"Stupid host." Yami Bakura mused, dragging his way through the boy's soul room. The light hurt his sensitive eyes, so used to the dark crevices in tombs and the realities of traveling by night. And scent of cleanliness stung his nostrils like hospital disinfectant.
It didn't take him long to realize that the smell really was disinfectant. The white walls surrounding him lined the empty corridor in a hospital ward. Slick tiles on the floor glistened under his feet from the fluorescent lights hanging above him. Doctors and nurses bustled around him, walking in and out of doors, and talking amongst themselves. They paid him no heed.
"Heh. So the brat has been in the hospital before I sent him there." Yami Bakura scoffed. "What the hell does he want me to see in here?"
Suddenly two large doors bust open. A team of doctors rushed alongside two gurneys. The doctor in front shoved Yami Bakura aside. Cries of an ambulance wailed in the distance.
"Move, Move!" they shouted, forcing him against the wall. As they ran, more doctors and nurses ran up to join them, offering artificial ventilation and assessing injuries, always attempting to hide the grim predictions from their eyes.
"What's the big idea?" Yami Bakura growled under his breath.
"Sir, what do we have here?" a hospital resident asked from beneath a surgical mask.
"Automobile accident. Head on collision with a truck that spun out of control." One of the rescue workers answered, forcing himself to keep a stoic expression. "These two were in the front seat. Mother and daughter."
The doctors swarmed around the bodies.
"Names – Anna and Amane Bakura." His voice sped with each sentence.
Yami Bakura's ears perked when he heard his name. He quickly pushed himself up from the wall and strained to get a better view. That, however, was more difficult than he would have liked.
"The girl suffered from a severe blow to the head. Pieces of debris have penetrated her skull. She was unresponsive at the scene. Probable neck injury. She went into convulsions on the ride here. We've barely been able to stabilize her."
Yami Bakura stared, speechless.
The girl was young, around the age of twelve. Her head was strapped in place, to prevent any unnecessary motion. Blood knotted in her thick black hair, keeping shards of glass fully in place. She showed no signs of consciousness, to the point that expression seemed peaceful amidst the disaster.
"Fracture of the second and third vertebrae." One of the doctors announced. "If she survives, she'll be paralyzed from the neck down."
"If she survives." An older doctor reiterated, as if to drive the point home. He flipped through a chart rapidly. "I don't want to hear any if's from my team."
"There's significant bleeding and pressure around the brain." Another doctor shouted. "Get her into the O.R. immediately!"
"Sir, we're losing her!"
"Move it!"
The head surgeon turned to the other gurney, and Yami Bakura stretched his neck to see around him.
The woman was thin, with very fragile features. The fresh blood gave her the unearthly appearance of a stained piece of pottery. The white hair, soft and beautiful despite being rustled, looked a lot like Ryou's. There was little doubt in his mind. She had to be his mother.
"She was the driver. Severe blow to the abdominal area from the steering wheel, probable splenic rupture, punctured lung. Closed head injury. She was awake at the scene, but lost consciousness on the way over."
"Blood pressure dropping rapidly." A nurse shouted. Cold sweat dripped from her chin. "We're losing her!"
"Move! Now!" the doctor pushed the gurney along. "What are you waiting for?"
Again, Yami Bakura found himself pushed against the wall, this time more forcefully. He lost sight of the woman as the doctors rushed through another set of double doors.
"Oh Ra…" he paused, watching the doors swing back and forth before they closed. The doctors' footsteps could still be heard racing through another hallway. They looked to be in bad shape, worse than many of his past victims. Yami Bakura didn't know much about the medicine of the modern world, but in Egypt, they would have been long dead.
"Excuse me, Sir. You have to leave."
The voice of a young nurse pulled him out of his thoughts.
"What?"
"You have to leave." She repeated. "This is a restricted area, sir."
"Are they going to be okay?" he asked, his voice surprisingly soft. There was even a small hint of concern.
"We don't know yet, sir, but if you come with me out to the waiting area, we will tell you as soon as the doctors are finished." She smiled, and put her hand on his left shoulder, gesturing him towards the first set of doors. Yami Bakura followed her, muttering a short curse under his breath.
He walked into the waiting room, and sat down in one of the chairs. He folded his arms across his waist, and growled.
"I don't know why I'm even bothering to wait to see if they are okay or not." He whispered to himself, unaware that he was speaking aloud. "Why should it matter to me?"
He rolled his eyes, his attention captured by someone in the far corner of the room.
A thin eight-year-old boy curled up in one of the big chairs, pulling his knees up to his chest. His left arm hung in a sling, and his cheek was covered with a large splotchy bruise. He kept staring at the double-doors, brushing his shaggy white hair out of his eyes. Normally brown eyes, still wet with tears, were now red and swollen. He had obviously been crying for a long time.
"It can't be…" Yami Bakura whispered, unable to take his eyes from the boy. "Ryou?"
He watched the little Ryou for a while. Doctors came and went. The double doors opened and closed several times, but no familiar faces appeared. The sun was starting to set, and no one had even given the child in the corner a second glance.
Seeing as nothing was happening, and time certainly wasn't moving any faster, he eventually decided to walk over and pretend to associate with the boy.
"What's wrong with you?" Yami Bakura whispered, his voice sharp despite an attempt at kindness. "You've been crying for almost an hour."
Little Ryou turned his gaze from the doors to the man in front of him. The angry scowl frightened him, and he curled farther back into the chair, bumping his arm in the process. He whimpered in pain, and tried not to cry even more.
Yami Bakura rolled his eyes, and kneeled down closer to the child's level.
"Look. I'm not mad at you. You don't need to be afraid, all right?" he growled, but it had little effect.
"I… I…" Ryou choked on a wibble.
"You what?"
"I… I want Mommy… an..and Amane…" Ryou answered, sobbing into the back of the chair. "Ammy… She… she didn't wake up… I… I kept shaking her… and… and she didn't wake up…"
Yami Bakura's scowl softened.
"Mommy tried too… Mommy tried, and… and cried… and cried… and the ambulance came… And then… then Mommy wouldn't wake up either…" he continued, still choking on his tears. "I… I held her hand… and… and rubbed it… Just like the doctor man said to… But… but it didn't wake her up. I… I want my Mommy!"
Ryou wept openly, not even bothering to wipe the tears from his face. They splattered messily onto the chair below.
"Mister, I just want them to wake up…"
Yami Bakura couldn't stop old memories of his own parents from surfacing as little Ryou cried. Watching them burn, their flesh melting from their bones. Hearing them scream as the pharaoh's men tortured and killed them. And he remembered how much he cried. As much as he attempted to silence it, he was beginning to feel pity for the poor boy.
"Shh…" he tried to comfort the child, putting a hand on his shoulder "There, there. Enough crying already, all right?"
Ryou looked up meekly.
"Um… Why don't we go see if we can find out where your Mommy is. Maybe the doctors or whatever just forgot about you out here." He volunteered, reaching out a hand to the small boy.
Ryou curled even farther back into the chair.
"What?" Yami Bakura scoffed. "I thought you wanted to find your mother!"
"M..Mommy told me… n..never to go anywhere with… with strangers…" he answered softly, shaking from Yami Bakura's last outburst.
"Oh." He replied. "Well, you can go with me. I won't hurt you. Okay?"
"O..okay… My… My name is Ryou… What's your… your name, Mister?" Ryou squeaked, still crying a little.
"Uh…" Yami Bakura paused again. If he answered with the name 'Bakura,' there would be a lot of explaining to do. He eventually gave a response. "My… um… friends call me Yami."
"… That's a funny name." Ryou looked back up at Yami Bakura, sniffling. "Mister Yami… You have… have white hair just like me…"
"I guess I do." He replied, holding out his hand. "So, are you coming or not?"
"O…okay, Mister Yami…" He took the bigger man's hand, and climbed slowly out of the chair.
He walked up to the nurse's station in the center of the room.
"Look. This kid's been waiting over here for almost an eternity. Where the fuck is his mother?" Yami Bakura growled. "Names would be under Bakura."
The nurse, frozen for a moment by the man's harsh words, started shifting through papers and checking data on the computer. Ryou, meanwhile, held onto Yami Bakura's hand, staring up at the big desk in front of him. He couldn't see the nurse, but could hear someone typing on a big keyboard.
"Oh dear…" the woman whispered, not even daring to look her latest visitor in the eyes.
"Oh dear what?" Yami Bakura snapped.
"I'm terribly sorry, Sir." She continued, a knot forming in the back of her throat. "Anna Bakura has passed away…"
"What?" Yami Bakura screamed, tightening his grip on Ryou's hand. The boy knew immediately that something was wrong.
"Where's my Mommy, Mister Yami? Where's my Mommy?" Ryou screamed back. "What happened to her?"
"What about the girl that came in with her?" Yami Bakura turned back to the nurse, ignoring Ryou's screams for the moment. "The daughter?"
"She…" the nurse choked on her words. "She also passed."
"…A..Amane?"
Yami Bakura froze. Ryou was tugging on his arm, and his heartstrings. And from the looks of things, he was going to be the one to break it to the little boy that his mother and sister were dead.
He dropped to his knee, eye to eye with Ryou.
"Ryou, calm down for a minute and listen to me, okay?" he started, not sure what to say. "Your mom…"
"…I… I want my mommy…"
"Look. She…" he tried to find the right words, if there were any. The little boy's tears were infectious, his eyes big and endearing. "The doctors tried. But… She didn't wake up."
"They… they can make her wake up, Mister Yami." He cried, bursting into long wails. "They have to wake her up! They have to! That's what doctors do! Why won't she wake up?"
"She's never waking up, Ryou." He answered, opening his arms to offer the boy at least a shoulder to cry on. "She's never waking up."
Ryou just leapt into Yami Bakura's waiting arms, and sobbed.