Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!

Chapter 9: Suspense and Separation Anxiety

What…? I'm not dead? How can that be? …All that glass…. Did none of it hit me? I don't feel anything. Well…there was that one pain…. I feel that…but it's covered in warmth. Sweet warmth…. Wait a second…. Puncture…warmth…oh no!

Serenity slowly and dazedly opened her eyes. She was alive…it was amazing! And she was in the exact same place that she had fallen: something else surprising.

There was just one thing that bothered her.

She looked over at her arm where she had felt the pain and gasped.

There, sticking vertically out of the middle of her upper arm was Duke's dagger. From the deep wound, dark blood oozed. It ran off her arm and had formed quite the puddle around it.

Panting, Serenity took the dagger shakily with her other hand and wrenched it out. She almost passed out from the pain alone, not to mention the blood loss. She sat up and dropped the knife, looking around her. Across the stone walk, thousands of pieces of glass lay: all having missed her.

How can that be? I was in their direct path! It's…impossible! Yet, she realized much of the impossible here was very possible.

The puddle of her blood was quite large and some of it had stained her clothes. I have to get this wound wrapped up, she thought, or I'll bleed to death. She noticed that her breathing had gotten much heavier already. In fact…I'm surprised I haven't died already!

Taking the bottom of her shirt, she struggled to rip a good piece of the fabric off. She could use quite a lot of it without showing off anything. But still: did showing off anything matter when her life was on the line?

After having torn off what she thought would be good enough, she started wrapping up the gash with one hand. It was quite difficult. Her hand often picked up trails of blood and stained her fingers. She had to wrap it tightly and tie it with her fingers in odd positions. Finally, she had gotten it into a rather suitable knot. It wasn't the best, but it was all that she could do alone.

"So," she stood up, looking around, "I finally got outside, at least. I'm surprised the glass broke: it didn't do that before. But I shouldn't complain. I'm out, and in the perfect situation to look for an exit! This is what we've been searching for! I just wish the others were here with me…. They should be out here to, with a hope of escape. …They shouldn't be lost or…or dead," Serenity felt tears falling, remembering Duke and the possessed Mokuba.

But remembering this also made her more alert.

"But I have to watch out. They could be anywhere out here. I have to keep my eyes open. And…just in case, I suppose, though I would rather not use it…" she bent down and grasped the dagger in her right hand. "One thing I learned from Joey: never go unprepared.

A sudden shining of green light from inside the mansion made her spin around and sprint backwards. She accidentally stepped into the pile of her blood. She felt it splash against her legs and looked down, disgustedly. "Ugh! I got it all over me!"

She looked back up immediately, not wanting the blood to distract her in case anything attacked. The coast looked clear, though.

I wonder what that green light was, she thought. She dismissed it, and then turned to the beginning of the maze of garden. The hedges were high over her head and made it look like she was walking into a labyrinth. She held out the dagger protectively and tread softly, listening alertly for any noise.

Bakura and Yami walked carefully up some back stairs. There were no lights, so the spirits had improvised.

"I knew being a magical spirit would have some sort of unexpected use one day," Yami muttered to himself. The Millennium Puzzle and Millennium Ring were both glowing, lighting the path before the two.

"Humph," Bakura snorted, "This is a poor use for our great powers. We could be sending that stupid ghost to the Shadow Realm and getting ourselves out of this once and for all!"

"I thought you wanted to explore," Yami narrowed his eyes mockingly.

"I'm getting rather sick of this dump. I hate mysteries, and that's all you've been blabbing about for the past hour!" Bakura hissed. He stopped and made his hand move in a mouth-like manner, while he mimicked, "Oh! I wonder why dear little Mokuba is working for the ghost! What do you think, Bakura? 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe he's possessed!' Oh, yes, you could be right! 'Of course I'm right, fool!' Where do you think the others are? 'Why should I care!' Bakura! They're your host's friends! 'So?' So! You should care a little more if you care anything for the well being –be it physical or emotional- for Ryou! 'Oh, shut up already!'" Bakura suddenly let both fists fly down to his sides, "I'm SICK of it already! I want to get out of here and get away from your whining! ARGH!" he stomped off up the stairs.

Yami just looked after him and shook his head. He will never change….

Give him hope, Yami. Maybe one day-

He's been this way for five thousand years, Yugi: I don't think he's about to change that quickly.

Okay, but-

Say, Yugi. What do you think about Mokuba's behavior?

Other people haven't changed in the last five thousand years either, Yugi mentally sighed and walked out of the telepathic link.

Yugi! Wait! What did I say!

"Yo, Pharaoh," Bakura's voice suddenly floated down the stairs, "If it will but your mouth at rest, come up here and take a look at this!"

"What is it?" Yami ran up the stairs and saw Bakura sanding in the threshold of a door. He came up beside the thief and looked inside. "It's a library…. But…why are all the books here? Wouldn't Gozaburo have taken them when he moved?"

"Look closer, pharaoh. Looks like stepson takes after stepfather," Bakura walked up to one of the books and put his hand on it. His hand passed right through the book.

"They're holographic!" Yami walked to another shelf and ran his hand the whole way down.

"Yeah," Bakura replied.

Yami walked back a suddenly stumbled on something. He put his hand on it to steady himself and turned around to see what he had run into. His hand was touching a green, leather-bound book.

"Looks like your theory has a minor flaw," Yami told Bakura, narrowing his eyes, "This book looks real enough."

"Let me see that," Bakura pushed the pharaoh aside and ran a finger down the book. He smirked, "Feels valuable."

"Figures," Yami pushed Bakura back. "But why would someone leave this book and take the others with the move? And why are there even holographic projections of books here?"

Bakura was looking at one shelf in particular, "Perhaps someone wanted to hide the book and started looking at it; forgetting to put it back."

"Why would you say that?" Yami turned to him. He saw Bakura staring in one direction. Yami followed his eyes, and his own widened. In the holographic book selection, there was a gap.

The gap that would normally hold the green book.

"I wonder what's so special about this book," Bakura turned back to it. He wiped some dust away from the cover and read the title.

Yami read it aloud, "The Orichalcos. That's an interesting name…."

Bakura smirked that smirk he smirks when there's something delightful to smirk about, "There's dark magic afoot…."

"I don't believe it," Joey gaped at the door.

"We did it," Tristan breathed.

"Is it real?" Mai stepped up to the frame and touched it. The cold raced up her nerves and she shivered, "It's real alright.

"We did it!" Joey bounded to Tristan and slapped him on the back, "We found the door to go outside!"

"Oh, Joey, we're finally going to escape!" Mai enveloped Joey in a tight hug, "We're going to get out of this rat hole!"

"Finally!" Tristan but a hand on the doorknob, "Let's go before either it or we disappear!" He wrenched open the door and the three fled outside.

They halted immediately.

"J-Joey…what's t-that?" Mai pointed to the ground.

Joey himself was speechless.

"Well," Tristan put a hand to his chin in that literal way of his, "To me, it looks like a big pile of blood and a bunch of littered glass."

"I WAS BEING SARCASTIC! I KNOW FULL-WELL WHAT IT IS!" Mai yelled at him.

There was a sudden scream from inside the garden.

"Wait a second…I know dat scream!" Joey's head lifted. He stepped forward and bellowed, "SERENITY!"

"J-JOEY!" the voice answered, somewhere deep within the maze of hedges, "JOEY! PLEASE COME FIND ME!"

"WAIT THERE, REN!" Joey yelled, "I'M COMING TO GET YOU!"

Mai looked at the pile of blood. An awful thought crossed her mind. If Serenity was out here…then was that…Serenity's blood?

"Joey-" she started, but was silence when she saw a dark figure out of the corner of her eye. She whipped her head around and saw it vault over the hedges and disappear into the garden.

"Joey!" Mai urgently tugged at his sleeve, "Joey! I just saw something go into the garden! It could be after Serenity!"

"WHAT!" Joey yelled. Without further instruction, he ran towards the entrance of the garden. It was then that he noticed the trail of bloody footprints leading around the hedges.

Tristan noticed it too, "Look! Serenity left us a trail!"

"Yeah well, that means she left a trail for whatever else is after her, too!" Mai retorted.

"SERENITY!" Joey yelled, "IF YOU CAN HERE ME, PROTECT YOURSELF AND DON'T YELL ANYMORE! THERE'S SOMETHING COMING AFTER YOU!"

"Joey!" Tristan smacked the back of the boy's head as they ran, "You'll scare her!"

"As if she probably isn't scared already!" Mai spat.

"Look!" Tristan pointed, "The footprints go this way!" he pointed down a side strip. Mai took off after them.

Joey was about to head their way when a shed caught his eye. He suddenly stopped and turned to face the shed. Something about the lonely and deteriorating building called out to him. For some reason…he felt the need to go in there….

Joey's eyes fogged over, but his mind remained in tact. He felt himself walking over to the shed.

What am I doin'! I should be looking for Serenity! She's in trouble!

As he turned the knob, a scream in the distance seemed to assure what he knew. Still, he walked into the room.

A light flickered on above him, and he looked around the abandoned storage room.

There was a lot of junk filtered around, but one thing in particular caught his eye.

It's a motorcycle…. What the heck is dat doin' in here? Something tugged at the corner of his mind. Something told him to go to it. To touch it.

No! I need to go help Serenity!

His hand reached forward.

I NEED TO HELP SERENITY!

He touched the handle of the bike.

But you're in MY control now.

Joey's eyes glinted blood red and he looked over towards the entrance of the shed, grinning maliciously.

In a raspy voice, he uttered, "Some rats are going to die today…."

Seto grunted as he blinked his eyes opened. Where am I? He woke up, rubbing his head. God, my head and neck are killing me…. Did I sleep crookedly or what? He moved his hand down the back of his neck to try to massage it. What he felt there made him jump. What the! What the heck is on my neck?

Seto stood up and looked for a mirror. He found a decorative one on the wall and ran over to it. He wiped away the dust collected on there with his sleeve and turned around, craning his neck in any possible way to see.

"Ack, it's no use. I can't see a thing," Seto gritted his teeth. It was then, out of the corner of his eye, that he saw another mirror. It was a small, handheld one that was held in a nice, silver frame. He grabbed it and made it shine, holing it up so that it reflected the mirror behind him. He smirked, "There we go…."

Positioning the mirror to where he needed, he narrowed his eyes when he saw two wounds exactly from where the pain erupted.

"How the heck did I get those?" He looked even closer, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say I was bitten by something…. But what leaves two pointed bite marks?" His thoughts immediately reeled to the world of fantasy and a vampire came to mind.

He slammed the mirror back down on the stand where he had found it and clenched his fist, "Dang it! Yugi and his geek group are starting to affect my insanity now! Vampires! Come on!"

Thinking about Yugi made him realize something else. Something missing…. Someone missing….

"Gardner!" his eyes widened, and he scanned the room frantically, "Blast it, Gardner, where did you go now! And Mokuba! Where are you Mokuba! Gardner? Where are you two!" Seto called out.

He received no answer for a moment.

And then there was a scream. A girl's scream….

"GARDNER!" Seto ran out into the hallway. Off in the distance, a green light faded. "GARDNER!" Seto ran to find her.

"Dark magic?" Yami questioned, looking at Bakura.

Bakura turned a glare onto him, "Oh tell me the great pharaoh doesn't sense it! All these years you've babbled to Seto Kaiba about sensing a greater power afoot, and now you can't sense the darkness within this own household! You're a disgrace to all Egyptians…."

Yami stomped his foot, "Of course I sense the darkness in the house! I was merely questioning about what kind of dark magi you're talking about! You're the expert on darkness here!"

"Pot calling the kettle black," Bakura mumbled as he opened the Orichalcos book.

"What?" Yami demanded.

"Nothing," Bakura replied turning to the first page. Yami looked down at it at the same time.

"What is that?"

"It's the seal, stupid," Bakura sneered, "See? In plain -well…that's not English," Bakura squinted at the writing below the green symbol.

"Or Japanese," Yami replied. "It looks like an ancient language."

"You think?" Bakura snapped. Touchy, Yami thought.

"Well, it's not Egyptian," Yami replied.

"No duh," Bakura retorted, "Nor Babylonian, Greek, Latin, Indian, or African. It's not any language I've ever heard of or come across."

"So it must be even older than Egypt," Yami's eyes widened, "Could it be?"

"Well, you just answered your own ques-"

"No, dimwit," Yami replied, rather uncharacteristically. Yugi whistled inside his soul room. "What if it's…Atlantean?"

Bakura stared at him in shock, "You're mad, Pharaoh! No one even knows if Atlantis even existed!"

"Of course it did."

Yami and Bakura froze. Slowly, they turned around. A boy was hovering between them.

"You!" Yami cried out.

The ghost smiled, "I'm sorry boys, but I can't have you pestering where you don't belong," he grabbed each one's shoulder. They both looked shocked that he could actually touch them. "I must ask you to leave now." He squeezed their shoulders and a white aura surrounded their forms.

"What the!" Bakura snapped as his legs started phasing through the floor. The ghost pushed them down harder so that they sunk faster.

"You won't get away with th-" Yami's rant was cut off as he was totally submerged.

"There now," the ghost wiped his hands. "Now then…" he turned a glinting eye to the Orichalcos book. Touching it, he muttered some words, and the language suddenly melted into English words. "Perfect. Now to go back to what I was about to read." He flipped through some pages and found a diagram of a green gem. "There…. Now where did the man put it?" The ghost flew over to some of the shelves, scanning their holographic contents. "No, not here…. Perhaps behind a picture? The man always had safes around the place." He phased in and out of walls, scratching his chin. "It's not here! Where could it be? I swear I've seen it more than once. After all, the stone is what Gozaburo used to become the business tyrant that he was…. The book says that the stone is to stay in close contact with the person using it at all times- Aha!" The ghost smiled and snapped his fingers. He flew up to the room above. It was the old master's bedroom.

"If I were an expensive ring, with a certain green gem in it, where would I be?" The ghost checked all nooks and crannies. Of course, he only did this to double check. As the search went on, his ideas began forming into a place where he was almost positive Gozaburo Kaiba had hidden the ring. After all, great minds think alike.

"So maybe it isn't in his room," the ghost flew to the room next door, "Maybe he left an heirloom…." He set his feet down on the ground and walked to the bed post. The posts themselves ended in round knobs at the top. The ghost boy twisted one and a slight and almost silent swishing sound of pressurized gas being released signaled as a part of the wall slid back to reveal a secret staircase that wound its way downstairs.

The boy took the passage and pushed a special brick on the other side to close the wall-door. He took the stairs two at a time and came to a special chamber on the first floor. There was a grate about as tall as him and he walked up to it. Peering through it, he could see the living room.

He looked around the chamber and spotted the ring immediately. It was set on a small cushion in a glass box encasement.

"He must have really cared for this," the boy took hold of the glass box and gazed at it lustfully. "He must have had it transferred back here before Seto sent him to his death. He obviously didn't want such a precious –and rather unneeded, in Seto's case- artifact in that mongrel's hands. Or his little brother's. Mokuba was just too naïve and innocent for this sort of power."

The boy turned around and continued to talk to himself. "After all, this stone is said to bring out the worst in a man: to show his faults and darkness. But it can also help that man achieve power. Gozaburo Kaiba stumbled across this tone one day –why, he said an exotic looking man gave it to him one day, along with the book. The man, Gozaburo said he had not given a name, had just found him and presented the two gifts to him, saying that he had been watching and waiting for him for many years. He said it would help Mr. Kaiba achieve great wealth and power, with little cost on his own part."

The boy opened the case and took out the ring, watching it glint in the chamber lights, "And Gozaburo –the fool- bought it."

"Mokuba? Mokuba, where are you?"

The boy turned around and smirked as he tapped a secret lever to open the other door into the living room. He set the ring and cushion down in plain sight on a deserted side table near the middle of the room. "Yet," he stood back and mulled over it, looking at it fondly, "It will be coming in very handy in about two minutes," He gave a malicious grin and fizzled into the air.

"Mokuba?" Tea peeked into another room. "Mokuba, where are you? I know you're here somewhere! Come on, Mokuba, where are you?" she stepped into what looked like a living room.

The living room had a few sparse pieces of old, dusty and somewhat torn furniture. She looked around, scanning the room for Mokuba's figure, in case he was hiding, for some reason.

Something in the center of the room caught her eye. A green gem-embedded ring lay on a small cushion, seeming to have its own internal shine.

Not being able to help her curiosity, Tea walked over to it and peered at it closely. It seemed to have a strange force tugging at her to just…touch it.

What's the harm in holding it anyway, Tea reasoned. It was a rather fascinating ring, and there was a force pulling her towards it…. She would only look for a second.

Tea picked up the ring and examined it. Nothing happened, as she had expected. She was just being slightly...paranoid.

Suddenly, the gem in the ring began glowing. Tea gasped and dropped it to the ground. She backed up, but ran into something. Turning around, she noticed a translucent, shimmering green wall that had encircled itself around her. On the floor, below her feet, she saw a strange symbol, spinning around.

She screamed as she felt the power of the symbol sucking at her very soul.

And sudden, everything stopped. The light disappeared, and Tea fell to the floor; an empty shell.

Serenity stayed still, just as Joey had told her.

But…had it been Joey? What if this ghost could mimic voices too? Was she just standing around, waiting for her doom?

"N-No," she shook her head, "I'm sure it was Joey's voice!"

Her eyes suddenly caught hold of a dark figure vaulting over the hedges a few lanes from her.

Her eyes widened, and she abandoned her position, running back towards the behind of the maze. She wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and that…thing.

She ran quietly, peering down paths when she came to turns, to check if the coast was clear.

At one point, she began getting a cramp from all of the off and on running. She slowed to a walking speed, but listened cautiously. There were no sounds in the maze of a garden. She seemed safe for now-

The dark figure suddenly leapt out from between bushes and pounced right on her. She screamed as she fell backwards and hit the stone floor.

But her scream was silenced as Mokuba forcefully placed his lips on hers.

Not only had the action silenced her…but the shock of it as well.

But there was a sudden sting in her mouth, and she felt a cold something running from the sting, all throughout her body. Serenity's eyes closed as she fell into a cataleptic state.

Tea's eyes fluttered open slightly. Her head still hurt. She blearily saw a familiar face looking at her caringly. Also…the ceiling looked a bit closer than it had a minute ago….

She knew why that face looked familiar! The hair color was just…off. Perhaps it had something to do with her confused brain? Unconsciously, she mumbled the name of the person she believed to be supporting her.

"K-Kaiba?"

The figure smiled and gently closed her eyes for her, whispering quickly, "Yes, yes; now just rest for a little while, Tea. Just rest…."

Since when does Kaiba call me by my first name?

The ghost looked down at the prize in his arms. The girl's soul had been torn from her body, thanks to the power of the Orichalcos. She could now stay with him for eternity!

And not a scratch to her flawless body, either.

That was just the way the boy wanted it.

Whew! Not only was that a rather lengthy chapter (or so it seemed…), but all of the different points of view got me spinning! Whoa…. Anywho! I hope you all still like this story! It's wrapping up and coming to a close…. Anywho, PLEASE REVIEW!

PS: A virtual plate of cookies to those who can tell me who the "mysterious" man was that gave Gozaburo the stone of the Orichalcos! No duh, really…. This brings me to my second point! With this introduction of the Orichalcos, it has made me think about writing a sequel to this story…with the DOOM characters…? I don't' know what it will be about yet: probably a re-writing of the DOOM arc or something, (not replaying it in words, but a TOTAL re-write!) but tell me what you think: any suggestions: anything! I'd be glad to hear from you! I just don't know if the sequel would be…a horror/suspense fic or not…. I'd have to work on that.