Book Dragon: "Here's another one."

The Admirer

The ancient Pharaoh was musing, busily musing on the bench he was sitting at. His arms leaned on the back board of the sitting place, his eyes cast slightly upward to the setting sun. His skin welcomed the cool wind that ruffled his hair, and he closed his violet eyes momentarily to enjoy that moment of pleasure, and for a moment he was completely free of those thoughts.

They were back again when that moment ended.

It had been a strange dream he had had the night before. A very strange dream that had him zoning off to think about it every five minutes or so all day. Which usually wasn't a problem. Yugi being at school doesn't give him much to do other than sit in his soul room and there was nothing more boring that those classes. He wondered sometimes how his vessel could stay away.

He was dozing now. His vessel was sleeping peacefully, and he didn't want to bother him with such odd thoughts. He wouldn't tell him of this trip outside either. Better not to trouble him. He was suppose to take care of him. He would do so. For as long as he was able.

No, it was best not to trouble him with that dream. And thinking about it now, while watching the fiery red ball descend through the pinkish purple sky, was enough to send him tumbling back into that place. That screen that kept playing over and over again.

And in the dream it was much like this, on the park bench, wearing is blue coat, pants, belt, etc, looking out over that high hill, over the city laying beneath, watching the sun. But it's rising instead of setting. And he isn't by himself.

His legs are crossed and he has one hand on his ankle. He sees this while looking down, having no control of his eyes. Yet, he can see her in his peripheral vision, fuzzy and not a complete picture. Like a puzzle.

She had brown hair, he knows that much. When he woke up this morning he wondered quietly if it was Tea or something, but he didn't understand why his mind would create such weirdness with her in it.

He can hear her breathing. Calm, cool, and collected breaths. Yet, he knows something about this is wrong. Very wrong. He can't move. The dream has him locked in place. He looks back at the sun as she started to speak in a voice he's never heard before.

"Beautiful." A sigh of a tone. Female tone. He doesn't say anything. Doesn't even twitch at the comment. It's like he's trying to ignore her. Her voice echoes eerily, like she's a great distance away. So odd. He can feel her looking at him.

"You are more now than you first appeared."

"How so?" he asks in a conversational way. She's quiet for a moment, hesitant, before turning her face forward back to the view.

"I wouldn't be able to explain, I think I might scare you."

"Try me." She sighs. It's not a sad sigh. Not even irritated. He couldn't even figure out what was hidden underneath it.

"I've…just watched you for so long…makes me sound like a stalker, does it?" He can see her fidgeting with her hands. He totally disregards her last statement.

"How is this different?" It was clear as day she was smiling.

"Believe me, this is very different." There is more silence. He can hear her breathing next to him. Can feel her eerie presence next to him, somehow different from the regular person's. He appears calm in the dream, but instead he's trembling and nervous. She's still smiling.

"I've wanted this for a long time, you know. I'm Lucky."

"Lucky?"

"Uh huh, many would give anything to talk to you, and now that I'm here I'm not quite sure what I should be saying. Ironic? I've visualized this meeting in my head over and over again, for years, and now that I'm here, I can't remember a single one." She laughs. It's a haunted laugh. The kind of laugh you hear from someone who's spent many evenings stuck in their mind. He would know.

Finally, he turns his face towards her and watched the puzzle fly into completion, but with that answer even more puzzlement is gained. He had never seen her before. She has the most common face, the kind you forget easily after you see it. Even now he was having trouble seeing it. All he can remember clearly is the gray tearing eyes. Haunted eyes. Eyes like gravestones.

"Who are you?" His voice is no longer neutral, and it crawls with uneasiness. Riddled with it. He feels a small tinge of fear swim tightly around inside his chest, like a shark in murky water, as he looks. And she smiles, a sorrow filled grin with pained eyes.

"An admirer." She whispers with a soft voice, looking away from his face, averting her eyes, the strange frank twist of the lips dancing fuzzily in front of him as her hair drapes to hide her face. He notices something wrong with it, but he can't figure it out, no matter how he tries to look. It can't be placed.

"There are many of us, and we have wished so strongly for your victory, wished so hard we've ached because of it. We all ache. You were never alone. Even when no one was there present, alive and breathing for you to see, we were. We've watched you so intently. You remind us of the things we've wanted, the things we need, the things we strive to become. You are the inspiration for us children. And in that your memory remains so much longer after that."

She looks up from the ground and into his face, her eyes still wet, but no more tears fall. Her grin is twisted into a hurt he can't figure out.

"…And for that, I will always miss you."

And out of no where he is embraced by this girl he doesn't even know, tightly, as if he will slip away if she doesn't grasp him so. He can feel her hair tickling his neck; the smell of graveyard soil; feel her breath on his ear as she whispers.

"Never let go of yourself and never give up. You'll go home, just as I am now. And you will find us all. I will talk of this and laugh, and in remembering I will smile and be happy. Good bye, Atem."

And she slips away, suddenly enveloped in the mist she always was, her voice echoing endlessly to dead air. That mist climbs high into the sky, vanishing less startling than when she changed. He is left alone, or seemingly alone, on that bench…

…Much like he was now. He blinked the dream away, aware that the sun is setting, not rising. Aware that she was no one he had ever seen before. She could've been a figment of his imagination. Something his mind had created out of randomness for the specific dream.

Yet that wasn't so. The words in that strange voice were to well put together for a dream. Her eyes too haunted and gray like a November winter day. The beginning of the season of dying. Of cold and dismal surroundings. A time of dead things Gray eyes stretching much deeper than you could see.

He sits there, alone, musing. Watching the sun, his eyes a beautiful violet bright. With his sleeping vessel nestled deep inside the safety he could provide while he thought wonderingly. Wondering, quietly, so very quietly, how many more of them are there? How many souls could possibly lingering like that? What did they mean?

And were they watching him right now?