Corrupted...Awakenings-

Yami found himself staring rather stupidly at the golden walls around him, as if transfixed. Lucidity was slowly coming back to his sluggish thoughts, and he batted away a yawn. He was still lingering in that strange twilight of being fully awake and half asleep. The sleeping spell had been wanning for some time, but its drugged torpor that voraciously clung to his brain was making it extremely difficult for Yami to even attempt to piece together where he was. He could detect no danger, and surely there was no threat that a bunch of shimmering bricks could have, but...he struggled to recall what exactly forced him to bolt out of his bed as if he had slept on a tack, and what exactly was making his heart thunder with overwhelming fear. There were snatches of the dream, still floating in his thoughts, as he distractedly scratched his back.
A hiss of pain escaped his lips. It felt like fire had laced down his spine, and something warm and wet was now globbed on his fingers. Yami's eyes and alarm grew when he saw his fingers coated with blood. He twisted his neck to look over his shoulder and paled to see that the entire back of his once white tunic was drenched scarlet.

He flinched when the overwhelming sensation washed over him like a dark ocean wave...fear, pain, betrayal, and himself as a child, beaten and bleeding and broken, while...somebody who was supposed to protect him laughed at his howl of agony that reverberated through his core.

. The father Yami remembered was a kind, patient man, who professed, and practiced mercy. It would have been completely against his father's morality to order anybody so brutally beaten, especially not a child-a girl at that!

Yami clutched his aching head in an attempt to piece together some semblance of his new reality. He groaned, as he shook his head, and stared, for the first time at his surroundings. His eyebrows raised and lowered in consternation, as he surveyed the magnificant bed-satin sheets of the highest quality, cloud-like pillows, guilded pillars that held up the soaring canopy...it was a bed truly fit for a prince.The rest of his chamber-for want of a better term-was almost the same as his sleeping chamber in Egypt, except the walls there were of the same sandstone as all the other buildings, and here, all the walls were cast in shimmering gold. Yami massaged the last of his headache away, slightly annoyed that his head would be hurting that long. He was slight, but aside from his stomache's rebellion when he was nervous, or in pain, he had little ill health except for the usual childhood illnesses. Curiously, he looked down his chest to see what sort of clothing he had on, and was pleased to discover that he still had his favorite pristine tunic, though all his gold manacles were absent, as was his cloak. Unhindered by the heavy gold, and cloak, Yami stretched catlike in the rumpled sheets, yawned, and set his feet onto the floor. The stones beneith his feet were strangely warm, but not unpleasant, as he no longer had his sandles. Yami placed a hand on a wall, and drew it away when he felt the bricks pulse under his palm. He shook his head, at the idiocy. The bricks felt like they had a heartbeat. He lay an experimental hand over the wall again, and was startled to feel the lobbing, dull thud that he felt in his own chest. Yami shot a questioning look at the wall, and realized that somehow, the bricks were sharing the same pulse as he did, as bizarre as it was. Yami just shook his head. It was odd, but it did not seem to be threatening. And if what Isis said about the Puzzle being able to contain his soul was true, then it would only make sense for it to be linked to him, somehow.

Isis...a meloncholy twist came to his lips when he remembered her. He had little doubt that Egypt was in good hands, that she had proven herself to be a capable, merciful ruler. But, thinking of his dearest friend only accentuated the lonliness as he stared at the familiar, but empty room. Shrugging off the ache, he opened the heavy wooden door, and cautiously stepped outside. The door slammed shut with a thundering clang, and Yami almost leaped into the air at the sudden noise. Yami stared at the door for long moments, before he ventured forward to the strange sight that lay before him.

As far as Yami could make out, a labyrith of golden bricks spiraled outward into dark corridors, in a vast complicated network of hallways, passages, and other heavy wooden doors. The walls were lit within from the same glittering shine that illumiated everything else, so he had no need for a torch. He gazed up at the golden walls, to their ceiling, and found a bricked ceiling that arched and cascaded back down into the walls.

Yami strode forth, staring wide-eyed at the endless gold hallways, trying to open the doors and growling in frustration to see that every one of them seemed to be locked.
He may have wondered through the labyrith for a few moments, or years. Here, there was absolutely nothing to mark the passage of time, no change, no schedule...nothing, but the endless bricks, and his own hollow footfalls. For a while, Yami simply savored the sensation of thoughts that were not tainted by anguish,
a neck that was free of scars, a body that was not held down and subjected to torture for the amusement of a sadistic monster's knife. He shivered when he remembered Seth's cackle of laughter as that knife was plunged into his frail flesh, over and over and over again...

Yami snarled, and unknown to him, the Puzzle gleamed in satisfaction. Yami felt the old familiar quiver of his stomache muscles, the bile burning its way to the back of his throat, and he swallowed hard against it, waiting. To his relief, the urge passed, but left him troubled. If he was serenely in the afterlife as Isis promised, why was he awake, and why was the same old adominal troubles bothering him now ? Was he not a spirit, and therefore no longer subject to things like pain, or even something as humiliating as vomiting? Yami gazed around the golden walls, saw how they spiraled outward, further than his eye could make out, into dark corners that were tucked in shadows. None of it made sense. If this were his "container," then what were all these hallways, and what exactly transpired in his mind to convince him that his father was an abusive monster? If anything, his father was almost angelic in his mercy towards his subjects, and always taught his young son to show compassion first, force last. Yami sighed in meloncholy, but shuttled the sad thoughts away. He would have plenty of time later to brood in misery as he pleased, if he felt guilty enough. He imagined his father would not be happy to know that his young son was still weeping at his memory years later. And he was doing himself no favors by all of his tears.
He had shed so many, tears of pain, tears of guilt, tears of pleading, and none of it had done him any good at all. It was a bitter realization, but Yami allowed himself the unusual luxury of self-acceptance. There was nobody here to judge him for his reactions, and after all he had been through, he assumed he was entitled to whatever means he had to get through it.

It could have been hours, days, or years, that Yami walked around in endless corridors, as he searched for something-anything-besides the locked doors, the spiraling passages that curled inward into dizzying circles. It was infuriating, not knowing if the passages he was traveling through were simply him being lost, or if he was successful in retracing his own footsteps. There was absolutely no way for him to know. Each and every passage was an exact replica of the last. And if that were the case...how could he be so hopelessly lost?

Yami put another hand to the shining walls, and felt the heartbeat throbbing through the stone, in time to his own pulse again. With a furrowed brow, he backed away.

"How is this possible? What exactly am I supposed to do now?" He spoke out loud to himself, because there was nobody around but those irritating, similar walls everywher to answer.

It was then the Puzzle decided to reveal itself to the increasingly irritable monarch.

Welcome, my Pharoah, to your new domain. Perhaps I may have the answers you seek?

Yami spun around, the shock of hearing another voice making him tense warily. He barked out, "Who is there? Show yourself!"

Yami felt the wry chuckle at his expense filling the golden walls, and wildly glared around in all directions, looking for the source of the voice.

You are truly not in a position to give orders to me, my Pharoah. Your power was forfeit when you deemed it necessary to give up your life for your foolish people.

Yami raised a peeved eyebrow, his pride chafing, as he spluttered out a retort. "My people were hardly foolish! And who are you, to tell me that I am in no position to give orders! I am a Pharoah!!"

Yami was incensed to hear the amused chortle trickling from the walls, burbling up through the floor, echoing through the vast dark halls.

You are incorrect in that aspect, my king. A Pharoah has a people to rule, a purpose to guard them and protect them, not to mention he pocesses a body.
You are nothing but a haunted spirit, willingly bound to an eternal prison from some twisted sense of obligation. Look around you, Pharoah. Is this how you envisioned eternity to be?

Yami narrowed glittering eyes, as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What an idiotic question." He spat. "I fully expected to go to the House of Ra, and enjoy the Feasting of Plenty, with my father and my ancestors. How was I to know that I would wind up...here?"

Silence and then another painful, mocking question. Oh? And where do you think here is, my Pharoah? Please, enlighten me with your great wisdom as to where you perceive yourself to be.

Yami shrugged, as he glanced uncertainly around the golden walls again. "Isis told me that my soul was to be housed in the Pyramid, until I was ready to be released. I was supposed to be slumbering peacefully until that time."

And what proof do you have that your Priestess friend was telling the truth, my Pharoah? Recall your suffering at her hands...suffering at the hands of one you trusted.
Do you remember how you lay there, helpless by her spell and pleading for a mercy that never came? She stripped you defenseless, and ordered you poisoned. You were held down and beaten like an animal, as you were poisoned into submission. Is that the action of a friend, my Pharoah?

Yami's eyes went wide, as he quickly rose to full height, praying that the flinch of fear went unnoticed as he announced in his most regal, haughty voice,

"That was but a fragment of a nightmare, undoubtably triggered by my preoccupation with dying. Forgive me, whoever you are. I was not at my best."

Oh? And what proof do you have that it did not happen that way? The human mind is a vast, complex thing, and its ability to forget, or reinterpret that which pains it is a great gift for living with what would break you otherwise.

Yami turned his back in a show of royal scorn. "Isis would never betray me in such a vicious manner. It was a dream, I tell you!"

Deny the truth at your peril, or pleasure, my king. But, if you are so certain that it was nothing more than a dream, then why are you so uncertain and defensive about it?

"Why do you ask me this? Why should I answer any of your questions? You haven't even the decency to reveal who you are!"