The next morning, Horus was at work like usual, lifting boxes and boxes of cards into the storage area and then sorting through all of them. Horus was exhausted from the constant work. It was a good thing he always did his sleeping in class.

He threw a glance at the old clock. Almost time to leave. Horus set the remaining cards down on the table to be sorted after school. But before he was going to class, it was time to find out why Sadie was acting so strangely around him.

"Miss Richardson?" he asked, coming out of the back room. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure Horus," the old woman replied, pretending like she hadn't been watching him carefully for the last few days. "What do you need? Oh, are you asking about your jacket? It'll be here sometime today, I think," Sadie said, not looking at him. She scrubbed at the front counter even though it was spotless.

"I wasn't going to ask about that. I want to know why you seem so anxious around me now," Horus told her. "You're acting like I've turned into a criminal all of a sudden. Is it because of my new deck? Because I didn't steal it. It just showed up during my detention. And I haven't been able to find my old deck yet, so I've kept it."

Sadie shot him a surprised expression. "I never thought that you stole the cards."

"Then why...?"

"So you didn't build that deck?" Sadie cut him off.

"No. I'd never seen it before Warner's detention. Why, is something wrong?" Horus asked in concern. The old woman's face turned a pasty shade of white.

"Nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong at all," Sadie lied. Horus would've pressed the issue, but the first bell rang for class. "Class is starting, get out of here," she shooed only half-jokingly. Frowning, Horus left the card shop. He wasn't just going to let the old woman go that easily. On his next shift, he resolved to show Sadie his cards and find out what was really going on.

"So she didn't answer you?" Randy asked, not seeming particularly interested.

"No. And she wanted me to leave the shop in a hurry. I know she's hiding something from me," Horus said, irritated.

"Well, all that's very interesting," Cady put in sarcastically. "Let me know when you start your adventure of international intrigue and mystery so I can be a part of your book."

"That wasn't even particularly funny," Randy said, his statement marred by a wide yawn.

"Hey, don't blame me. It's your fault that I'm so tired that I can't even make sarcastic remarks," Cady snapped. Her head flopped onto her desk. Horus just raised an eyebrow and decided not to ask. He'd had to work an emergency shift late last night, so Cady and Randy had been alone in the Slifer dorms.

Randy caught the expression on Horus' face and decided he'd better elaborate. "We just had a horror movie marathon. Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the Thirteenth, ya know. And Cady got so freaked out that she couldn't sleep for the rest of the night."

"Hey! I fell asleep at three thirty this morning!" Cady piped up tiredly from the desk, already half asleep. "Besides, he was just as freaked out as I was."

"Oooh," Horus joked. "That's lame, dude."

"Ah shut up," Randy muttered. "You're not supposed to work tonight, right? Let's watch some more of those duel tapes."

"Sure," Horus agreed. "What one do you want to watch today?"

"Whatever one I'm awake for," Cady mumbled. A puddle of drool was already starting to form under her cheek. In a few more seconds, she was going to be sleep talking.

"We've been following chronological order, so whatever comes next after Patricia Hindman and Nora Wild" Randy pointed out.

"True."

"We're getting towards the end of the collection already, aren't we?" Randy wondered. "It didn't take very long."

It hadn't. Before Horus started working in the card shop, the three had had plenty of time to watch a lot of the duels. Most of the duels only lasted about half an hour, so it was like watching episodes of a good TV show. They'd gone through a hundred of the tapes in a week. Once Horus started working, they had to slow down, obviously, but they worked through the duels at a steady pace. Tonight's duel was going to be 475 out of 480.

The bell rang and Horus elbowed Cady. She scrambled to sit upright just as Warner walked into the classroom. "Alright, class. Oral pop quiz," the man announced, looking smug. The whole class groaned. Pop quizzes were bad, Warner's pop quizzes were worse. They were usually oral, meaning if you didn't know the answer or got it wrong, everyone knew about it. Horus usually did pretty good with them. His class grades were good; it was just his terrible dueling that kept him in Slifer. Randy had okay grades and could usually answer a question when asked, but Cady...she just couldn't focus in class. And since she was tired, it was even more likely that Warner was going to pick on her.

"Miss Whiting?" Warner called. "I'll ask you something simple. What is the effect of Mystical Space Typhoon?"

"Uh..." Cady groaned, squinting her eyes in concentration. She knew the answer, but exhaustion made her mix up the words she intended to say. "It gets rid of trap cards, right?"

"Wrong," Warner sneered. "It takes care of other spell cards. See this is why you're in Slifer, Miss Whiting."

Again, the strangest feeling of deja vu crept up on Horus. It was different, but familiar from some other time. The sensation only strengthened when Horus spoke up in Cady's defense.

"And yet, she managed to beat you in the entrance exams," he said. As weird as it sounded, Horus didn't feel angry or indignant because his friend and the rest of the Slifer dorm was insulted. Instead, he just felt amused and slightly unsettled at the frustratingly familiar situation.

The whole class had a good laugh as Warner paled. The man opened his mouth, maybe to defend himself, maybe to retort, but thought better of it. He took a breath to compose himself, then directed his attention to Horus.

"I bet you think that was very amusing, Mr. Trinam," Warner replied coolly. "If you're so clever, why don't you tell me what type of card is Spell Purification?" And just like that, the moment was gone.

"Trap."

Warner's expression was priceless, but he kept going. "And what is its effect?"

"You have to discard one card from your hand in order to destroy all face-up continuous spell cards on the field," Horus rattled off.

Needless to say, Warner was in a foul mood for the rest of the class.

"Haha, did you see the look on Warner's face?" Randy snorted, clapping Horus on the back. Horus assumed that Randy was still tired, because he was usually not the back-slapping type.

"Thanks for sticking up for me, Horus," Cady said. She must've been tired, too, since she was actually thanking him for something, and just the slightest bit of red was tinging her cheeks as she stared at the ground. Maybe out of shame for having to say thank you? Cady was too proud for that kind of thing.

"Hey, it was no problem, Sy-" Horus choked mid-way through the last word. What the heck was he about to say? Thankfully, Cady didn't seem to notice the trip up, and if Randy did, he didn't give any indication.

"Cady," he finished.

"What?" she wondered. Crap! He'd waited too long, now it seemed weird.

"Nothing," Horus said hurriedly, scrambling for an excuse. "Just thought I saw a bug on you. Must've imagined it." He must've not've sounded convincing, because Cady fixed her piercing eyes on him.

"You're acting weird lately. Are you okay?"

"Yeah!"

"Maybe you should ask Sadie to give you some time off, you've been working a lot lately," Randy suggested. "You're probably tired." Horus resisted the urge to roll his eyes since the one who just spoke was letting out yet another yawn.

"You're probably right," Horus agreed. "I'll just get some sleep. You guys can go ahead and watch the next tape without me."

Randy and Cady looked so surprised, it was almost funny. "But you always watch them!"

"Yeah, but I'm tired, and I don't want to hold you guys back again. So go ahead. Besides, they're in my room, I'll just watch them when I have the time."

"Well okay," Randy conceded, sounding more like his timid self. "As long as it's okay..."

Horus drifted off to sleep as soon as he hit the bunk. He could vaguely hear the sounds of a duel between Zane Truesdale and another Obelisk going on before even they faded away.

He found himself standing on a bleak battlefield in front of a massive, dark castle. A dark-haired guy in a cowboy hat was standing in front of him, yelling out words that sounded as if they were fifty miles underwater. "Please Jay! I can help you, but you have to want to be free!"

The image dissolved with the other person, leaving Horus in total darkness. At first, there was nothing. Then a voice called out to him. "You betrayed us!" Several joined it, all accusing Horus of some crime he didn't commit. "You sent us to the stars!" "We trusted you!" "Did our friendship mean nothing?"

They crashed down on Horus in waves, growing stronger until they deafened him with their intensity. Horus thrashed, but couldn't move. He was trapped in the darkness, forced to hear those tortured voices. Horus shut his eyes, but it didn't make a bit of difference. It was almost bliss when they all stopped, as if shut off by a faucet.

He opened his eyes then, scared of what he'd see but finding no other choice. He had to find a way out of this nightmare. It was undetermined if it was a good thing yet or not, but Horus could see. All around him was a vast ocean of mirrors. Horus took a step forward, navigating cautiously through the weird scene.

It was eerily silent now. No sound came from any of the floating panels of light. They just kind of hung there. Horus felt like he walked forever in that creepy house of mirrors before something drew him to the edge of the field. Beyond was just more darkness, but a shadow darker than the ones surrounding it appeared as Horus squinted. It kind of looked like a person.

"Hello? Anyone there?" Horus called out, moving forward. The shadow just sort of...hung there. Horus couldn't even be sure it was a person. "Hello?"

His hand reached forward nervously towards the shadow. Just before he could touch it, however, it swung around. "Agh!" Horus fell to the ground hard in surprise. When he looked up, his blood ran cold. A long red cape. Dark armor. The Supreme King! But when Horus looked at the king's face, it was his own. Stern golden eyes glared down at him from his own face.

Then the ground gave out below him and he lost sight of the fallen Duel Monsters king.