Alright, last part of the first chapter! I officially have everything up that I have already posted. I will get new stuff up probably late tomorrow night... like 10 or 11pm Central Time (cause that's where I am and that's when I get home from work). After this, updates won't be as frequent as I've been doing, because I acutally have to write them. Usually, I want to finish the entire chapter before I post it, in case I come up with something and want to add hints of it in earlier. But the first part to the second chapter is okay, I don't mind making it pernament. I'm close to finishing that second chapter... then I'll start posting it and (hopefully) have the third one finished by the time I finish posting all the parts. And so on and so forth, yay patterns. XD

But yes, end of the first chapter; hope you like it.

Disclaimer: Freai doesn't own Ryou Bakura, Arthur Bakura, or the spirit of the Ring.

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"When your only friends are hotel rooms"

(Part 4)

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Ryou had really settled into his new boarding school, and had even started to make friends. The big thing in the school was table top games, and Ryou had quickly become a connoisseur because of his inventiveness and quick thinking. Everyone in his class wanted him to come over and be the game master for whatever they were playing, and he loved it. Popularity had never been one of his past attributes, making him still shy and modest. But his classmates seemed to love that about him, especially the girls. When he turned thirteen even he had forgotten about his birthday by the time he reached his first class, but everyone else didn't. He was officially the nice guy, the person you go to for advice or if you have a secret, and on the top of all the girls' "dateable" lists. He couldn't help but be happy.

The best part, though, was he hadn't heard from the spirit after his father had left and he started attending school again. He also had avoided the museum like the plague, afraid that it would appear again. He didn't even think about what use to be his second home any more. And because of that he hadn't heard from his father either.

Every evening after study hall and they were all dismissed everyone would gather in one of the dorms and play table top games. It was the one thing Ryou always loved, he wished it would never end. But as the last trimester of their year came to a close, people started to announce that so and so would be leaving, transferring to another school because of money or because their parents didn't want them in the middle of the city any more. As soon as Ryou had made good friends, he was loosing them, and he felt it wasn't fair. He wished he could just live in this new paradise forever, and that they would never have to leave London, that he would always have friends to play table top games with.

… He just didn't except that his wish would be granted.

He woke up with a splitting headache, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. In his bed in his single-person dorm, though how he got to his bed he wasn't sure. He had been working on some new figurines for Monster World, his favorite table top game. And some friends of his were suppose to be by later that evening, but as he squinted out his window he could see the sun rising. It had been setting last he knew. What happened? How did he loose a full night?

And then he heard it, the deep rumbling laughter quiet in the back of his head. His heart stopped. No, no this couldn't be happening! It was gone! It hadn't bothered him for over 3 months! Why oh why would it come back!

The laughter continued as Ryou scrambled from his bed, looking around for a reflective surface so he could see for himself if it had returned, though he dreaded the very thought of what his reflection would show. The long looking glass on the wall was all that he saw, and instead of his panicked frightened face he saw… it. Cool eyes were half-lidded as it sneered at him, still laughing deeply to itself. Ryou collapsed against the wall, staring intently into the mirror, near inches away from it. "What have you done." His voice came out as a whisper, but his words were screamed inside his head. He knew it had done something, something terrible, nothing else would amuse it so.

"Whatever do you mean?" it asked, its words cut through the silence of the room like a knife, and he knew they were actually spoken and not in his head. It was actually inside the mirror, there with him. It didn't make a lot of sense, but it scared him so much he could no longer control his shaking. It laughed deeply again, the sound echoing in his ears, and it walked towards Ryou. "I was merely… paying my rent." The devilish smile couldn't have gotten any wider on its face, revealing a pair of fangs behind his pale lips.

"W-Wha-What do you…" Ryou couldn't even speak he was trembling so, his legs barely even able to hold him up. They gave out and he crashed to the ground once more, tearing his gaze away from the hypnotic red eyes. He stared at the ground, but something caught his eye in the early morning light. The little metal case full of his supplies for making figurines for table top games, it lay open, the paints open and paintbrushes still laying all over the floor. And lined up… in a neat little row… were five newly made figurines.

Ryou screamed.

The Spirit laughed.

Three boys, two girls, all in school uniform, all easily identifiable. He stared in horror, not able to tear his eyes away. His mouth still open, tears streaming down his cheeks, he shook so much he could barely see straight. He didn't see the spirit step out of the mirror, and kneel down next to him. But he felt its cold fingers grasp his neck and tilt it back, making it harder to see the figurines, but he still couldn't stop looking at them. Couldn't stop seeing the faces of the only friends he had had in London. He felt the cold, cruel lips on his ear, whispering to him.

"You wanted to play with your friends forever… and now they'll never leave you." Ryou started to cry harder. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it? For your friends to never leave you." Ryou wanted to shake his head, or hit the spirit, or at the very least free himself from its grasp, but he couldn't move. The cold hands started to stroke his neck and face, cleaning it of the ever constant flow of tears. "But don't you ever forget, little one," it leaned in so close Ryou could feel the fangs on his ear, and the hand on his neck dug its nails into his skin. "…I… will never leave you either." It pressed itself against him, breathing its words heavily and coldly into his ear.

"Never."

The bodies were found later that morning when none of the students showed up to school. They weren't dead, but merely lifeless shells. Ryou was so beside himself that he was excused to the infirmary for the rest of the day, where he sobbed until he passed out. He never understood how dangerous the thing was until it was too late. What had it done to them? He had run back to his room, and stared at the figurines, picking them up one by one only to be shocked with horror once more. They were warm.

And he knew they were alive, every once in a while he thought he heard one of the girls crying, and he would collapse into sobs once more.

It didn't take long for someone to come questioning him, because he was suppose to have been with them. He merely claimed that he hadn't felt well and they had played without him, he knew nothing of what had happened to them.

The next night, though, Alice and Charles had come to cheer him up, with a table top game. Before he could tell them off he had blacked out. And that was how he had ended up in the hotel room. Nothing the spirit was telling him was registering. Something about how he thought that the adults were becoming suspicious, and that they had to leave because he couldn't get away with his fun anymore. Or at least that was what it sounded like, the only thing that Ryou had actually caught was "At least you get to bring your friends along." Closely followed by more laughter. But whatever plans the spirit had for them Ryou hadn't listened, he couldn't listen, so finally annoyed with his host it had disappeared once more. Leaving Ryou to stare numbly at the wall.

The thing… it was a part of him now. It had been ever sense he had entered the blaring white room. He had felt something cold and painful in his chest back then, but he hadn't known what it was at the time. He hadn't seen what it had done to him. It had fused itself with Ryou, the cold thing he felt was the demon that now lived inside him, and there was no way to get it out.

He didn't know when he stood up or went to the mirror, but Ryou found himself standing there, still staring blankly with bloodshot and red-rimmed eyes. Slowly he unbuttoned his shirt, first discovering the leather cord of the necklace, and then the never-blinking eye of Horus. And then the five pointed thorns that hung from the necklace, but they no longer dangled freely from the golden ring.

That was why he never took it off, that was why no one noticed he always wore it, that was why the spirit was a part of him now. All five thorns were embedded into his chest, reaching deep under his skin and leaving painful bloody wounds around the intrusions. They were newly reopened, but the scars were already there. The damage was already done.

He and the spirit of the ring were already one.

TBC

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BLUGH. I still hate that ending. I just can't rewrite it to make it sound better. Oh, well.

END of chapter 1.

Please review and tell me what you think? REVIEWS UP THE WRITING PROCESS :D