Her Sweetness: I am actually a bit annoyed right at this moment. Just at people who wont leave me alone so I can do my job. Well… I suppose this isn't REALLY a job. I mean, there are no specific hours, and I don't get paid.

But I treat it like one, I suppose.

Oh well. Good luck, reading this. (Sometimes when I have a mood, my chapters… are strange.)

Motel 37

Chapter 12:

Cobwebs hung in the corners of the deep tunnel. There were a few more candles in there than in the hallways. There was one single mat at the entrance, although it was too dusty to read the message. Yami doubted that it said anything resembling 'Welcome, come in and have a cookie'. And although he absolutely begged Marik and Bakura to reconsider their rash decision and turn around, they ignored his pleas and kept going.

The yamis tried their best to stay in the middle of the tunnel, but it was narrow and a bit cramped in there. The sides were lined with things that looked at bit dangerous, such as nails jutting out of random places and jagged pieces of glass scattered around the floor.

Marik and Bakura walked with their heads held high, trying to prove that they weren't afraid of anything and could handle a little dreariness. Yami, on the other hand, had no problem wearing his emotions on his sleeve.

"You guys…!" The ex-Pharaoh whined, tugging lightly on Bakura's shirt, "We should go back. This place is scary and dark and it smells like puke."

Bakura looked back at him, an agitated scowl on his face, "That's not puke, Yami, it's old person."

"Ah… Really? Do you think that maybe Grandpa's in here?"

"Way to go, Bakura, you've gotten his hopes up." Marik said walking beside his friend. "Now he'll be all 'I know we can find him, if we just believe in the heart of the cards!'"

Yami growled, "What cards!"

"Nah, nah… It should be 'I know we can find the old guy, if we just believe in the nonexistent heart of darkness!'"

Marik blinked, "There's a cool saying."

"… I know. These kind of sentimental things come naturally to me." Bakura grinned smugly, "I had a deal with Hallmark for that saying but they decided to go with 'Happy Holidays' instead."

"… No kidding."

Yami was highly confused by this time and before any other odd conversations could take place, he waved his hands wildly, "Listen to me, we're getting off subject! Point is, I don't think Grandpa would go down here at all! What reason would he have? We should go back through Shivers' room and get into the main hallways again."

"One problem. Didn't you say that Shivers would kill us if he caught us in his room? Why would we go back up there?"

"But-"

"And besides that, this little tunnel could lead back to our room." Bakura added.

"Well, yeah… Or we could end up in a bathroom or something..."

"That's cool. I gotta pee anyway."

The boys stopped in the middle of the hallway, suddenly. Looking down, a pool of some liquid blocked their path. It was rather dark in this part of the tunnel and so they couldn't exactly tell what it was. But they trusted the reaction of their fellow yami to tell them everything they needed to know.

"Ah…" Bakura was practically floating to the puddle, heart bubbles floating around his head, "It's… it's…"

"Blood." Marik and Yami nodded to each other.

"Yeah, baby!" Bakura screamed, causing Yami to cover his ears. Said Tomb Robber leaped into the air, and was about to come splashing down into the forbidden pool. He would've gotten want he wanted if it weren't for Yami, who stepped in front of him. When Bakura came down, he landed on the Pharaoh and sent Yami hurdling into the crimson mess.

"GAH!" Yami cried, warm blood splashing him. Red covered almost his entire body, a bit sticky and very unhappy, he sat up.

Bakura frowned, "Hey! What'd you do that for!"

Marik was doubled over in uncontrollable laughter at the scene before him. Yami, covered in someone else's blood and Bakura, looking like he was going to murder Yami for interrupting his rapturous blood lusting.

Yami shot Marik a look, although it went unnoticed. "B-Bakura, I'm drenched in this foul blood! And all you can say is Hey, what you do that for? I did it to save you from a number of diseases you could get from sucking down random blood samples!"

"Oh, for Ra's sake! Do you even know how long I've had to go without any type for food or drink or other!"

They tilted their heads, "Other…?"

"Don't ask, okay, just don't." Bakura turned back to Yami, "And anyway, I NEED this!" Without any warning whatsoever, the silver haired boy jumped Yami, pinning him to the wall. Despite Yami's desperate cries for help to Marik, he stood there laughing his brains out.

Bakura tilted Yami's head back, with much force and proceeded to get the blood off his neck.

"Ack! B-Bakura…! Marik, help me!" Yami flailed around, afraid that if the excess blood on his body was licked clean, Bakura would bite down and draw his own.

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! N-Not a chance! Where's my camera when I need one!"

"What! Why you-" He was cut off by Bakura, who had covered his mouth. When he was done, he slithered away from the traumatized Pharaoh and wiped his mouth, with one hand, grinning.

"You freak!" Yami called, shaking himself, "What's the matter with you! You don't know whose blood that was! You could get aids! Y-You could get pregnant!"

Marik broke out laughing again and Bakura waved away the comment, "Don't worry about it, Yami, I've brought my pills."

"…!"

Meanwhile, a plane on the airstrip of the Bahamas airport was almost fully loaded. Their passengers were a bit annoyed as most of them were on the tram that brought the three hikaris to the airport. And that little boy they scarred for life? Him and his mother took a completely different plane.

The captain was ready to go and all the announcements were made to buckle seatbelts. Ryou, Malik and Yugi had seats in Coach and so they were comfortable. The only thing that worried Malik and Yugi was Ryou's little fear of flying. But they assumed that he had taken care of that.

"Um… Well, I…" Ryou turned the other way in shame.

"Ryou." Malik nudged him, "You still haven't gotten over your phobia, have you?"

"Oh, the shame!" He wailed.

Yugi, being on the other side of his friend, patted his arm, "There, there… I'm sure you wont be as… uncomfortable this time as you were the last time. It'll be over faster than you can say 'Teletubby'."

"… I-I have tried to control this fear, honest, I have. But I haven't been doing so well. Why, just last week, Bakura offered to help me get over it. I accepted and he threw me onto the roof to retrieve his remote for the television."

"…" Malik and Yugi exchanged a worried glance, "What happened?"

"Oh, I threw the remote down to him. But looking out over the neighborhood from a two-story roof… I just lost it and cried my eyes out. I wanted so badly for Bakura to come get me. He did… eventually. But, you see, there was this monster movie marathon on and so I was up there for quite a while…"

Malik gasped, "That's horrible!"

"Ah…Well, Ryou, we're not going to let you be afraid. We'll just keep your mind off of everything. It'll be fine, you'll see."

Ryou beamed.

It was about an hour later. The boys had managed to keep Ryou's weary mind off of anything related to flying and or heights. It was very dandy for a while until the captain came onto the intercom and had some news for the passengers.

'Passengers, this is Captain Kay speaking. We have just flown into the middle of the storm that s coming down the east coast. There will be turbulence and if anything goes horribly wrong, please note that parachutes are reserved for the staff only. Thank you.'

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" Ryou was in hysterics at the end of the announcement. He was trying desperately to get out of the seatbelt and do who knows what. Malik and Yugi had a pretty strong grip on his arms, though and were trying to calm him down, as people starred.

"Ryou! Ryou, calm down, it's okay!" Yugi shouted over Ryou's incessant crying and screaming.

"N-No… It's not ALRIGHT! Guh… Oh Ra! I want out! I want out! I want out! Please, please…!" He shook his head back and forth, tears running down his face, "I just want my yami…!"

"We're going to see Bakura, Ryou!" Malik told him, "Just calm down, no one's going to die and we're going to be fine, but you need to calm yourself!"

He wiped his face off with his sleeve, "Eh… Eh… Okay…"

"Good…!" Malik fell back into his chair as did Yugi. They both watched Ryou intensely, hoping he would keep his word and settle down. He was stone-faced and red, obviously holding in all his anguish and pain. To tell the truth, Yugi didn't think it was good for Ryou to pen up his sorrow. That could lead to repercussions. He folded his arms and looked of at the boy.

"… Ryou. Do you really think we'd die here on this plane?"

Malik's eyes bugged out of his head, he was too stunned to speak, "…!"

Ryou blinked and sighed, shakily, "Um… I-I couldn't imagine dying here… I dunno. But then… Yugi, didn't Yami say that people were dying at their motel?"

"Grr… Yeah, he did, actually. Well, I don't feel bad for him. If we die on the plane, and they die in a motel, we'd see each other later anyway, I guess."

"Ahem." Malik cleared his throat, "Not exactly, see they're supposed to go to h-"

"Oh. Yeah."

"Well, if I end up in heaven and Bakura goes to hell, then I'm sending him cookies!" Ryou stated.

Both hikaris exchanged a glance. "What makes you think they'll let you mail things to another plain? What makes you think that's even possible?"

Ryou thought for a moment, "Well, postmen die, there's probably millions of dead postmen ready to deliver things."

"… Shoot for the stars, Ryou."

In the blustery cold and rain of the outside, was Grandpa. He had been huddled in that same bush for over an hour now as he tried to shelter himself from the elements. The rain came down every bit as hard as it was an hour ago and so there was now comfort for him.

His teeth were chattering in the unforgiving cold now as the wind blew harder. It felt if it were raining icicles but then he couldn't really feel much. Being numb from the chest down. Another gust of wind came and actually blew the bush right out of the ground, knocking it into a side of the tall building. Grandpa's eyes bugged out as he was hit with twice the amount of rain.

He got up, staggering a bit and began to trudge around the side of the building, 'I-I'd better find some type of… way into the motel…! I c-can't let them utilize Marik for their own twisted needs…! Marik may not be a friend of Yugi's… but he's human! … Mostly…'

As Grandpa was aiming to get around the corner of Motel 37, a bolt of lightning came crashing down from the sky, striking the old man head-on. Grandpa's hair shot straight up, his bandana flying off to the side and his body filled with thirty thousand volts of pure electricity. After what seemed like an eternity of pain, (which was really only two seconds) the lightning stopped and Grandpa fell to the muddy ground.

Inside the tunnel leading from Shivers' study to wherever, the boys had gone about a mile and a half at this point and none of them were very pleased at this time. Except Bakura. He'd gotten all the blood off of Yami's face and neck, but Yami forbad him to go any lower.

So Yami was walking down the tunnel, behind Marik and in front of Bakura. From the shoulders down, he was covered in dried blood and a bit of dirt from the sides of the dingy hallway. They stopped in their tracks, for in front of them lay a fork in the road. Actually, two forks. Four doorways all looked the same, equally dark and equally scary.

"Ugh… See, I knew this was a bad idea! I knew we were going to get even more lost than we already were." Yami lectured the other two, "We've gone down a deserted… whatever this is, and we don't know where we're heading. For Ra's sake, this could be some kind of haunted goldmine! We could be calmly traveling to our demise!"

Marik turned back to him, "Will you kindly shut up? Ra, you've been at it for the past hour!"

"Well, I've been 'at it' for the past hour because you're not listening to me!"

"I don't listen to idiotic Pharaohs who have nothing better to do than rant and rave all the time!"

"You big, fat meanie! I hate you!" Yami huffed and folded his arms. "I hope that ghost or whatever does get you, so I don't have to deal with your meanness."

"Stop saying I'm mean! You sound so childish!"

"I'm childish? You're the child here, I don't want to hear it from you!"

"Well, you're going to hear it from me, my Pharaoh, like it or not!"

"I DON'T LIKE IT!"

"GOOD!"

While this argument of epic proportions continued, Bakura had been leaning on the wall watching with mild interest. Although it was far from amusing now. Just because watching those two go at it was a normal routine, didn't mean he wanted to deal with it all the time. He was about to break it up in a minute, if he hadn't looked to his side and seen a few drops of red.

He tilted his head and down the door closest to him was practically a trail of blood. Dropped in a perfect line. Against his better judgment, he grinned to himself and followed the trial, going into the darkness without a word to Marik or Yami.

A few minutes passed and when Yami and Marik were done trying to kill each other, they sat back and looked at the four doors. Their fight had solved nothing. They still had a decision to make.

"… Well, I say we go back." Yami folded his arms over his chest.

"I know what you say." Marik glared, "And, frankly, I don't give a tiddlywink. Hmm… Bakura, what do you think?"

No response.

"Bakura?"

Still nothing. Then both Marik and Yami looked behind them to reveal that Bakura was not there.