"That can't be a body…can it?" Tea murmured. Her face was pale with fear and her gentle brown eyes were wide. "Yugi, tell me that's not what I think it is."
"I…"
It's just as I feared, Yami told me hardheartedly. It wasn't just a coincidence.
What? I asked him, my eyes still resting sadly upon the corpse. Do you know who did this? Who's killing all these people?
Unfortunately, no. But I think I may have a minor idea what's been going on. Yami sighed. I believe it's time to pay another visit to the museum.
Now? I can't just leave. I have to wait for Joey and Tristan and help Tea calm down a little. Whatever you're thinking about will have to wait for a while.
That's fine, but the sooner we head to the museum, the better.
"Yugi?" Tea said. "Are you all right?"
I snapped out of my daze suddenly at the sound of her voice. "Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm okay. I guess I'm just freaked out about finding a dead person in an alleyway. We really should head back to the shop and wait for Joey and Tristan."
"Yes, you're right, but…" Tea shook her head. "I just thought I might have known who that person was. Never mind, it's just stress and fear."
"Okay."
As we departed from the sad scene, I heard Yami's voice in my head for a split second. This is impossible…I thought I…
When we finally arrived back at the shop, we found Joey and Tristan standing there, waiting for us. They were too involved in their conversation to notice our arrival, however, and Tea startled them when she approached Joey and tapped his shoulder gently. He jumped, tripped over his own feet, knocked Tristan over, and then landed on top of him. Tea and I laughed at Tristan's attempts to get Joey off of him, and that turned into a miniature-wrestling match between the two of them. We watched them roll around on the sidewalk, kicking up dust and scattering miscellaneous debris that had been sitting in the gutter.
"All right, you two, that's enough," Tea finally said after regaining enough breath to speak.
Tristan pushed Joey away and stood up, dusting himself off and spitting out strands of blonde hair. "Yeah, well, he started it!"
"I didn't start nothin'!"
"Whatever!"
"Joey, Tristan, cool it!" Tea snapped, giving them both a smart smack to the back of the head. They both grumbled while rubbing their sore heads and complaining to themselves about who started what and who finished what. I, on the other hand, was standing silently near a streetlamp, involved in my own thoughts. It was when Joey snapped his fingers in front of my eyes that I came back into reality.
"Hey, you okay, Yugi?" Tristan inquired, shoving Joey to the side forcefully.
"Leave him alone, Tristan! We just saw—" Tea began.
I quickly shook my head at her, and she got the point immediately.
"—a really weird commercial on television that psyched him out," she lied.
"O-kay…" Joey doubtfully replied. "Whatever you say, Tea. Let's just get going before—"
"Well, I, uhm, I want to go check on something at the museum," I input.
Joey growled. "Aw, that means we're gonna be late! I told Serenity I'd be there at ten!"
"It's okay, you guys go ahead. I'll catch up with you soon. You'd better get going now; it's almost ten."
Tea looked at me, and only I caught the worried look in her eyes. I understood her warning, and nodded my response. I turned and watched them all walk away down the street, returning Joey's friendly wave.
But I missed Tristan stop walking and look at me.
The museum wasn't too far from Grandpa's game shop. And it was practically empty. Yami was mumbling something about "gave it up", but when I asked him what he meant, he just went on talking to himself as if he hadn't heard me. I finally got his attention by asking him where he wanted me to go. He told me to go to the room in the very back of the museum, the room where anybody barely went because the display was unnerving. I hesitantly obeyed.
The room was dark. In the very middle of the room was a portrait of a man. Surrounding the portrait were several small beams of light emerging from diminutive lamp heads that allowed the viewers to see only the portrait, and nothing else. Yami told me to continue onward, but not to turn on the lights overhead. He only seemed interested in the portrait. I slowly approached the center of the room, secretly wondering why I wasn't to turn the lights on. Yami refused to tell me the reason why.
It was a frightening picture. The man painted on the canvas had dark eyes that were almost black and hair that resembled the color of cinders. His skin was, unbelievably, a light tan that didn't seem to fit in with the rest of his coloring. The scene in the background was an ancient graveyard and a crumbled cathedral in the middle of a vicious storm; the lightning lit up the sky and revealed a dead tree sitting by the east wing of the cathedral, and it seemed as if there was something hanging from its gnarled limbs limply. But the thing that frightened me most was the man's eyes…
Who is this? I asked Yami.
…I don't remember…
Then the lights surrounding the portrait died, and I heard the door slam behind me.