Hi! This is my first first person POV fic.

I hope you all like.

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Ryou's POV

Last thing I remember, I was in class. Now I find myself in this thick gray fog, listening to voices I can almost hear, but not quite. The fog is all enshrouding, and I can't seem to do anything. After an indeterminable amount of time the fog lessens, and I can make out the faint outline of a room. I fight at the fog all around me; the room is getting clearer every moment. All of a sudden sound and feeling return to the scene, even if my vision is still a little hazy. I gasp in air like I haven't breathed in months and look around me. The room is still dark, but I know it well enough, it's my own.

I'm lying on my bed, and as soon as I can move, I bring my hands up to stare at them. They're devoid of any trace of crimson or scent of copper. I rest them back at my sides and just lay there.

This has happened before. Enough times for me to get it that I was just blacking out, like a regular person. A regular person, ha. Of course I should have known he would find a way to take that away, take advantage of me. Again. Else how would I be in my house, in my room, on my bed?

I can feel him, in the back of my mind, probing, checking. He wants to know if I'm ok, and he doesn't want me to know it. I pay him no heed, other than the vague wondering feeling of what happened while I was 'out'. I could have sworn I heard a scream, even through the fog, but I wasn't sure. He gives me no answers, but then again, he never does. Lucky for me, I'm usually good at figuring things out with a few hints and fewer facts, but this time I just don't know.

He should be gone. He shouldn't even be here in the first place.

He knows I won't ever tell them that he's still here. We need each other. I need his protection, his always-thereness. He needs my body, my closeness to them for his self proclaimed mission, his revenge. We both need someone to prevent our slipping off the edge of sanity.

Anyway, if I tell them, they'll just be in danger again, even the ones not part of his original wrath. And they'll never be able to get rid of him, not until he's finished with this, with the need that has kept him hanging on all these millennia. Never.

Sometimes, I talk to him. Nothing specific or powerful or special, I just talk. I tell him all sorts of things, some of before he came, some of while he was dormant, some of now. I tell him how my day went, or how I miss Amane, or how father used to be before he got 'buried alive' in his work. I tell him what I'm thinking, as if he didn't already know. He's better than most people to talk to, in that he's always there to listen, he never cuts me off or tries to speak over me. And I know he'll never tell anyone else anything I say to him.

At first I was afraid to, thought he would stop me forcefully, or yell or hurt someone. But there is no one else I can really talk to, he made sure of that. Anytime I tried to tell someone he would stop me by force, or if it slipped out the person would turn up missing. And there would be either a new dagger or a new Monster World figurine. And each time I would vow that it would never happen again, until I finally built up enough restraint and craftiness that it didn't. So, if he doesn't like this situation, this solitude he's imposed upon me and himself, and there's nothing he can do now about it.

Maybe he knows what it is to need someone to talk to, someone to confide in.

The only others I can speak to freely are my figurines, and I usually just end up crying and just repeating 'I'm sorry.' over and over again. I used to take pride in carving lifelike figures in the likeness of my friends, but now he's sullied that and I've vowed to myself never to carve them again.

I don't think I have any more of them that aren't inhabited by the souls of people who were once friends or of rivals. But it's all my fault anyway. Had I not felt some resentment, had some angry thought about them that set the rent-paying spirit on them, they would all be fine now. And people wonder why I seem so docile, never an angry word or standing up for myself if it means a conflict. I try to protect them, but I'm so weak and he's so strong. He pries into my head and looks in my heart, and things that should never be seen are put forth into the light of day, or rather, night. And he tries to 'fix' them, tries to get rid of the problems at the source.

Maybe he needs to get to the source the feelings and thoughts came from, and get rid of that.

Those who drove me to anger just to see how far they could get away with it may have deserved their fate more than the others, but still, that form of rent was too high a price to pay, especially for simple carelessness or weakness on my part.

No, that wasn't quite correct. I still have one figurine that is just a figure, even if it means much more to me. I, long ago, carved a little figurine of Amane as an Elf Magician. She always wanted to be able to work magic, mostly to help people. I also made a figure of myself, for her to keep. The two figures alone were a set I made, and I put so much care and detail into them that they took the longest time of any figures I have ever made. I stare at her likeness every day, and she seems to smile at me and give me the courage I need to go on. I'm sure the spirit would scoff at me and call me a sentimental fool for that. But then again, he has never harmed my family, which I am thankful for every day.

He does seem to believe family a sacred thing, even if he scoffs at the whole concept of friendship as useless nonsense.

I wonder if those sentiments have anything to do with his recurring dream. Every time he tries to sleep at night, he has the same dream, or rather, nightmare. In it, him from now is staring at a scene from some ancient past. In the scene people in a small village are going about regular daily business. Then the screams start. We can hear the blades hacking into everything and everyone. The screams shortly stop, cut off as quickly as they began, and the streets run red under the blazing sun. Lights flash and the scene changes to one of a child staring around a corner at horrors that were just out of sight to me, but that him and the child see it as plain as day, and the child sobs and shakes in silence and fear. The dream always ends with a vat of molten gold laced with streaks of blazing red. At the end he is always watching with that dead look in his eyes and crimson liquid streaks that run from the inner corners of his eyes, all the way down his face. He watches the whole thing through each time it 'happens' without even noticing my presence at all. The look on his face throughout is heart-rending. I think something of him dies each time he sees the dream. Whenever he awakes from the dream, he is screaming with pain and sorrow and rage, screaming the names of people he can't quite remember. Once he regains control of himself, he runs, far and out into the black as pitch night, without once so much as considering at where he heads.

Maybe he just needs to know that he's free and unbound.

Maybe he wants to get lost for no other reason than to be a stranger in a strange place, no history, no rep, no need to hold his pride, no need to judge or be judged.

No wonder he stopped sleeping save a few short cat naps every now and then. I could even see his dream before I could even hear his voice, it was so forceful. I think it's a memory, but I don't know how anyone could live with something like that.

Maybe that's what he uses his insanity to escape from.

Maybe it's what fuels his need for revenge.

Maybe it's why he wouldn't leave me now.

He uses me, and I don't care. I don't want him to leave now.

He's the only family I've got left. I think I'm the only family he has left.

We need each other.

Then again, maybe I'm just delusional.

I slowly and mechanically get up and put some music on, anything, and crank it loud so that I don't have to think anymore. I lie back on the bed gently and try to enjoy my assuredly short respite.

I'm gonna wake up yes and no

I'm gonna miss some part of you

I'm gonna keep the secret

I'm gonna shut my body down

I guess I'll die another day

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Oh, and the next chapter will be Bakura's POV. Yes, Cultural Exchange is being put on hold.

Again.