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Chapter One: Fire

I opened my mouth to scream, but it was flooded with smoke. I coughed, gagged, crawled gasping away from the violent flames. Heat unimaginable beat down on me like a mighty fist. Tears leaked from my ash-dried eyes.

My head collided with the wall. I stopped my forward movement, still coughing, and glanced up. Nothing. No window, just boards and the black, flaky, charred remains of a poster. I leaned my back against the wall, drawing up my knees and squeezing them tight. I am going to die here.

Ryou awoke from the nightmare as he usually did; gasping, panting, sweating, and screaming. He sat bolt upright and just stared at the cold, dark shadows of his room till his heart slowed ot an acceptable rhythm. After a while a pain in his palms registered and he relinquished his grip on the sheets, holding up his hands in front of him. Tiny crescent shaped droplets of blood welled up. He shook his head, yanked the covers off of him and slid his feet to the floor.

"Again," he whispered quietly to himself. Ryou padded softly into the bathroom, turning a knob to run a shower. He glanced through the open door back into his bed room, registered the time as four in the morning, sighed and shut and locked the door. The sound of the running water calmed him more than the pressing silence. He began to strip down.

After his shower, Ryou quickly redressed and left the room. Snatching a brush of the dresser in his room he ran it quickly through his hair, now a moist platinum-gray instead of it's usual moonlit silver. The faded brown carpet was hard and filthy under his clean,bare toes.

Ryou heard a key click in the front-door lock, some cursing, and then the eventual opening of the door. He heard the heavy footsteps drag across the carpet, and turned to glance at the clock.

"It's four thirty eight, Malik," Ryou called, turning around. The bronze-skinned figure stopped in front of his door, unmoving, shoulders slightly hunched. His body language pointed strongly to a headache and a desperate need for sleep. "You know we have school in the morning," Ryou said more slowly. Malik raised his head as though every millimeter caused him great pain, looking at Ryou with pained, bright violet eyes. As usually he didn't look exactly at Ryou's face, but more a few centimeters above.

"I don't think I can," he said thickly. A wry smile crept onto Ryou's lips.

"That's okay. I'll tell Marikku," Ryou said in a false-comforting tone. He was playing with fire, but that was okay. Ryou spent a lot of time with fire.

As Ryou knew he would, Malik let his eyes regain their focus and snap onto Ryou's eyes. "How long? Till you catch your bus to school," Malik clarified. Ryou smiled at his own genius.

"Since it's about four-forty, school starts at seven and I catch the bus at six-twenty-three... about an hour and twenty minutes," Ryou concluded quickly. Malik grimaced visibly, his eyes wandering to look at the clock.

"Can you wake me up in an hour?" Malik said slowly. Ryou smiled again.

"Sure. Go and rest."

o O o

Ryou Takeya did two things on a daily basis; Work and Pray.

Ryou worked every day to keep his roommate Malik Ishtar in school. Malik was a club-hopper who spent unbelievably long nights out, probably getting drunk and picking u prostitutes. Fortunately he was a gay man with only one foot still in the doorway of denial and had a mad crush on the sulking, sharp-witted Marikku Ishmael from school. All Ryou really had to do nowadays was drop the name and Malik sprung back into action.

In a brilliantly colorful display of one of Ryou's few similarities with the rough, clumsy, brutal Malik, Ryou Prayed. Everyday, on the bus to school he prayed that his crush would be at school that day. A man known for his likeness to Ryou, with silver hair and ice-blue eyes, skin paler than worn satin and a frame built thin and slender as sticks. If it weren't for the way he carried himself he could be mistaken for a girl. Ryou often was.

o O o

Marikku groaned. "Why do I have to follow this stupid family tradition?"

Ishizu, s tall lady with long and silky jet-black hair, graced with intense eyes and clothed in a flowing pale-gold gown over her bronze skin, leaned in on him. "Because brother," she said slowly, articulating every word, "It is a stupid family tradition."

Marik grumbled as one of the fire spouts roared to life, shooting fire all the way to the ceiling. The pair was in a cavern, lit by the flickering lit of various pillars of fire that sprouted up from random places in the earthy ground. Their bare feet rested on fertile, warm soil.

"Fine, but don't watch," Marik muttered. Stomping off without taking notice of the flames surrounding him, he crossed to the central area where there was about a circular patch of free space. He sighed, rolled up his cotton sleeves, closed his eyes and began to dance around the fire fluidly. Ishizu did watch.

He was magnificent, if a bit clumsy. He flowed mostly well with a stumble here and there. His body moved in rhythm with some hidden music that you could almost hear, watching him, and he made intricate moves that incorporated the once seemingly random bursts of fire.

But he stumbled, his arm flashed through one of the flames, he stopped, swore and jumped. Ishizu gasped, scooping up a first-aid kit and running to help him. "Marikku!" she said worriedly, taking the burnt arm. Quickly she popped open the device.

Marik let out a long and creative string of curses in a strange language akin to Arabic as Ishizu bandaged him. When she finished, he paused. "I'm going to be late for school," he muttered. Ishizu gave him a pointed look.

o O o

Bakura looked up at the blindingly bright headlights. "Of course," the teen muttered bitterly as the car headed right at him.