn't Yuugi with him? Surely he had seen the light... unless... "Yuugi?" He calls out, taking his first tentative steps. His feet never touch the ground nor make any indention in the sand below. "Partner?" He had not wanted to leave his Other behind.

A realization strikes him as he looks down. The sand is silver. Though he has no memories of Egypt, he has seen sand before, of a bright golden color. He remembers Yuugi mixing it with water, piling it, molding it with his hands. There is sand in his hair, in his ears, and he is laughing. The sky is blue in this memory. But here, here it is gray, shimmering with heat reflected off of the unforgiving sand.

"Everything was covered in this gray mist and... and I felt happy and whole."

Yuugi's words from the night before echoed in his mind. His dreams! They were in shades of grays...

"And the light part just... it was dead, and the black didn't care!"

Grays, whites, blacks. "Partner, never!" His promise from the night before dies on his lips. He had promised Yuugi he would never leave him, yet now he is alone. And if Yuugi's dreams are of the past...

Panic leads back to reason, however. Yuugi has to be near. He feels the boy through the Puzzle's gentle calling. He feels it in his heart. Why would he be led here if not to find Yuugi?

The path he takes is straight ahead, as he walks on instinct alone. The way he takes simply feels right. The sand beneath him slopes up gently, and he wonders if this hill is made entirely of sand, or if there is some sort of dirt beneath. If he gets lost, would it still be here later? He doubts this fact will matter in the long run. The ground beneath him levels out as he continues on. Ahead he sees the flat, mud-brick roofs of a city, and below, the sand's gentle slope downward once more. But the city! One glance of it from afar, and he already feels at home. So many tiny houses, each built so close to one another. The joyful shouts of children fill the air as they play on the flat roofs. Their parents are mere specks on the ground, bustling about, attending to their daily schedules. His chin set at a determined angle, the spirit sets out towards the village. It is, after all, quite a trek from the top of this hill to the town below. Hastily, he continues, trusting that it is only a matter of time until he understands why he is here. The possibilities of finding the truth about his past can wait. Finding Yuugi is all that matters.

It seemed that the cold winds stopped for an instant. Children stopped throwing snowballs and ceased their laughter. The sounds of TVs and radios in houses nearby shut off, and the world was quiet in anticipation. At least, that's what it seemed like to Hiroto Honda, or maybe he went just a little but crazy, what with all of this cold air, his lack of proper winter attire, and the fact that his best friend was now about to do something no man that he'd ever heard of had ever attempted before: knock on the door of the Mazaki residence. "I'm gonna do this," Jounouchi said after a long pause. His hand was in a tight fist, poised over the surface of an awaiting door.

"Man, if you're so bored, how about we go to the arcade?" Honda asked nervously, breaking the silence. "If Anzu's mom is anything like she's said, she's gonna wig out on us."

Jounouchi grinned, mustering up enough courage to knock twice on the wooden surface, "Aw, girls always exaggerate. Besides, we have to have a rematch of yesterday's snowball war, or else my name isn't---"

A shrill response from the other side of the door cut off his sentence. "We don't want any!"

Honda involuntarily shuddered at the sound, and Jounouchi jumped nearly a foot away from the door. Clearing his throat, the shaken blonde tried again, "Uh, we ain't sellin' nothing. We're Anzu's pals."

The door slowly squeaked on it's hinges and opened a crack, revealing a sliver of a woman's face. "Anzu's sleeping," She responded matter-of-factly.

"Okay..." Jounouchi said slowly, ignoring Honda's wild gesturing and head shaking behind him, "Can we wake her up?"

"Come back later," Was the sharp reply as the door slammed shut.

"Don't count on that!" Honda hollered back as the duo left, dejected. "I always knew Anzu was a teensy bit off her rocker... guess we know it's genetics now, right?" He glanced over at his silent friend, head bowed and hands jammed into his pockets. "Aw, come on!" Honda tried again, "Don't be like that. Look, I've got some coins. Let's go to the arcade before I lose feeling in my hands."

Jounouchi sighed, "I guess..." They walked further in silence, Honda grateful to have finally talked his buddy out of this whole 'war'. Not that he didn't want to fight, oh no, he just didn't feel like walking around trying to find people to play with. It felt surprisingly juvenile.

Jounouchi looked deep in thought as the duo neared the arcade. "Kind of convenient that Yuugi and Anzu are both sleeping in today." He commented before sopping dead in his tracks. The suddenness of this action caused Honda to run into him. "A little too convenient."

Honda groaned, backing away from Jounouchi. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"No, no, don't you get it? They're probably both hiding out waiting for us to give up looking for them. They're too chicken for a rematch!" Jounouchi looked triumphant having figured out his friends' "plan", "But we ain't letting them off the hook that easily. We're gonna track 'em down, and find where they're at." As he rambled, Honda shook his head, turned, and walked away.

"And then we'll rub their heads in the snow so hard they'll be sneezing it for a month! Are you with me?" Silence was the only response to Jounouchi's battle cry. "You're with me, right?" He tried again, looking to either side of himself for his friend, "Honda?" He looked at the deserted, snow filled street and sighed, "Well, this sucks."

The sights and sounds seem familiar, yet so strange. Yuugi knows this has to be a mixture of knowledge from the body he is in mingled with his own questions. There is, however, more curiosity than understanding.

'I guess royalty rarely ever sees life like this,' He thinks to himself, watching several children chasing a small wooden ball around their entourage. The children, both boys and girls, sported the same hair style: one lock of hair tied into a pony tail on the side of their heads, the rest, shaved bald. The ball hits up against the legs of the lighter haired guard's horse, and in surprise, it whinnies, bucking up on its hind legs.

"Woah!" The man cries out in an attempt to calm the horse as he holds on tightly to its mane. The children stop running for fear of scaring the horse more.

"Misters?" One child, a young girl, asks tentatively, watching the scene play out. The horse calms down a bit, and the rider once again safely perched atop, "Could you give us our ball back?" The other children rally behind her at some distance, slightly afraid of these newcomers and their animals.

Yuugi smiles and nods gently. Getting off his camel was not as much of a struggle as he had assumed it would be. His body slid effortlessly off the side, as if he had performed the action many times before. He reaches down beneath his guard's horse, picks up the ball, and hands it to the young girl. She smiles up at him in a silent "thank you" before running off.

His good deed done, Yuugi tries to mount his camel once more. The beast doesn't tower over him as he would have imagined, and only then does he notice that his current body is marginally taller than his own. As he remounts, he notices both guards staring at him with a look of disbelief in their eyes. He shrugs as the guide horse continues forward once again. Night draws ever closer, and they have yet to find a place to stay.

Everything feels like fire. Heat, bold and unbridled, settles in this room, settles around the form laying atop the stiff, covered reeds that served as a bed. Even breathing is difficult. She closes her eyes and concentrates soley on breathing: in, out...

She opens her eyes.

In...

The shadows on the walls seem to dance about her, flickering like flames as the darkness in the room shifts with the setting sun's last rays filtering in through the high-placed window.

Out...

Her body shakes involuntarily, thrashing with fever. Where is she? The room is so small, so dark, and everything so blurry. She tries to remember, but she can't concentrate. Tears prick at her eyes, and she scrunches them back up again as she wraps her arms around her frail body. If only this was a nightmare...

In, out. In...

She feels cool, for just an instant, the sensation covering her like a welcome embrace. When she opens her eyes, it is night time, and the shadows have stopped their dancing. She doesn't feel alone, not now. A sob escapes her lips as she slowly falls to sleep.

The shadows cover her through the evening, and one shadow envelops her, tries to hold her through her fevered tossing and turning throughout the night. She seems so frail, he realizes as he tries to brush a tear from her cheek, though his immaterial fingers slip through. She's just an innocent, a rose in this world of gray.

"It'll be all right," the shadowy spirit whispers, "Hold on, Anzu. It'll be better in the morning." He can't assure these words will be true, but he has learned that everything seems better once the light comes again. Perhaps tomorrow he will find his own.