Prophecy

Disclaimer: Pweh.

"When legend becomes reality,

Three warriors of ancient monsters will rampage the earth,

Of light, dark, and element.

Look to the Heavens,

They will come from there…"

Chapter 21 – Nightmares and Awakening

Erica groaned as she sat up. She vaguely remembered someone being in danger and green vines, but when she tried to recall those memories, they just faded away as if someone had erased them. The dark-haired girl shook her head. Everything felt so heavy and fuzzy. Lifting her hand to rub her eyes, she saw a blood-stained hypodermic needle in her hand. Startled, she looked up to find why she has something like this in her hand. Instead, she was met with a completely trashed room. She had clothes and papers on the floor with Ra-knew-what liquid on them, several locks on the half broken door, shattered bottles scattered around her room, and a dusty desk that seemed forgotten under the pile of foul-smelling paper bags.

Horrified, Erica looked at her bedside and saw the most disturbing things. Powdery stuff on small pieces of paper, rolled up cigarettes still smoking in its bowl, and dozens of bottles of vodka, some spilled, others empty, and one filled. Ready to throw those vile things away, Erica parted thick pieces of cloth that spewed years of dust into her face that was supposedly curtains and tried to open the window. It wouldn't budge. Then she saw steel nails embedded on the window sill to keep it shut.

Extremely freaked out, Erica ran to the door. Fumbling with the locks on it, she finally opened it and was slightly relieved to see the normalness of the other parts of the house. Walking to the bathroom across the hall, she looked at herself in the mirror.

Erica screamed.

Erica looked the same; the same clothes, the same hairstyle, the same body…. But her face was deathly pale and her eyes looked vacant as if they had died years ago. Her hair was also messy and tangled while her clothes seemed old and unwashed. Along her arms, too, were bright red spots, blue veins almost neon blue with the comparison to her grey and liveless skin. This was she dreaded the most: an utterly, completely wasted life.

Erica tried her best to wash her face. After doing so, she took a quick shower and felt newly refreshed. She put a healing salve on her punctured arms. Then, going into a robe, she went into her room and tried to find clean clothes. No success. Erica just had to settle with a long-sleeved t-shirt to hide her red arms and semi-clean jeans. Looking into mirror again, she almost looked human with the exception of the heavy bags under her still empty eyes. Erica blinked. With a shock, she realized that something wasn't right. How could all this be here when she clearly hated and feared it? Something seemed to be wrong, but what?

Her thoughts were interrupted when she saw a clock on the floor. School was almost about to start! Startled, she grabbed her curiously empty backpack and caught her dad just as he was about to go to work. Hurrying into the car, her dad seemed startled to see her.

"Come on, Dad! I need to get to school!" Erica shouted.

Erica's dad blinked. Then his eyes narrowed. "You're just going so you can hang out with your wasted friends and to skip school again, aren't you?"

Now it was the dark-haired girl's turn to be shocked. "What! I'll never do that!"

Her dad snorted and started the car. Shortly, they reached the high school and Erica quickly got off. Before she could say her usual goodbye to her dad, he just drove off. Confused and hurt, the girl went up the steps to homeroom.

The reaction was scary once she got into her classroom. Everyone seemed surprised to see Erica, the teacher most of all. Waving to all of them uncertainly, she sat next to Jackie who was in the same homeroom as her. Everyone finally stopped staring at Erica and was whispering and giving the female disdainful looks.

"Why are YOU sitting here?" Jackie snapped, his eyes flashing with scorn.

Erica gave her best friend a weird look. "I always sit next to you!"

"Not anymore. You hang out with those half-dead idiots, smoking pot, writing graffiti, and trying to act 'cool.'"

"What! No! That's stupid and gross!"

"Hah! Yeah, right! What's that to you?"

"Look at me! Do I look like that?"

"Oh, about that. Did you decide to have a make-over or something?"

"No! This is me!"

Jackie's eyes faded with regret behind his glasses. He said softly, "No. What you used to be."

The homeroom bell rang. As the students filed out, leaving Erica still in her seat close to tears. What the hell was happening here?

Apparently, all of Erica's classes were basically the same. Classmates and teachers looked at her with disapproval and hatred, a failing grade in every class, no homework handed in since the beginning of the school year, and that everyone didn't want to sit next to her, nevertheless look at her. Jennie, too, ignored her and Jackie remained far away from Erica. By the end of the day, Erica was crying silently, no one even caring, and went into a bathroom so she wouldn't be tortured by the hatred everyone had towards her.

Unfortunately, things got worse there. When Erica came in, she was attacked by a fog of smoke that sent her wheezing and coughing.

In the haze, a male's voice hissed out, "Oh, Erica. You came. Wanna have a drift and just hang?"

Erica looked up and saw a face that was sickly yellow, oily hair, blood everywhere, and brown clothes that was once blue. He looked wasted. Of course, there were others in the smoke, babbling senselessly. Her sadness suddenly turned to one of anger. Erica forced herself to stop coughing and grabbed the cigarette from the male's lips, the flame in it burning her hand.

"Hey! What the hell's your-" the boy started, but Erica interrupted, her once barren eyes flashing amber.

"You want to know what's my problem?" Erica screamed. "My problem is that I had a great life, great friends, and a future. I don't know what the hell happened to make all this happen, but I'm sick of it! Everyone hates me! I hate myself! Perhaps my fear wasn't having a wasted life. Maybe it was losing everyone's respect and my friends. Maybe I was doubting whether or not I really mattered to anyone. So, don't ask me what is my problem! I least I'm sober enough to know what my problem is! You just want your pot back!"

"Then give it back, asshole!" the boy yelled back.

Erica's eyes faded from its fury and only hopelessness remained. With a frustrated bellow, she threw the cigarette on the floor and exploded out of the bathroom, people staring after her.

'I've had it. I'm not going to stay in this school. I'm going to change everything,' the girl thought.

As she turned the corner of the hall, she crashed into another person that sent both persons to the floor.

"Argh! Watch where you're going, genius!" a familiar girl's voice snapped.

Erica blinked as she held her throbbing head. She knew this voice. Looking across from her, she saw a female with light brown hair that was in a long braid.

"Jennie!" Erica cried.

The braided-haired girl looked at her. However, her scowl did not change. "Oh. It's you."

Erica's momentary happy face fell.

"Well, bye," Jennie said curtly as she stood up, picking up her books.

When the teenager was about to walk past the amber-eyed girl, Erica grabbed hold of her pants.Face covered by her long hair, Erica whispered weakly, almost desperately, "Jennie…w-we're still friends, aren't we?"

Jennie pulled her leg away harshly from the trembling girl's hands. "Sorry. I'm not friends with people who don't have lives."

Shortly, after Erica walked the long way home and went into her house (her mom ignored her as if she was ashamed to acknowledge her; she shouldn't blame her), she got a hammer from the garage and tore down the shades from her window. She used the hammer to wrench out the nails. When the final nail flew off, she opened the window. After that, she threw out the drugs from her bedside, her clothes from her room, anything that might represent her fallowed self. In a few minutes, her room was practically empty except for a few large items. Sunlight flowed into her room and new air replaced the stagnant, foul one.

Sticking her head out the window, Erica screamed as long as she could until her voice was hoarse. Then she buried her head into her hands, slipping down from the window to the floor.

"This has to be a dream. This has to be a dream…" Erica mumbled to herself, feeling herself crumbling away. "I want to wake up. …I'm not afraid anymore."

Then something strange cracked inside Erica's mind.

"Daaaaaamn…You weren't joking when you said you changed," a female voice commented outside the house.

Erica's eyes shot open and she almost fell out the window when she scrambled up to look outside. As she looked down, she saw Jennie and Jackie both surveying the damage Erica did when she went on her throwing spree.

"You do know that you wasted about a couple of thousands by throwing this stuff out," Jackie said, lifting up a bag of powdered marijuana.

Erica blinked. "What…what are you guys doing here?"

Jennie smirked mischievously up at her. "You sounded pretty pathetic back at the school and we thought we should check out if you really meant what you said."

"Yeah." Jackie nodded, throwing the marijuana away over his shoulder. "Just don't kill our hopes again. You said a couple of times before that you were going to change only to ask money from us for this crap again a few days later."

"So…you didn't leave me here to…" Erica drifted, seeing her eyes blur from the tears that came again.

Jennie and Jackie shook their head. Jennie laughed cheerfully, "How could we? No matter how wasted you are, you're still our friend. Real friends don't abandon each other...which kinda explains the years it took us to help you only to find out that you helped yourself."

Erica closed her eyes. Suddenly she felt so tired. Relieved, by so tired. Her tears vanished into the air as if they were illusions.

"Thank you," she simply whispered.

Then she fell out the window as time slowed, her two friends shouting out from her unconscious action. But it was okay. Her mind was already somewhere else, content that she had woken up from this nightmare.

Jennie tried to climb back on the rope she had desperately hung on to. With a whimper, she cautiously looked down. Below her were hundreds and hundreds of spikes, all shiny from the blood of other people that didn't seem to have been dead very long. The spikes were through the bodies, eyes vacant and all staring at her, as if blaming her for their plight. The very sight made her shiver and sick to her stomach. A harsh, cold wind tore at her face and clothes, rocking the straw rope that she held onto dangerously. All around her was a neutral white that seemed chillingly apathetic to her trouble. This only made her hang onto the rope tighter.

The girl forgot how she got here. Being so scared had also made her forget everything that she had known. Jennie felt so cold, so alone, so empty. Was she here to hang there for all eternity until the rope snapped or her fingers grew tired? The wind slashed at her face again.

Looking down once more, she saw the deads' faces, the height of where she was, and the sparkling needles that glowed red. Jennie started to cry. She didn't want to die! She wanted to live! Jennie's body shook from her hysterical tears and the cold that bit her fingers. Suddenly, the girl slipped a yard or so, her feet dangling off the end of the rope.

Jennie bit her lip until it bled, trying to go higher, but she only succeeded in slipping down more and more. Her arms were starting to ache. She didn't want to die! She was afraid to die! Then Jennie began to feel sleepy. When her eyes started droop, she shook her head furiously.

"No!" the braided-haired girl yelled at herself. Her voice echoed strangely through the whiteness.

'Fall,' a voice hissed inside her head maliciously.

Abruptly, a force pushed her down the rope until her hands were struggling with the end of the cord.

"I don't want to die! Leave me alone! I don't want to die!" Jennie openly sobbed, tone frenzied with pure fear.

Jennie saw the spikes almost reaching out for her. They wavered below her like water as her eyes filled with tears. A memory tingled in the back of her head…

"I really, REALLY don't want to do this," Jennie complained as she was attaching the bungee cord to her waist. When she glanced up, she saw a boy and girl doing the same. For some reason, their faces were fuzzy.

She couldn't remember them…

The girl beside Jennie snorted. "Heck, we don't want to do this either. Jackie and I are doing this for your sake."

"Really? I just wanted to do this," the boy smiled honestly.

Jennie smacked his head. The other girl chortled.

Jackie…so familiar…

"Okaaaay! You ready, Jennie?" the girl said, looking down the platform. She whistled at the immense height.

"No," Jennie bluntly answered.

The boy laughed and pat Jennie's arm. "Don't worry! We'll fall to our doom with ya!"

"D-Doom?" Jennie said weakly.

The other female whacked the boy on the shoulder and snapped, "Don't depress her, idiot!"

Jennie and Jackie laughed, more or less.

Then the girl held onto Jennie's hand and Jennie held Jackie's.

"Ready guys?" the girl said.

Jackie cheered and Jennie held her friend's hand a little tighter. This brought some comfort.

Then they jumped, careening down a one-hundred seventy feet dive with only a bungee cord to save them. Just when the three were about to crash into the water below, they suddenly stopped, bounced up, and went back down, barely hitting the water.

Laughing hard, Jennie touched the water with her hand. With a deep breath, she said, "LET'S DO THAT AGAIN!"

The two people next to her cheered and complimented Jennie. She had officially become unafraid of heights. Going back up the platform and short time later, Jennie hugged her two best friends.

"Thanks, Jackie, Erica. I owe you one!" she grinned.

Erica…

Jennie blinked away her tears as they fell down onto the spikes. Smiling weakly, she found herself strangely calm. She wasn't afraid anymore. Closing her eyes, she felt the girl's presence very close. She felt safe. As long as her friend was there, she okay. She was going to be okay…

Jackie moaned as he got up to his knees. Dizzy, he felt the edge of the desk next to him and pulled himself up. Opening his eyes, he analyzed the damage around the basement.

The electricity had burned everything, all the equipment. Then he spotted Kaiba and his uncle still on the ground. Stumbling toward them, he was relieved to know that both persons were alive. They were simply unconscious, though burnt. Well, so was he.

After taking a five minute nap, his groggy mind gradually cleared. Shaking away the remains of the headache, he had another one when all the past chaos rushed back to him. Erica's retreat on the computer screen, Jennie's panicked cry of help, and the sudden blackout with a touch of electrocution. There was only one explanation as to how all this happened.

The Shadow Realm.

All the equipment was fine and new. Also the power could support all of the house's electricity at once even in the hot summer (the trio tried this for fun, though they got scolded by Tien for the prices on the electricity bill). There was no reason for it to shutdown. The only reason was that the Realm had somehow hacked into his system through the communicators to sabotage their plan.

Suddenly, a horrid thought hit him. What about Jennie and Erica? They might still be in trouble or…or…. Becoming awake immediately, Jackie rushed out if the basement, down the dark halls, slipped into some walls, and eventually stumbled into the garage. He took Jennie's bike and pedaled as fast as he could. Though it was faster to take the car, it was already the afternoon and it was traffic time. He had no time to waste!

He didn't care if he was being rash. All he wanted to do was to save his only best friends. They were the only people who kept him sane and alive throughout this whole ordeal! He had to save them!

Oh, yes. The Yu-Gi-Oh cast, too, of course.

Erica opened her eyes slowly. Instead of seeing the grass below her, she was now floating in a white void of nothingness. Feeling oddly calm, she looked at her right hand in awe. It was glowing. Then, ever so gently, she touched the white void at her feet.

Whatever the shine was, the radiance of her fingers washed down into the void and rippled throughout the white space. Slowly, as twinkle-like sound echoed throughout the place and the ripples receded into eternity, a thin gold piece rose from where Erica had touched and started to levitate. Curious, Erica looked at the piece.

The gold thing seemed to have engraved slides on one of the sides and if one looked closely, it had small pulleys, screws, and complicated machinery tinkering inside the paper-thin block. It was a third the width of what a normal card would've looked like. From Erica's observation, the length seemed to be the same inches as a playing card.

Then, cautiously, the girl grasped the whole thing in her hand.

At first, the piece began to warm Erica's palm. A second later, it began to vibrate. Finally, the block sent out a huge span of light that was shaped like a fan. It completely washed over Erica and the whole void was filled with golden light. Covering her eyes, the dark-haired teen held onto the piece with her other hand. Opening one eye cautiously, she saw words flash across its golden surface. It made her wonder.

Before she could look again, the block and the girl disappeared.

It was now or never. Jennie looked down and took a deep breath. In just a short time, the girl remembered everything that had happened and was trying to find a way to escape now that she got her wit back. The only solution she could come up with, so far, was to let go of the rope willingly and fall. If she was right, all this was just an illusion and by breaking it she would be able to go back to the Yu-Gi-Oh world. Right. She was going with the falling plan.

Jennie took in one final, deep, long breath. Then she let go.

Time seemed to slow as Jennie fell bravely down. Getting slightly worried that the bloodied spikes weren't disappearing, she started to flap around like a chicken in an attempt to fly back up.

As she did so, she saw her left hand emanate a silver light. Distracted, Jennie turned her silver hand into a fist. Abruptly the color drained away from her hand and felt a strange object in her hand. She felt it pulsing like a beating heart. She also felt engraving along its sides. Opening her hand, a silver, paper-thin piece of block floated lazily upwards. There was strange whistling sound in the air.

Stubborn to get it back for some reason, Jennie grabbed the silver thing. As she held it securely in her fist, brightness started to leak through. Then she felt a curious sense of warmth spreading throughout her body. Grabbing the thing in both hands, the silver piece pulled up, dragging Jennie with it. Looking back down, Jennie noticed that she was fading away like a ghost. Fearful, she tried to wrench her hands off the metal, but they seemed to be super-glued and duck-taped to it. There was one thing she could do; she accepted it just like how she had accepted her fears.

At last, she vanished.

Jackie struggled through the light fog in the house and avoided the freaky-looking vines that made small movements to get him. Then, quite unexpectedly, he tripped over a huge mound of plants and crashed right into a wall. Grumbling incoherently, he turned to see the foliage. Then his eyes became wide. Under the mass were his two friends, moving only slightly.

The hacker-boy attempted to pull the vines off of Jennie and Erica, but it held tighter and once it tried to tie his hands up. Angry, he took out a magic card and raised it above his head.

"Serene Bronze!" he yelled.

Immediately, the hall was engulfed in a glittering brown light, the vines of puke green franticly escaping through the ruined ceilings. When the luminosity eventually faded, the card disintegrated in his hands and a hard object formed instead. Looking up at it, he saw a bronze piece that was paper-thin and had slides on one side of it.

Jackie would've forgotten the whole idea of rescuing if he hadn't heard two moans. He reluctantly diverted his attention and with happiness saw Jennie and Erica sit up.

"Ouchies," the two girls muttered at the same time and shouted in panic when Jackie tackled them in a bear hug.

"Thank everything holy that you girls are okay!" the boy said, relieved, releasing the females from his crushing embrace.

While Erica choked for breath, Jennie opened her hand, showing her silver piece. Jennie looked bewildered. Jackie showed his piece and they both waited for Erica to catch her breath.

"It seems like-" the amber-eyed teenager gagged, "-like we're supposed to have these things 'cause I have one, too."

She revealed the gold piece in her hand.

Jennie said thoughtfully, "Maybe these blocks are supposed to help us?"

The other two shrugged.

"Talking about helping, where're the others?" Erica included.

The boy got up from the floor and looked at the hall before them. "Well, I didn't see any of them on the way here. Nor did I face any trouble. I bet the Realm has them at the center to use as human batteries."

"Oh, that's nice!" Jennie snorted sarcastically.

Jackie shot back, "Instead of being sadistic, we could get a move on! I took three hours get to you guys, so it's almost night! If we don't do anything fast, we'll be trapped in this damn house forever!"

The braided hair girl made a face and stood up, too. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Come on, Erica. Gotta save the world. …Erica?"

The other woman didn't move, her face frozen in fear.

"Uh, Erica?" Jackie droned, poking the girl.

Then she gulped and said in a trembling voice, "You know, I was going to argue that we should think up of a plan before we go, but now I don't have a reason to because…THERE'S A WAVE OF EVIL VINES FLYING TOWARD US! RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!"

The other two looked behind them and saw the a tsunami of Vines of Seth advancing toward them rapidly. Screaming, Jackie and Jennie chased after the sprinting Erica, practically going past her in the process. Only when they fell into a large room, shutting the doors behind them, did they stop running. Unfortunately, worse things were about to happen.

Jennie looked behind her as her friends took a breather. Then she pat Jackie's head. "Sorry to disturb you, but there's a purplish mass that I assume is the Shadow Realm."

"WHAAAAAAAA!" Erica and Jackie yelled. They immediately turned and looked ahead.

Jennie was right. A large, gel-like blob was pulsing slightly with its tentacles stretched all over the room…

…And inside it were their friends.

A/N: (slumps on top of the computer) SO TIRED! I typed this up in six hours, non-stop. Curse being a slow typer…

Anyway, told ya it was going to be a long chapter. Well, a couple of times I was thinking of changing Erica's fear because it's pretty serious and I thought it might've been too much. But then, I got lazy after typing a different scenario five times so I just decided to go through the drug addict version. Also, Jennie's fear was less "serious" than Erica's because she had stronger resolve in herself and her friends. She needed something more physical than psychological to scare the pants off her. I was tempted to do Jackie's fear, too, but I decided against it because I couldn't think up of a right terror for the guy. If I wanted to be silly, his fears would be ninjas attacking him in his sleep with nun chucks made of old butter (remember Jackie's allergy and its effect…?). Hmm…yeah. Butter.

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Akari Ishtaru, Sirenofthenight (GO BLACK BEAUTY!), ElementalDemoness23, candy-animelover600 (…you can't take away my PS2…you're at the other end of the world…), Isis the Sphinx, and fairys'maiden (Flying hamsters? I LIKE THAT!).

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