What sort of boat starts to sink in the middle of a thunderstorm? He had TOLD his brothers to get the Sea Ray yacht, not this crappy, vintage wood one! And now he was stuck, with only a bottle of water…he upended the water, trying to swallow some of it. Two drops dribbled out. He started to panic, his chest heaving as he looked around at the choppy, murky ocean water. The bottom half of his yacht was submerged, and he was clinging to the very tip of it, pale, near-skeletal hands shaking as he gripped the slippery silver guard rail.

His legs kept slipping and sliding on the sleek plastic, and he bit back a strangled yelp as the water lapped at his toes. Lightning cracked above-head, and the waves began to get much choppier, as though the tips of the waves were little knives trying to slice his skin. He felt nauseous, having left on an empty stomach with three pills. It didn't help that the pills were wearing off, and his stomach was revolting by jumping and twisting as though it were trying to claw it's way out of his throat.

"Shit…" He muttered, and then the water enclosed him as a wave crashed over his head. He was left without air, forced underwater as though a massive hand had slammed in him. The dark sky let no light through, so everything around him was an oxygen-less haze of grey. And wet.

He had the oddest thoughts as he choked on his last lungful of air. Thoughts such as, 'Why don't humans have gills? Damnit, no one ever comes prepared…', 'It IS rather grey down here. I must fire the decorator…', and as his thoughts became even more lucid while he drifted down into the water, 'I wonder if I'll see a mermaid…'

But then, everything went into a merciful blackness, his eyes falling closed, and his body going completely limp.

-

He woke up, coughing and sputtering, spitting water onto the ground as he rubbed his chest. His head was aching, and he wanted to find his bag. He needed some painkillers…it scared him a little that that first thing he thought of was his pills. But that fear didn't overweight the biological need to satisfy his addiction.

He had a vague memory of someone in a diving suit giving him a card, of some sort. A Duel Monster's card, he knew that…but he was remembering the oddest hallucination along with it. Some sort of little…spirit…had flown out of it. It was yellow, and it had the most aggravating voice. It…it was horrible. It was ugly, and slimy-looking, and everytime it moved it had to shake its behind in a horrid sort of dance…

"Oh, God…" He muttered, dragging his hands down his face, feeling groggy. His sat up, and looked all around him. For a moment, he thought that his vision had gotten messed up, that he had gone blind somehow – but no, when you were blind your vision didn't go entirely white, did it?

He tugged his shirt down a bit farther, shivering, tugging his cloak closer around his body, also. He then saw the variations – the subtle blue hollows. Of course! He couldn't believe that it had taken him this long to understand…he was standing in snow. On a sort of path, surrounded by thousands of miles of snow. And up ahead loomed a massive building, which he hadn't noticed because the snow had been blinding him.

When he finally reached the building – speaking to himself the whole way, to reassure himself that he was indeed doing the right thing, and that he could get the jet or the helicopter to come pick him up – he walked up to the doors and knocked.

A tired sort of voice, fatigued, sounded from his left. It was an old, bedraggled man. He explained that Chazz would have to find forty cards to get in. The man himself said that he had thirty-nine, but he didn't have any strength left.

Chazz took a rest by the tiny fire as the man continued to explain that this was summer, and that the winter would freeze them to death. Chazz had a rather nasty mental image of himself encased in a block of ice, someone picking at him to free him, three thousand years in the future.

Finally, he got up, and wandered around. This was hardly the dignified start that he had been planning – in fact, he sank chest-deep into snow. By the time he got out of the snow, he had hit a rather wide plane of ice. He turned to look back at the building, and snarled.

"What sort of test is this? Chazz Princeton isn't going to – WOAH!" He shrieked as he slipped, and tumbled onto his backside, and went slipping and sliding down the planes. Finally he came to stop – face first – in a pile of snow.

He spat out the mouthful, and began scaling the large hill that he had crashed into, chunks of ice and snow tumbling from where his feet dug into the ground. He grinned as a card fell into his hand.

Twenty-seven and counting…

At the top of the hill he was rewarded by another card. Sooner than he thought, his energy was gone. He stumbled back to the fire, amazed that he wasn't lost. He grimaced as his sore muscles screamed. He fell into the snow, and proffered one of the cards that he had found.

He lied, saying that he had found forty one, and that he didn't need the extra card. Now he only had thirty-nine…but make no mistake. It was hardly in Chazz's general attitude to be nice, but he didn't want the man's death on his hands.

Now to wait for the energy to find another card to get into the massive building…